Home automation allows you to monitor and control devices and appliances in your home remotely. Connected products like smart lights, thermostats, security cameras, locks, and more can be programmed to turn on/off automatically or controlled manually from anywhere.
Home automation systems communicate through wireless protocols like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee or are hardwired into a home’s electrical system. Cloud services and digital assistants enable voice control.
We test and review the latest smart home and automation products to help build your connected dream home. See our home automation buying guides, news, deals, product comparisons, and advice to add convenience, security, and savings.
Philips Hue recently extended its range of panel lights with new versions of the Aurelle and Surimu. These are some of the brightest lights Philips Hue offers, and they are perfect for living areas, hallways and bedrooms. I was sent the rectangular Surimu panel to review, which is 120cm long and 30cm wide and can…
Over the past year, I have reviewed quite a few excellent Philips Hue products, and I am currently in the middle of reviewing the new Philips Hue Surimu rectangle panel light and the wall switch module. I have always used the Philips Hue Bridge as I started using Hue before they rolled out the Bluetooth functionality…
The Sonoff NSPanel Pro is an innovative smart home control panel that integrates all your smart home devices and scenes for control. It acts as a Zigbee hub with support for Sonoff Zigbee devices giving you control of smart lights, switches, heaters, coolers, curtains, and much more, all from the panel itself. The inclusion of…
I have recently covered a few products that support Apple Homekit. The Aqara Smart Video Doorbell G4 would be the highlight of my recent reviews as it is the best doorbell you can buy that supports Homekit and it supports HomeKit Secure Video. I don’t personally use any Apple devices, but my partner does. From…
SwitchBot has recently launched a new Wireless Hygrometer Thermometer. Unlike the existing SwitchBot Meter, this new device has no display but has an IP65 waterproof design with a more rugged plastic shell that also has a lanyard for convenient placement. This allows the Thermo-Hygrometer to be used outdoors or in wet environments such as the…
The Aqara Presence Sensor FP2 was launched globally a couple of weeks ago. It replaces the FP1 which launched last year, this wasn’t launched globally, but many people imported it from China due to its unique feature set. Millimeter-wave vs PIR Sensors The FP2 uses a 60GHz mmWave radar as the sensor in comparison to…
Aqara teased the launch of the new FP2 presence sensor earlier in the year, and this is quite an exciting product for smart home enthusiasts. The FP2 presence sensor uses mmWave radar instead of a traditional passive infrared (PIR) presence sensor. With PIR, they are not very good if you are in the room but…
I reviewed the Netatmo smart smoke alarm back in 2019 and Netatmo has continued to update this useful piece of smart technology as well as the carbon monoxide alarm they have. The latest update adds compatibility of its Smart Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarms with the Google voice assistant. Both are now compatible with two…
I previously wrote an article comparing Zigbee vs Z-Wave and the pros and cons of each smart home technology. Thread is a new smart home communication protocol that builds upon the Zigbee specification and is available at no cost; however, this requires agreement and continued adherence to an End-User License Agreement (EULA). Albeit, you have…
I have recently covered several smart home products, and many of these use the Zigbee communication protocol. There is also the Z-Wave which I have covered extensively in the past, and then you have Thread which is an up-and-coming protocol. It can get confusing what the difference is between these technologies and which is best,…
I am in the middle of reviewing the Google Nest WiFi Pro. The main reason why I bought this router was that it could work with Matter and is a Thread border router. This section of the review ended up being longer than expected due to various issues, and therefore I decided to split it…
The Homey smart hubs have been around for years now, and I covered the launch of the original Homey Pro back in 2019. Homey has been trying to be the panacea of smart home fragmentation long before the Matter was a thing. They are arguably the best solution for anyone using a mixture of smart…
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