The Technical Difficulties Podcast

What's it really like to test every smart home product on the market — when your job literally never turns off?

We sat down with Jennifer Pattison Tuohy, Senior Reviewer at The Verge, for a candid, wide-ranging conversation about living on the bleeding edge of smart home tech. From the robot mower debate ("this season, maybe"), to humanoids at CES that literally fell on her, to why she thinks she has the worst smart home of anyone she knows — this episode covers everything.

🔗 Find Jen's work at theverge.com/authors/jennifer-pattison-tuohy
🔗 The Verge History Podcast — current series on Amazon Echo history, with a 
   full smart home history season coming soon

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💡 This episode is sponsored by Zooz / The Smartest House.

Most smart home devices are about convenience — the Zooz Titan Water Valve Actuator is one of the few that can actually save you from financial disaster. It mounts to your home's main water shut-off valve and lets you automatically or remotely turn off your water the moment a leak is detected. Works with leak sensors, vacation modes, Home Assistant automations, and more.

Support the show and get the best deals on Zooz smart home products:
👉 https://www.thesmartesthouse.com?sca_ref=6284708.sXoXFTZinuqY
Zooz
Thank you to Zooz for supporting the podcast! The best Z-Wave smart home products--bar none!

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Robot mowers have been around for years — but bad reviews, boundary wire headaches, and yards that just didn't cooperate held most people back. That's changing fast. This week we sit down with Todd from Worx to dig into their latest robot mower platform, Vision Cloud, and find out whether the technology has finally caught up to the promise.

We get into how Vision Cloud works (no boundary wire, no local antenna), what RTK and VSLAM actually mean for your lawn, and why four-wheel drive is a bigger deal than it sounds. Plus: who should actually buy a robot mower right now, and who probably shouldn't.

📌 Learn more about Worx Vision Cloud: worx.com

❤️ Support the Podcast

Support the show and get the best deals on Zooz smart home products:
👉 https://www.thesmartesthouse.com?sca_ref=6284708.sXoXFTZinuqY
Zooz
Thank you to Zooz for supporting the podcast! The best Z-Wave smart home products--bar none!

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

What if your TV could automatically answer a video call from your daughter — no buttons, no tech confusion, no missed connections? This week we sit down with Costin Tuculescu, CEO of Onscreen Joy / Joy Living, the company that debuted their AI companion "Joy" at CES 2025 and is quietly building one of the most interesting products in the aging-in-place space.

We get into how COVID sparked the whole idea, why "the best interface is no interface," and what it actually looks like to design tech for someone with early-stage dementia. We also accidentally wake up Joy live on the podcast — and she handles it better than we did.
📌 Connect with Onscreen Joy:
TV product: joyv.ai
Daily check-in calls: joycalls.ai
Tablet app: Search "Onscreen Joy" in your app store
Organizations & senior living: joyliving.ai

Support the show and get the best deals on Zooz smart home products:
👉 https://www.thesmartesthouse.com?sca_ref=6284708.sXoXFTZinuqY
Zooz
Thank you to Zooz for supporting the podcast! The best Z-Wave smart home products--bar none!

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Did you know your Nest or Ecobee might actually be dumbing down your 
mini-split — and costing you money? This week Pete, Brandon, and Vince 
sit down with Victoria Garcia Massimo, Director of Sales & Business 
Development at Airzone, to uncover the missing link between modern 
inverter HVAC systems and your smart home.

Airzone doesn't make the heat pump — they make it smart. Through 
relationships with 200+ HVAC manufacturers, Airzone's control modules 
speak the native protocol of your inverter unit, enabling true 
per-room zoning, proper efficiency control, and deep smart home 
integration that a standard thermostat simply can't deliver.

We cover:
→ Why Nest and Ecobee can't properly control mini-splits & heat pumps
→ What inverter technology is — and why it changes everything
→ Per-room zoning: independent temperature control for every zone
→ Do heat pumps actually work in cold climates like Minnesota?
→ Rebates & incentive programs available in New England & Canada
→ Smart home integrations: Home Assistant, SmartThings, Google Home, 
   Alexa, Savant, Crestron & more
→ Matter certification and Apple HomeKit coming to Airzone
→ The future of HVAC — are furnaces going the way of the V8 engine?

🔗 Learn more about Airzone: https://www.airzonecontrol.com/na/en/

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💡 This episode is brought to you by ZOOZ — the go-to source for 
powerful, reliable Z-Wave smart home devices. From motion sensors and 
smart switches to safety sensors and DIY relays, Zooz has you covered 
— and backs everything with an industry-leading 5-year warranty.

Support the show and get the best deals on Zooz smart home products:
👉 https://www.thesmartesthouse.com?sca_ref=6284708.sXoXFTZinuqY
Zooz
Thank you to Zooz for supporting the podcast! The best Z-Wave smart home products--bar none!

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Pete, Brandon, and Vince welcome Josh Wallet from Josh's Smart Home YouTube channel for a deep dive into what a fully realized, family-friendly smart home actually looks like in practice — including the wins, the fails, and everything in between.

Josh shares the story behind his channel, including the five-year wait just to get approval to start it due to his day job's outside employment agreement, plus the painful early days of hard drive failures, glitchy exports, and uploading an entire unedited bloopers reel by mistake. The crew swap creator horror stories before getting into the good stuff: Josh's impressive custom home build in Pennsylvania, complete with a 14-seat home theater, a basement bar with two TVs, and a smart home stack that has evolved over years of real-world family use.

The conversation goes deep on Josh's Home Assistant setup — from motion-based lighting throughout the house and Lutron Pico remotes as manual overrides, to geofencing all five family members for smarter automations. Josh shares his favorite automation of all time: a Z-Wave water shutoff valve tied to leak sensors that once stopped a bathroom sink overflow from becoming a full drywall disaster. He also breaks down his math on how much time home automation has actually saved his family — we're talking 200-300 hours a year in light switches alone, and 700 hours total when you factor in the Yarbo handling mowing, snow blowing, and vacuuming.

Of course, the Yarbo hasn't been perfect — it ran over a small tree, ripped a slide off the kids' playset, and Josh famously remote-controlled it from his CES hotel room in Las Vegas while his wife watched the driveway get cleared back in Pennsylvania. They also get into the home theater lighting automation that still hasn't been cracked, why Josh ditched SmartThings out of spite, his commitment to more honest reviews in 2026, and Pete's pitch for using smart home automations to nudge the 22-year-old out of the house.

📺 Find Josh:
YouTube: @JoshsSmartHome
Website: joshasmarthome.com
Travel Channel: @joshwallettravels  

Support the show and get the best deals on Zooz smart home products:
👉 https://www.thesmartesthouse.com?sca_ref=6284708.sXoXFTZinuqY
Zooz
Thank you to Zooz for supporting the podcast! The best Z-Wave smart home products--bar none!

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.