This article is sponsored by Verizon.
With the NFL season about to kick off and many communities still abiding by Covid-19 gathering restrictions, the best place to watch football this year looks to be in the comfort of your own home. But that doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice the energy and excitement of the big game. These tech essentials will help bring your home’s game-day performance to pro levels.
4K TV
This year, Fox Sports is airing Thursday night football games in 4K HDR via its app, Apple TV, Roku, fuboTV, and YouTube TV. Plus, some providers—including Optimum, Comcast Xfinity, DirecTV, and Verizon FiOS—will air select games in 4K too. So if you’ve been holding out on getting a 4K TV until more programming is available, now’s your moment. Digital Trends has you covered with this list of the best TVs available in 2021.
Dolby Atmos Speakers
Pair your new 4K TV with a sound system to match. Dolby Atmos is the closest you can get to theater-quality sound at home because it’s a sound technology originally designed for theaters. Think of it a bit like surround-sound on steroids: not only do you have a number of different speakers providing 360-degrees of sound, but the actual audio file is directed through up to 128 different channels, giving you truly immersive sound. While the NFL doesn’t currently air games with Dolby Atmos, broadcasts are heading in this direction, so you can future-proof your home theater by snagging the speakers now. They’ll pay dividends immediately: using AI, the system is able to “fake it” with the audio being transmitted and provide a noticeable increase in sound quality.
Philips Hue Home Sync
Bring your team colors home with a Philips Hue home theater setup. These nifty boxes backlight your TV or computer console with colors pulled directly from the screen, giving your home theater some extra team spirit. If you want to go next level, you can pick up extra bulbs and automate them using IFTTT or Apple Shortcuts to flash your team’s colors whenever they score.
Air Fryer
Stadium food is good but it isn’t good for you. Step up your fried food game with one of the best air fryers you can buy right now. Then head over to Frank’s RedHot’s website for this simple Buffalo wings recipe, a game-day classic.
A Subscription to ESPN+
Over the last year, ESPN has beefed up its Insider content with additional stats, insights, and analysis. And now all this information is available with ESPN+, a supplement to the world leader in old-school sports TV programming. Football fans in particular will enjoy access to the new digital edition of NFL Prime Time available on the app.
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