Jennifer Pattison Tuohy

Senior Reviewer, Smart Home

Surprise! Facial recognition smart locks are actually good

I tested four locks that unlock with a look, and while hands-free with UWB is better, if you want a sci-fi experience for your front door, facial recognition is worth considering.

Jennifer Pattison TuohyJul 18

Jennifer Pattison TuohyJul 10

Apple Intelligence in Apple Home will require the $10-a-month iCloud Plus plan.

As spotted by MacRumors, to get the new AI-powered camera features — text descriptions, searchable camera clips, and noteworthy clips — you’ll need Apple’s 2TB plan or higher.

HomeKit Secure Video has always required the base iCloud plan for recording, but now you may need to upgrade to get these smarter alerts. I’ve been testing them in the beta, and they’re a big improvement.

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

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy

Jun 16

Verge Score

Schlage’s Sense Pro unlocks the door so I don’t have to

The $399 smart lock ditches keys for ultra-wideband hands-free unlocking. It’s magical, but it’s Apple-only for now.

Jennifer Pattison TuohyJul 9

Fi’s Starlink-enabled pet tracker found my dog when LTE couldn’t

The new Fi Ultra adds satellite connectivity to track your dog anywhere in the US, even in cellular dead zones.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy and Thomas RickerJul 8

iRobot’s newest floor cleaner isn’t a robot

Jennifer Pattison TuohyJul 7

Jennifer Pattison TuohyJul 2

You can now preorder this $8,000 laundry-folding robot.

Made by Weave Robotics, Issac 1 is a fuzzy, colorful home robot that promises to collect dirty clothes, fold and put away laundry, make beds, and tidy clutter. Shipping is slated for later this year, with a $250 deposit required. While its main tasks are automated, Weave says that, like its predecessor Isaac 0, Issac 1 will be teleoperated “when needed to guarantee we complete tasks.”

Verge Score

Google built a great smart speaker, but Gemini isn’t ready for it

The Google Home Speaker nails the hardware, but Gemini for Home isn’t the assistant we’ve been waiting for.

Jennifer Pattison TuohyJul 1

Inside the room where the smart home industry is still betting on Matter

At the CSA’s inaugural Unify conference, the mood was optimistic but realistic. Matter hasn’t delivered on its promise — but I left convinced that it still can.

Jennifer Pattison TuohyJun 27