Jennifer tuohy – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Jennifer Pattison Tuohy

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy

Senior Reviewer, Smart Home

Senior Reviewer, Smart Home

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy (aka Jen) writes about all things smart home, home automation, and connected tech for The Verge. A journalist for three decades, she has covered the smart home since 2013, writing for The New York Times: Wirecutter, Dwell, Wired, The Ambient, BBC Science Focus, and US News & World Report, among others. She joined The Verge in 2021, and now tests everything from robot vacuums, video doorbells, and smart locks to connected chicken coops and smart ovens. She’s an expert on the Matter smart home standard and is passionate about the connected kitchen and home energy management. She started her career on London’s Fleet Street with The Daily Telegraph newspaper before moving to Sun Valley, Idaho, where she worked in local news for ten years. She now lives in Charleston, South Carolina, with her husband, two children, a dog, two cats, a rabbit, and several chickens.

More From Jennifer Pattison Tuohy

First vacuums — then the world

Dreame plans to build everything from hypercars and hair dryers to China’s Elon Musk. It’ll either win big or go down in flames.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
You can now talk to Google Home again without saying “Hey Google” every time.

When Google launched Gemini for Home, it put one key feature behind a paywall. Continued Conversation became available only on Gemini Live, which required Google Home Premium.

Starting today, users in Early Access can once again ask follow-up questions to Google’s voice assistant on their Google Home devices without saying “Hey Google” every time, and without paying. Another bonus is that the feature now works with all supported languages and in all regions.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
There’s finally an easy way to see your Thread network.

The Thread Group has released a new Thread Network Diagnostic app that lets you “explore, monitor, and visualize your Thread network.” It displays network topology, connection status, and device roles to help troubleshoot issues. It’s Android only for now, but an iOS version is in the works.

Thread connectivity problems have been one of Matter’s biggest pain points — most recently with Ikea’s Matter-over-Thread rollout. There are some apps that let you see your network, but a dedicated tool like this could be very useful. I’ll report back after testing it out.

Thread Network Diagnostics

[Google Play Store]

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Did Home Assistant take down this robot lawnmower’s cloud?

European Mammotion owners took to Reddit to complain that their expensive machines have been offline for three days. Mammotion says a fix is in the works, but hasn’t said what happened. One Redditor claims the outage stems from a bug in the Mammotion Home Assistant integration he had built. We’ve reached out to the company for the full story.

Ikea’s smart donut lamp is a sweet treat

8

Verge Score

The new Varmblixt adds color-changing, dimming, and Matter-over-Thread support, and brings a touch of inexpensive style to my smart home.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Nuki adds Apple Home Key to its smart lockNuki adds Apple Home Key to its smart lock
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Another smart oven shuts down.

The company behind the Brava Oven, the innovative smart kitchen gadget that cooks with light, has announced it ceased operations on March 6, 2026. It will no longer sell its $1,300 countertop ovens or provide software updates.

If you own a Brava, the good news is that the Brava Cloud is currently working. The bad news is that “may change, be limited, or be discontinued at any time.”