Blog

When the Power Goes Out: How Smart Homes Handle Blackouts

A practical guide to preparing your smart home for power outages, from UPS battery backups and hub resilience to whole-home battery systems and post-outage recovery.

Building a Smart Home Theater: Lights, Sound, and Automation

A truly smart home theater ties together lighting, audio, video, and window treatments into seamless scenes you can trigger with a single tap or voice command.

Building a Smart Dorm Room on a $200 Budget

Heading to college? Here is how to build a genuinely useful smart dorm room for under $200, no wiring or landlord permission required.

Smart Lock Keeps Jamming or Not Locking? Here's What to Do

Smart Home Energy Monitoring: Track Every Watt in Your House

Whole-home energy monitors and smart plugs let you see exactly where your electricity is going, and the insights can cut your power bill by 10-15% once you know what to target.

Smart Irrigation: How to Automate Your Garden Watering This Summer

A smart sprinkler controller can save you thousands of gallons of water per year by automatically adjusting to weather conditions, and setup is easier than you might think.

Mesh WiFi and Smart Homes: Getting Your Network Right

A reliable network is the backbone of every smart home. Here is how to set up mesh WiFi properly for dozens of connected devices.

Google Home Not Finding Your Devices? Fixes for Every Situation

The Apartment Renter's Guide to Smart Home Automation

You don't need to own your home to automate it. Here's how to build a fully-featured smart home in a rental apartment without modifying anything.