All it takes is a brief trip to The Digital Experience’s Fourways showroom in Johannesburg, or a similar speedy browse through the well-stocked website, and you’ll be well on your way to upskilling your home in a way that will serve your family for years to come. Premium brands like Dyson, Samsung, LG, Smeg, Bosch, Siemens, and more line the shelves, just waiting for you to make them your own.

Winter is here

Starting with the most pressing need right now, climate control options from Delonghi, Samsung, and British engineering geniuses Dyson offer options to either warm (which is essential as South Africa slides into winter) or cool your home. Dyson’s Purifier Autoreact is just what you need, with the Hot+Cool model purifying the air in your immediate space even as it alters temperatures.

Samsung air conditioners offer per-room cooling and heating solutions depending on your budget, while Delonghi oil heaters offer substantial winter warmth without the sort of power bill generated by element heaters. They also do a cost-effective gas heater for those nights when you don’t have electricity.

That’s cool, man

Humans desire warmth but every home also features at least one cold spot. That cold spot, colloquially known as a refrigerator, is essential to keeping food preserved, drinks neatly chilled, and also acts as a congregation spot for any teenagers in the household. Science probably has an answer for that last point but you really shouldn’t skimp on your fridge.

Whether it’s a basic single-door Bosch, a Snomaster bar fridge, or a massive LG or Samsung side-by-side, The Digital Experience’s premium range of fridges has the options you require to ensure that everything is perfectly preserved in your home. If that includes a 116-bottle Smeg wine chiller… well, so be it.  They also have fridges and wine coolers from Liebherr.

Get into the kitchen

Everything you could possibly stuff into a kitchen, except for a carload of groceries and your own personal Gordon Ramsey, is available inside The Digital Experiences showroom. Whether it’s the physical or digital version of said showroom is up to you but don’t miss out on the finest selection of stoves, ovens, gas ranges, and extractor systems this side of a Michelin Star restaurant.

An excellent selection of microwaves from LG, Bosch, Samsung, and Smeg offer less messy cooking options while the remainder of kitchen tech, from air fryers to kettles, mixes, blenders, and juicers are all just waiting for you to perfectly match them and haul them home.

Home run

Every other home appliance category is also served. Vacuum cleaners, from Dyson and other high-tech brands? You’ll find what you’re looking for here. Coffee machines to suit all tastes and budgets? Ditto. How about washing machines from the biggest names in tech? Did you know that Smeg makes a front-loading washing machine? If you’d asked the folks at The Digital Experience, you would have.

Kitting your home with the products needed to make life as simple and convenient as possible doesn’t get simpler. Just pop on over to the knowledgeable folks at The Digital Experience, or peruse their well-stocked online site, and your chosen products could be on the way to your home about as fast as it takes for an online payment to clear. Deliveries via the online store ship all over South Africa so you needn’t be a Johannesburg native to take advantage of the best online home goods store in the country. Don’t delay. Check them out today.

The post Come home to The Digital Experience’s excellent selection of appliances appeared first on Stuff South Africa.

Enter a game-changer: “+more”, an innovative rewards program that allows customers to unlock instant savings and exclusive deals from 15+ SA retailers including popular tech brands like Incredible (Connection & Cellular) and HiFiCorp.

Get exclusive discounts on brands like Samsung, Lenovo, Canon, Defy, and Orion to just name a few. Customers can now get access to a curated selection of over 15 retailers—including tech, clothing, cellular, baby goods, appliances, and furniture – all in one single programme. +more brings together the diverse lineup of brands from PEPKOR, which has the largest retail store footprint in South Africa spanning over 5,000 stores.

Here’s how it works:

Download the +more app available on both iOS and Android, allowing you to view a treasure trove of instant savings on hundreds of products. With a few taps, you can join in under one minute and gain access to a curated selection of exclusive deals from over 15 retailers in the PEPKOR stable.

Imagine walking into an Incredible or HiFiCorp store, with your unique +more membership number, and, with a simple scan, you unlock instant savings on a brand-new laptop, high-definition TV, or gaming console. No waiting, no fuss, just more value.

Here are our top 10 Tech & Appliance picks from the +more app available until 27 May 2024.

Incredible

1. Lenovo IdeaPad 1 at R5999 save R500
2. ZTE Router with FREE 15GB data at R549 save R50
3. HP Smart Tank 585 Wireless AIO at R2999 save R1500
4. Steam Deck 64GB Handheld Gaming at R11999 save R1000
5. Samsung Galaxy A25 5G Smartphone at R4999 save R1000

HiFiCorp

1. Hisense 222 LFridge Freezer at R4999 save R1300
2. Orion 20L Electronic Microwave at R999 save R200
3. Orion Bluetooth Party Speaker at R2499 save R1000
4. ASUS Intel Celeron at R4999 save R1500
5. Hisense 65” Smart TV at R8799 save R2200

These deals are exclusively available in-store with plans to extend this offering online. Customers can also look out for other exclusive deals from the participating +more retailers that include:

• PEP
• Ackermans
• Refinery
• Shoe City
• Dunns
• Tekkie Town
• Russells
• Bradlows
• Incredible (Connection and Cellular)
• HiFiCorp
• Sleepmasters
• SPCC
• CODE

Alternatively, customers can join via:

• +more website
• Dial *130*7371#
• WhatsApp “Hi” to 082 606 9421
• Or in store.

Get more with +more!

The post Tech and appliances now with exclusive rewards and savings appeared first on Stuff South Africa.

The entire purpose of technology has always been to make life simpler or more convenient. That’s the guiding philosophy behind Xiaomi’s smart home tech: finding smarter ways to handle your day, perform tasks, and improve how your home functions. Basic appliances like smart speakers, clocks, and lights, are a decent start in the direction of home automation but there are more options to explore. Here are just a few ways to upskill your home’s technological intelligence.

A new personal best

Sure, you get up at 4 AM every day to pound the pavement while swinging a couple of 16kg kettlebells. Well done on your commitment. But eventually, you’ve got to come home and make the nutritious smoothie/protein sludge that’ll carry you through traffic and the first meeting of the day. Xiaomi’s Smart Blender (BHR5960EU – R2,499) can help by letting you automate the process. Preload the insulated glass jar with ingredients, set it to mulch everything just before you walk through the door, and the 9-speed motor and eight stainless steel blades will have your concoction ready for you to slug just before you hit a cold shower and head out to work.

Get vocal about cooking

Xiaomi’s air fryers (4l Pro – BHR6943EU – R2,899 and 3.5l – BHR4849EU – R2,399) are versatile enough to assist with large-scale meal prep. Temperatures range from 40° (for drying fruit and making yoghurt) to 200° (for crispy goodness) and there are also eleven pre-programmed meal settings via the OLED dial. But those are just appliance features, no matter how cool they happen to be. Handily, these products are smarter than the average air fryer.

App-based scheduling, allowing you to load up ingredients and have a piping hot meal ready at a time of your choosing, is a sensible feature. Voice-based control is, arguably, an even better one. It’s possible to prep the next lot of snacks from a distance while watching the Bokke, simply by having a word with a connected Google Home device. One of Google’s (or Xiaomi’s) smart speakers will do nicely.

Breathe easier

The average home is a wonderful place to encounter all manner of air pollutants and that’s before you factor in actual air pollution. Dust, pet dander, smoke, and fumes are an everyday part of life that you don’t have to experience any more. Provided, that is, you’re packing one of Xiaomi’s smart air purifiers.

The roster of features is extensive. Xiaomi has its own filters which lend themselves to lower fan noise, activated carbon helps to eliminate odours, one-touch activation, and negative ionization are all functions of the trio of air purifiers available on the South African market but, as ever, it’s the smart features that take front and centre.

Whether you’re using the Xiaomi Smart Air Purifier 4 (BHR5096GL – R4,899) or the Lite (BHR5274GL – R3,599) or Compact (BHR5860EU – R1,999) version, you can expect a range of smart functions. Real-time air quality measurement, custom coverage by dialling the active zone up or down, and on/off timers are a few of these but filter maintenance is also automatic. Just keep an eye on the app and swap out the filters when it tells you to. It’s enough to make you breathe a sigh of relief.

That’s pretty cool

There are at least two more ways to tweak the air in your personal space. The first is with a Xiaomi Smart Humidifier 2 (BHR6026EU – R1,299), which will fill your dry and dusty home with just the right amount of water vapour to make breathing as comfortable as it should be. The other is the Xiaomi Smart Standing Fan 2 (BHR4828GL – R1,899) which does exactly what it says on the tin. It stands. And it’s a fan. But both products are smarter than the average bear, otherwise, what would be the point?

The smart humidifier includes UV-C sterilisation, smart humidity control, and the ability to remotely control functions via the app, If, that is, you even need to adjust anything beyond topping the tank up with water every so often. The automatic functions and up to 32 hours of continuous use on a tank make daily maintenance an every-second-day sort of occurrence. Finally, this is the only product of its type rated for the inclusion of essential oils without causing any trouble with the warranty folks. Best of all, this addition can be done without opening up the unit.

The smart fan, on the other hand, is designed to keep rooms cool with as little fuss (and noise) as possible. There are app-based functions like child lock and settings tweaks but the winner here is voice control. Rather than leave your bed because the evening has turned out hotter than expected, it’s a breeze to simply tell Xiaomi’s smart fan to do its making-cold thing a little faster.

Some like it hot

The best time to think about winter tech is when it’s summer (because usually prices are a little more competitive. If that’s you then the Xiaomi Smart Tower Heater Lite (BHR6101EU – R2,499) or the Xiaomi Smart Space Heater S (BHR4037GL – R3,199) should be on your shopping list in the next month or two. Both offer speedy heating in two distinct form factors. The Tower Heater Lite features oscillation and voice control, letting you up the temperature without slipping out from under your blankets, while smart temperature control in the Space Heater S is designed to keep your power bill down while still keeping your space warm.

The Xiaomi ecosystem

All of Xiaomi’s smart home tech is capable of functioning with other brands of smart home tech. It’ll talk nicely with Google’s Nest variety of products but it’s to your benefit to make Xiaomi’s app and devices your main port of call. A single app makes setup and management a simpler task, broader compatibility ensures that other branded products are able to slot into the existing ecosystem with little bother, and Xiaomi’s control setup is second to none.

There’s plenty of reason to want a smarter home but it all comes down to convenience and a space that adjusts to you instead of the other way around. Xiaomi’s smart home tech provides the perfect level of useful technological functionality to ease your life while also being nice to your bank account. Grab the newest crop of smart home gear from various retailers or directly from Takealot, YuppieChef, or Tafelberg.

The post Tips for a more technologically capable home courtesy of Xiaomi smart home tech appeared first on Stuff South Africa.

There’s a limited-capacity, invite-only event taking place but there’s also something for the rest of us. LG decided to make a little IFA of its very own and you can check it out yourself. Which isn’t a chance you’ve had in previous years.

IFA-got what we were doing

It’s a virtual tour with an IFA-like setup, where visitors can interact with LG’s newest tech in 360 degrees. If you’re less of a fiddler and more of a watcher (hello Giles) then you can also explore brief video presentations and all the specs you could possibly want.

There’s all sorts of stuff to check out: LG’s TVs (there’s a room where the ceiling is made from screens) including an 8K monster, the LG Tone earbuds, the LG PuriCare Air Purifier that we saw a few days back and a whole lot more are on offer. There’s a comprehensive look at LG’s smart home tech at the virtual event but, if you’re in a rush, there’s also a quick video tour conducted by K-Pop star Henry Lau (below).

Just how good is life, then?

LG CTO Dr. I.P. Park said at the event’s opening (while appearing onstage as a hologram), “These unprecedented times have made us more uncertain about the future. LG believes this presents a unique opportunity to make real change in the world by realizing a new potential for the home. As a leading lifestyle innovator, we’ve doubled-down on our commitment to develop new and improved products and services that provide a good life for consumers the world over.”

Want to do the LG IFA tour for yourself? There are two showrooms and two ways to explore them — you’ll find all four options here, at the dedicated page LG set up to take the place of IFA 2020. You can focus on home entertainment or on home appliances, with the option to explore either through LG’s website or via a downloaded app. The app is made for Windows users, however, so if you’re using a Mac or Linux (you masochist, you) it’s best to stick with the website. The showrooms are online for the rest of the month, so make a turn by at some point.

The post IFA may be missing in action this year but LG’s still got a smart home showroom you should check out appeared first on Stuff South Africa.