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.
Back in November, I reviewed the JBL Link View, at first, I was not sure about it, the high cost and awkward shape were not ideal, but I grew to love it and often chose to use it over my Sonos 1 when in the kitchen. The Lenovo Smart Display is slightly different, the 8-inch…
The Smart Home Expo, the UK’s ultimate event for the smart technologies revolutionising the way we live, will be coming to the NEC Birmingham on the 26th & 27th of March 2019, and here’s what you can expect to find. We are delighted to be partnered with the show this year. It is completely free…
As a huge Philips Hue fan, I am always keen to try out new smart lighting technology. One of the issues I do have with Hue is that the individual bulbs are not very bright, and in our master bedroom with a pendant lamp, a single bulb barely lights up the room at night time….
I think smart controlled heating is one of the best smart home investments you can make. It is one of the solutions that can save you money in the long term, while also improving your home environment keeping rooms warm when they need to be, and saving money when not. Most of the smart heating…
I have covered several Z-Wave home controllers over the past few years, with the Samsung Smartthings being the most recent and my current favourite. However the problem with Z-Wave is that it often doesn’t work with other smart devices using more accessible standards such as bluetooth and WiFi. This is a problem the Athom Homey…
I have previously reviewed the Lightwave Generation 2, but Lightwave has been kind enough to send me one of the radiator valves to review so I thought it would be worth redoing the review of the system and see how it has improved since its first launch. For UK users Lightwave is one of the…
During the Black Friday sales, it was clear that both Amazon and Google are determined to get consumers to adopt their voice assistant technologies. Both companies offered deep discounts on their own products with Amazon selling the Echo Dot for less than half price at £19.99, or the newly launched Echo 2nd generation with £30…
15/12/2018 – I have updated this review to reflect both a price drop and Alexa integration, both of which make Anki Vector much more appealing. Anki was formed in 2010 and specialises in AI-based entertainment robots. They have two types of product, the first being a modernised Scalextric that allows you to control toy cars…
I have reviewed some smart kitchen appliances in the past including a kettle and coffee machine, but the smart home trend seems to have been slow to spread into the kitchen. At IFA 2018 this changed somewhat and there were many connected devices including fridges, ovens and washing machines. Philips also has two exciting gadgets…
Following IFA 2018 the world of the smart home finally appears to be coming commonplace within the kitchen. Whether you are getting a completely new kitchen or just looking for some new tech to get to make things a little easier when cooking we have compiled a list of our top things to buy for…
It may come as no surprise that Huawei has developed their own smart speaker, named the AI Cube, however they have at least added some unique features not found on any other device in this niche. The new AI Cube has a 4G LTE Cat 6 300Mbps router built into it meaning that it can…
I have covered a lot of home security products in the past couple of years, and I have always been eager to try one of the Ring products. As I have IP CCTV at home I mainly wanted a Ring Doorbell for its notifications, I live in a reasonably large semi-detached house (thanks to Blackpool’s…
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