Smart Home

Smart Home tech has gone from niche to mainstream in a hurry, and now it's tough to have a home without some sort of internet-connected device. You'll find everything you need to know about Smart Home tech right here.

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A person using a multimeter to test the positive and negative wires of a USB cable with the multimeter showing 4.9V.
A digital multimeter saved me hundreds in AirTags, dead batteries, and broken remotes
DIY

A digital multimeter is the surprise companion you never knew you needed.

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Echo Dot Max on a table near a person laying down
I ditched cloud voice assistants for a local LLM and my smart home finally feels private

Smart speakers are spies but local LLMs solve the problem without sacrificing convenience.

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Amazon echo being pressed by a person.
Alexa+ helped me realize that "smarter" voice assistants are mostly just rude

'Conversational' often means condescending when it comes to AI.

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Photo of the beach at sunset.
Sunrise and sunset are ruining Home Assistant's adaptive lighting—use your own schedule instead

Rise and shine.

A smart speaker built with the reSpeaker Lite ESP32 board.
I replaced my smart speakers with this open-source setup, and I’m never going back

Alexa, your services are no longer required.

An ESP32 development board mounted to a breadboard with jumper wires connecting another breadboard.
Here’s how to figure out which ESP32 model you should buy

So many choices, such little boards.

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A Sonos speaker next to an Amazon Echo Dot on a cabinet.
I had no idea Home Assistant and Sonos could work this well together

I'm never touching that awful app again.

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An Everything Presence Lite mmWave presence sensor on a monitor stand in front of a computer.
Swapping schedules for sensors made my Home Assistant setup feel human

Life doesn't always run to schedule.

An ESP32 board in a breakaway board, which makes prototyping easy.
5 things you never thought a $5 ESP32 could do

The little board that could.

Home Assistant 3D icon on a tablet with a man's hand and icons of home electronics devices connecting with wireless.
Stop buying new smart home devices—your old ones probably work with Home Assistant now

More devices gain support every month.

TP-Link BE3600 Wi-Fi travel router sitting on a table in a hotel room.
4 reasons why Wi-Fi is the enemy of your smart home (and what you should use instead)

Set yourself up for success by ditching Wi-Fi where possible.

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A smart speaker built with the reSpeaker Lite ESP32 board.
Home Assistant projects to try this weekend (April 24-26)

Set up your own local smart speakers.

Home Assistant release notes.
Upgrade Advisor is vibe-coded chaos—but it might save your Home Assistant setup anyway

Probably useful, if you can get it work.

Doom 1993 original art.
My Home Assistant dashboard runs DOOM, and yours can too

Knee-deep in the dash.

The discontinued Google Nest Secure.
7 smart home brands that bricked their own products, proving you can't trust the cloud

Not every cloud has a silver lining.

A woman sits at a table in a bright, cozy room, smiling as she interacts with a smart display showing a photo of a parent and child, with a vase of flowers and a cup nearby.
Give the gift of connection this Mother’s Day with Arzopa’s digital photo frame

This article is sponsored by Arzopa.

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A hand holding a Google Nest speaker.
Google just gave you the best Alexa+ feature for free—but you have to turn it on yourself

No more 'Hey Google' repetitions.

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IKEA Bilresa packaging.
IKEA's affordable smart home devices just got the seamless experience they deserve

Simpler setups and smarter routines with SmartThings integration.

Amazon Fire TV Stick 1st generation 2014
Amazon sued over early Fire TV Stick support—will you get paid?

The company allegedly forced users to upgrade.

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A Home Assistant sticker sitting on top of a large analog clock.
Stop paying for Alexa and Google Home—this open-source smart home system will never charge you

Your smart home shouldn't need a subscription.

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