As noted by Dan Moren of Six Colors, Apple announced this week that it is having an event March 27 in Chicago. The event will take place at a school, and Apple is calling it a Field Trip, so I imagine that Apple will be showing off some new technology that can be used in education. But that doesn’t mean that it might not also be useful for lawyers. For example, my Apple Pencil is one of the most useful Apple products in my law practice, and as Serenity Caldwell of iMore notes, one rumor is that Apple could debut an Apple Pencil 2 at the event. Other folks are predicting a new iPad will be announced, although that one seems a little more far-fetched to me. At this point we can only speculate what will be announced, but if you were planning to buy an Apple product in the next 10 days, you might consider waiting until March 27 just in case Apple updates the product that you were thinking about buying. And now, the news of note from the past week:
My favorite app for listening to podcasts is Overcast because it has so many great features. This week the app added a new feature called Smart Resume, so that when you pause the podcast and then subsequently resume, the podcast backs up a few seconds and finds dead space between words and starts there. Chicago attorney John Voorhees of MacStories describes the new feature. It’s so clever that you instantly wonder why podcast apps haven’t always done this.
Massachusetts attorney Bob Amborgi reports that with Kentucky adding the requirement, there are now 30 states which have an ethical rule imposing a duty of technological competence on attorneys.
Earlier this week, I discussed the recent ABA TECHSHOW conference, and one of the things that I mentioned was that the conference iPhone app was quite good. New York attorney Nicole Black had the same thought, and write about how a good app can help a conference in this article for Above the Law.
When you exercise with your Apple Watch, the watch keeps track of your heart rate during the workout. But what if you want to keep track of your heart rate when you are not working out? Chance Miller of 9to5Mac describes the HeartMonitor app for Apple Watch which allows you to start a non-exercise session in which the watch will track your heart rate.
Many cities now have a bike sharing option that you can pay for. Romain Dillet of TechCrunch notes that Apple Maps now has the ability to show you the nearest bike-sharing stations in many cities, including 24 U.S. cities and many other around the world. In New Orleans where I live, we have a relatively new bike sharing service called Blue Bikes and I see people using the service all the time, but Apple Maps doesn’t yet work with that service.
There is something funny about buying an accessory for an accessory, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t useful. Serenity Caldwell of iMore discusses some of the best accessories for the Apple Pencil.
There are lots of ways that you can manage multiple iPhones and other Apple products within a family. This week, Apple unveiled a new Families page on its website to show you everything that you can do.
If you use iAnnotate by Branchfire to manage and annotate your PDF files, a post on the Branchfire blog describes the version 4.5 update which adds the ability to merge PDFs and other features.
And finally, this week Apple unveiled a fun commercial called Unlock which shows off the power of using Face ID to unlock an iPhone X. I like this one:
I usually try to avoid attending conferences two weeks in a row, but appellate law is a significant part of my law practice, and there is a big appellate conference going on this week. Thus, after attending ABA TECHSHOW last week, this week I’m attending the DRI Appellate Advocacy Seminar in Las Vegas.
I know from the emails I receive that lots of appellate lawyers read iPhone J.D. If you are attending the seminar this week, please look for me and say hello. (This is what I look like.) I’d especially love to learn about how you are using an iPad in your appellate practice, either during the briefing stage or for oral argument. Or if you have advice on whether I should bet on black or red, that could be helpful too.
Last week, I attended ABA TECHSHOW 2018. For decades, this event held in Chicago every Spring has been the biggest and best event for learning more about legal technology — in other words, for about as long as legal technology has even been a thing. Every TECHSHOW is different, and there were some big differences this year, most notably a new venue at the Chicago Hyatt Regency. Debbie Foster and Tom Mighell were the co-chairs of TECHSHOW this year, and they and the rest of the planning board deserve lots of praise for making this transition work so well. Pretty much every aspect of the venue was better this year. The layout of the Expo Hall was particularly improved, with everything together in one huge space. And it was nice having the conference rooms much closer to the Expo Hall so you could more easily go back-and-forth.
The iPhone app associated with the conference was also great this year. It contained the full schedule and made it easy to create your own agenda of the events and sessions you want to attend. You could see all program materials. You could get information on speakers and attendees. And there was a nice integrated social component with pictures and information, a fun way to see what people were doing without having to do a search on Twitter. I wish that the app had been updated to accommodate the larger iPhone X screen, but otherwise, it was a great companion for the conference and made printed materials unnecessary.
My big complaint about the conference this year was the lack of mobile content in the sessions. ABA TECHSHOW has a ton of sessions, with multiple tracks occurring simultaneously. Even a cursory look at the Expo Floor would confirm what you already know — mobile technology is one of the hottest areas of legal technology, as it has been for many years. And yet there has not been a mobile track at TECHSHOW since 2015. This makes no sense to me. There could have easily been a track devoted to just the use of the iPad in the practice of law, or there could have been an even broader track focused on iPads, iPhones, wearable devices, etc.
I raised this issue with co-chair Tom Mighell. It’s not like Tom doesn’t get the importance of mobile technology; back in 2011, he authored a book on how lawyers can use iPads, he used to publish a website called iPad 4 Lawyers, and he and I have co-presented at TECHSHOW in the past on mobile technology topics. Tom understands mobile technology. Tom’s response to me was that mobile technology could just be incorporated as a sub-topic of other sessions. I agree that is good too, and I saw some of that myself. For example, in a session focused on using Macs, Florida attorney Katie Floyd, California attorney David Sparks, and New Jersey attorney Victor Medina shared some great tips on using an iPhone and iPad in a law practice:
But there was only a single session which even mentioned mobile technology in its title, a (great) session by technology consultant Brett Burney and California attorney David Sparks called All in the Family: Seamless Workflows From Mac to iOS:
There are so many more mobile-specific technology topics that could have been explored because so many things work differently (and often better) on an iPad and iPhone than a computer. Moreover, I know that this is an area that lots of lawyers want to know more about. I lost count of all of the attorneys who mentioned to me at the conference that the lack of sessions devoted to mobile technology was a curious omission this year. Indeed, that is also the reason that it makes sense to have a Mac track at TECHSHOW (which was abandoned last year but brought back this year) — many attorneys use Macs, and things are different on a Mac. I hope that the planners of TECHSHOW 2019 decide to “think different” on this topic, and either restore a full track focused on mobile technology, or have many more session topics throughout the conference with a specific iPad and/or iPhone focus.
The Expo Floor was particularly good this year, with lots of vendors showing off lots of great technology, including iPhone and iPad hardware and software, from the largest companies like Thomson Reuters to small startups. I enjoyed learning about lots of products that could be useful for my own law firm, and I had a chance to learn about future directions for products that I already use. Here is a short, two minute video that New Orleans attorney Ernie Svenson created which gives you a sense of all of the activity on the Expo Floor:
Adam Camras, Laurence Colletti and others from the Legal Talk Network were recording podcasts from the Expo Floor, which was fun to see. Here is a picture from one session being recorded with the TECHSHOW co-Chairs Debbie Foster and Tom Mighell, along with St. Louis attorney Dennis Kennedy and Steve Best of Affinity Consulting:
Lit Software is probably the best publisher of iPad software for attorneys, and they had lots to share at TECHSHOW this year. Not only did they preview some new features on apps like TrialPad and TranscriptPad, they also pre-announced an iPad app that lawyers will be able to use to collect all of the key date-based information in a case and create a timeline. I really look forward to trying that one out when it is released later this year. And I know that they have other useful apps in the lab for a future release. Here is a picture of Ian O’Flaherty (founder of Lit Software), Tara Cheever (product manager) and Kyle Kvech (lead applications developer) at the booth. You can tell that I took this picture first thing in the morning because most of the day this booth was packed:
I also enjoyed talking to John Kuntz, co-founder of Bellefield. That company created iTimeKeep, an app that you can use to enter your time using an iPhone (or iPad) and which integrates with the time entry system that your firm is already using. (My review.) I cannot think of how many times I have communicated with a client on my iPhone, or some some other billable work away from my office. In the past, I would sometimes forget to record that time, but with iTimeKeep on my iPad I can take just a few seconds and record it immediately.
It is always fun to walk around TECHSHOW and bump into people who you “know” from the Internet. For example, I ran into lots of attorneys who have emailed me iPhone and iPad-related topics of interest over the years, and it was great to talk to them in person. I also bumped into perhaps the most prolific person on Twitter when it comes to sharing links to legal technology articles (not to mention a frequent author herself) — New York attorney Nicole Black, who now works for Mycase (@nikiblack on Twitter):
I can’t attend TECHSHOW every year, and I missed last year. But whenever I can attend, I’m always glad that I did.
I just returned from ABA TECHSHOW in Chicago, and it was great to catch up with lots of iPhone J.D. readers while I was there. I was disappointed by the content of the conference this year because there were so few sessions devoted to mobile devices like the iPhone and iPad, but that was offset somewhat by lots of folks sharing tips on using their iOS devices, and the Expo floor featured lots of companies showing off iOS apps. I’ll have more to say on that next week. And now, the news of note from the past week:
Michael Potuck of 9to5Mac shows how you can use the Spotlight search feature which is built-in to iOS 11 to track flights on an iPhone or iPad.
And finally, to create a commercial for the Apple HomePod, Apple hired Spike Jonze to create what amounts to a tiny movie about how using the device can let you escape from the hum drum of life. There is a 60 second version that Apple is running as a commercial on TV, but I think that version is too short and loses some of the impact. The full four minute version is the one to watch:
In my increasingly paperless law practice, most of the documents that I need are already in PDF or some other electronic format, so when I need to get some text out of a document, I can typically just select that text using my computer or iOS device. But sometimes I find myself working with a paper document — perhaps a single sheet of paper, perhaps a magazine, book, etc. — and I need to get some text out of that document so that I can work with it. If it is short enough I can just retype it manually, but that is a pain for longer text. Prizmo Go, an app which was released in 2017, has as its single focus the task of getting text from a paper document into your iPhone (or iPad) so that you can work with it. Use the app to take a picture of the document, the app does an OCR to read the text, and then the app gives you the text. The app itself is free, but there are some in-app purchases, discussed below. The developer gave me a one-month Premium Plan account at no cost (which normally costs $0.99) so that I could see all of the features. The app works well and I can recommend it.
Background
The developer of Prizmo Go is Creaceed, a company in Belgium that has been making iOS apps since 2008, the same year that the App Store opened. Back in 2009, I reviewed Prizmo, an app which scans documents and creates PDFs, and that app is still around today. So these folks have a ton of experience using the iPhone to digitize documents.
Taking a picture
To start using the app, the first step is to use the app to take a picture of some text in a document. As you are pointing your iPhone at the document, the app will underline all words that it can recognize, so you can see if you need to adjust your iPhone to get it in a position where all of the text that you want is visible and understood. This is a neat augmented reality-type feature that makes a lot of sense.
Recognizing the words and turning them into text
Once you press the button, Prizmo Go snaps the picture and shows you the picture at the top and the text at the bottom.
If you see errors, you can fix them. For example, in the above scan, I can see that the word “to” isn’t correctly recognized in the second line. Just tap in the text field to fix the text, and you can even make the text portion bigger so that you can see more of the text at once.
If you don’t need all of the words in the photo, use your finger to swipe across the image and select the text that you need, which is highlighted in blue. (Non-selected text is just underlined.)
The app can recognize words in one of two ways. You can use the free built-in OCR functions to have the app itself try to read the words. Or, in the app settings, you can turn on Cloud OCR which sends the picture to a server and returns, almost instantly, even more accurate results. You need to pay for the Cloud OCR service. One way to do it is to purchase a premium plan for one month for $0.99 or one year for $7.99. Or you can pay $0.99 for 100 uses or $4.99 for 1000 uses. There is also a free 10-pack so that you can try it out.
Use the text
I suspect that most attorneys and other folks using this app will want to do something with the text once it is captured, such as copy-and-paste it into another app, an email, a note, etc. To do so in Prizmo Go, you need to pay. If you purchase that $1/month or $8/year premium pack, the ability to export is included. Otherwise, you need to pay a $4.99 to turn on the export feature.
For most folks, this means that you have a choice in how you pay for this app. You can spend $4.99 to enable export and perhaps also pay $0.99 for 100 uses of the Cloud OCR feature — or just skip the more accurate Cloud OCR feature and use the still pretty darn accurate built-in OCR. Or you can pay $1/month or $8/year to have unlimited use of this app. In other words, you get to choose whether you prefer the pay up front model or the subscription model for using this app.
Once the export feature is turned on, you can do something with the text, such as copy it to the clipboard, send it to an email message, etc.
For many attorneys, the operations discussed above are all that you will need. But if you find yourself needing to work with other languages, the app can handle that too. Some languages are handled with the built-in OCR, others require the Cloud OCR package. The Cloud OCR service can recognize languages automatically.
The app can recognize 22 languages and can translate to 59 languages. In the following example, I scanned a legal decision from a French court, then I had Prizmo translate the text into English.
There are other features available in this app, although I don’t think that they are features that I will need. For example, the app can read text out loud, which could be useful if your vision is impaired. (The app also has lots of voice over accessibility features, useful for folks with limited or no vision.) The app can also detect certain types of data — such as email addresses, phone numbers, URLs, etc. — and you can act upon that data, such as calling a phone number.
Conclusion
Prizmo Go does its job very well. If you ever need to take some words on paper and then get them into your iPhone or iPad (and from there, you might send them to your computer), Prizmo Go has you covered. You can often do something similar by using an app which creates PDF documents and then does an OCR, but the Prizmo Go app is more efficient because it focuses on the task of getting you the text that you need as quickly as possible.
The in-app purchases are a little confusing at first, but I really like that the company gives you the choice. You can either pay $5 to use the app to export text, plus pay for OCR whenever you need it in $1 or $5 chunks (or don’t pay for Cloud OCR at all). Or you can opt for the subscription model of $1/month or $8/year, which gives you access to every feature in the app.
I’m attending ABA TECHSHOW in Chicago next week. If you will be there too, please say hello if you bump into me. I love to meet iPhone J.D. readers and find out how you are using an iPhone or iPad in your law practice. One place to see me is the Mac Power Users meetup on Wednesday night, which you should sign up for (it’s free) if you will be in Chicago that night. And if you see me on Thursday when I will be attending sessions and checking out the latest in legal technology on the EXPO floor, I’ll have some iPhone J.D. logo Mobile Cloth screen cleaners with me. They work great to keep your iPhone and iPad (and even your eyeglasses) clean, so please don’t be bashful in asking me for one! And now, the news of note from the past week:
Texas attorney Zach Herbert shows how you can use PDF Expert on a Mac to apply Bates numbers to a document and then sync that to an iPad. The only iPad app I know of which can apply Bates numbers is DocReviewPad. Let me know if you are aware of any others.
The Lit Software blog explains how Kansas City attorney Bert Braud uses TrialPad and TranscriptPad.
Joe Rossignol of MacRumors discusses some of the latest improvements to the Maps app, including improvements in South Carolina and lane guidance in many countries. I’ve found lane guidance to be very helpful when I’m driving in a new area and using CarPlay.
I don’t ski — I live in New Orleans so I barely even know what snow is — but if you do, you can now use your Apple Watch Series 3 for skiing and snowboarding activity. Here is an article on the Apple newsroom website with additional details. This is the first time that I have seen Apple add a new exercise/activity feature that requires the Series 3.
Tory Foulk of iMore reports that you can save $5 on movie tickets this weekend if you pay using Apple Pay through Fandango.
To celebrate Australia voting to legalize same-sex marriage, Apple unveiled some “shot on an iPhone” videos called First Dance. Luke Dormehl of Cult of Mac collects them all on this page.
And finally, Apple also unveiled some new, short video ads to encourage folks to switch to an iPhone. Peter Cao of 9to5Mac has collected all of them. Here is the one called Safe:
Earlier this week, I had to drive several hours to argue a summary judgment motion in a courthouse across the state. Fortunately, I was able to listen to some good podcasts and music along the way. I learned a lot listening to Episode 419 of the Mac Power Users podcast, hosted by Florida attorney Katie Floyd and California attorney David Sparks. In that episode — “iOS Settings” — they discuss many useful things that you can configure in the Settings app on an iPhone or iPad. The podcast mentioned one or two things I didn’t know about, but it was just as useful to hear them discuss some settings that I did know about in the back of my brain but hadn’t thought about much lately. If you have about an hour and a half (or even less time if you speed up your podcasts using the Overcast app like I do) to learn about iPhone settings, this episode is a great one to listen to.
The episode inspired me to think about some of the parts of the Settings app that I access regularly. Here is my list. Hopefully you one or more of these will be new to you and useful to learn about. But even if you already know about all of these, perhaps thinking about them again will remind you about how useful these settings can be.
1. Pull down to search
Sometimes you know that there is something in the Settings app but you don’t know where it is. When you first open the app, use your finger to pull down on the screen, and you will reveal a search box at the top. You can type something like “Restrictions” and the app will jump you write to the Restrictions page, even if you don’t remember that it is tucked away under General.
2. Family Sharing
My kids have hand-me-down iPhones from me and my wife, without active SIM cards. I have Family Sharing configured so that when they go to purchase an app, I get an alert on my iPhone, and I need to approve the purchase. Configure this by tapping your name at the top of the Settings app (just above Airplane Mode) -> Family Sharing -> [tap name of child] -> Ask to Buy.
3. Airplane Mode
When I am having trouble getting a cellular connection, or when Wi-Fi isn’t working right, the first thing I do is turn on Airplane Mode, wait about 10 seconds, and then turn it off again. I’m amazed at how often that solves the problem for me. And oh yes, Airplane Mode is also useful when I’m on an airplane.
4. Forget This Network
If you find that your device is automatically connecting to a Wi-Fi network that you don’t want to be using, go to Settings -> Wi-Fi -> [network name] – Forget This Network to stop your device from connecting automatically. For example, if I connect to the Wi-Fi at a hotel, and then I return to the hotel months later, sometimes my iPhone tries to reconnect automatically but runs into problems. If I forget the network, and then connect again from scratch, I can usually get things working again.
5. Double-Tap your AirPods
If you own a pair of Apple’s AirPods, you can change what happens when you double-tap on the left and right AirPod. Go to Settings -> Bluetooth, then tap the info icon (an “i” in a circle) next to the entry for AirPods at a time when your AirPods are in your ears. This bring you to a screen where you can control what happens when you double-tap. I have mine set to play/pause wen I double-tap my right ear and to bring up Siri when i double-tap my left ear. Other options are skipping to the next or previous tracks.
6. Control Center
When you swipe up on most iPhones, or when you swipe down from the top right on an iPhone X, you bring up the Control Center. This is a quick and easy way to access all sorts of controls. You can turn on or off the items that show up in the Control Center by going to Settings -> Control Center -> Customize Controls. Katie Floyd mentioned in the podcast that she likes to put an Apple TV Remote in her Control Center so that she can quickly control her Apple TV using her iPhone even if she cannot find the tiny and easy-to-misplace remote that comes with the Apple TV.
7. CarPlay icons
You can control which icons appear on which screen of your CarPlay screen by going to Settings -> General -> CarPlay -> [your car name]. I put all of the apps I use on my main screen, and move the ones that I never use (such as the built-in app for my Honda Accord) to the second screen. And the apps that I use the most, like Now Playing and Overcast, are on the left side of the screen so that they are easier to reach from the driver’s seat.
8. Magnifying Glass
Whether I am reading the fine print in a contract or trying to read small type on a package, it is often useful to have a magnifying glass. I have my iPhone set up so that if I triple-click the side button on my iPhone X (for earlier models, triple-click on the home button), the magnifier comes right up. I do this in Settings -> General -> Accessibility -> Magnifier. You can also put a Magnifier icon in the Control Center using the tip I mentioned above if you would rather access it that way.
9. Where have I been?
Trying to remember the name of that restaurant you went to last week in Boston? Or trying to figure out how long you were at a location such as a courthouse, to help you to do your time sheets? Your iPhone keeps a log of many of the places that you visit, and how long you were there. Sometimes it is useful for you to go back and see where you have been. But whether you use this feature or not, you should know that it is there in case someone else gets access to your iPhone and you don’t want them to know where you have been.
Go to Settings -> Privacy -> Location Services -> System Services [all the way at the bottom] -> Significant Locations. I see that on my iPhone X, my phone checks my Face ID before going to the next screen, which is a nice privacy check. On that next screen, when Significant Locations is turned on, you will see a list of many (although probably not all) of the cities that you have been to recently. Tap a city to see specific locations with the city. For example, right now I am seeing that I was at Lafayette Parish Courthouse earlier this week for that summary judgment hearing from 8:49 am to 10:38 am. That time span includes the time that I was in my car across the street from the courthouse waiting for the building to open, and also includes the time I spent in my car sending an email to my client after the hearing to report that we won. Thus, the time associated with a specific establishment may include some time when you were nearby, but these time estimates can still be useful whenever you need to recreate your day.
Your iPhone uses this log of significant locations for providing location-related information to some of the built-in apps on the iPhone. Apple tells you in the Settings app that “Significant Locations are encrypted and cannot be read by Apple.” Nevertheless, if you find this feature to be more creepy than useful, feel free to turn off Significant Locations.
10. Mail previews
In my Mail app when I am looking at a list of messages, I prefer to just see the sender and the subject line, so that I can see even more messages on the screen at one time. I know that others prefer to also see a preview of the beginning of the message. You can adjust what you see in Settings -> Mail -> Preview [under Message List] and then select from None to 5 Lines. Mine is set to None.
There are lots of other things that you can control in Settings -> Mail such as whether to organize your emails by thread, swipe options, etc. Spend a little time poking around there to configure your Mail app in a way that makes the most sense for you.
If you are wearing an Apple Watch and get into an accident, you can hold down the large button on the side of the watch for a few seconds and your watch will call 911 emergency services. Apple explains how this feature works on its website. You can do the same thing with an iPhone by holding the buttons on both sides, as Apple explains on this page. Kylie Gilbert of Shape magazine reports that a woman in Pennsylvania used the feature after getting into a car accident, and she credits her Apple Watch for the saving her life and her son’s life. That’s amazing. Less amazing is that an Apple iPhone repair facility in Sacramento has been making around 20 accidental 911 calls a day, and — as you would expect — Apple is trying to fix that. Hopefully you will never need to use this feature on your own Apple Watch or iPhone, but I encourage you to read the Apple pages on how these features work so that if the need arises, you can get emergency help. And now, the recent news of note:
California attorney David Sparks compares and contrasts Overcast and the Apple Podcasts app, the two best ways to listen to podcasts on an iPhone. As he notes, the Siri integration is the killer advantage of Apple’s app, but I still prefer using Overcast.
Sparks also discusses Apple’s new Close Your Rings page on its website, which encourages folks to get all of the activity circles on an Apple Watch every day. Like David, I try to get all of my circles every day. I was bummed to break a 183-day green circle streak during a recent vacation, but my red and blue circle streaks are still going strong, and keep me motivated to stay much more active than I would be otherwise.
The Lit Software blog explains how California attorney Tom Vidal uses TrialPad, TranscriptPad and DocReviewPad.
David Lumb of Engadget reports that Apple updated iOS and other platforms this week to fix a bug which could cause crashes if you received a single Indian-language character via a text message or some other apps.
I’ve read lots of interviews of Apple CEO Tim Cook over the years, but this week Fast Company published an interview of Cook by Ben Lovejoy, and it is one of the best I’ve seen in a long time, with lots of detail and insight on how Cook sees Apple.
The iPad lacks native support for getting files on or off of a USB thumb drive, but Charlie Sorrel of Cult of Mac describes a workaround using Apple’s Files app and a Sandisk iXpand Drive.
Michelle Martin of Reuters reports that director Steven Soderbergh used an iPhone to create a movie called Unsane, which will premiere at the Berlin film festival.
And finally, here is a fun video on YouTube showing what Siri might have looked like if it was introduced in the 1980s. There are so many things I love about this video. It was produced to look like the tech shows in the 1980s, and the content reminds me of using so many computers I used in the 1980s — an IBM-PC, a Mac, my Commodore 64, and even my Sinclair ZX81 which I equipped with a speech synthesizer. Very clever.
Back in 2012, we threw a big party at my house and put some lights on the fence in my backyard — the small lights on a string that you would put on a Christmas tree. Over five years later, the lights are still out there because they are fun to have, not only when we are in the backyard and it is nighttime, but also when we are in our living room looking out the windows into the backyard. The only problem is that the outdoor outlet at my house is under a porch and behind some plants, so it is a little bit of a pain to access. In early December of 2017, I thought that it might be useful to use a HomeKit-compatible device so that the lights could stay plugged in all the time and I could control them with my iPhone, Apple Watch, etc.
There are two major manufacturers offering such devices. iDevices sells an Outdoor Switch, which has two outlets (controlled simultaneously, not independently) for $80 (currently $53 on Amazon), and iHome sells the iSP100 Outdoor Smart Plug with one outlet for $40 (currently $37.80 on Amazon). There are also some lesser-known manufacturers selling similar devices, but I decided to go with a more trusted brand. I decided to buy the iHome product because at the time it was half the price of the iDevices product, and I only needed one outlet. I’ve now been using the product for over two months. I normally don’t wait that long to write a product review, but because this is something that stays outside and is exposed to the elements, I wanted to give it a longer stretch of time to make sure that it continued to work.
The iHome iSP100 Outdoor Smart Plug works very well. It has worked for me almost 100% of the time, and it gives new life to my outdoor lights because it is now so easy to turn the lights on or off, vastly increasing the number of times that I use and enjoy those lights.
Features
Here is a picture of the iHome iSP100 from the iHome website, to show you what it looks like in pristine condition:
Here is what mine looks like after being outside for a few months, exposed to dirt and the elements:
You download the iHome Control app from the App Store to set up the device. It is quick and easy because you just plug in the outlet and then scan (or type) the code printed on the bottom of the unit. Here is a tip: plug in the device inside of your house, such as into an outlet next to a kitchen counter, when you first set it up. That way it is easy to scan the code on the bottom of the unit. Then unplug it and move it outside and when you plug it in it will already be configured.
There is a mounting tab at the top which you can opt to use if you want to screw the device onto a wall. In my backyard, I just let the device hang from my outlet:
One end of the device has the plug that connects to an outlet. iHome says that you should use a ground-fault circuit interrupter (GFCI) outlet, which is hopefully what you already have on any outdoor outlet at your house. That is one of those outlets with buttons in the middle which can sense if there is an imbalance in the amount of current flowing from hot to neutral and can trip the circuit when necessary to prevent a fire.
The other end of the iSP100 has a female plug where you plug in your lights, heater, fan, or other small appliance up to 1800 Watts. For my use, I plugged in an extension cord which was connected to a few strings of lights. You tell the iHome app what kind of device is plugged in so that it uses the correct icon and so that HomeKit knows what it is, and the list of devices included in the iHome Control app gives you some idea of what you can use this device to control: light, fan, heater, air conditioner, dehumidifier, audio, video, router, coffee maker, kettle, toaster, microwave, iron, hair dryer, curling iron, Christmas tree, decoration, power strip, video game. I cannot imagine why you would want to use the iSP100 with some of those devices — such as a toaster or microwave — but maybe I’m just not being creative enough.
The side of the device has two lights and one button:
The WiFi status indicator flashes green when searching for a WiFi network, is solid green when connected, and flashes red when it is disconnected. The power indicator light is illuminated when electricity is flowing through (e.g. your lights are on) and is off when electricity is not flowing.
The button below the two lights can be pressed to manually turn your lights (or whatever else is plugged in) on or off.
My experiences
Like any other HomeKit device, you need to name your device and your room. I called this one my Fence light and made it part of the room Back Yard. Once you use the iHome Control app to initially set up the device, you don’t need to use that app again because the built-in Home app on the iPhone (or iPad, Apple Watch, HomePod, etc.) can control the lights. Having said that, the iHome Control app does give you a way to see a historical log of the power state of the device (when you turned it on and off) and also gives you a way to update the firmware.
Because this device works with HomeKit, I can just tell Siri “turn on my fence light” or “turn off the backyard lights” and within about a second or two, the lights respond. You can also use HomeKit to make the lights go on or off automatically at a certain time of day, such as come on at sunset and then turn off at 11pm. (If you are looking for more information on HomeKit, the latest episode 54 of the Canvas podcast has a good overview.)
Note that the iSP100 is strictly an on-and-off switch. You cannot use this device to dim lights.
Using Siri to control lights inside of the house is nice; you save yourself from getting up off of the couch. But using Siri to control lights in the backyard is VERY nice, saving yourself from putting on shoes, going outside, braving the cold or hot weather, and reaching into an awkward spot. You can also use the Home app on an iPhone or Apple Watch to control the iSP100, and I especially like being able to tap a button on my Apple Watch to almost instantly make outdoor lights turn on or off. It is almost magical.
After using the iHome iSP100 for a few months, my experience has been that it works incredibly well and seems to hold up to the elements. We don’t have snow in New Orleans, but we did have a few days of below-freezing temperatures last month. We had many heavy rainstorms. We had hot and cold weather, and as you can see from the above pictures, some dirt ended up on my iSP100. And through all of that, the iSP100 continued to work fine.
I had one time in December that the device stopped responding. Upon inspection, I found that the circuit had been flipped on my outlet itself; I had to press that little button between the two outlets to reset the outlet. I don’t know if the iHome device had anything to do with that or if it was just my outlet, and it hasn’t happened for two months since then. I also had one time in January when the device stopped responding, and it was some sort of HomeKit issue. I unplugged the iSP100 from the outlet and waited a few seconds and plugged it back in, and it worked again. Unfortunately, HomeKit has hiccups with my other devices too, so I don’t blame the iSP100 for that. Other than those two instances, I’ve turned the lights on and off hundreds of times without any problems at all.
Conclusion
If you want a way to control lights or another appliance that is outside, and if you only need one outlet, the iHome iSP100 works very well. And although I haven’t tried this myself, I suspect that if you spend a few bucks on an outdoor 1-to-3 outlet or power strip, you could use the iSP100 to control multiple outlets simultaneously, which is the one feature additional offered by the more expensive iDevices Outdoor Switch.
[UPDATE 4/24/2020: For about six months, I have been using a slightly different congratulation than what I described in this post. I now have a 50′ outdoor extension cord going from the iHome iSP100 to my fence. I have a very short 1-to-2 extension cord at the end of that. One end of that split goes to the same fence lights I described in the original post. The other end of that split goes to two strands of G40 globe patio lights, which I have hanging from the “ceiling” of a mostly covered area of my backyard to provide light to that area. The iHome iSP100 continues to work great. Sometimes I use Siri to turn the lights on/off. More frequently, I use the HomeRun app on my Apple Watch so that I can easily turn the lights on/off from my watch.]
I’m happy that I purchased the iHome iSP100 and I can recommend it.
I suspect that most readers of this website know that I live in New Orleans, a city that I love. Today is Mardi Gras day in New Orleans, the culmination of many weeks of parades, parties, and other fun events. If you are not down here enjoying the festivities this year, hopefully you have done so in the past or will have a chance to do so in the future. Many folks outside of New Orleans associate Mardi Gras with drinking and debauchery, and I won't deny that you can find that. But Mardi Gras is also a great time for friends and families, including children, to come together, watch parades, and have a good time. That's the Mardi Gras that I love.
Speaking of New Orleans, I should note that this is a a great time to come visit because all throughout 2018, the city is celebrating its tricentennial. The city was founded in the Spring of 1718.
New Orleans started as a French colony (La Nouvelle-Orleans), was then under Spanish rule from 1763 to 1802, was then briefly under French rule again in 1803, and was then sold by Napoleon to the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. The city survived a huge fire in 1788 (which is why most of the oldest buildings in the city reflect Spanish architecture, not French architecture), a British invasion during the War of 1812, pirates, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and Hurricane Katrina.
New Orleans is famous for its fascinating architecture, amazing music (including the birthplace of Jazz), delicious restaurants, and incredible cocktails. My favorite way to celebrate a Sunday is to enjoy all four of those at once — Jazz Brunch at Commander's Palace in the historic Garden District. The National World War II Museum is frequently ranked as one of the best museums in the country. Jazz Fest in late April / early May is one of my favorite events of the year, with great music and even better food — or vice versa, just depending upon your point of view. Kids and adults love the amazing Aquarium, Insectarium and Zoo. On a sunny day, we have refreshing snowballs at places like Hansen's Sno-Bliz, where you can spend only $1.50 to savor something worthy of a James Beard Foundation award. On a breezy day, riding a streetcar down St. Charles Avenue with the window open is a great way to relax and see some beautiful old houses. And because this year is the tricentennial, there are special events planned all year long.
New Orleans is unlike any other city, and the New York Times recently named New Orleans the #1 place to visit in 2018. If you missed coming here for Mardi Gras this year, I encourage you to make plans to visit the Big Easy at some point before 2018 comes to a close.
