Jennifer Pattison Tuohy | The VergeThe Verge is about technology and how it makes us feel. Founded in 2011, we offer our audience everything from breaking news to reviews to award-winning features and investigations, on our site, in video, and in podcasts.2026-04-22T17:03:37+00:00https://www.theverge.com/authors/jennifer-tuohy-2/rsshttps://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/verge-rss-large_80b47e.png?w=150&h=150&crop=1Jennifer Pattison Tuohy<![CDATA[Will a new CEO help realize Apple’s smart home potential?]]>https://www.theverge.com/?p=9166982026-04-22T13:03:37-04:002026-04-22T11:31:34-04:00
It took Tim Cook years to launch Apple into major new hardware categories, such as the smartwatch. But John Ternus could start his tenure right away with an ambitious new project: smart home hardware.
All signs point to a strong lineup of new smart home devices coming potentially this fall, putting Apple back in the game in a category where it has been painfully slow to ship new devices.
With a hardware man at the helm in Ternus, the chances of Apple fully committing to the smart home feel far higher than under Cook. And while, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Ternus was reluctant to invest deeply in the smart home a decade ago — taking “some responsibility” for Apple falling behind in the category — today he’s reportedly “leading the charge on a trio of home products.”
Apple has ceded ground to competitors in smart home hardware for years. Amazon and Google have launched more than 40 smart speakers and smart displays over the last decade, compared to Apple’s three. However, in that time, Apple has built out a privacy-focused, locally controlled platform for third-party devices. Take-up was initially slow from manufacturers, but Apple’s investment in Matter has spurred significant growth over the last few years. Yet there’s still been a dearth of Apple Home hardware. If the rumors are true, that’s all about to change.
First up, there’s the “HomePad,” rumored to be a roughly 7-inch-square touchscreen smart display featuring facial recognition, FaceTime, presence sensing, and control of smart home devices like lights, locks, and cameras. There are reported to be two form factors, a wall-mounted version that can snap to a MagSafe mount and one with a HomePod Mini-style speaker base. A device like this could help unlock one of the struggles in the smart home — shared control. Everyone in the home can control it, and the home can similarly react to each individual in it, rather than being controlled by one person and their phone.
Ternus was reluctant to invest deeply in the smart home a decade ago
Then there are rumors of dedicated Apple Home smart home devices, including home security cameras, a video doorbell, and a standalone sensor. Featuring facial recognition and presence sensors, the cameras could feed into Apple Home and a smarter Siri to provide it with context as to who is at home, when, and where. This would be a crucial element in unlocking the benefits of AI in the smart home, aiming to create a more ambient experience than today’s command-and-control interface.
Privacy-focused cameras are the only way people will be comfortable with this kind of visual awareness, and Apple already has a solution here. Cameras connected to its HomeKit Secure Video service can be set to detect activity without allowing for streaming video or recording.
Physical sensors will also play a role; newer HomePods are equipped with UWB, and the rumored Apple Home sensor could feed into a home security system and be key to whole-home orchestration.
Then there’s the long-rumored home robot, a tabletop device with a display mounted on a robotic arm. While a home device, this product also fits into the broader AI story. Based on a paper published last year, Apple may be exploring imbuing it with a personality, creating a type of physical AI that provides companionship as well as utility. This shift is something we will certainly see more of in the smart home, and Apple could be a leader here.
On the software side, there’s a real need for unification and a focus on the AI use case in the home. A new homeOS that merges tvOS and HomePod software is long overdue, and could be the foundation of an AI-powered brain to run your smart home. This could be revealed at WWDC this June, setting the stage for Apple Home’s renaissance. The other relevant rumors include a new chip coming to a HomePod Mini 2 and a next-gen Apple TV, which could bring full support for the new voice assistant features, plus — crucially — the ability to process most commands locally.
Apple’s failure to innovate in smart home hardware may have been due to its low priority within the company. But now, several forces are converging. Matter, the smart home standard Apple helped develop, is finally bringing real interoperability to the platform. The cancellation of the Apple Car project reportedly freed up significant engineering resources for the Apple Home. And AI is poised to reshape the functionality of smart homes.
Of course, Siri is the obvious holdup here. The long-stalled generative AI revamp that should bring a smarter, more context-aware assistant to the home could be the glue that will hold the hardware together. But it seems it’s all hands on deck at Apple to work out this problem. Amazon’s Alexa Plus and Google’s Gemini for Home have shown the potential of LLM-powered smart-home voice assistants, even if the reality is still very messy. When a smarter Siri does arrive, expectations are high that Apple will follow its traditional playbook — entering late but brilliantly.
For Ternus, the challenge of the smart home now lies in the execution. With the pieces in place, Apple’s smart home could go from side project to a core priority at Cupertino. The question is whether the new CEO can assemble them. And if he can channel Apple’s internal quest for perfection, characterized by the Cook era, into a drive that can take this potentially game-changing product category to fruition. For a company that has spent a decade building a foundation, now is the moment to finally move in.
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Jennifer Pattison Tuohy<![CDATA[First vacuums — then the world]]>https://www.theverge.com/?p=9142442026-04-22T09:49:39-04:002026-04-22T07:00:00-04:00
Many startups spend years trying to become a household name. Others just spend $10 million on a Super Bowl ad. That’s Dreame’s bet. The little-known Chinese robot vacuum company has grand ambitions to become a global consumer electronics giant and chose to run a pricey 30-second spot as its opening move. If it works, the ad may be remembered as the beginning of the rise of the next global tech powerhouse. If it doesn’t? Well, let’s just say Quibi ran a Super Bowl ad, too.
Dreame’s CEO wants to be the Chinese Elon Musk
Dreame — pronounced dreamy —used its half-minute of exposure to promise a dizzying product evolution: from robot vacuums and lawnmowers to hypercars, humanoids, and even into outer space. Transformers-style robots took each product to the next level, hinting at a far bigger future than sweeping floors. “This commercial isn’t just about visibility; it’s a statement of commitment,” said Dreame’s North American CEO, Ana Wang.
Next week, on April 27th, it will bring its dream to America with a splashy San Francisco launch of new product lines across some highly competitive markets, all tied together by its “AI-powered whole-home smart ecosystem.”
Dreame’s breakneck growth and ambitious expansion raise more flags than an Olympic opening ceremony. A vacuum company barely through its first decade, expanding into categories like TVs, cars, and appliances, which require a mature corporate infrastructure, feels fragile at best. To say nothing of trying to do all of that globally. For every Samsung, which grew from trading dried fish and vegetables into a global electronics powerhouse, there are plenty of LeEcos, which burn through their reckless ambition in a fireball of publicity.
At the center of Dreame’s efforts is its young, charismatic founder and CEO, Yu Hao, who is betting that scale, speed, and (of course) AI can make the dream a reality. He’ll be in San Francisco at the launch, which is called “Dreame Next 2026” and will be a “four-day immersive experience,” according to a press release from the company. Dreame’s PR manager, Sam Tong, told me in an interview that they expect over 10,000 attendees, and that the event will feature product launches, exhibitions, and a keynote by Yu Hao. This is his moment to try to sell America on his vision of a Chinese technology company running every facet of your digital home life. It won’t be easy.
“His idol is Elon Musk,” Tong said. “Chinese media say he wants to be the Chinese version of Elon Musk.” When I asked about the enormous, seemingly impossible scale of his vision, she said, “We have the conditions, we have the funds, we have the technology, and he has the dream.”
So, where exactly did this upstart floor cleaning company come from?
The Dreame dream began in 2009, when Yu started the Sky Workshop, a student-run aerospace makerspace at Tsinghua University. The project attracted sponsorship from Boeing and, combined with his studies in computational fluid mechanics, became the underpinnings of Yu’s Dreame.
Dreame Technology was established by Yu in 2015 in Suzhou, China, to develop high-speed digital motor technology, with the goal of dethroning Dyson in home-cleaning appliances. The company started out building products for Xiaomi, and its first launch was the Dreame / Xiaomi V9 stick vacuum at the end of 2018. A cheaper near-clone of Dyson’s much-loved V8, the V9 featured a 100,000rpm brushless motor, just a hair slower than Dyson’s 110,000rpm. It received mostly positive reviews, largely because it was roughly half the price of Dyson’s premium cordless.
On top of all this, in 2023, Dreame launched a sub-brand, Mova, which makes robot vacuums, robot lawnmowers, hair dryers, and more, all of which are nearly identical to Dreame’s. Initially positioned as a lower-priced brand, Mova is now a more direct competitor, complete with its own wild ideas and giant CES booths —this year it showed off a drone that can fly a robot vacuum between floors. It also plans to launch its own EV, the Kosmera Supercar, according to Yu.
Robotic household appliances were clearly just the beginning for Yu, now 38, who named the company Dreame to underscore its ambitions. “We’re a dreamer, and we want to shape the day we’re living our way,” Roger Tang, marketing director of Dreame Televisions, told me in an interview.
According to Tang, there is a method to all this product madness. The tech that powers Dreame, he says, is based on three pillars: AI algorithms (the brain), high-speed motors (the heart), and robotic arms (the body). “The high-speed motor is the foundational IP — Yu Hao developed it and now wants to put it in everything,” he said.
And by “everything,” he means everything. In addition to its core robotic products, Dreame is putting its motor tech — which it claims now exceeds 200,000rpm — into air purifiers, fans, hair dryers, and even cars. (Something Dyson also tried and failed to do.) The company is expanding into other consumer electronics spaces, from smart home gadgets such as door locks and security cameras to DJI-like action cameras, smartphones, AI-enhanced smart rings, and smart glasses. While some products feature new innovations (mostly related to AI), some closely resemble competitors’ products — particularly the Dyson Airwrap-inspired line of hair dryers. (Dyson has sued Dreame over the similarities.)
When I spoke with Michael Meng, president of Dreame’s robotic vacuums unit, at CES this January, he outlined yet another of Dreame’s grand visions: “Our ultimate goal is to eliminate human housework.” Today, Dreame robots are focused on cleaning the ground, but in the future, he says they will be “more like a family service robot that can help us improve our daily life,” most likely in a humanoid form. I witnessed a demo of this promised future in the AI Laundry Care Robot, which can collect, wash, and dry your clothes, working in concert with Dreame’s new L9 washer and dryer.
The prototype I saw used a camera in its robotic arm to identify and sort clothes before loading them into the washing machine. Shortly after CES, Dreame announced the robot would also be capable of folding laundry, a long-held dream in robotics littered with failures and zero commercial products. However, Dreame seems confident it’s cracked it. David Ye, Dreame’s global product manager for washing machines, told me the laundry bot will come to market in three years.
Combined with Dreame’s other products and plans, it’s a wildly ambitious lineup. Its success will depend hugely on Dreame’s ability to figure out how to make AI more than a layer of glitz and buzzwords on top of existing products. Otherwise, it feels less like a connected ecosystem and more like a factory masquerading as a lifestyle brand, taking a scattershot approach to finding the next big thing in consumer electronics.
While Yu’s vision, from homes to cars to space, draws comparisons to Elon Musk, it also mirrors the ambitions of Jia Yueting, the Chinese CEO of the ill-fated LeEco. Jia also attempted to rapidly branch out from a strong niche (TV streaming) into electric cars (Faraday Future), smartphones, and TVs, and failed spectacularly. The company collapsed shortly after launching in the US, and Jia self-exiled from China.
Dreame has already had its share of controversy. In 2024, in a CEO WeChat group, Segway-Ninebot President Wang Ye accused a company widely believed to be Dreame of implementing what became known as the “finger cutting plan.” This allegedly involved luring employees from Ecovacs, Roborock, and Ninebot with enormous salaries, tapping them for trade secrets, then quickly firing them. Dreame denied the allegations.
Yu gave each of Dreame’s over 18,000 employees a gram of gold as a bonus
The industry has also noticed that many of Dreame’s products closely resemble those of competitors. Its latest gadgets — the window-cleaning robot and action camera — have similar counterparts on the market from Ecovacs and DJI, respectively. Along with Dyson, Ecovacs has filed multiple lawsuits against Dreame. (Dreame has also filed some right back.)
According to reporting by PandaYoo, Dreame’s revenue grew tenfold between 2020 and 2022. Bloomberg reports it raised around $560 million in a Series C funding round in 2021 and planned to IPO as early as 2024 (Dreame refuted this at the time). As of 2024, the company was valued at $2.8 billion, and in Q3 2025, revenue was reportedly on track to hit over $4 billion in 2025. This positions it as one of China’s fastest-growing consumer tech firms.
However, at the same time, rumors of near-bankruptcy circulated. Yu dismissed the reports, saying the company “has sufficient cash flow,” and that he had spent around 5 billion yuan ($702 million in 2025) over two years to increase his stake in Dreame from 45 percent to 70 percent. Still, the breakneck pace of expansion hints at some internal instability. In another attempt to quash concerns, Yu reportedly gave each of Dreame’s over 18,000 employees a gram of gold as a bonus at the end of last year.
According to Dreame’s Sam Tong, the company receives significant funding from the local government. This is a common pattern among Chinese manufacturing companies, most famously exemplified by Shenzhen’s rise from a fishing village to China’s Silicon Valley, spurred by government investment. Dreame is based in Suzhou, a region of China that has grown into a major hub for advanced manufacturing and technology, thanks in part to government investment.
Dreame operates as if it has virtually unlimited funding — and ambitions to match. In addition to the launch spectacle next week, Tong tells me Dreame has installed a management team in Washington, DC, and is ramping up US-based customer support.
The company, which claims to operate in 120 countries and sell products in more than 4,000 physical stores (including 200 Targets in the US), is also opening physical “experiential” Dreame stores in high-profile locations from Silicon Valley to Paramus, New Jersey. It’s still looking to out-Dyson Dyson.
Dreame operates as if it has virtually unlimited funding — and ambitions to match
Dreame’s ambitions border on crazy. But it seems that’s the point. Musk himself would probably say it is. “Even Chinese media say it’s a crazy move. But that’s just us,” said Tong. Yu Hao has gone from trying to out-power a Dyson vacuum to trying to build, well, everything. “We have a car launching, we also have a rocket… he has funds from Chinese investors and the Chinese government,” she said. “So, why not?”
Well, because churning out Dyson and DJI lookalikes while handing out grams of gold and trying to emulate Elon Musk isn’t building a company, it’s putting on a show. Dreame’s vacuums are good products, and Yu’s intelligence and ambition appear real. That’s a solid foundation for making something truly great — just not for making everything.
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Jennifer Pattison Tuohy<![CDATA[Ikea’s smart donut lamp is a sweet treat]]>https://www.theverge.com/?p=9118092026-04-15T14:30:55-04:002026-04-15T14:30:50-04:00
The Varmblixt is a smart donut-shaped light fixture that can sit on a table or be mounted on a wall. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
Ikea’s popular Varmblixt lamp just got a smart home glow-up. The delightfully bulbous light now features color-changing, dimming, and smart home control. I tested the new smart lamp in my daughter’s room and found it made a great bedside lamp and added a fun touch of ambiance to her space. While she’s rarely a fan of me adding smart tech to her room, she did give this an “It’s nice” accolade — high praise from my 15-year-old.
The donut lamp, as it’s known for its distinctive shape resembling everyone’s favorite sweet treat, can be wall-mounted or set flat on a table. It comes with a long power cable, which helps with placement, and differs from its non-smart counterpart in that it has a matte finish rather than the original’s glossy glow. The matte does look quite stylish and helps accentuate the new colors — the old version only glows orange.
Varmblixt lamp
Score: 8
Pros
Cons
Rich colors
Replaceable bulb
Remote is included
Works with Ikea and Apple Home’s adaptive lighting
Looks a bit weird when off
Remote control connectivity is sometimes spotty
Need an Ikea or Matter hub for more colors and features
At $100, Varmblixt is a bit of a luxury gadget, but if you’ve ever shopped around for accent lighting, you’ll know that’s a good price. The lamp isn’t super bright, giving off 180 lumens, so it isn’t really for task lighting (my daughter isn’t a read-in-bed-type gal), but it gives off enough of a glow on the bright white setting to cast a perfectly usable light in her small room.
An on-device button makes it easy to shut off the light, and the included pre-paired Bilresa remote has two buttons that can control the light, turning it on or off, dimming, and cycling through 12 preset colors. These include shades of white, blue, green, pink, orange, and yellow “curated” by the lamp’s designer, artist Sabine Marcelis.
The lamp’s bulb is rated to last 25,000 hours, but the good news is that it’s user-replaceable. Plus, the remote uses AAA batteries, which are cheaper and easier to replace than the coin-cell batteries found in most remotes.
If you add the lamp to Ikea’s Home Smart app using its Dirigera hub ($109) or a Matter-compatible ecosystem — such as Apple Home, Google Home, or Amazon Alexa — you unlock hundreds more colors and the ability to schedule the light, set sleep/wake scenes, and pair it with a motion sensor and other lights in your room. With the Dirigera hub, you can also enable Ikea’s adaptive lighting feature that adjusts the white hue gradually throughout the day to mimic daylight. The lamp also works with Apple Home’s Adaptive Lighting.
Overall, it’s a simple smart lamp, with fun features out of the box and the ability to unlock more functionality. My only real issue with it is that the Varmblixt looks fairly drab when turned off.
All the Matter gadgets can be paired with Ikea’s Dirigera hub or with any Matter-supported platform — including Apple Home, Google Home, and Amazon Alexa. The benefit of Matter here is that if you already own a Thread-enabled Matter controller — such as an Apple HomePod, Amazon Echo Show, or Google TV Streamer — you don’t need to buy an extra hub to get the additional functions.
However, since Ikea launched the new line earlier this year, I (and others) have run into connectivity problems with the new gadgets, both with Matter platforms and with the Dirigera hub. Ikea acknowledged the problems and has released a number of updates to its hub over the last few months. These appear to have resolved some of the issues, and I was able to onboard the lamp and remote to the Dirigera on the first try. Additionally, following a week of testing, the connectivity of the lamp and the remote has been mostly solid.
I did run into difficulties getting the lamp into Apple Home through Matter. But after the fourth try (and leaving it to sit for a week while I was on vacation), it finally connected. However, sharing the device from Apple Home to Home Smart using Matter’s Multi-Admin feature didn’t work. I eventually got the lamp working on both platforms by first pairing it with Dirigera, then using a Matter code generated in the Home Smart app to connect to Apple Home.
This video shows several of the lamp’s default colors. You change them by double-clicking the included remote. A single press on the remote turns the lamp on and off, and pressing and holding dims the light.
The good news is that, unlike the other new products in Ikea’s smart home line, the Varmblixt doesn’t require smart home connectivity. It works with its included remote out of the box without a hub.
Setting up the lamp was overall straightforward. While my remote wasn’t pre-paired, Ikea’s signature bare-bones instructions were clear enough to get the lamp and remote connected with a few button presses — much simpler than Ikea’s complicated Tradfri pairing process. Once paired, it responded promptly to a single button press to turn it on or off, a double press to change color, and a long press to dim. Although after I paired it with Ikea’s Dirigera hub, I did experience occasional lag.
To connect it to Dirigera, I had to reset both the lamp and the Bilresa remote by holding their programming buttons down for a few seconds, then scan their Matter QR code into the Home Smart app using my iPhone. Once connected, I put both devices in the same room in the app and was given the option to pair the remote to the lamp.
The app connection lets me use my phone to adjust the brightness, choose from a wide spectrum of colors and tunable whites, enable adaptive lighting, and set up scenes. The Home Smart app also offers pre-set Sleep / Wake scenes, which gradually dim and brighten the lamp over 30 minutes — ideal for the bedroom setup I was testing in.
With the remote connected to Home Smart, I could add more functions to the buttons by turning it into a scene controller. This lets me control any scenes I created in the app with the various button presses. I set up a lighting scene to conjure up the purple color I liked because it fits the room’s decor, along with other lighting scenes to suit how my daughter uses the room.
The remote can also control multiple lights, so if I kitted out my daughter’s room with Ikea or Matter-compatible lighting and smart plugs, the Bilresa could manage them all — impressive for a $6 gadget.
Another benefit of connecting the lamp to the Dirigera hub was that I could add Ikea’s new $9 Myggspray motion sensor to the room and have the lamp turn on when motion is detected.
This worked well, and the app offers basic settings to tweak when it detects motion. I remember when motion sensors and smart buttons cost upwards of $30. I’m super excited to see the smart home becoming more affordable.
I’ve tested a lot of smart lighting products, and this is one of my new favorites, thanks to its affordable price, fun design, broad functionality when connected to my smart home, plus its ability to fit nicely into my home decor. It brings together form and function in a stylish package.
There aren’t a lot of smart products that are designed to look good in your home, but this is definitely one of them. While smart lamps and light fixtures from companies like Govee and Nanoleaf, with their flashy RGB lighting effects, are fun for a certain time and space, the Varmblixt is more versatile.
Both Philips Hue and LIFX offer some good-looking light fixtures, but they’re more expensive than Ikea’s and don’t come with replaceable bulbs. With its home-furnishing heritage, focus on low prices, and the help of artist Marcelis, Ikea has made a genuinely delightful smart lamp that’s not only beautiful but also affordable and practical.
Photos and video by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
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Jennifer Pattison Tuohy<![CDATA[Ring finally brings 4K video to its battery-powered doorbell camera]]>https://www.theverge.com/?p=9002702026-04-08T12:03:42-04:002026-03-25T10:11:55-04:00
The battery-powered doorbells deliver better video quality to Ring’s wire-free line, which has, to date, mostly offered 1080p HD resolution. The company says a “redesigned internal architecture” helps support power-hungry high-resolution video and AI features.
The video resolution boost will feed Ring’s new AI features, providing clearer pictures to enable the devices to capture more detail. The new products also have Ring’s Retinal Vision, an AI-powered capability that fine-tunes footage. Each camera comes with a free trial of Ring AI Pro ($19.99 a month), which gives you access to recorded video along with all of Ring’s latest AI features.
These include video descriptions that send a text description of what the camera saw, and Ring’s new Familiar Faces, which adds facial recognition to the cameras. There is also an AI-powered video search that lets you search footage for specific events, such as “kids on bikes” or “black cat on porch,” and Single Event Alerts, which sends just one combined alert when the camera recognizes similar motion, such as someone mowing a lawn.
The intent here is to reduce notification fatigue caused by security cameras and provide you with the information you need faster. However, recent backlash over Ring’s use of AI in its Search Party feature has created distrust among some users, who are concerned that their video is being processed in Ring’s cloud. There are several security camera companies that offer local video processing and storage if you are looking to avoid the cloud, including Reolink and Eufy. Another benefit of this option is that you don’t need to pay monthly subscription fees.
Along with the new camera lineup, Ring is also introducing solar accessories designed to help extend battery life. These include a Ring Solar Charger for $49.99 that integrates directly into the mounting design and a Ring Solar Panel for $59.99.
The new doorbell cameras and accessories are now available for pre-order on Amazon and will launch on April 29th.
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Jennifer Pattison Tuohy<![CDATA[Reolink’s first solar-powered floodlight camera offers wire-free home security]]>https://www.theverge.com/?p=9002042026-04-08T12:04:59-04:002026-03-25T09:00:00-04:00
Most floodlight cameras require hardwiring into your home’s existing wiring, which can limit placement options and be difficult to install. Reolink’s latest model can be mounted anywhere. With a built-in 7,800mAh battery, it can run for up to three months without sun, but just one hour of rays can fully power it for a day, according to Reolink.
The Solar Floodlight Camera features a 2K HD camera, a 150-degree field of view, 1000‑lumen floodlights, and a 110dB siren. It also offers full color night vision and 33 feet of infrared coverage. On‑device AI detection powers smart alerts for people, vehicles, and animals. It can also be paired with Reolink’s new AI hub for more advanced features, including video search and event descriptions.
One of the advantages of Reolink is that it offers local storage via a microSD card (sold separately), so there are no subscription fees for viewing recorded footage, and smart alerts are also free. Its cameras also work with Reolink’s Home Hub, starting at $80, and its NVR systems. The floodlight camera supports 2.4GHz / 5GHz Wi-Fi 6 connectivity and, along with the Reolink app, connects to smart home platforms including Google Home and Amazon Alexa.
This isn’t the first solar-powered floodlight camera. TP Link’s Tapo released a pan and tilt version for $100 last year that can track motion and also offers on-device smart alerts and local storage. Anker’s Eufy has a solar-powered floodlight camera with 2,000 lumens of light and 360-degree coverage, also with local storage, for $150.
Reolink also offers a wired floodlight camera with 360-degree pan-and-tilt capabilities, 4K resolution, and 3,000 lumens of light. That model costs $300, but has local AI-powered search built in, so no need for a separate hub.
Reolink’s Solar Floodlight Camera is available now on Reolink.com and Amazon for $87.99.
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Jennifer Pattison Tuohy<![CDATA[Nuki adds Apple Home Key to its smart lock]]>https://www.theverge.com/?p=8993302026-03-24T11:47:18-04:002026-03-24T09:00:00-04:00
This week, my top pick for a retrofit smart lock launched the first Aliro-compatible keypad. The Nuki Keypad 2 NFC ($179) brings tap-to-unlock via Apple’s Home Key and Samsung’s Digital Home Key to the Nuki smart lock, allowing you to tap your phone or smartwatch to unlock your door, just like you tap to pay.
Aliro is a new smart lock standard supported by all major platforms and handset manufacturers. It is designed to allow any smart lock to be securely unlocked by any smartphone, regardless of manufacturer, without requiring proprietary apps.
An open standard, Aliro stores a digital key in your phone’s wallet that you can tap to a compatible lock or keypad. Along with NFC, Aliro supports Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and Ultra Wideband (UWB) to unlock your door using your phone.
Nuki is a retrofit door lock, meaning you don’t need to remove your deadbolt to install it. Instead, you replace the interior thumb turn with the Nuki. This makes it simple to install and ideal for renters or people who can’t or don’t want to replace their entire lock. There is no visible smart lock on the outside of your door, so an exterior keypad is needed to enable tap-to-unlock.
Earlier this year, Aqara released the first full replacement door lock to support Aliro. The Aqara U400 also features UWB connectivity, enabling hands-free unlocking with Apple Home. The Nuki keypad only supports NFC, so it doesn’t work with hands-free unlocking.
The Keypad 2 NFC can be set to one of two modes: Smart Home Mode or Nuki App Mode. The former allows the lock to work with Apple Home and Samsung SmartThings and connect through Matter. The Nuki lock works with Thread, so you will need an Apple or Samsung SmartThings Matter/Thread hub to use the feature.
Nuki App Mode lets you use tap-to-unlock without being tied to a platform or a specific handset manufacturer. You only need an NFC-capable smartphone and the Nuki app.
The Aliro standard is still in its early stages, and compatibility remains limited. Nuki’s Martina Stix says that currently, while you can use the keypad with both Apple Home Key and Samsung Digital Home Key simultaneously, this only works if Apple Home is paired first and Samsung SmartThings is added later. “We’re constantly working with the mobile wallet providers to improve the interoperability between their systems,” she says. “But can not give any timelines about future changes or improvements.”
Along with tap-to-unlock, the new keypad offers fingerprint and keypad unlocking, and, of course, you can still use your existing key. While the keypad does not support auto-unlock over UWB, the Nuki lock offers a similar feature in its app. The keypad is now available and compatible with existing Nuki smart locks.
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Jennifer Pattison Tuohy<![CDATA[My favorite robot vacuum now supports Matter]]>https://www.theverge.com/?p=8967752026-03-19T06:07:41-04:002026-03-18T13:30:07-04:00
The Matic robot vacuum finally adds smart home control. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
This enables voice control and smart home integrations, features that have been missing from the robot since launch. Now you can set up automations such as “Run Matic when everyone leaves home,” “Dock the robot when I arrive home,” or “Stop Matic when the door unlocks.”
The Matter integration isn’t yet certified and doesn’t work with all the platforms, but it’s a good start. However, as it’s still unofficial, there are some rough edges.
The company notes in a Reddit post that while the Google Home and Home Assistant integrations are both “solid experiences,” Apple Home and Siri still “feel clunky.” There’s no Alexa support yet, but Matic says that will come with full certification.
Matic is a US-based robot vacuum manufacturer that was founded by two former Google Nest engineers. Its sole product, the Matic, stands out in the sea of robot vacuums for a few reasons: it rarely gets stuck, it cleans really well, it’s cute, but, annoyingly, it can’t get under your bed. The biggest plus for many people is that Matic can run entirely locally — there’s no internet connection required to clean your floors. All processing and mapping is done on the device.
This is one reason why the company took so long to integrate smart home control. Matter allows for full local control, but isn’t as straightforward to implement as connecting to cloud APIs, as most other integrations require.
According to a Reddit post from Matic, “Building it the right way took longer than we wanted, especially since everything about Matic runs on-device, locally, and privately. Making that play nicely with external ecosystems without giving up what makes Matic special wasn’t easy.” The company also says that only basic data, such as room names and operational state, is shared with the smart home platforms — no maps or personal info.
My experience so far has been positive. Setup was quick; I just tapped on a new “Connect to Smart Home App” option in the Matic app’s Settings, then selected the “Entering Pairing Mode” prompt.
The app directed me to open the Apple Home or Google Home app and set up a new device. I went with Apple, using its onboarding flow to scan the Matter setup code displayed on the vacuum’s small screen. It worked the first time, and added the vacuum to Apple Home, where I can start, stop, and pause a clean, direct it to vacuum or mop, and enable automations such as “When the last person leaves, start Matic.” I’m also able to control the robot with voice, using Siri to tell it to start, stop, and pause.
I particularly like the voice upgrade as a way of controlling the Matic. When I first started testing the robot, the only way to start it outside of scheduling it was through the app. They have since enabled the button on the robot to start a full clean, but voice control adds another option. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to get it to respond to a voice command to clean a specific room yet; that must be some of the “clunky” the Matic team is still working on.
I was a big fan of Matic even without smart home support or voice control, and this update makes it even easier to use — and the fact that it all still runs locally is a big win.
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Jennifer Pattison Tuohy<![CDATA[Ikea tried to build a smart home for everyone — here’s why it’s not working yet]]>https://www.theverge.com/?p=8960062026-03-17T14:55:19-04:002026-03-17T14:45:14-04:00
Ikea’s new smart bulbs, sensors, and remotes use Matter-over-Thread to connect to any compatible ecosystem — including Apple Home and Amazon Alexa. In theory. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
Ikea’s new Matter-over-Thread products were supposed to prove that the smart home could be cheap, accessible, and reliable. The highly anticipated line — which includes sensors, remotes, smart plugs, air-quality monitors, and smart bulbs — has most everything you need to build a smart home, with prices starting at $6. It’s an exciting idea, but it’s still not ready for primetime.
When I first got the Ikea devices in January, I had a lot of problems connecting them to my main platform, Apple Home. And it turned out I was not alone. Reddit forums and user reviews were full of reports of onboarding and connectivity issues. Many people were struggling to get devices connected to every smart home platform — from Apple Home to Google Home, and even Ikea’s own Dirigera hub. YouTuber Shane Whatley documented his experience trying to onboard to Apple Home in real time, and it’s fairly painful to watch.
While I waited for Ikea to figure out what was up, I tried some more creative troubleshooting in my home. The only (admittedly odd) fix I found was to force Apple Home not to use my main Home Hub, an Ethernet-connected Apple TV. Instead, I told it to use a HomePod, and was able to onboard an Ikea Bilresa button and a Grillplats smart plug that had repeatedly failed to connect. (Hat tip to Whatley for this idea.)
Why Apple would prefer I not use my high-powered, hardwired Home Hub is anyone’s guess. In any case, it didn’t last long. When I tried to add a Myggspray motion sensor as well, it failed. I then tried connecting the same Myggspray to Google Home using an Android phone, and it joined on the first try. Admittedly, I have a complicated network, but this points towards Apple causing issues, not my setup.
While Ikea said that “the products work seamlessly” for most customers, it did acknowledge the problems “some users” were experiencing. It published a troubleshooting page, and online forums quickly filled with advice on getting the gadgets connected. These range from simple “restart your phone” to the inexplicable “just leave it alone for a few days, and then it will work” to the more complicated “dive into your internet router’s network settings and enable IPv6” (Thread and Matter run over IPv6).
One intrepid smart home reviewer, A Smarter House, painstakingly combed through all the proposed fixes and tried as many as he could on as many platforms as possible. This excellent deep dive by the YouTuber and blogger goes through the issues and what he tried that worked. His conclusion: There is not a single problem, but multiple, and the problems differ depending on the platform you are using.
Over the last few weeks, Ikea has rolled out several updates to its Dirigera hub to improve Matter-over-Thread stability and updated the troubleshooting page with more potential fixes. Ikea initially pointed to “users’ varying and sometimes complicated home networking setups,” something that’s difficult to replicate in a lab. And sure, individual network setups are often problematic. But the widespread nature of the issues points to something bigger: a problem with the core promise of Matter.
Problems at the heart of the Matter
With Matter came the promise of compatibility with every ecosystem, from Apple Home and Amazon Alexa to Home Assistant and Google Home. The industry was watching Ikea’s rollout closely; it was the first time Matter devices had been tested at the scale the standard was designed for — inexpensive devices for lots of people that would just work.
“While Thread provides a robust and secure foundation at the network layer, optimizing the end-to-end experience requires ongoing collaboration across all these interconnected components.”
Matter is an interoperability standard, but interoperability with Matter devices is still largely elusive. Rather than being a plug-and-play solution for manufacturers — make a Matter device, and it will just work with any platform — there remains a huge onus on each manufacturer to ensure its devices work properly with each platform before release. Which is basically the same problem they had before Matter launched.
Only now manufacturers have a playbook to follow that supposedly makes their devices work with everyone — easy, right? Apparently not. My theory is that it’s how the platforms interact with the devices that is causing many of these problems — something manufacturers have no control over.
What is Thread?
Thread is a low-power, IP-based wireless protocol for smart home devices. It operates locally as a self-healing mesh network and promises low latency. It uses Thread Border Routers to connect to other networks and the internet.
Matter-over-Thread devices use Matter as the application layer, a shared language that enables compatibility across different smart home platforms.
This was somewhat implied by Thread Group, the organization that runs the Thread protocol, when I asked for comment on the issues users were seeing with Ikea’s Matter devices. “A seamless onboarding experience relies on orchestrating multiple components and layers within the smart home ecosystem, including the mobile app, application protocol, network protocol, platform software, and hardware design,” Ann Olivo, VP of marketing for Thread Group, told me via email. “While Thread provides a robust and secure foundation at the network layer, optimizing the end-to-end experience requires ongoing collaboration across all these interconnected components.”
That’s not to say Thread is blameless here. The protocol is frustratingly obtuse, and there are still too few troubleshooting solutions. Thread Border Routers remain a major pain point. Having too many, not enough, or the wrong ones can cause onboarding and connectivity issues. That last one is down to the problem of multiple TBRs from different companies still not working together. In practice, this means many homes now have several Thread Border Routers — Apple TVs, Eero routers, Echos, Google TV Streamers — that don’t always cooperate.
Additionally, Ikea may have shot itself in the foot by releasing its line of smart bulbs weeks after the remotes and sensors (they’re still not widely available). The latter are battery-powered, the former mains-powered. Thread is a low-power mesh network that relies on mains-powered repeaters to route signals. If you bought battery-powered buttons and sensors but have no mains-powered devices, that could be why you’ve seen devices drop off the network.
What is Ikea doing about it?
In 2024, the Connectivity Standards Alliance (the organization behind Matter) had to set up an interoperability lab to help manufacturers test their devices across all platforms. Whether Ikea took advantage of this or just took the promise of platform interoperability at face value isn’t clear. But either way, it now has a big mess to clean up.
The company is scrambling to improve reliability through software updates to its Dirigera hub, focused on improving Thread network performance and Matter onboarding stability. These include optimizing network communication and implementing “better cleanup of network settings after configuration changes, and fixes for connectivity disruptions that could cause device onboarding to fail,” according to David Granath, range manager at Ikea, who is leading the development of its smart home products. “In addition, we had an issue where outdated IPv6 network addresses could linger after configuration changes, such as turning IPv6 off on the WiFi router.”
You don’t need Ikea’s hub or app to onboard Matter devices — you should be able to just use your platform’s app. But the new Thread reset function in Ikea’s Home Smart app, which the company says “helps to rebuild the local Thread mesh if devices or border routers have fallen out of sync,” did help with some of my issues. Additionally, a Thread network check tool (iOS only) that shows your Thread network and which border routers are part of it is also useful. (There are a few other apps that offer this, too.)
Ikea’s stumble reveals a fundamental problem with Matter’s promise that you can build a device once and trust the platforms to handle the rest
Over the last week, I worked with Ikea and these new tools to troubleshoot my setup, and tried resetting and re-adding several devices, along with a new Bilresa button Ikea sent.
I got the new button connected to Apple Home on the first try, and yes — I cheered. I was also finally able to add the Timmerflotte temperature sensor to the Dirigera hub, and I had my first successful attempt at using Ikea devices with multi-admin (which lets you share devices across platforms), adding the Grillplats smart plug from Apple Home into Google Home.
However, an existing Kajplats lightbulb and Myggspray motion sensor still wouldn’t connect to Apple Home — giving me the now familiar “Unable to Add Accessory: Operation timed out” alert after about three minutes of trying to connect. But I was able to set up both of those in Google Home.
Ikea’s efforts may have improved things, but connecting devices still remains hit or miss. Even if it resolves the problems — and it looks like it’s moving in the right direction — Ikea’s stumble reveals a fundamental problem with Matter’s promise that you can build a device once and trust the platforms to handle the rest.
Until the major players prioritize interoperability, every manufacturer risks ending up where Ikea is now, scrambling for solutions in a sea of problems. Users who don’t turn to places like Reddit and YouTube for help will simply return their gadgets and move on. And the smart home will remain stuck in the early-adopter phase that Matter was supposed to leave behind.
While it’s clear there are ways to onboard these devices and keep them connected, the current experience is poor — not because any one company is failing, but because all of them are. And that’s not good news for Matter. Ultimately, what or who is at fault isn’t really the point; the point is that Matter promised it would just work, and it just doesn’t.
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Jennifer Pattison Tuohy<![CDATA[Hands on with Aqara’s new Matter-compatible camera]]>https://www.theverge.com/?p=8953262026-03-17T04:04:22-04:002026-03-17T04:00:00-04:00
The Aqara G350 is the first camera you can buy that has support for Matter.
The first Matter camera is here — sort of. Camera support came to the smart home standard last year, and Aqara’s Camera Hub G350 is the first to support it. The G350, which was announced at CES, launched this week and is a pan-and-tilt indoor security camera with up to 4K video resolution.
Today, the G350 only supports Matter on Samsung SmartThings, as none of the other platforms have added Matter 1.5 yet. I’ve only had the camera setup for a day, and it took several firmware updates before I could connect it as a Matter camera. So far, all it can do is stream a live feed, which is far less than what Samsung promises Matter cameras in SmartThings will do. But there’s plenty of potential here.
The G350 has impressive specs for an indoor camera. It boasts dual-lenses — a 4K wide-angle lens and a 2.5K telephoto lens — and up to 9x hybrid zoom. A compact pan-tilt mechanism provides 360-degree coverage with auto-tracking for people and pets, and a physical lens shutter activates when the camera is turned off.
Along with Matter, the Aqara G350 supports Apple’s HomeKit Secure Video service and can connect to Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and other platforms via the cloud. You can also store footage locally on a microSD card, and RTSP support enables streaming video to platforms like Home Assistant and NVRs. Aqara offers its own cloud storage service, which is end-to-end encrypted.
While the G350 worked perfectly in the Aqara app, my Matter experience with it was less so. My first attempts to onboard the camera directly to SmartThings by scanning its Matter code failed, adding the device as a hub rather than a camera. (Like many of Aqara’s cameras, the G350 is also a smart home hub for Aqara’s Zigbee devices, plus it’s a Matter controller, bridge, and Thread Border Router.)
Instead, I added it to Aqara’s app. Here, it showed as a camera and eventually offered me several firmware updates, one of which brought Matter 1.5 support, finally allowing me to add it to SmartThings as a camera using Matter’s multi-admin feature. (You’ll need a SmartThings Matter Controller to connect to the platform.)
One of the promised benefits of Matter-supported cameras is the ability to manage all your cameras through your main smart home platform, without being limited by brand.
Today, if you have a mix of cameras — say a Ring Doorbell, an Aqara indoor camera, and a Eufy floodlight camera — you’ll need to use multiple apps to access all the features. And while you can stream live views from many different camera brands with a platform like Alexa, you can’t view recorded video or adjust settings like pan and tilt without going to the manufacturer’s app. Matter supports all those features and could bring you closer to using just one app to manage your smart home.
Integrating cameras into your smart home app also allows for more advanced automations, such as “when I unlock the door, turn on the lights, and turn the camera off.”
With Matter, security cameras can support live video and audio streaming, two-way talk, and local and remote access. The standard also allows pan-tilt-zoom controls for the cameras, the setting of detection and privacy zones, and continuous and event-based recording with the ability to store footage locally or in a cloud service (with the option of end-to-end encryption) — all within the smart home platform app.
According to Samsung, the SmartThings app should offer all of those features, though not all are available yet. I was only able to view a livestream, take a snapshot, and use two-way talk. While I saw controls for pan, tilt, and zoom, and a tab for video history, I wasn’t able to use them. According to the Matter Alpha blog, this is because the G350 doesn’t support pan-tilt controls in Matter yet, but they should be coming via a firmware update.
The livestream was clear and responsive, and it loaded instantly with no lag, with only a second or two of initial buffering. Two-way talk worked well, and I could hear and be heard clearly. Matter is a local protocol, and you really see its benefits here.
A settings page showed options for motion-activated recording, adjusting the camera’s resolution and volume, and creating presets to monitor different areas. However, only the volume and resolution buttons worked. I couldn’t toggle on recording or view any recorded video in the SmartThings app’s History tab, even with a microSD card in the camera. The scrollable timeline just said “no history.”
It’s not clear whether you’ll need a subscription to view recorded footage through SmartThings, or if you’ll need to use Aqara’s service, starting at $4.99 a month / $49.99 annually, if you don’t use local storage. I’ve reached out to Samsung to confirm and will update this article when I know more.
There wasn’t any option in the app to enable smart alerts, such as facial recognition and package and vehicle alerts, that the G350 offers. For those, you’ll still need to rely on Aqara’s app.
I did have a weird experience with Android versus iOS. Only the livestream showed in the SmartThings app on my Galaxy S22 Ultra, no controls. It also just showed a blank settings screen. But on my iPhone 17 Pro, the controls were visible, as was the settings page.
As mentioned, only SmartThings currently supports Matter cameras. It’s likely Apple will follow suit (at some point), and Home Assistant has said it’s working on support. But I’m not expecting Google Home or Amazon Alexa to get on board anytime soon — if ever. Neither has committed to support, and both have their own camera ecosystems. So, the simple setup and seamless management of security cameras in a single app may still be a long way off.
However, while my first experience with cameras in Matter was very basic, it shows promise. I can see a future (if everyone gets on board) where Matter camera support resembles Apple’s HomeKit Secure Video — only more open and interoperable.
The benefits of Apple’s implementation — cameras more integrated into your smart home, brand-agnostic, and secure and private — are features every smart home user would be happy to see. Right now, all we have is the first camera to support Matter, and most of its features aren’t working yet. But it’s a start.
Photography by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
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Jennifer Pattison Tuohy<![CDATA[How to ditch Ring’s surveillance network]]>https://www.theverge.com/?p=8909102026-03-23T11:53:05-04:002026-03-11T10:31:27-04:00
There are lots of options for video doorbells that store footage locally — including these from Eufy, Reolink, SwitchBot, Tapo, and Aqara. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
Recently, Ring ran a Super Bowl ad for its Search Party feature showing how it uses AI to scan footage from Ring cameras and video doorbells to help find lost dogs. It sounds neighborly — until you consider that the same system could theoretically search footage for anything or anyone.
Combined with longstanding concerns around Ring’s ties to law enforcement — including a recent proposed integration with law enforcement technology company Flock Safety — the ad has prompted some users to look for alternatives to Ring.
If you are uncomfortable continuing to use your Ring cameras and are wondering what to do, we’ve rounded up all your options: From how to lock down your Ring hardware if you don’t want to or can’t swap it out, to doorbell cameras that don’t rely on cloud-processing — including those that store footage locally.
Why are people looking to ditch Ring?
The core concern is that Ring footage is processed and stored in the cloud. While Ring encrypts videos in transit and at rest, the company can access footage while it’s processed for features such as AI-powered video descriptions, video search, and Search Party.
While Ring has said that it does not share data or video footage with ICE or any federal law enforcement agencies, and that only its users can share their footage with local law enforcement, many people are concerned about what might happen if Ring changes its policies.
Ring maintains that it is not conducting mass surveillance. However, Ring’s founder and CEO Jamie Siminoff continues to be vocal in his belief that more cameras and more AI can help solve crime. He was the one who brought back video sharing with law enforcement after his predecessor ended the company’s prior police-sharing feature.
Ring — like any cloud provider — can be compelled to provide footage in response to legal requests, but Ring’s cozy relationship with law enforcement is cause for concern for many users. Additionally, the recent case of Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance, in which Google retrieved supposedly lost Nest doorbell footage, illustrates how cloud video can persist longer than you might expect.
“I do not trust Ring not to have a deal with Flock later down the line.”
Distrust of Ring’s motives appears to be widespread, prompting an uptick of interest in its competition. Representatives for smart home security companies SimpliSafe and Reolink told me they saw a significant increase in web traffic and, in some cases, sales, in February following Ring’s Super Bowl ad.
I also spoke to some users who have decided to switch. Tim Anderson, a former IT director in the Chicago suburbs, told me that it was the Search Party ad pushed him to reconsider Ring. “I didn’t get the cameras to be a dragnet for law enforcement; I got them to protect my property.”
Another longtime customer said he removed his Ring doorbell after hearing about the Flock integration (which Ring has since cancelled) and is now considering a system that gives him full local control like Reolink. “I do not trust Ring not to have a deal with Flock later down the line,” he told me.
If you’re similarly concerned about the direction Ring is moving, this article lays out the options you have for using a video doorbell or security cameras in your home without worrying about potentially feeding a surveillance network.
Here, I go over how to opt out of Ring’s new features if you want to keep your hardware. Then I cover how to choose a new doorbell if you want to ditch Ring — including the difference between cloud versus local storage, what end-to-end encryption is, and the best options for each case.
Keep Ring, but on your terms
Removing and replacing installed security cameras can be a hassle. If you want to keep your existing hardware but opt out of features that could potentially contribute to broader surveillance networks, here are some steps you can take to lock down your doorbell and other Ring cameras:
Angle the camera to only catch your front door or property. If that’s not possible, enable privacy zones in the app to block out any “public” areas.
Opt out of a cloud subscription. If you don’t pay for Ring’s subscription service, the Ring doorbell will not record video, but you’ll have to be quick to answer that alert on your phone if you want to see who is at the door.
Turn off AI features. If you want the recorded video but don’t like the idea of the AI features, including the recently added facial recognition, turn them off in the Ring app settings under Ring AI Features.
Turn off Search Party. This feature allows Ring’s AI to search the footage of your outdoor cameras for lost dogs and wildfires (currently). This is enabled by default. Go to the Control Center in the Ring app, select Search Party, and click through to disable.
Opt out of Community Requests. This feature allows users to share footage with local law enforcement through Ring’s technology partner Axon. (Ring cancelled its planned Flock Safety integration.) Go to the Neighbors section of the Ring app, tap the settings icon, select Neighborhood Settings, then Feed Settings, toggle off Community Requests. You can also disable the Neighbors app integration entirely through the Control Center.
Enable end-to-end encryption. Ring already encrypts footage in transit and at rest, but many of its features require access to your footage for processing. E2EE locks it down so that only you, not Ring, can access it. You can enable this on most Ring cameras, but you do lose access to several features, including rich notifications and person alerts.
Pick a doorbell that doesn’t process video in the cloud
Internet-connected home security cameras store and process recorded footage in three ways:
Cloud first — Video is processed and stored on a company’s servers. Examples include Ring, Nest, Wyze, Arlo, and Blink. These systems typically require a subscription, and while most also offer local storage, it’s often deprecated in favor of cloud video.
Local first — Video is stored and processed locally on the device, a hub, or a local server. Examples include Eufy, Tapo, Reolink, and Aqara. Cloud storage may be available as a backup.
Hybrid — Video is processed locally and stored in the cloud with end-to-end encryption. Examples include Ecobee, Philips Hue, and cameras that support Apple HomeKit Secure Video.
Cloud first is the least private option. Alongside concerns about companies intentionally sharing your video are the worries about unintentionally doing so.
Wyze, Ring, and Anker-owned Eufy have suffered major security flaws in the past that exposed their users’ videos. While all three companies say they have resolved the issues, the concerns about the vulnerability of the cloud are real.
If you don’t want any cloud exposure, choose local storage. If you want cloud convenience with stronger protections, choose E2EE.
If you do choose to use the cloud to store your footage, look for companies that require two-factor authentication and offer a high level of encryption, ideally end-to-end, which is what the hybrid method uses. This ensures the company cannot access your videos.
Local storage is the most private, as in theory it never leaves your home. A big advantage here is that you don’t have to pay any subscription fees to store your video, though the base stations that most companies offer for expanded storage cost around $200, adding to the initial cost.
One downside of both local and hybrid systems is that local processing of footage to generate smart alerts for packages, people, etc., isn’t as effective as cloud-based solutions, which can leverage their servers’ greater computational power to analyze footage. But that may change.
You also can’t get “rich” notifications without the cloud, which includes a snapshot of what the camera saw. However, if all you want to know is who is at your front door, you might not miss these features.
Put simply, if you don’t want any cloud exposure, choose local storage. If you want cloud convenience with stronger protections, choose an end-to-end encrypted system.
Best doorbells with end-to-end encryption
The cloud isn’t inherently bad. If a service uses end-to-end encryption, no one but you can access your footage, no matter where it’s stored, so companies can’t be compelled to hand over footage to authorities.
These are the current options that support E2EE (in addition to Ring, as previously mentioned). One notable benefit of these over the local storage options mentioned later is a more polished app experience and easier setup, but you will have to pay to store your video in the cloud.
Power: Battery or hardwired/ Video: 1080p / Connectivity: Dual-band Wi-Fi / Smart alerts: Person, vehicle, packages, animals, facial recognition / Cloud storage: iCloud +, starting at $1 a month
HomeKit Secure Video is Apple’s smart home video solution that processes footage from compatible cameras locally on your Apple TV or HomePod. This enables smart alerts for people, animals, vehicles, and packages, as well as facial recognition through the Apple Home app, where you can view livestreams and recorded video. It stores video in the cloud using E2EE.
HKSV has some limitations: you need to be in Apple’s ecosystem and have an iCloud + subscription. Video resolution is limited to 1080p, and the smart alerts are unreliable. Another problem is that only three brands of doorbells support HomeKit Secure Video – Aqara, Logitech, and Belkin — and Belkin’s Wemo has been discontinued.
If you go this route, consider the Aqara G410, which I cover in the local storage section, or the older (and cheaper) Aqara G4.
Power: Hardwired / Video: 2K / Connectivity: Dual-band Wi-Fi, Zigbee / Smart alerts: People, animals, vehicles, and packages (with subscription) / Cloud storage: 24 hours free, $39.99 a year
I haven’t tested the Hue doorbell yet, but on paper, it’s a solid, privacy-focused option that offers end-to-end encryption, 24 hours of free video history, and locally processed alerts. But you do have to pay for smart alerts.
It’s a good option if you’re in the Hue ecosystem — it connects to the Hue bridge via Zigbee, so your lights can turn on when it detects motion.
Best doorbells with local storage
If you don’t want to store your video in anyone’s cloud, you have a few options.
A simpler option is to choose a video doorbell that offers local storage, meaning video is recorded and stored locally on a microSD card in the device or on a home base or base station. Popular options include Anker’s Eufy, TP-Link’s Tapo, Reolink, and Aqara.
If you have just one or two cameras, the microSD card route is easiest. Bear in mind, you will need to buy these separately in most cases. If you are looking to build out a larger security system, a hub lets you store video from multiple cameras in one place and offers more storage capacity.
Another benefit of a hub setup from an established security company is the ability to run local AI to provide “smart alerts” — notifications when the camera spots a person, package, animal, and vehicle — as well as more advanced features like facial recognition and video search.
Most systems let you view locally stored footage on your smartphone, both when you’re on your local network and when you’re away from home, using a peer-to-peer connection between your phone and the device. This also means you should still get recordings if the internet goes down.
I’ve been testing products from Eufy, Reolink, and Aqara for several years now, and one thing you will miss if you switch from a cloud-first brand like Ring is the app experience. While the user interfaces have improved significantly, they are still often obtuse and complicated to navigate. Eufy and Tapo have the cleanest apps, followed by Aqara, whereas Switchbot and Reolink’s are rougher around the edges.
Here’s a rundown of the best video doorbells with local storage:
Power: Battery or hardwired / Video: 2K / Connectivity: 2.4GHz Wi-Fi / Smart alerts: People, packages, pets, and vehicles / Optional cloud storage: $2.79 per month
This is a great budget option that ticks most boxes. It can record to a microSD card in the device or to Tapo’s H500 Hub and offers 24/7 recording when wired. Read my full review.
Power: Battery or hardwired / Video: 2K video / Connectivity: Dual-band Wi-Fi / Smart alerts: Person, vehicle, packages / Optionalcloud storage: Reolink Cloud $5.99 a month
A good option for users looking to integrate cameras into an advanced local networking setup, Reolink supports local storage via microSD or Reolink’s Home Hub and works with FTP servers, Home Assistant, and NAS systems. It supports protocols such as RTSP and ONVIF. Read my review.
Power: Battery or hardwired / Video: 2K / Connectivity: Dual-band Wi-Fi, Thread, Zigbee / Smart alerts: Person and motion (more with subscription) / Optional cloud storage: HomeKit Secure Video or Aqara’s HomeGuardian
This is a good choice if you want to use Apple’s HomeKit Secure Video or if you’re invested in Aqara’s smart home system, as it also acts as a Zigbee, Thread, and Matter smart home hub.
Along with HKSV, it has local storage via a microSD card housed in the included 95dB indoor chime/hub. It will also work with Aqara’s upcoming Home Station M410 and supports RTSP, so you can send its feed to a third-party client such as your NAS or Home Assistant.
Power: Battery or hardwired / Video: 2K / Connectivity: Dual-band Wi-Fi / Smart alerts: Person and motion (vehicle, pet, and facial recognition with HomeBase) / Optional cloud storage: Eufy Cloud $3.99 a month
Eufy has one of the best apps and most robust smart alerts, including free local facial recognition. If you want more bells and whistles from your local cameras, this is the one to get. Eufy is also the only company that has a removable battery option — all the others listed require you to remove the doorbell to charge the battery (although you’ll need to bump up to the C31 model for $35 more).
It offers local storage via a microSD card and, when connected to the Eufy HomeBase 3, provides free vehicle and pet detection, facial recognition, and more storage. Eufy says all processing is local, except when you enable push notifications, which “temporarily” store images in the cloud.
Note: Eufy had some major security issues in 2022, including that its video streams were not natively end-to-end encrypted, as it had previously stated. The company says it has fully rearchitected its systems and hired a third-party security researcher to audit them. Today, Eufy maintains that “Our security solutions have been designed to operate locally and, wherever possible, avoid using the cloud,” according to spokesperson Brett White.
Power: Battery or hardwired / Video: 2K / Connectivity: 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi / Smart alerts: Person and motion (vehicle and pet with subscription) / Optional cloud storage: $3.99 a month/ $34.99 a year
The SwitchBot doorbell is a good solution for people who want an interior screen for viewing doorbell footage and don’t want to rely on cloud-based options like Amazon’s Echo Show or Google Nest smart displays. It comes with a separate small screen that serves as a hub, intercom, and chime, and can store up to 4GB of recorded video (upgradeable).
Switchbot just launched a $259.99 AI Hub with expandable storage up to a whopping 16TB that enables AI features such as on-device facial recognition.
It comes down to who you trust
There are a lot of options outside of Ring, and while I didn’t discuss them here, companies such as Google Nest, Arlo, and Blink (also Amazon-owned) all offer good cloud-first solutions and don’t have advertised relationships with law enforcement. You can read more about these in my guide to the Best Video Doorbells.
One thing to note when looking for the most privacy-focused video doorbell is that the local storage brands listed here are Chinese companies, while those that mostly use the cloud are based in the US or Europe.
This leaves you to weigh two different types of trust: trusting the technology or trusting the company behind it. My advice is to go with a company you trust.
