A whole-home battery backup system is a large-capacity lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) battery that stores electricity from the grid or solar panels and automatically powers your entire house during an outage. Our team spent 90 days evaluating 10 of the best whole-home battery backup systems on the market in , running everything from a 3-ton central AC … Read more
I lost an entire refrigerator’s worth of food during a 14-hour outage last winter. That single event pushed me down the rabbit hole of portable power stations, and I have spent the last three months running ten of the most popular high-capacity models through real-world tests. A high-capacity portable power station is a battery-based power … Read more
Matter is the smart home connectivity standard that finally lets devices from different manufacturers talk to each other. It runs over WiFi, Thread, or Ethernet, so a single bulb from Govee, a lock from ULTRALOQ, and a thermostat from Aqara can all sit inside Apple Home, Alexa, Google Home, or SmartThings without extra apps or … Read more
I built my first Zigbee network five years ago with a single Aqara sensor and a borrowed SmartThings hub. It crashed twice a month. Today the same setup runs 47 devices across three floors without dropping a packet, and I keep coming back to Zigbee for one simple reason: it stays out of the way. … Read more
Waking up to the smell of fresh coffee used to mean setting your alarm early enough to stand by the machine. I spent years doing exactly that until I discovered how much easier mornings become with a WiFi-connected brewer. The best smart coffee makers for home let you schedule, start, and customize your brew from … Read more
I lost count of how many cookies turned out flat because I eyeballed the flour. Then I grabbed a smart kitchen scale, and suddenly every bake came out the way the recipe said it should. That tiny habit changed the way I cook, and it changed the way I tracked what I ate. If you … Read more
I have been testing smart home gear for years, but a smart sprinkler controller is the one upgrade that actually pays you back. I watched my own water bill drop about 32% the first summer after installing a WiFi sprinkler controller, and our team has been reviewing irrigation controllers ever since. If you are shopping … Read more
When I adopted my anxious rescue dog three years ago, I spent hundreds of dollars on trainers, calming treats, and doggy daycare before I finally tried a smart pet camera with a treat dispenser. The first time I tossed a treat across the room from a parking lot and heard her tail start thumping on … Read more
Finding the best smart pet feeders for cats and dogs felt overwhelming when I started testing. There are dozens of options on Amazon, but only a handful actually deliver reliable WiFi, accurate portion control, and an app that does not crash every other day. I spent six weeks running 12 different smart feeders through real … Read more
I spent three months testing USB-C car chargers across daily commutes, a 1,400-mile road trip from Phoenix to Denver, and everything in between. After logging hundreds of hours charging iPhones, Samsung Galaxies, iPads, and even a MacBook Pro from the cigarette lighter socket, I learned that most car chargers overpromise on wattage and underdeliver on … Read more