Smart Home

Using the wrong screws when attaching the camera to its solar panel could accidentally puncture the battery’s metal casing, according to the USCPSC. To date there have been 13 reports of batteries overheating while six exploded and caught fire. Wyze is offering full refunds, replacements, or gift cards to its online store.

The company’s new agentic developer tools are giving the discontinued smart displays a second life as a smart home controller, family message board, art display, or anything you can dream up. The move comes shortly after Microsoft announced Project Solara. Meta says the tools are hardware-agnostic and work with many existing devices. Still, anything that breathes new life into a defunct gadget is a good thing.

You all know how much we here at The Verge love market consolidation. SwitchBot’s acquisition of Nanoleaf offers all that, plus a sprinkling of something extra.

Pricing details weren’t specified when the Weather Station was announced in January, but you can now buy one through SwitchBot’s online store and Amazon for $109.99. Battery life is estimated to be up to a full year thanks to its low-power 7.5-inch E Ink screen that displays indoor and outdoor conditions or synced calendar data.

Its PowerDetect UV Reveal now comes in four colors — brown, green, blue, and ivory. The earthy neutral palettes feature metallic accents and look surprisingly good — for a robot. I’ve been testing the blue one, and I like how it blends in with my kitchen cabinets.

The new feature in Google Home lets you add your pets’ faces to your indoor cameras, so you get alerts that tell you which cat is walking on the counter rather than just that a cat is traversing the kitchen. To enable it, type your pet’s name and species into the Ask Home search box in the Home app; you need Google Home Premium Advanced ($20/month).

The smart lighting company best known for its modular RGB lighting panels has been acquired by OneRobotics, the parent company of Switchbot. According to a filing on the Hong Kong stock exchange, the purchase will take two years to complete.

Alongside a $35 outdoor camera, $23 plug-in indoor cam, and $45 wired video doorbell launched last week, the retailer has leaked a floodlight camera at the end of a promo video. Question is, will it or the rumored Onn speaker launch first?

The Aqara U500 lineup includes three separate models. There’s a “Rim Lock” for standard entrance and interior doors that doesn’t require a mortise, a “Gate Lock” for metal grille-style doors, and even a lock that’s designed for glass doors. They’re only available in Europe for now though.

9to5Google reported Friday morning that a Nest support page had been updated to say that nearly all Chromecast devices except for the most recent one that was released in 2022 were no longer receiving critical security updates. Later, the page changed back and once again shows all Chromecasts except the 1st gen version are still getting critical updates.

It’s combining Google Home APIs with Gemini smart home features, so ISPs, security companies, and carriers can “build monetizable, proactive services” for your homes. In other words, Google wants other companies to put Google Home’s AI in their products — and charge you a Google Home Premium subscription. With manufacturers now able to build Gemini-powered speakers and cameras, it seems entirely possible that Google may never make another Nest device again.

While the Google Home Speaker was nowhere to be seen at I/O, the company did announce it’s getting back into the third-party smart speaker game. A new Speaker Reference Design will let manufacturers build Gemini-powered smart speakers, and rumors point to a Walmart Onn speaker being the first.

Come join me for a robot vacuum-themed subscriber AMA. Drop your questions in the post linked below, and I’ll be answering them starting at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET.

Its new DIY security system, ADT Blu, revives the Blue by ADT name (the company’s last attempt at an off-the-shelf system) and uses the same hardware as ADT Plus (its self- or pro-installed system). But it’s DIY-only and can be bought on Amazon. The other difference? No Google Nest cameras. The system comes with new ADT cameras. Pricing for ADT Blue starts at $249.

Today, the company announced that on May 27th, it will reveal when its Cyber X bionic quad-track stair-climbing system will launch and, presumably, how much it will cost. The robot that can transport a robot vacuum up a flight of stairs will arrive alongside three new X60 Pro series robots, the most intriguing of which features Dreame’s first dual-joint bionic robotic arm that can extend a mop pad into tight corners and under furniture.

The $109.99 to $139.99 TV Backlight 3 is priced between Govee’s TV Backlight 3 Pro and older Backlight 3 Lite, but could be a compelling alternative to both. It uses two cameras with new hybrid glass-plastic lenses and increased resolving power to more accurately mirror your TV’s onscreen colors onto surrounding walls using dense LED light strips.

The Bluetooth range is dependent on what obstacles may lie between you and your grill, but the battery life for KitchenAid’s new $99.99 wireless Smart Thermometer is equally impressive. A full charge gets you 24 hours of use but a five minute quick-charge delivers up to five hours of remotely monitoring meat temps.

I’m not saying Dyson should weaponize its next camera-controlled AI air purifier, but the name does suit it.

A new “Google Home Display” has been spotted in the code for the iOS Google Home app. We already knew that Google is launching a Gemini-powered Home Speaker this spring, but this suggests that a Nest Hub-like device is also in the works — Google’s first since 2021.

The home security company launched two new products today: the Ring Spotlight Cam (2nd Gen) at $169.99 and the Ring Floodlight Cam (2nd Gen) at $199.99. Both feature Ring’s Retinal 2K video resolution, bringing higher-res support to Ring’s base models.

The Narwal Freo Z10 Turbo uses a laser mapping system instead of a camera to navigate your home, but it includes a base station that empties dirt and sterilizes the mopping pads, and a mode that deep cleans carpets with boosted suction and multiple passes. It will be available on May 18th for $899.99 and discounted to $599.99 until the end of the month.

Google says it has “optimized backend processing” for smart home device controls, alarms, and timers to make Gemini for Home better at the basics. Improved age-gating and content controls mean it should now be able to give you the recipe for a margarita too.