Olivia Carter

When my internet went down for three days last winter, my cell phone sat useless on the counter with a drained battery. The one device that still rang was a corded answering machine I had plugged into the wall. That moment changed how I think about the best answering machines for home. They are not … Read more

If you’ve ever ended a phone call squinting at your handset trying to figure out what the other person just said, you already know how frustrating muddy cordless phone audio can be. I spent the last three months testing 12 of the best DECT phones for call clarity on the market, and the difference between … Read more

If you have ever watched your phone sit at one bar while trying to load a simple webpage, you already know how frustrating weak cell signal at home can be. Dropped calls during work meetings, frozen video chats, and smart home devices that refuse to connect are daily headaches for millions of people in the … Read more

I have driven through more dead zones than I care to count. There is nothing quite like watching your navigation freeze mid-route or losing a call at the worst possible moment because your bars dropped to zero. If you commute through rural stretches, haul freight cross-country, or take your RV off the beaten path, you … Read more

Living 12 miles from the nearest cell tower, I watched my phone bounce between one bar and “No Service” every afternoon. After 30 days of testing the best signal boosters for rural areas on our remote test property, I finally got reliable signal for calls, texts, and hot-spot data. Our team pulled together 12 boosters … Read more

Living in a dead zone with Verizon is one of the most frustrating experiences I have dealt with. You pay for unlimited data, and then you cannot even load a webpage in your own kitchen. Over the past several months, our team tested dozens of models to find the best signal boosters for Verizon, comparing … Read more

If you live in an old house, you already know the WiFi struggle. Thick plaster walls, brick chimneys, and lath construction turn your home into a Faraday cage for wireless signals. That’s why I spent the last 60 days testing the best powerline WiFi adapters for old houses – 8 models across knob-and-tube wiring, shared … Read more

I have been running smart home products for years now, and the single gadget that has saved me the most time is the humble smart plug. After installing roughly 30 of them across my house, my parents’ house, and three rental properties, I have learned what separates a great Alexa-compatible smart plug from one that … Read more

Last March, I was 1,200 feet up a couloir in the backcountry when my phone showed zero bars and 3% battery. My partner was somewhere below in the trees, and I needed to coordinate our next run. That moment is why I started testing two-way radios for skiing on a serious basis. Cell phones fail … Read more

When I first managed a commercial job site, I made the mistake of handing my crew cheap FRS radios from a big-box store. Within two weeks, dust killed two units, the battery died before lunch on a third, and we had a near-miss because a signal cut out mid-call. That experience taught me what separates … Read more