Jennifer Pattison Tuohy

Senior Reviewer, Smart Home

With Alexa Plus, Amazon finally reinvents its best product

The new voice assistant has been a long time coming, but it won’t get here all at once.

Jennifer Pattison TuohyMar 1, 2025

Jennifer Pattison TuohyFeb 28, 2025

Alexa Plus is much easier to chat with.

I grabbed a few minutes with the new Alexa at Amazon’s event and was impressed. Gone is the need for “Alexa speak.” Instead, I created a morning wake-up routine just by talking about what I wanted, and controlled several smart home devices without knowing their names or locations.

Of all the new features Amazon announced for the voice assistant, talking to Alexa and having it reliably understand you is easily the biggest improvement.

Hands-on with Alexa Plus in the smart home

Jennifer Pattison TuohyFeb 27, 2025

Amazon Alexa event live blog: all the news from the keynote

Todd Haselton, Jennifer Pattison Tuohy and 1 moreFeb 26, 2025

Jennifer Pattison TuohyFeb 26, 2025

We’re on the ground at Amazon’s event.

The show is set to start at 10AM ET. We’re in a (chilly) line outside, waiting to get live blogging. Follow along for all the big announcements.

Selfie of Jennifer Pattison Tuohy and Chris Welch standing outside a building with an Amazon sign.

Image: Jen Tuohy / The Verge

Jennifer Pattison TuohyFeb 25, 2025

Eve adds a Matter over Thread dimmer switch.

The smart home company that’s all in on the new wireless protocol has announced its much-anticipated dimmer switch.

The hardwired switch will ship in mid-March for $49.95 and works with single-pole and 3-way configurations. Matter over Thread support means it works with Apple Home, Google Home, Alexa, and Samsung SmartThings over a local mesh network, but requires a Thread border router.

<em>The Eve Dimmer Switch has a hybrid touch button/rocker dimmer design for on-device dimming and an on/off function.</em>

<em>The switch can pair directly to your smart home platform app as well as the Eve app, which adds more customization options, including setting a preferred brightness level, LED status settings, and on-device scheduling.</em>

<em>The new dimmer switch does require a neutral wire</em>.

1/3

The Eve Dimmer Switch has a hybrid touch button/rocker dimmer design for on-device dimming and an on/off function.

Image: Eve Systems

What to expect from Amazon’s big Alexa event this week

A smarter Alexa, new Echo hardware, and a lot of Panos Panay. We’re pumped!

Jennifer Pattison TuohyFeb 24, 2025

Jennifer Pattison TuohyFeb 21, 2025

My iPhone’s Action Button will soon summon Taylor Swift.

The iOS 18.4 beta adds a new Ambient Music category to the Control Center, bringing Chill, Productivity, Sleep, and Wellbeing buttons that let you start an Apple Music playlist with a swipe and tap.

They’re linked to a playlist by default, but 9to5Mac reports you can customize them to kick off any playlist in your library and assign one to the Action Button.

“Ultimate TayTay,” your time has come.

iOS 18.4 beta adds Ambient Music to Control Center via Apple Music - 9to5Mac

[9to5mac.com]

Jennifer Pattison TuohyFeb 21, 2025

Skylight just doubled its subscription price.

Right after I published this review, the price increased to $79 from $39. That’s a big jump. While optional, the subscription adds the Sidekick feature, which I found very useful, so I’ve updated the review with my thoughts.

The company says it will honor the old price for current users, that the new price “reflects the full suite of new features” it has added to Plus, and that it will “continue investing in Plus through new features and expanding Sidekick.”