All the smart home news, reviews, and gadgets you need to know about – The Verge

Google’s first smart speaker in six years arrives next week

2026-06-17T11:06:26-04:00

The Google Home Speaker comes in four colors, including porcelain. (Stroopwafel not included.) | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

Google's first new smart speaker in six years starts shipping on June 25th, narrowly missing its promised spring launch window. Preorders for the Google Home Speaker open today, June 17th.

Nothing has changed hardware-wise in the nine months since the $99 speaker was announced. It has the same slightly squished round design, with touch-capacitive buttons on top and a light ring at the bottom to indicate status. And it still comes in four colors: porcelain (white), hazel (black), jade (green), and berry (red). The last two are US-only.

Google Home Speaker

Google's first smart home speaker in six years, built for Gemini for Home. It has 360-d …

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Will Matter finally be able to do what it should have always done?

2026-06-17T15:19:14-04:00

Matter 1.6 introduces a new way to share smart home devices with different ecosystems. | Image: CSA

Matter, the smart home interoperability standard, might finally get a feature that should have been there from day one: a single shared Matter network managed by multiple ecosystems. With this feature, called Joint Fabric, smart devices added to the network will be controllable by any authorized platform - Apple Home, Google Home, Amazon Alexa, and the rest. No need to "share" your smart light between apps; set it up once, and control it everywhere. It's like your smart home is a joint bank account and your platforms of choice all have signing authority.

Joint Fabric is part of the new Matter 1.6 spec announced this week at Unify, the Con …

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Apple’s smart home camera service is starting to impress me

2026-06-16T08:07:54-04:00

New features are coming to cameras connected to Apple’s HomeKit Secure Video. | Image: The Verge, Getty Images

Apple's HomeKit Secure Video service is getting in on the Apple Intelligence party to bring more descriptive alerts from your connected cameras and let you search footage using natural language. The Apple Home app is also getting better notifications powered by AI and is finally adding support for energy reporting.

These improvements were announced at WWDC last week and will be publicly available this fall. I've been playing with some of the features in the developer betas for iOS 27 and tvOS 27 for a few days, and based on my first impressions, Apple's HomeKit Secure Video is much improved - enough to put it back in contention for me as a …

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Apple, Google add support for Thread 1.4

2026-06-10T17:24:16-04:00

The Google TV Streamer has been updated to Thread 1.4, allowing you to access a way to manually share its Thread credentials. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

Apple and Google are updating their smart home streaming devices to Thread 1.4. As first spotted by Matter Alpha and 9to5 Google, the latest spec has arrived on compatible Apple TVs in the tvOS 27 developer beta and the Google TV Streamer through a software update.

This lays the groundwork for these devices, which serve as Thread Border Routers, to implement Thread credential sharing, enabling them to connect more easily to an existing Thread network rather than creating their own.

Thread is one of the connectivity protocols the interoperability standard Matter runs on. The original plan was for Thread Border Routers to all work seamlessly …

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Hue’s SpatialAware finally made me appreciate color-changing lights

2026-06-09T07:07:24-04:00

Adding the new Bridge Pro breathed new life into my Hue setup. | Photo: Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

I've been a fan of Philips Hue smart lights since the early days. It's one of the few staples in my ever-changing smart home. However, when the Bridge Pro launched late last year, it wasn't immediately obvious why I should upgrade. The signature feature, MotionAware - which turns your lights into motion sensors - is neat, but I already have motion sensors. While I run two of Hue's standard bridges to accommodate all my lights and accessories, I'm not at a point where I need the Pro's higher device capacity. I like the idea of faster response times thanks to the advanced processing power, but that wasn't quite enough.

Then in April, SpatialA …

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SwitchBot’s acquisition of Nanoleaf is about more than lighting

2026-06-03T08:15:41-04:00

Nanoleaf has made a name for itself by developing smart color-changing LED lighting products, including wall panels, TV mirroring, and display cases. | Image: Nanoleaf

Smart lighting company Nanoleaf has been acquired by OneRobotics, the parent company of SwitchBot. In an exclusive interview with The Verge, Nanoleaf CEO Gimmy Chu says the company will remain independent and that he and his cofounder and COO, Christian Yan, will continue to run it. "Nothing is changing operationally," says Chu, adding that there are plans for product integrations between the two smart home companies.

The sale, which Chu characterized as "more of a merger," will provide Nanoleaf with significant resources, including a cash infusion that will, among other things, help the company grow its team at its Toronto headquarters. I …

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Thermacell’s latest smart mosquito system is bigger and more expensive

2026-06-02T10:48:59-04:00

Liv 2.0 is the next generation of Thermacell’s Wi-Fi-connected mosquito protection system. | Image: Thermacell

Thermacell has launched Liv 2.0, the next generation of its Wi-Fi-connected smart mosquito protection system. It features new hardware and can cover a larger area, and Thermacell says its formula can now deter no-see-ums. But it's also more expensive and requires professional installation.

Liv 2.0 uses the same setup as the original Liv - a central hub with a wired repeller system containing its metofluthrin-based repellent - but it features entirely new hardware. Pricing starts at about $1,746 for a system with three repellers, a six-pack of repellent refills, and coverage of up to 900 square feet. That's twice as much as the original, wh …

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This smart bird feeder captures more of my backyard drama

2026-05-27T10:15:06-04:00

This smart bird feeder sees more but with less whimsy. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

Since moving to South Carolina's Lowcountry, I've been spellbound by the myriad of beautiful birds that share the coast with us - ospreys raising their babies in towering nests beside the road to my daughter's school, roseate spoonbills wading in the marsh on my morning walks, eagles circling over my son's tennis matches, and a constant parade of songbirds through my backyard. The challenge, as every birder knows, lies in catching these moments. And for that, a smart bird feeder is a fabulous tool.

These use a small, motion-activated camera embedded in a feeder to capture photos and video of birds visiting your backyard, which you can watch …

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The cost of the smart home is going up

2026-05-27T10:26:42-04:00

Google is expanding its AI-powered Gemini for Home capabilities beyond its cameras and smart speakers to other manufacturers to sell more subscriptions. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

Selling the smart home has been hard. Even Amazon has lost money in the space, despite putting hundreds of millions of Echo devices in people's homes. Google has also reportedly struggled to turn a profit from its substantial investment in Nest. But now Google is seeing dollar signs in the prospect of selling AI-driven subscriptions in the smart home. And it's not alone.

At Google I/O this week, Google announced it's expanding its Gemini for Home APIs to allow companies to integrate more of its Gemini-powered smart home features into their own apps. In a blog post, Google's Ravi Akella, director of product management for the Home Platform, …

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I review robot vacuums for a living, ask me anything!

2026-05-21T09:06:19-04:00

Me and my buddies. | Photo by Rose Tuohy for The Verge

Welcome! I'm The Verge's smart home reviewer, and I'm hosting an exclusive subscriber AMA today at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. I test a lot of connected gadgets for my job, but the dominant device in my home - by both number and square footage covered - is the robot vacuum. At any given time, I have a dozen of these bots bouncing around, sweeping and mopping my floors and irritating my cats.

I just published a guide on how to choose the best robot vacuum for your home, and I recently reviewed the Dyson Spot & Scrub, Shark's Power Detect, and the Matic, which is the most interesting new approach to a robot vacuum I've seen in my 7 years of reviewi …

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