Smart Home

Google Home just announced MCP integration. Read about how this could help your smart home — assuming we’re not all living in a post-apocalyptic battery farm — in my explainer.

For $79.99 you get a sensor compatible with Thread and Zigbee networks that’s a more private alternative to cameras. It uses mmWave radar to track occupants in real time, and knows if they’re standing, sitting, or lying down. It can also detect falls and count the number of occupants, how long they’ve hung around, and the distance they’ve traveled.

I saw the upcoming S30 Mini at IFA last week, and my bathroom floors are excited. SwitchBot’s line of mini robot vacuums is great for smaller spaces like apartments, home offices, or bedrooms, but none have full mopping capabilities — until now. The S30 Mini adds a roller mop to the 11-inch-wide vacuum, and it looks like a good solution for small bathrooms. There’s no price or release date yet.

The company’s Saros 20 Flow goes on sale today for $1,499.99 (down from $1,699.99). At 3.53 inches tall, it’s one of the slimmest roller mop models, and with 36,000 Pa suction, camera-based obstacle recognition, and the ability to climb multi-layer thresholds, this robot should be able to get the job done. I got a first look at IFA last week and plan to test it soon.

The ban, announced in July, has caused chaos for many manufacturers of robot vacuums, pool cleaners, lawn mowers, and more. Swedish company Husqvarna has secured the first exception to the rule for its 305v IQ, 310v IQ, 420v IQ, and 440v IQ after the Defense Department decided they don’t pose a national security risk.

The buzz at IFA was all around robotics — humanoids, quadrupeds, and wheeled bots designed to be household helpers and companions. I was on a panel (watch it here) where roboticists and entrepreneurs insisted that in five years everyone will know someone with a humanoid at home.

The Roomba Duo is a new concept from iRobot. Two vacuums in one: the larger robot is a vacuum and steam mop (I watched it suck up pasta from carpet) and the smaller one sits on top. When the Duo finds areas it can’t reach, it uses a mechanical arm to lower the second bot to the floor.

The Kata Mini is one of those weird AI companions that have little purpose other than to be cute and creepy — speaker and microphone on your keychain plushie, anyone?

And they won’t be making more, meaning there won’t be a way to add Z-Wave devices to a SmartThings smart home. Aeotec, which makes both hubs for Samsung, told me they have about 10,000 left, which may last through the end of the year. Samsung discontinued the V3 last year and replaced it with the Smart Home Hub 2, which has twice the performance, but doesn’t support Z-Wave.

The fiercely open-source smart home platform had its first-ever booth at IFA this week and, true to form, didn’t pull any punches.

The flagship Deebot X12S Omnicyclone comes with a “FocusJet” that sprays cleaning solution on dried-on stains before scrubbing, and a dust-mite chamber that pushes down into the pile to create a seal while vacuuming. There’s also a privacy shield to cover the robovac’s built-in camera.

The Explorer 2000 Plus v2 packs a 2kWh LFP battery and features a Storm Warning Function to automatically pre-charge ahead of severe weather, and an emergency reserve mode to ensure there’s always power available in case of disaster. It supports 800W of maximum solar input, 3600W of AC output, and up to 12kWh of battery expansion capacity. It launches on September 29th for $1,199, alongside a few other Jackery x Red Cross models. More specs in the pics that follow.

The Nurovi range features a robot mop with spinning pads, a vacuum-only option, and an upgraded version of its Spot+Scrub AI, which adds UV detection and comes in white. Nurovi supposedly stands for “neural intelligence” combined with a camera-based vision system, which makes the robots better at navigation than prior models — based on limited demos I saw at IFA in Berlin. All three robots go on sale this month.

The wireless OMVI 2i Ultra camera also has a built-in 6W solar panel that can keep the camera charged in 30 minutes of daily sunlight. It comes with an 8-megapixel wide-view camera that offers a fixed view of your yard, while a 5-megapixel pan-tilt camera can track and zoom in on activity.

In line with its pivot into wellness tech, Nanoleaf has launched a wraparound LED light therapy mask for your neck, which the company claims “is designed to reach deeper layers of the skin and support faster skin cell renewal.” It offers seven lighting modes and near-infrared wavelengths up to 1072nm.

Dyson showed off its CameraJet toothbrush in Berlin, Germany, today, at what was quite the event for a dental hygiene product.

The LumaTempo smart fish tank offers 20 different lighting modes and custom colors that you adjust using Dreame’s accompanying app. You can also use the app to manage the built-in feeder, monitor water temperatures, and view feeding history. It launches next year, but there are no details on pricing just yet.

It’s launching the RockAqua P1, which can clean up your pool floor, walls, and waterline with a suction power of up to 6,800 gallons per hour. The device has a 3.5-hour runtime for floor cleaning and will automatically return to the water’s surface when it needs a charge or has finished cleaning.

Unless you live on a sprawling, rolling estate there’s now less reason to splurge on Roborock’s top tier models. The next version of its budget-minded offering, the new RockNeo Q2, is getting an upgrade to LiDAR-based navigation so it can maneuver through tight spaces and avoid obstacles without the need for ground wires or an RTK GPS station.

The Permanent Outdoor Lights 2 Pro sport a dual-layer design that allows “the upper and lower light zones to display different colors and effects simultaneously,” according to Govee. They’ll cost $499.99 for 100 feet when they launch on September 7th.

First revealed at CES, Govee’s Sky Ceiling Light uses AI to create “personalized lighting based on users’ moods and daily needs.” The 21-inch Matter-compatible light also automatically adjusts its color, temperature, and brightness depending on the time and weather. It launches on September 4th.