Miscellaneous articles, news, tips and tricks relating to smart home tech and home automation devices.
Smart homes can be really important: they can regulate our home’s temperature, wake us up each morning, turn on lights when we come home (so we don’t crash our cars into our porch), and more. But I wanted to lighten things up with some totally hilarious and awesome smart home jokes (well, I found them … Read more
I recently had a smart meter installed, which tells me in real time exactly how much energy my house is using. When I put the dishwasher on, for example, it tells me that I’m using £2 per hour – which is good to know (and expensive – bring back lower energy bills, please!). However after … Read more
The only downside to unboxing that new lightning fast router is knowing that you’re going to have to migrate all of your smart devices over to a new Wi-Fi network. Is Kasa really as difficult to switch to a new Wi-Fi network as people claim? The only way to move your Kasa smart device to … Read more
The single biggest setback to smart device automation can be a simple bug that turns your devices on and off. What should you do if your Kasa devices keep randomly turning on and off? To fix a Kasa device that keeps turning on and off, the first thing you should do is to update your … Read more
We love the convenience of smart devices, but wouldn’t it be great to be able to put down the smartphone for a minute? There are plenty of ways to control smart devices, but can you control Kasa from your PC? There is no official application that allows you to control Kasa from a desktop computer. There … Read more
The Ring Alarm Pro subscription plan and alarm system offer a lot of security features for smart homes. These devices are a great way to get backup internet and power, as well as protecting your home. However, are you really stuck using the built-in router with the Ring Alarm Pro? This is what Ring’s official … Read more
In the world of smart home hubs, Samsung SmartThings is one of the many main contenders – or is it? Some users have begun to notice changes, albeit small, that make them wonder if SmartThings is soon to be a thing of the past. Even though the hub and app are still receiving updates, support … Read more
I remember when I first started getting into smart homes. I was happily running a few (WiFi based) Echo speakers, but I started to hear terms like ‘Zigbee’ and ‘Z-Wave’ thrown around too. I was also (obviously) aware of Bluetooth, but I’d mainly seen it used in headphones and mobile phones: so it seemed odd … Read more
Smart technology is supposed to make everything easier, but sometimes it can feel like a hassle if you constantly have to figure out how to get different users to control your Kasa smart tech. How can you get multiple users to control the devices in your home? Well the short answer is (unfortunately): Kasa devices … Read more
When thinking about the disadvantages of smart homes, I remembered a time when my internet router broke. I changed this, and so I had to manually re-configure 5 smart home devices… along with a couple of TVs, my printer, two tablets, two Kindles, three mobile phones and two laptops. Ugh – changing 17 devices manually … Read more