The Vergecast

Your smart home questions, answered

141 snips
Nov 4, 2025
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy, a tech journalist and smart-home reviewer for The Verge, joins the conversation equipped with insights and solutions for your smart home dilemmas. She dives into why Apple lags behind in the smart home race and explains the pros and cons of popular smart devices, including faucets and smoke alarms. Discover essentials for starting a smart home on a budget and whether to stick to one ecosystem. Tune in for practical tips to navigate your tech frustrations!
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ANECDOTE

Personal Smart-Home Experiments

  • Jen described testing a SwitchBot robot and a smart indoor garden growing a sunflower.
  • Her husband reacted to the robot as something unexpected in their home.
INSIGHT

Apple's Slow But Strategic Smart-Home Play

  • Apple treated the smart home as a low priority but is increasingly focused on it after investing HomeKit into Matter.
  • Matter and Energy Kit let Apple shift infrastructure burdens and build higher-level home features over time.
INSIGHT

Pro Installers Versus DIY Trade-Off

  • High-end integrator systems (Crestron, Control4, Savant) still exist but are expensive and target a small market.
  • Many pro features eventually trickle down into affordable DIY products.
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