smart home
LG acquires smart home platform Athom to bring third-party connectivity to its ThinQ ecosytem
LG has acquired an 80% stake in Athom, a Dutch smart home company and maker of the Homey smart home hub. According to LG’s announcement, it will purchase the remaining…
Quilt heat pump sports sleek design from veterans of Apple, Tesla and Nest
The heat pump startup unveiled its first products and revealed details about performance, pricing and availability.
US government downgrades bug in Chirp Systems app that contained hardcoded password
CISA said Chirp Systems ignored the federal agency and the reporting security researcher.
For years, a coalition of companies, including Google, Amazon and Apple — the Connectivity Standards Alliance — has been trying to get Matter, the smart home networking protocol, off the…
Amazon might never formally endorse AirPlay or Google’s media-casting tech. But the company will be the first to support Matter Casting, the video- and audio-beaming feature of the Matter smart home standard,…
ABB this week announced that it has acquired Eve Systems, a German firm best known for a broad range of smart home accessories, including smart lights, plugs, air monitors and…
Ring’s founder will become Latch’s CEO after selling a stealth startup to the company
Jamie Siminoff has been busy. The Ring founder quietly exited the advisor role he took back in March after exiting the brand’s CEO role. He had been at Amazon since…
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Why the Matter logo was everywhere at CES 2023
AR/VR/MX took center stage at CES 2023. Automotive trends got a lot of love, as well, as did robotics and the metaverse. Heck, even pee-related gadgets had their moment to shine last week in Vegas. Another trend, however, was ever-present, if decidedly more understanded. The last few years have been…
Bird Buddy’s new smart hummingbird feeder can photograph and identify 350 different bird species
Bird Buddy, the maker of a smart bird feeder that snaps photos of your bird visitors, which are collected in a companion mobile app, is out today with another product…
CES isn’t as consumer-focused as it once was, despite the overt branding. (CES stands for “Consumer Electronics Show.”) Indeed, automotive and enterprise vendors have encroached on the Las Vegas show…
Amazon is now replacing customers’ discontinued Cloud Cams with new Blink Mini devices
Amazon is now offering to replace customers’ discontinued Cloud Cam smart cameras with a new Blink Mini following its decision earlier this year to shut down its Cloud Cam line…
Samsung and Google partner to speed up Matter-enabled smart home setups
Samsung and Google announced a new partnership today that will allow easier setup for Matter-enabled devices on both Samsung SmartThings and Google Home systems. At the Samsung Developer Conference held…
European Union lawmakers have proposed a new set of product rules to apply to smart devices that’s intended to compel makers of Internet-connected hardware — such as ‘smart’ washing machines…
Amazon today announced the addition of Ring Intercom to its list of smartphone offerings. The product is designed to be an add-on to existing apartment intercom systems. The company has…
The average person doesn’t have a chance with the smart home
If you’ve been shopping for a major appliance lately, you might have noticed that everything — from ovens to fridges, TVs, dishwashers and microwaves — is equipped with Wi-Fi connectivity.…
GE Lighting adds smart thermostats, security cameras and other bright ideas
GE Lighting, a Savant company, today expands its smart home lineup with a smart thermostat, a temperature sensor, a suite of security cameras and a crate of new lighting products.…
Schlage’s new locks open your front door with your Apple Watch
We’ve seen no shortage of smart door locks over the years, but it seems as if the giants in the industry are starting to wake up to the future as…
Software for hardware design is all the rage in the VC funding world these days. Following recent rounds from Flux and Bild, nTopology just announced a sizable series D of…
Level Home acquires fellow smart home startup Dwelo, raises $100M
Seems there’s a fair bit of M&A news on the smart home front these days. Following Ecobee’s acquisition by generator company Generac, Level Home today announced that it’s acquiring Dwelo,…
Generator-maker Generac set to buy smart thermostat startup Ecobee
Wisconsin-based generator producer Generac today announced plans to acquire Ecobee. A bit of a surprising match on the face of it, though not the first time we’ve seen a more…
Yo-Kai Express introduces Takumi, a smart home cooking appliance
Yo-Kai Express is known for autonomous restaurant technology for venues like office campuses, malls and hotels. As people continue staying home because of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, the company is…
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Nest Audio review
The Nest Audio is a surprisingly hefty thing. It’s compact, but dense, packing a lot into a footprint not much taller than an iPhone. At 2.65 pounds, it’s 2.5x the weight of the original Home. It’s clear that, above all, Google was interested in offering up something premium, in spite…
Japanese startup Nature launches Remo 3, its home appliance smart remote, in the US and Canada
Nature, a Japanese hardware startup that focuses on IoT home devices, announced the launch of Nature Remo 3, its home appliance smart remote, in the United States and Canada today.…
Meal kits have had a rush of interest in recent months, with people turning to them to vary the pace of (and in some cases, completely replace) making meals at…
Massachusetts-based smart home company Savant Systems this morning announced a deal to acquire GE Lighting. The division has existed as part of General Electric since 1911, with its origins reaching…
Visual One smartens up home security cameras with object and action recognition
“Smart” cameras are to be found in millions of homes, but the truth is they’re not all that smart. Facial recognition and motion detection are their main tricks… but what…
Nest to require two-factor authentication starting this spring
Google Nest, the smart home brand for Google’s line of smart speakers, thermostats, smoke detectors and more, announced this morning that it will soon require all Nest users to enroll…
Google Nest begins testing HVAC alerts, partners with Handy for booking service calls
Google’s Nest is testing a new feature that will alert you to potential HVAC issues and even help you book an HVAC professional to fix it, thanks to a partnership…
When it comes to smart home stuff, once you start, it’s hard to stop. As soon as you’ve got one light that you can turn on and off from your…
Amazon, Apple, Google and Zigbee join forces for an open smart home standard
The biggest names in the connected home category are reaching across the aisle to create an open-source standard. Marquee names Amazon, Apple, Google and the Zigbee Alliance are leading the…
