Smart Home Stories & Solutions - page 3

Philadelphia's new smart water meters improve billing accuracy but leave critical gaps in leak protection. Here's what the upgrade includes and what it doesn't.

One hidden leak can cost investors $18,000 in repairs and lost income. Here's how smart automation can protect your rental portfolio from water damage disasters.

Belkin will drop Wemo cloud support in 2026—here’s how to keep devices alive, slash e-waste, and lock in privacy-first local control.

Thinking about upgrading to Matter over Thread? Here's what over two years of real-world testing revealed about reliability, setup complexity, and whether it's worth the switch from protocols like Zigbee and Z-Wave.

Smart bulbs or smart switches — which actually belongs in your home? Learn when each technology wins, how to combine them, and how to build lighting control that works even when the Wi-Fi doesn't.

When one of my senior cats started showing signs of illness, I built a local smart pet monitoring system using Home Assistant, Aqara sensors, and a Reolink camera — no cloud, no subscriptions, and vet-ready footage within 24 hours.