This week on The Vergecast, we enter the Jen-era of Hot Girl Vergecast Summer, with a deep dive into the business of the smart home. The Verge’s smart home reviewer, Jennifer Pattison Tuohy (aka Jen), chats with Ken Fairbanks, a longtime customer of Insteon who ended up buying the smart lighting company when it went into bankruptcy.
Ken shares the story of how one of the original smart lighting protocols, founded in the post-X10 era when home automation moved from wired to wireless, floundered, and how he and a band of users brought it back from the dead. He dishes what he’s learned about how to keep the lights on — from customer loyalty and the value of subscriptions, to what tariffs are doing to the industry and how some hardware companies are just pyramid schemes.
Then, in a special supersized (and we mean SUPER) Vergecast Hotline (call 866-VERGE11 or email
[email protected]), Jen is joined by smart home expert Richard Gunther, co-host of The Smart Home Show, to tackle a bunch of your burning smart lighting questions. They answer everything from how to move your smart home to which Thread border router you should buy for your Matter setup. Plus, they run down their own smart lighting set-ups.
Further reading:
Insteon’s troubles are a smart home tale as old as time
Insteon Raises the Curtain for the Next Act
Someone turned Insteon’s lights back on
Insteon customers turned Insteon’s lights back on
Thread count: Ikea is stitching together a smarter home
Smart switches or smart bulbs? How to choose the right smart lighting for your home
Controller for HomeKit
Philips Hue Play sync box and gradient lightstrip review: wholly unnecessary, totally delightful
Taming Wi-Fi in the Smart Home:
Leviton’s new smart light switches don’t require a neutral wire
Every smart home device that works with Matter
Aqara’s new seven-inch home control tablet can replace a light switch
These smart lights could solve the kitchen cabinet problem
Hue launches a pricey new sunrise lamp
Smart string light showdown: Nanoleaf versus Lifx
The best floodlight camera to buy right now
How to move a smart home
Moving a smart home - The Smart Home Show
Living with the ghost of a smart home’s past
Smart ceiling light showdown: Aqara T1M versus Nanoleaf Skylight
Binding should be the next big thing for smart home devices
Aqara adds support for 50 new Matter device types
Flic is ready to control all your Matter devices
Thread is Matter’s secret sauce for a better smart home
Google Nest Thread border routers
Google TV Streamer review: smarter than your average set-top box
Google Nest Hub (2nd-gen) review: sleep on it
Why Thread is Matter’s biggest problem right now
The four changes in Thread 1.4 that could fix the protocol
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