Smart Home Archive

Is Förlig the Swedish translation for lightsaber? Because it’s impossible to see anything but a Jedi’s weapon when looking at Ikea’s new $25 USB-powered LED lamp. It cycles through multiple colors at the push of a button and can be used standing up with an included stand, hung on a wall, or swung around while you make sound effects.

The company says this will allow users to interact with lighting from their AI chatbot of choice using natural language, such as “make my room feel like sunset.” It also lets developers and advanced users link Nanoleaf lights with live weather APIs, custom webhooks, and third-party web services to respond to things like changes in the weather and calendar appointments.

The $99.99 Essential Solar Security Camera is a 2K/24fps camera with an integrated 1.2-watt solar panel so you don’t need to run any wires. Just two hours of sunlight per day can charge its capacious 14,790mAh battery that can keep the camera running for up to six months between top-ups. A subscription starting at $9.99 per month isn’t mandatory but adds features like cloud storage and AI-powered smart detection.

It says users can link the RGBICWW Light Bars with compatible AI agents to sync with light cues, like a breathing effect when the AI is thinking. The light bars also have a built-in microphone that detects ambient sound for “music-reactive effects,” 12 independently-controllable color zones, 26 preset effects, adjustable color temperature, dimming, and built-in mounting magnets.

To test the new AI-powered features on Ring, Google Nest, and Apple Home connected video doorbells, I put on the iconic Scream mask to see if any of them would warn me.

Project July replaces June’s cloud server with one that runs on the oven and connects to your phone over your local Wi-Fi network. It brings app control of the oven and live camera streaming to the device, features that went away when Weber shut down the cloud last week.

We called the K11 Plus the best robot vacuum for small spaces, but Switchbot’s upgraded K11 Plus Pro could be an even better option. For $399.99 you get a boost from 6,000Pa to 12,000Pa of suction potentially making it a more potent autonomous cleaner for apartments with multiple pets or spill-prone kids.

Today, Weber shut down June Oven’s cloud servers, leaving ovens that cost up to $1,500 unable to do anything beyond basic functions.

According to Mark Gurman at Bloomberg, the long-rumored Apple home hub with a screen is now being positioned as an AI hub for the home, working in tandem with your personal AI hub, the iPhone. He writes:

You’ll have to pay at least $9.99 a month for Apple Home’s new AI-powered features, including video summaries, for just one camera. If you want access on up to five cameras, it’s $59.99 (included in the 12TB iCloud Plus plan). Is this a sign of more subscription fees on the horizon for Apple’s smart home?

Google Home just announced MCP integration. Read about how this could help your smart home — assuming we’re not all living in a post-apocalyptic battery farm — in my explainer.