Tristan Perry 
(This newsletter was originally sent to subscribers on 2nd May 2023) Hi I’m Tristan! Welcome to today’s Smart Home Point newsletter. There’s a few smart home updates to discuss today, including HomeAssistant’s recent voice upgrades – and the fact that Ring subtly upgraded their Indoor Cam. News: Announcing The Ring Indoor Cam 2 (Sort Of) Ring … Read more
“My smart thermostat has really improved my home life” – said no one ever. When smart ‘learning’ thermostats burst onto the scene in 2011, they did so to great fanfare. After all, they are smart. They learn. They will massively improve your home life… or so the marketing promised. The reality is a lot more … Read more
It’s sometimes easy to forget that you have a smart bulb installed in a light fitting, meaning that you flip the light switch off when leaving the room. This, unfortunately, renders the smart bulb useless – because there is no power flowing to it. You might also live with someone who… doesn’t really care that … Read more
You’ll own nothing, and be happy. World Economic Forum essay, 2016 Ah, subscription services. We all love them (…right?). We can now access thousands of TV shows from Netflix, Prime, Disney+, Hulu and more. We can also subscribe to receive skincare products, printer ink, regular meals, and even clean underwear! Okay, so subscriptions have gone … Read more
SwitchBot kindly sent me their brand new Hub2 (and a few other products) to test out their new Matter support. It all seems really interesting, and SwitchBot have just taken a big step forward. This is because their Hub2 supports Matter over Wi-Fi, allowing them to eventually roll out Matter support to all of their … Read more
(This newsletter was originally sent to subscribers on 31st March 2023) Hi I’m Tristan! Welcome to today’s Smart Home Point newsletter. There’s a bunch of smart home news to dive into this week, covering everything from Matter project updates to Eufy being in trouble (again) – and Ring releasing a new product with a confusing name … Read more
The Boring Lamp team sent me their upcoming lamp to test out, and I LOVE it. It has a high quality finish and a number of useful features including music sync, becoming a Jedi Knight and using it as a monitor/screen light. You can also use it as a background ambient light bar and a … Read more
It’s quite common to be listening to music on your Echo in one room, but you need to move to another room – and so you want to continue playing that song on the other room’s Echo. Google Home offer this with Stream Transfer, but what about Amazon? Amazon released a “transfer music” feature late … Read more
(This newsletter was originally sent to subscribers on 8th March 2023) Hi I’m Tristan! Welcome to today’s Smart Home Point newsletter. Today’s newsletter is a little shorter than previous ones, because not much has happened in the past few weeks… apart from Ring screwing over their customers. Again. News: “An Update to Ring In-App Features” … Read more
Ring have announced three big bits of news at the start of March 2023: a new battery doorbell, further nerfing of Ring’s subscription-free tier, and Ring’s founder and CEO stepping down. This video takes a bitesized view of all three of these developments. The individual sections of the video are at: For further reading, please … Read more