Smart Home

The new nine-piece collection created as part of a collaboration with Microsoft debuted at Ikea’s physical stores at the beginning of the month. But if you don’t have easy local access to meatballs and flatpack furniture, the Yxstaby collection, which includes accessories and furniture that draw inspiration from Xbox controllers, is now available through Ikea’s online store, too.

It lacks the panning and tilting capabilities of Wyze’s $79.98 Solar Cam Pan 2K, but for $10 less the new $69.98 Wyze Solar Cam pairs a 2K color night vision camera with a 1.77W solar panel that keeps a 5,200mAh battery charged with just an hour of sunlight a day. The included solar panel can be detached and installed up to 10 feet away for better sun exposure, while an optional microSD card can store months of motion-activated video recordings.

According to 9to5Mac, the latest HomePod 27.2 beta adds Sound Glow support on the second-gen HomePod and first-gen HomePod Mini. Apple announced the feature with the HomePod Mini 2 last week, and says it can sync the HomePod’s LEDs colors to match album art or Apple’s ambient soundscapes.

Then check out this episode of TWiT’s Tech News Weekly, where I chat with host Mikah Sargent for an hour about HomeView, Apple TV, HomePod Mini 2, and the Apple Home Collection. (Audio options here.)

Minor updates to the Mini, along with a price bump and a delay for Siri AI, are disappointing — but I love the new pink color and that I can properly pair the smart speaker with my Mac. I’m excited that Apple added far-field mics to the Apple TV 4K (4th gen) and, of course, thrilled that remote now has Find My. But that price … ouch.

Apple is charging $279 for all HomeView repairs, just $20 less than the smart home hub costs new. It’s $39 with AppleCare, but otherwise an official repair won’t make much sense. It’s another pricing problem for HomeView, which ships without either a mount or power adapter if you want it wall-mounted.

I dove deep into smart home menus and swiped through endless faces to bring you a closer look at the features of Apple’s newest gadget for your home.

We’ll have hands-on impressions shortly, but take a look at Apple’s smart display hub on table and wall-mount setups.

This one is from Brian Tong, taking a quick look at the HomeView display units from all sides. How does it look to you?

Check out this in-person look at Apple’s new hub device, complete with a hand for scale. “It’s tiny and cute!”

A last-minute report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman says that Apple’s smart home hub will be called HomeView, not HomePad and will ship in mid november. He says it won’t be an iPad-like experience with an App Store, and will offer a much more limited experience.

MacRumors reports:

Following the news that LG may be making devices for Apple’s smart home platform, leaker itspdfu spotted evidence that Schneider Electric is developing a smart thermostat and temperature sensor. Schneider has played a major role in developing the Matter standard and recently bought smart home device manufacturer Shelly — a move that suddenly makes more sense.

Following reports on the Google Home subreddit from many users unable to change the color of their connected smart lights yesterday, Google responded that it investigated the problem and rolled out a fix that appears to have resolved the peculiar issue.