The latest update to theMatter smart home standard has launched today: Matter 1.5. The headline news is that smart cameras get support for the very first time.

This effectively bringsApple Home compatibility to a much wider range of cameras, and this is not the only new product category included in today’s launch …

There’s good news today forHomeKit fans on a budget:IKEA has announced the launch of 21 new smart home products, all of themMatter-compatible.

The new lineup comprises 11 different smart bulbs, five types of sensor, three remote controls, and a new smart plug …

The Neato cloud server needed to keep the shuttered company’s robot vacuum cleaners running is being closed down three years earlier than promised, turning the smart devices into dumb ones.

The parent company had initially promised that the MyNeato app would continue working until 2028, but has now backtracked on this and is ceasing support before the end of this year. It’s a further reminder of the importance of sticking to smart products with eitherHomeKit orMatter support …

Eve Outdoor Cam is a sleek outdoor video camera for HomeKit, with integrated LED floodlight ideally designed to light up your driveway at night. I’ve been a fan of theEve Indoor camera for a while, and my experience with the Outdoor Cam is similarly positive. HomeKit cameras are better than ever, thanks to significant user interface upgrades to the Apple Home app in iOS 16.

And HomeKit Secure Video support means clips are saved to your iCloud account in an end-to-end encrypted manner. To make things even more compelling, this set up requires no additional monthly subscription to use, assuming you pay for some iCloud storage. So how doesEve Outdoor Cam and the state of HomeKit Secure Video fare? Very well, for the most part …

I’m a huge fan of smart homes, and there are a great many benefits I value greatly. One of the drawbacks of having beena relatively early adopter, however, is that there’s been a certain amount of trial and error involved.

Most of the things I’ve done I would do again in a new home, but there are a couple of exceptions …

Upgrading your HomeKit lifestyle with a smart garage door is one of the best changes you can make. For a long time, MyQ was an easy recommendation for people looking to easily turn their existing garage door into a HomeKit garage door. Chamberlin, the company behind the MyQ platform,discontinued its HomeKit accessory in 2022 and recentlyeven further cracked down on access to the MyQ platform.

Thankfully, there are other ways to bring HomeKit capability to your garage door without too much work. Here are some of my favorites…

• HomeKit
• Tech Industry
• Matter

If you’re upgrading wireless router, look for this brand new standard

Ben LovejoySep 4 2025 - 9:00 am PT

6 Comments

If you’re planning to replace your wireless router with a new one and you have asmart home, there’s a new certification you’re going to want …

We’ve known for some time that there was major news on the way fromPhilips Hue, and the company has now announced all of the details.

One of the headline features is a new Bridge Pro which turns your existing smart bulbs into motion sensors. Bulbs also get more affordable, light strips get brighter, and there’s support for Matter-over-Thread. Finally, the smart doorbell leaked earlier in the year is now official …

Apple is already under massive fire for falling behind inAI, and Google’s Gemini smart home plans are about to make that a whole lot worse.

Not only isSiri lagging dramatically behind generative AI chatbots in smartphone-based tasks, but Google is about to make Apple’s assistant lookreally dumb when it comes to smart homes …

Apple is gearing up for a new investment in the smart home that’s coming soon, and according to changes in the latest tvOS 26 beta, it seems part of that may be the replacing of the HomeKit brand with a fresh, unified name.

HomeKit, Apple’s smart home framework, is great most of the time, and awfully frustrating when things go wrong. This new iOS app wants to change that.

If you’re buying a HomeKit door lock in 2025 and it doesn’t support home key, keep moving. The tap to unlock experience with iPhone or Apple Watch is the feature that makes smart locks feel like a major upgrade over a physical key or even unlocking via the Home app. It’s fast, reliable, and once you get used to it, there’s no going back. TheThorBolt X1 checks all the boxes for a great HomeKit lock and brings a few nice surprises for under $150k.

HomeKit dramatically improved the user-friendliness of both configuring and controlling smart homes, by allowing everything to be done though a single app.

But while the Home app was a fantastic breakthrough for its time, technology has moved on, and I think Apple needs to respond. Here are three advanced features I’d like to see in the AI age …

HomeKit compatibility used to attract a noticeable price premium when buying smart home products, but theMatter standard is changing that – and Ikea is now going all-in on this.

The company says that it has more than 20 new affordable Matter-compatible smart home devices in the works, with likely plans to expand into completely new product types too …

Amazon,Google, andSamsung are all working on an exciting way to bringAI to smart homes – andApple risks being left behind.

Samsung is first to launch the new feature: the ability to use natural language to simply tell your smart home app what it is you want it to do …

• HomeKit

SwitchBot Hub 3 gains ‘Works with Apple Home’ certification

Bradley CJul 1 2025 - 3:30 pm PT

3 Comments

TheSwitchBot Hub 3is officially certified as ‘Works with Apple Home‘. It’s the company’s first Hub/bridge device to earn Apple’s smart home badge, which allows for easier control of SwitchBot devices inside the Home app and HomeKit.

Apple introduced newHomeKit architecture back in 2022,with the primary aim of making the smart home system more reliable. At the time, users could choose between upgrading or remaining on the original version of the platform.

Fast–forward to March of this year, and9to5Mac discovered code showing that the company was planning to drop support for the old version. That wassubsequently confirmed by Apple, and a further reminder has now been found in the latest iOS 18.6 beta – with a little more detail …

When Applereleased iOS 18.4 to everyone earlier this year, and it came with a big upgrade to the Home app. With iOS 18.4, users can now add robot vacuums to HomeKit for the first time thanks to the Matter smart home standard.

Here are the robot vacuums compatible with HomeKit…

A newApple framework makes it easy for developers ofsmart home apps to help cut your electricity bills. While EnergyKit is currently limited to thermostats and EV chargers, it’s the first step toward optimizing energy usage throughout your entire home.

Some smart home devices can already help you reduce power usage and costs, like theEcobee andNest thermostats, but EnergyKit takes this much further …

Crafting a smart home ecosystem can be tricky. There are a lot of product categories, and it can be hard to know which ones to prioritize. Here are some of my go-to smart home recommendations for outfitting your smart home setup … and they all integrate with Apple’s HomeKit platform.

Apple is launching abrand new Home product in the coming year. I’ve beencalling it ‘HomePad,’ and these are five of the core features it will bring with it.

Apple plans to launchnew Home products this year and even newhomeOS software. But it seems those aren’t the only changes coming, as the company has confirmedvia a support document that iOS 19 will end support for its legacy Home app architecture, requiring an update.

An update to theMatter standard will make it much easier to set upHomeKit-compatible smart home devices. In particular, it should make tap-to-pair a far more common feature, rather than something supported by only a handful of devices.

Multi-device QR codes will also make setup much easier for things like multi-packs of smart light bulbs, which will let you set up all of them at once, rather than having to do each one individually …

A new residential property survey is suggesting thatsmart home tech can add to the resale value, though there are some big caveats.

The headline news is that more than a quarter of American homebuyers are now willing to pay a premium for smart homes, and that the average perceived value-add is $18k …