Buying Guide

Water damage is one of the most expensive homeowner headaches out there, with the average insurance claim clearing $10,000 and roughly 1 in 60 homes filing a water-loss claim every year. After months of research and conversations with plumbers, insurance adjusters, and real homeowners in our network, we put together this guide to the best […]

If you have ever come home to a wet ceiling, a flooded basement, or a water bill that doubled for no obvious reason, you already know why a smart water shutoff valve matters. I have installed and lived with five of the eight models in this guide across two homes, including a 2,400-square-foot older property

After spending 30 days rotating eight smart air quality monitors between a 1,200-square-foot apartment, a home with a gas stove, and a bedroom that gets wildfire smoke every summer, our team landed on a clear winner. Indoor air is regularly 2 to 5 times more polluted than outdoor air, and you cannot manage what you

I pulled ten smart temperature sensors out of their boxes, paired each with the smart-home platform it actually works with, and watched what happened over six weeks of nursery nights, freezer door openings, and one basement pipe scare. The most accurate smart temperature sensors use Swiss-made Sensirion chips with ±0.3°C precision, and our team’s testing

I have been running presence sensors in my own home for the last 18 months, and the difference they make is dramatic. Lights stay on when my partner reads on the couch, HVAC shuts off when the office is empty, and my bathroom fan no longer runs for an hour after I leave. If you

I’ve been running Home Assistant for years, and the single biggest upgrade to my lighting and climate automations came not from a new hub, but from ditching PIR motion sensors for mmWave presence sensors. The difference is night and day: lights that used to switch off while I sat reading, fans that kicked off mid-workout,

After spending 60-plus hours swapping eight Zigbee coordinators across a 2,400-square-foot home with 73 paired devices, I can tell you the difference between a flaky mesh and a rock-solid one almost always comes down to the coordinator. The best Zigbee coordinators for Home Assistant in are no longer a single pick – they split cleanly

I run Home Assistant on three different setups – a Home Assistant Green, a Raspberry Pi 5, and a small x86 mini PC – and I’ve been living with Matter since the first beta of HA Matter Server shipped. After dozens of bulbs, plugs, locks, and one stubborn curtain motor, I can tell you this:

After six weeks of sleeping next to ten different smart displays, swapping one out every few nights, I have a strong opinion about which ones actually belong on a nightstand. The best smart displays for bedrooms in are not just smaller versions of kitchen hubs. A good bedroom smart display has to handle a sunrise

After 60 days of side-by-side testing in a real 2,400 sq ft home with 47 connected devices, our team ranked the best smart speakers for home automation you can buy right now. We pushed each unit with morning routines, movie-night scenes, and bedtime shutdowns across Alexa+, Gemini for Home, and Siri to see which ones