The holy grail of the smart home is ambient computing — technology that disappears into the background, anticipating your needs without a word or a tap. Lights turn on as you walk in, doors unlock as you approach, coffee brews before you reach the kitchen. This is the proactive home: a space that adapts to…
I seldom sleep in the same place for more than a couple of weeks at a time, so I’m a big fan of portable all-in-one projectors. They’re small and set up quickly, making them ideal for vanlife, gaming parties, outdoor movie nights, or an evening in on the couch — but they usually sacrifice quality…
It’s summertime, which means it’s time for our annual grilling episode. In past years, we’ve talked to the leaders of Big Green Egg, Traeger, and Blackstone, and it’s always fascinating how those companies have the same kinds of problems and ideas as any of the tech companies we have on the show. In fact, it’s…
The Yale Smart Lock with Matter is launching tomorrow, June 24th, for $189.99 — $20 more than when it was first announced in March. Yale tells The Verge the price increase is due to the impact of tariffs. The lock will be available on Amazon and Yale’s website. According to Yale, the new smart lock…
Apple’s smart home didn’t get a single nod during the WWDC keynote, but it turns out there are some interesting developments coming to the Home app around energy management. In a video posted to the Apple developer site this week, the company outlined its new EnergyKit framework, which allows developers to integrate energy data from…
The release of Apple’s iOS 18.4 on Monday includes good news for robot vacuum owners. The update includes support for controlling robot vacuums and adding them to automations and scenes in the Apple Home app via the Matter protocol. With the official rollout of iOS 18.4, companies like Roborock, iRobot, and Ecovacs are introducing firmware…
For the first time since the iPhone’s debut in 2007, Apple no longer sells a smartphone with a home button. The iPhone 16E announced yesterday removes it. The removal was long overdue, having been surpassed by all touchscreen controls many years ago. But while the home button’s time is over, it leaves behind an important…
My high school English teacher drilled into my head that there was a proper way to read a book: “If you’ve read a book without taking notes, you’ve not read it at all.” She had a point — taking notes helps me engage with the material in a much deeper way than just reading. Nowadays,…
Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 65, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, get ready to take up all your phone’s storage space, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This is the last Installer of the year! I’m…
There’s a new voice assistant in town, and this one can work locally in your home without phoning home to its corporate overloads. This week, the popular hobbyist smart home platform Home Assistant officially launched its first voice assistant hardware — Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition. Built for the open-source smart home platform, Voice PE…