More from All the smart home news, reviews, and gadgets you need to know about
Announced at CES, the $199 Homey Pro Mini can connect to Zigbee, Matter, and Thread devices, along with those from brands like Ikea, Sonos, Lutron, Roomba, Nest, Philips Hue, and Aqara, to run your smart home.
Unlike its bigger sibling, the $400 Homey Pro, it doesn’t support Z-Wave, BLE, or IR, and can handle fewer integrations, but is a good option for a simpler way into more advanced home automation.
Homey launches a $200 smart home hub
As I was making breakfast this morning, Smokey jumped onto the counter, walked over to the sink, nuzzled his head against the motion sensor in the Moen smart faucet, and proceeded to drink from the flowing water.
I’m so proud! (Now, if I could train him to do the dishes... .)
5
Verge Score
The Roborock Saros Z70 is the first vacuum that can tidy up before it cleans — but it’s still a work in progress.
A year testing a smart lock with a hidden superpower: infrared wireless charging.
These autonomous cutters show promise, but there’s still a ways to go before you should trust one in your yard.
The budget smart home company posted its first tariff bill on X this afternoon, adding that it’s been working on moving manufacturing out of China for a year and will “probably be out in 60 days.”
The next post was a GIF of Robin Williams, indicating that the company, known for its affordable security cameras -- including floodlight cameras, is shifting production to Vietnam.
The price hike for the Brisk It Zelos-450 Smart Grill, which went on sale yesterday, brings the wood-pellet grill with a side of AI to $450. While cheaper than the competition (Weber and Traeger smart grills start around $800), it’s a bummer to see more affordable smart grilling go up in smoke.
CEO Christopher Huang tells The Verge the increase is “a direct and unavoidable result of newly imposed tariffs.” This is likely just the beginning of price hikes across the smart home.
This $400 Brisk It smart grill has generative AI
An image of the unannounced Bilresa Dual Button was spotted by homewithapple. According to a post on Threads, it’s an upcoming smart switch with two individually programmable keys that use the Thread protocol over the Matter smart home standard.
Most Ikea products use Zigbee and work through its Matter-enabled hub, the Dirigera. The Bilresa (which translates to Drive) is the second rumored Ikea device to use Thread; the company recently registered the Timmerflotte, a Matter-over-Thread temperature sensor.
Most Popular
- Trump says Sundar Pichai talked him out of renaming the Atlantic Ocean
- The iPhone Duo is a messy, expensive, good time
- Tesla driver using Full Self-Driving struck and killed a man crossing I-80
- Bill Gates says to prepare for 20 years of ‘tumultuous’ AI disruption
- Apple will label apps that are ‘Made for iPhone Duo’