Jennifer Pattison Tuohy

Senior Reviewer, Smart Home

These smart binoculars can identify birds and animals for you

Jennifer Pattison TuohyJan 10, 2024

Is it a bird, is it a plane, or is it a $2,500 faucet?

“Disrupt the bathroom faucet” was not on my CES bingo card, but on giant orange plinths in the middle of Kohler’s booth was the most bizarre-looking bathroom tap I’ve ever seen.

Kohler’s new angular, very orange, limited-edition Formation 01 faucet is a “revolutionary” new bathroom fixture, according to Wallpaper Magazine.

That’s a stretch; it’s just a tap — it doesn’t do anything fancy, it’s not even smart. But full points for trying something new, Kohler!

The Kohler x SR_A Formation 01 faucet is a limited-edition bathroom tap designed by British artist Samuel Ross.

Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

Jennifer Pattison TuohyJan 9, 2024

LG’s smart home robot is kinda cute and kinda useless.

Its new AI Agent may have Rosey the Robot aspirations — but do you need a robot with “personality” to control smart home devices and clean up after your cat?

I saw a demo of the Agent at CES, and as charming as it is — with its big eyes and headphone ears (it’s a handle; one of the crew picked it up by it when it got stuck) — it doesn’t seem to do much that a stationary AI voice assistant couldn’t.

Those “legs” are just for dancing, and without arms, it’s not going to be taking out the trash or emptying the dishwasher. But then again, dancing might just be enough!

Jennifer Pattison TuohyJan 9, 2024

You can now preorder this block of wood that controls your smart home.

With a capacitive touch interface built into a piece of wood, the Mui Board 2 is a smart home hub with a touch of whimsy.

The new version adds support for Matter and can control your smart lights, locks, thermostats, and music as well as monitor your home’s energy use. You can write messages on it, and there’s a speaker and microphone for voice control.

The Mui Board has been about to launch since 2019, but the company says it’s coming for real this time. You can preorder it on Kickstarter for $499, with delivery in December 2024.

Jennifer Pattison TuohyJan 9, 2024

I watched the Matic robovac suck up a glass of milk.

This Wall-E-esque robot vacuum and mop made a trip to The Verge’s CES hotel room to show off its unique skills, including cleaning up liquids.

It ably sucked up milk off the hard floor and cereal from the carpet, but its most surprising feature in our demo was how quiet it was... just 55db.

The $1,800 robovac’s speed and maneuverability were also impressive, responding on the fly to obstacles and moving almost... gracefully?!

There are still some kinks to work out, but it’s a promising evolution of the run-of-the-mill robovac.

Amazon is trying to fix content casting with an open standard

Jennifer Pattison TuohyJan 9, 2024

Samsung finally puts the TV at the heart of its smart home

Jennifer Pattison TuohyJan 8, 2024

See LG’s transparent TV roll into CES.

While these days, CES pressers are little more than watching a video with some exec standing on stage talking about it, LG at least had the decency to physically roll out its much-anticipated Signature OLED T TV at its press conference today.

They did it with sufficient flair, and even from the fifth row it was impressive, the galaxy of shooting stars and rising moons making for an awesome display.

Still, a walking, talking robot demo would have been more impressive ...

Jennifer Pattison TuohyJan 8, 2024

LG TVs will soon be Google Home smart home hubs.

At LG’s CES press conference, Erik Kay of Google came onstage to say that “LG TVs will act as hubs for Google Home, so you can easily set up and control any Matter device, see and control LG, Google, and Google Home devices right from the TV or ThinQ app.”

This means that LG TVs will act as Matter controllers for Google Home, giving you another option beyond a Google Nest Hub, Nest Mini, or Nest Wifi to use Matter devices with Google Home.