Reviewer, Smart Home
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy is The Verge’s Smart Home Reviewer, meaning her family lives in misery, so yours doesn’t have to.
She covers all areas of home automation and connected gadgets, from robot vacuums and video doorbells to smart lighting and locks. She joined The Verge in 2021 and is a leading expert on the smart home standard Matter.
A journalist for three decades, she’s covered the smart home since 2013, writing for The New York Times: Wirecutter, Dwell, Wired, The Ambient, BBC Science Focus, and US News & World Report, among others. She started her career on London’s Fleet Street with The Daily Telegraph newspaper before moving to Sun Valley, Idaho, where she worked in local news for ten years.
She now lives in South Carolina with her husband, two children, a dog, two cats, a rabbit, and several chickens.
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The new interfaces from the smart home platform are designed to make controlling connected devices easier. Available on iOS and Android, the customizable control panels are clearly inspired by Home Assistant’s popular dashboards and work with 25 Homey widgets plus widgets from third-party apps.
You can create multiple dashboards, which are free for Homey Pro and Home Cloud users. A one-time fee applies for the first-generation Homey Pro.
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The company has launched a Matter-over-Thread version of the Bolt for $229 and is offering existing Bolt users a free upgrade.
This means that, as promised, the “invisible” smart lock, which goes inside your existing hardware, now works with more smart home platforms without needing Level’s bridge.
The Level Lock Plus recently got a Matter upgrade, too, but the Lock and Lock Touch are still waiting.
If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission.
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Home Energy Reports will be coming to the Ecobee app next month. The company says the feature should help users better understand how their HVAC system works and, hopefully, save more energy.
It will show detailed reports on your system’s energy use right in the app, help identify potential issues with the system, and compare energy consumption with others in your area for some healthy competition.
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