Smart Homes
I ditched Alexa and Google Home, here's why
I don't use smart speakers for voice control all that often and when I do, I would never trust Amazon Echo or Google Home to be that device.
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Smart Homes
Connected devices, hubs and home automation.
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- Smart Homes
Home Assistant God Mode
You can install God mode in Home Assistant in under 10 minutes, and it changes everything.
- Smart Homes
Prime Day 2026: Buy Your Smart Home Starter Kit
Foxy’s Lab uses Prime Day week as a practical buying guide for starting a smart home in 2026, with a strong focus on Zigbee gear and Home Assistant-friendly hubs.
- Smart Homes
SwitchBot’s Standing Circulator Fan is worth fighting for
Normally, I just buy whatever Vornado or Dreo model fits my budget, but that was before I started testing the battery-powered Standing Circulator Fan from SwitchBot.
- Smart Homes
Hue’s wired wall modules bring non-smart lights into its ecosystem
Smart lighting company Philips Hue has launched its first wired wall modules.
- Smart Homes
Proxy all the things: no device left behind – Open Home Foundation
Discover how Open Home Foundation projects can help you give your beloved old devices a new lease of life for a more sustainable smart home.
- Smart Homes
Proxy all the things: no device left behind
Every smart home has them: the older devices that still work perfectly well but no longer fit neatly into a modern setup.
- Smart Homes
Matter 1.6 Released with NFC Commissioning, Joint Fabric, and More
The CSA has announced Matter 1.6, which is now available for device manufacturers and platform developers to integrate into their products.
- Smart Homes
Google’s first smart speaker in six years arrives next week
The Google Home Speaker is designed for Gemini for Home and its more conversational smart home assistant.
- Smart Homes
My backyard made me a color-changing smart lighting convert
Testing Govee’s over-the-top RGB lineup convinced me there might actually be room in my garden for a horse-race light show this summer.
- Smart Homes
Zigbee Vs Thread/Matter Vs Z-Wave: Who Will Win?
Foxy’s Lab weighs the smart-home protocol war, arguing Zigbee remains the safe everyday bet while Matter and Thread are promising but still maturing.
- Smart Homes
Cooling a Room Without Installing Air Conditioning
Paul Hibbert tests a no-install cooling option, the DREO TurboCool, as a smart-home-friendly alternative to fitted air conditioning.
- Smart Homes
Eufy Announces Three New Smart Locks with Matter Support
Eufy expands its FamiLock range with three Matter-compatible smart locks spanning facial recognition, palm-vein scanning and a conventional fingerprint model with Matter over Thread.
- Smart Homes
Schlage Sense Pro w/UWB, Matter, and Thread, Arrives June 29th
The Sense Pro is also Schlage’s first lock to offer hands-free unlocking using Apple HomeKey and Ultra Wideband (UWB) , allowing the lock to automatically unlock as users approach their door with a compatible iPhone or Apple Watch.
- Smart Homes
Is Your Smart Home Driving Your Family Crazy? Designing Automations Everyone Likes
Foxy’s Lab on building automations the whole household actually enjoys — covering busy partners, accessibility, neurodivergent users and kids.
- Smart Homes
The best robot vacuum deals available ahead of Prime Day
The Verge rounds up early Prime Day robot-vacuum discounts, with tested models from Roborock, Dreame and other smart-home brands already cheaper before the official sale begins.
- Smart Homes
Will Matter finally be able to do what it should have always done?
Matter 1.6 introduces Joint Fabric, a long-awaited attempt to make one shared Matter network work cleanly across multiple smart-home ecosystems.
- Smart Homes
Matter 1.5 Lands With Security Cameras, Closures and Energy Management
The smart-home standard’s biggest update yet finally adds security-camera support — meaning cameras that work across Apple Home, Alexa and Google Home — plus door/window closures and energy management.
- Smart Homes
2026.5: We’re on the same frequency now 📡
Home Assistant 2026.5 makes radio-frequency control a first-class feature, adds serial-port proxying over the network and expands its built-in maintenance and security dashboards.
- Smart Homes
Getting Started with Home Assistant on a Mini PC
A hands-on walkthrough for turning an x86 mini PC into a fully local Home Assistant smart home hub, from flashing the OS to building your first automations.
- Smart Homes
Well, This Looks Different
Foxy’s Lab launches a written blog as a companion to its YouTube channel, aimed at deeper dives, quick shares and tutorial content that works better as text.
- Smart Homes
IKEA’s New Matter Smart-Home Devices Hit Connectivity Snags — Fix Incoming
Early adopters report IKEA’s latest Matter devices dropping their connections, but the company says a firmware update is on the way.
- Smart Homes
Apple’s Long-Rumoured Smart-Home Hub Slips Further Down the Calendar
A new report pushes the expected launch window for Apple’s smart-home hub back again — a device seen as central to Apple competing with Amazon and Google in the connected home.
- Smart Homes
IKEA and Samsung Team Up to Simplify the Affordable Smart Home
A new collaboration brings around 25 of IKEA’s Matter-over-Thread devices — bulbs, plugs and more — into Samsung’s SmartThings ecosystem, aiming for cheaper, simpler setup.
- Smart Homes
IKEA acknowledges connectivity problems with budget Matter-over-Thread devices
IKEA has confirmed widespread pairing problems with its new low-cost Matter-over-Thread smart home devices after testers and customers struggled to connect them.
- Smart Homes
2026.2: Home, sweet overview
Home Assistant 2026.2 makes the new Home dashboard the default, renames add-ons to apps and launches a community-powered device database to help users pick compatible hardware.
- Smart Homes
Aqara Presence Multi-Sensor FP300 (review)
A review of Aqara’s wire-free FP300 multi-sensor, which packs motion, presence, temperature, humidity and light sensing with a choice of Matter over Thread or Zigbee.
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