When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. But cords are still a hassle. Endless run time lets you clean as often as you'd like. App is slow to respond; remote control is useless. This corded robot has good cleaning capabilities and is free from the tyranny of a dying battery, but it's tough to maneuver out of the pool and cleanup is a real chore.

Sony announced two entirely new high-end home theater products today: The four-speaker HT-A9 home theater system and a new flagship soundbar, the HT-7000A. The audio manufacturer also announced two wireless subwoofers that can add deeper bass to either product, and wireless rear speakers that can supplement the soundbar. The Sony HT-A9 home theater system ($1,800) consists of a control box with a LAN port and HDMI in and out, along with four cylindrical, wireless, self-powered speakers. Each speaker has two built-in microphones that measure the speaker's relative height and position in the room. Sony's 360 Spatial Sound and Sound Field Optimization technology then creates up to 12 phantom speakers by synthesizing sound waves based on positional information.

Voice control, using either Alexa or Google Assistant, is the U by Moen smart faucet's star attraction, but after testing this kitchen tool for several months, I've concluded that its gesture control feature is far more useful. Voice control is no gimmick, as you'll see when I dig all the things you can do with voice commands. But the tasks for which I use a faucet most often--washing my hands, rinsing dishes, filling a watering can for my houseplants, and the like--waving my hand over the faucet to start the flow of water, and again to stop it is all the technology I need. I love my handmade farmhouse sink, but it seriously complicates changing out the faucet. But that could be because I live in a rural area and draw my water from a well.

Andre van Rüschen has no memory of the day he lost all feeling in his legs. After a car accident in Germany, he had a spinal cord injury that left him paralyzed from the waist down. When he woke up from a coma in a hospital in Hamburg, the doctors told him he would never walk again. But now, thirteen years later, van Rüschen is back on his feet, and he is training to compete as a pilot in the Powered Exoskeleton race at the Cybathlon in Zurich this month. In a high-rise office building on Leipziger Platz in Berlin, he slides out of his wheelchair onto a black leather pouf where a ReWalk exoskeleton sits folded.