For $20,000-or a $499 per month rental fee and a six-month commitment-the lanky robot can do simple tasks around the house, such as unloading the dishwasher and watering plants, and can answer your questions through its built-in large language model.
I have ADHD and have found Home Assistant to be a valuable tool for managing executive dysfunction. I use it for audible calendar reminders, laundry reminders, timers, and monitoring my doorbell camera and my nanny cam for my dog. Its also a great source of pure nerdy joy for me. And I recently took the most joyously nerdy step yet in my home automation fixation.
All of the appliances and systems are brand-new: the HVAC, the lighting, the entertainment. Touch screens of various shapes and sizes control this, that, and the other. Rows of programmable buttons sit where traditional light switches would normally be. The kitchen even has outlets designed to rise up from the countertop when you need them, and slide away when you don't.
The $140 Lock Ultra works just like other retrofit smart locks if you're using it with a typical deadbolt. You swap it for the indoor thumb turn portion, and Bob is, as they say, your uncle. Where it differs is that for $20 more, it comes with an adapter kit that lets it work with jimmy-proof and mortise locks the same way the original SwitchBot lock worked with normal deadboltsrather than replacing your lock hardware, it slips over it and operates it for you.
On the hunt for new smart plugs to upgrade your home automation? One of our favorite picks, the Meross MSS110 Smart Plug Mini, is currently marked down on Amazon. The two pack is discounted from $34 to $27, and the four pack is down to $34 from its usual price of $52. These plugs help add smart functionality to otherwise dumb devices around your home, like lamps or fans, so they can be included in your routines.
Smart home products are all about making everyday life a little easier, which is why they're some of the best and most thoughtful gifts you can give. Some people go all out building a multi-gadget IoT kingdom (like our resident smart home expert, Jen Pattison Tuohy), but a smart home is whatever your recipient wants it to be. It can be as simple as wanting a cheap switch-flipping bot to brew you a pot of coffee before you exit the shower in the morning.
The Alexa integration adds voice commands to any device that has a physical on/off switch. Tell Alexa to turn on your coffee maker from bed, and hot coffee waits when you reach the kitchen. Command the lamp in your living room to turn off from the couch. Turn on a fan in another room without walking there. These minor conveniences compound throughout your day into proper quality-of-life improvements.
The first Nest thermostat launched in 2011, Philips Hue in 2012, the Amazon Echo in 2014. But for anyone who has spent long nights scrolling through IoT troubleshooting forums since then, here's the latest: It's finally time for a do-over. Everyone's agreed that the open source interoperability standard Matter, which has Apple, Google, and Amazon signed up, is the answer, and Ikea has 20-odd new and improved devices to boost the case.
Smart refrigerators used to be all novelty-gimmicky touchscreens, voice commands that barely worked, and tech gadgets that aged faster than milk. Fast-forward to today, the best smart fridges blend advanced features, like connecting seamlessly with smart home systems, automating routine tasks, and offering tech that genuinely makes life easier. Think internal cameras that let you peek inside from the grocery store, compartments that shift from fridge to freezer on demand, and displays that sync with calendars, stream music, or recommend recipes based on what's inside.
