Topic: smart home automation
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Robot Butler Dreams Lack Legs
Despite recent hype and advancements in humanoid robots, fully bipedal household assistants remain impractical due to the chaotic nature of homes and current limitations in dexterity. A more viable future for home automation lies in a central AI "brain" that orchestrates existing smart devices ra...
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Google Home adds camera-powered automation, upgrades Android widget
Google Home's new update allows users to create automations using Gemini's camera scene understanding, triggering responses to specific visual events like a person entering a driveway or a raccoon near trash bins, using natural language prompts. The Google Home app version 4.17 introduces a more ...
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SmartThings by Samsung: The Quiet Backbone of Connected Living
Samsung’s SmartThings isn’t just another smart home app, it’s the connective tissue behind thousands of devices. With support for Matter, local automation, and cross-brand compatibility, SmartThings offers a practical, scalable way to make your home truly intelligent.
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Top Robot Vacuum Deals You Can't Miss Right Now
Smart home technology, especially robot vacuums, has transformed household chores with features like mopping, self-emptying bins, and air purification, making automated cleaning more accessible. High-end models like the Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra offer advanced features such as 10,000Pa suction and A...
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Govee smart lamps hit lowest prices ever for Prime Day
Govee has dropped prices on several smart lamps to their lowest ever for Prime Day, including the Table Lamp 2 ($53.99), Floor Lamp Basic ($59.99), Table Lamp Classic ($55.99), and Uplighter Floor Lamp ($125.99). All lamps offer millions of colors, music sync, and Alexa/Google Assistant control, ...
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Google Home App Adds 9 Exciting New Features
Google has launched a bevy of noteworthy additions to its Home app, most of which are available now in public preview (which you can enroll in here). This one’s limited to a public preview for Google TV. Google says automations can be made with fewer steps directly in the app, with new ways to get more specific about the automatic. Nest Protect smoke and carbon monoxide status is now accessible within the Home app, and no longer requires using the standalone Nest app to monitor. Google only ment...
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Google Home Adds Gemini Integration & New Widget
Google is enhancing its smart home ecosystem with deeper Gemini AI integration and a new Android widget, enabling easier control of connected devices and advanced automation. The Google Home app now supports third-party devices via the Home API, including products from First Alert, Yale, and iRob...
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Flipper Busy Bar Review: Pricey Focus Tool Tested
The Flipper Busy Bar is a physical productivity tool with tactile switches and a satisfying clicky button, offering a tangible barrier to distraction that syncs via Bluetooth and is Matter-certified for smart home integration. Setting up the device requires a compatible smart home hub and the Fli...
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Aqara's New Matter Camera: Hands-On Review
The Aqara Camera Hub G350 is the first security camera to support the Matter 1.5 standard, aiming to reduce smart home app fragmentation, though its full Matter functionality is currently limited and exclusive to Samsung SmartThings. While the camera itself has advanced hardware features like dua...
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Govee’s ceiling light functions as a low-res display
Govee has launched the Ceiling Light Ultra ($249.99), its largest and most advanced overhead fixture at 21 inches with 5,000 lumens, featuring a dense array of 616 individually controllable LEDs that can function as a low-resolution screen to display custom images and patterns. The light offers 1...
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SwitchBot's robot now has a rechargeable battery
SwitchBot has released a rechargeable version of its signature button-pressing robot, which retains the original's core functionality but replaces disposable batteries with a built-in, USB-C rechargeable 370mAh battery. The device automates physical switches by attaching with adhesive and using a...
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Echo Dot Max hits lowest price ever in early Prime Day deal
Amazon's Echo Dot Max is available at its lowest price ever of $64.99 as part of early Prime Day deals, praised as the best all-around smart speaker with a dedicated tweeter and woofer for superior audio. The speaker features Amazon's AZ3 Neural Edge processor for improved voice recognition, allo...
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Matter Update Enhances Camera Streaming
The Matter 1.5.1 update introduces a more efficient camera streaming protocol, enabling a single device to broadcast multiple simultaneous video streams at optimized quality levels to reduce bandwidth consumption. It expands format support to include HEIC images for better quality at smaller size...
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Google Nest Doorbell (2025) Review: The Subscription Problem
The Google Nest Doorbell (2025) features advanced AI for human-like notifications and daily summaries, but these key capabilities require a costly monthly subscription, limiting its value without it. Despite solid hardware performance, including 2K video and seamless integration with Google's eco...
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