Smart Home

The home security company launched two new products today: the Ring Spotlight Cam (2nd Gen) at $169.99 and the Ring Floodlight Cam (2nd Gen) at $199.99. Both feature Ring’s Retinal 2K video resolution, bringing higher-res support to Ring’s base models.

The Narwal Freo Z10 Turbo uses a laser mapping system instead of a camera to navigate your home, but it includes a base station that empties dirt and sterilizes the mopping pads, and a mode that deep cleans carpets with boosted suction and multiple passes. It will be available on May 18th for $899.99 and discounted to $599.99 until the end of the month.

Google says it has “optimized backend processing” for smart home device controls, alarms, and timers to make Gemini for Home better at the basics. Improved age-gating and content controls mean it should now be able to give you the recipe for a margarita too.

Sean Hollister let a hacked robot lawnmower run him over in the name of journalism, but it took a Verge commenter to find the right language that really sets the stakes.

The company is planning to discontinue certain consumer electronics products in the region — including home appliances and televisions — amid intensifying competition from domestic brands. Phone sales will be unaffected. As popular as Samsung TVs are, this goes to show they do struggle somewhere.

A new feature called Sports Live is being rolled out to the Philips Hue app that will trigger lighting effects in response to goals being scored or referees issuing cards during the World Cup in June and July. Your lights can also match the color of your favorite team or the team that’s currently in the lead during a match.

This was one of my favorite gadgets from CES, and Lifx says the $199.99 Matter-enabled LED lighted mirror will ship later this month. I have one to test and will be posting a review soon.

First announced and demonstrated at CES 2026, Philips Hue’s new SpatialAware feature that better distributes the colored lighting in a preset scene around a room is now available through the mobile app. The feature requires the Hue Bridge Pro and you’ll need to scan each room using your smartphone’s camera first.

Is a multicolor smart ceiling light / LED screen a fun way to liven up your living room, or an all-out assault on good taste? Every household has to make that choice for themselves.

When Google launched Gemini for Home, it put one key feature behind a paywall. Continued Conversation became available only on Gemini Live, which required Google Home Premium.

The Thread Group has released a new Thread Network Diagnostic app that lets you “explore, monitor, and visualize your Thread network.” It displays network topology, connection status, and device roles to help troubleshoot issues. It’s Android only for now, but an iOS version is in the works.

High tech bird feeder manufacturer Birdfy is doubling down on its AI-powered subscription model, which feels inevitable.

European Mammotion owners took to Reddit to complain that their expensive machines have been offline for three days. Mammotion says a fix is in the works, but hasn’t said what happened. One Redditor claims the outage stems from a bug in the Mammotion Home Assistant integration he had built. We’ve reached out to the company for the full story.