Dear Friends,
I found my new best friend. Vermont has two great Apple resources. There is Small Dog here in the north with stores in Waitsfield, Rutland and S. Burlington but if you are in southern Vermont, Brown Computer Solutions is your Apple resource with stores in Brattleboro, Bennington and Keene, NH. We have worked with Patrick Brown for a long time but Patrick and I have a further connection which is our love of bulldogs. So, after Hammerhead passed away, I exchanged emails with him and he recommended a breeder where he had gotten one of his two bulldogs. I texted the guy and within minutes had pictures and video of the male that I will be picking up at the end of the month. I promise pictures soon but Grace and I are debating names with Pirate and Wrigley being the top two so far.
The blueberries are almost ready and it looks like a banner year for berries up on Prickly Mountain. There is a wild blueberry area in the Green Mountain National forest where you can go pick berries. We used to go there to get our berries but with the bushes we have at our house there has been no need lately. I think we still have blueberries from last year in our freezer.
From time to time, Small Dog Electronics needs to “pivot” our business to emphasize a particular market or channel. We moved from being a mostly internet-based business to retail stores with our “clicks-to-bricks” strategy, we launched a very successful government and corporate sales division and we built our Chill Pill Audio and Hammerhead brands. Now, we are looking at two emerging markets, smart home technology and assistive technology.
We have talked about home automation before but we are taking action by signing up new vendors and educating our staff. This has been one of my hobbies ever since I installed motion-sensing lights just about everywhere in my house. Now, between Siri, Alexa and other HomeKit gear I can control lighting, heating and cooling. I control my AV system, Sonos speakers and even the charging of my Chevy Volt. We will be continuing to add more products and expertise.
Accessibility is another area that is very important to us. We were the first company to get iPads approved as a medical device under Medicaid and are now offering a nice selection of accessibility gear including mounts, switches and software. Check out our offerings.
This week’s Kibbles & Bytes Exclusive is an iPad Air 2 bundled with a Speck iGuy case. These two products go perfectly together for anyone needing a better grip on an iPad or just wanting a fun way to keep their iPad safe! These two items together normally sell for $539.98 but our Kibbles & Bytes readers this week you can save $50 and get them both for $489.98