Latest news with #Matter
The Verge
a day ago
- Business
- The Verge
This smart smoke alarm could be a worthy Nest Protect replacement
A new line of smoke and CO alarms from Gentex called Place is packed with smart features, including phone notifications, a nightlight, motion detection, and temperature and humidity sensing. There's also optional air quality monitoring and a camera/intercom. The four Place models start at $139, and are available now at The Home Depot. With the excellent Nest Protect now discontinued, many homeowners have been seeking an alternative smart alarm that can similarly alert them to a smoke or carbon monoxide emergency in their home, even when they're not there. On paper, this new line from Place might be just that. The base model, called Any Space, costs $139 and has photoelectric smoke detection, carbon monoxide detection, Wi-Fi connectivity, ambient temperature and humidity sensing, localized voice alerts, and a nightlight. It also features a motion sensor that can send alerts to the Place app, a useful security feature. It has most of the same features as the Nest Protect, along with some additional ones. However, disappointingly, there isn't currently alarm integration with smart home platforms, and the models are only available as hardwired devices. The more expensive models do bring some very interesting upgrades. A unit designed for the kitchen costs $249.95 and includes natural gas and VOC detection, in addition to the base model's features. A nursery unit, priced at $349.95, features both VOC detection and PM2.5 air quality monitoring, a white noise generator, and a camera with a two-way intercom — potentially replacing four different products you might put in your baby's room. A garage unit, priced at $299.95, provides heat detection (instead of smoke) and includes a camera and intercom. All the models have what Gentex claims is the first built-in low-frequency sounder alarm. Studies from the NFPA have shown that a low-frequency tone can be more effective at waking deep sleepers, children, and those with hearing impairments. The Place line interconnects via your home's wiring to sound all the alarms when one is triggered, and communicate over Wi-Fi to the Place app for smart features. These include getting notifications for smoke, CO, motion, air quality, and temperature changes. You can also silence compatible alarms from the app. The intercom and camera features are accessed through the app, where you can also control the white noise and nightlight functions. The nightlight uses adjustable and dimmable color and white LEDS. It can be set to always on, activate based on ambient light, or triggered with ambient light and motion, Steven Bedford, a product manager at Gentex, told The Verge in an interview. Currently, the Place app only integrates with Amazon Alexa, specifically for controlling the light. Bedford says they are working on a Google Home integration as well as exploring Matter integration. 'Our goal is to be the first smart smoke detector on Matter in the U.S.,' he said. Matter integration could allow the alarms to work with any Matter-compatible platforms, such as Google Home, Apple Home, and Amazon Alexa. While receiving an alert on your phone and silencing a nuisance alarm are great features of connected smoke alarms, smart home integration can offer a lot more functionality. For example, turning off the HVAC system, unlocking the doors, and triggering security cameras to record when an alarm sounds. The Place alarms are UL-listed, and while you may not have heard of Gentex – which is best known for developing automotive technology, including the HomeLink system that controls your garage door from your car – the Michigan-based company has plenty of experience in fire safety. Gentex developed the first dual-cell photoelectric smoke alarm in 1974 and has been selling commercial grade alarms for decades. A couple of new smart smoke alarms have launched in the wake of the end of Nest Protect. Kidde released two models in partnership with Ring earlier this year. The hardwired Kidde Smart Smoke Alarm with Ring ($54.97) and the Kidde Smart Smoke and CO Alarm with Ring ($74.97), which work with the Ring app to send you alerts. First Alert (now owned by Resideo) partnered with Google on the $129 First Alert Smart Smoke & CO detector. With a hardwired alarm and battery-powered option, these smart alarms work with Google Home and can integrate with existing Google Nest Protect alarms, interconnecting over Google's Thread and Weave protocols. However, neither the First Alert nor the Kidde models have motion sensing or the popular pathlight feature of the Nest Protect, both of which the Place alarms have. Unfortunately, none of the new models match the Nest Protect in terms of industrial design. It's good to finally see more options for smart smoke alarms arriving, but it's frustrating that none of them have broad smart home compatibility. It means you still have to pick a platform or use a proprietary app for a device that will be in your home for a decade.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Rubin Observatory takes its 1st look at the night skies
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Recently, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory shared its first images with the world: stunning photographs of spiral galaxies, nebulas, and stars strung across our universe. The technology used to capture these images was years in the making, and will help launch a whole new era of studying the night sky. The Rubin Observatory houses the 8.4-meter Simonyi Survey Telescope and its corresponding LSST camera (LSSTCam), the largest digital camera in the world. Using these tools, the Rubin Observatory studies faint objects in our solar system as astronomers try to study the dark matter that makes up a majority of our universe. The Rubin Observatory resides in Cerro Pachón in the Andes Mountains in Chile. The Rubin Observatory was born out of a decades-long quest by astronomers to understand what dark matter actually is. In the 1990s, a group of scientists began to brainstorm an idea for a telescope just focused on studying dark matter. According to the Rubin Observatory, this idea for a "Dark Matter Telescope" began to gain traction, and by the 2010s the instrument, now called the Large-Aperture Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) started to be built in Chile. As the telescope was designed to study extremely faint objects in our solar system, along with most of our asteroids, it needed to be placed away from cities and other areas with more light pollution. The LSST camera, comprising of 3200 megapixels, was built at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California before being shipped to Chile. In 2019 the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope was renamed the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, in honor of female astronomer Vera Rubin and her work in studying dark matter. The Rubin Observatory released its first batch of images on June 23, 2025 as it had scanned the night skies only a few days prior, finding over 2,000 asteroids in the process. With a scanning area of over 45 full moons in size, the Rubin Observatory can survey our galaxy 10 to 100 times faster than similar observatories. You can read more about the search for dark matter and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory as astronomers continue to uncover more about our universe.
Tom's Guide
3 days ago
- Tom's Guide
Eve Dimmer Switch Review: A Thread smart switch
Size: 4.7 x 2.9 x 1.8 inchesConnectivity: ThreadMotion Sensor: NoWorks with: MatterDimmable: YesSupports three-way switches: YesNeutral wire required: Yes New, better smart home standards like Thread are finally here, allowing users to create mesh networks for their smart home devices with more responsiveness and reliability. That, however, also means slowly switching smart home devices to work with these new standards. So far, there haven't been a whole lot of smart light switches that support Matter over Thread, and even fewer that support dimming. The Eve Dimmer Switch is here to change that, but it's also relatively expensive. Is it worth paying the cash for, or should you wait for more options among the best smart light switches to come out? The Eve Dimmer Switch is available right now for $49.95. It comes in white only, and can be purchased from the Eve website, Amazon, and other participating retailers. It can also be purchased with an Eve Motion device, for $99.90. That list price is the same as simply buying the two separately, but at the time of this writing the combo with both of them came at $89.90. The Eve Dimmer Switch essentially looks like a slightly fancier version of a traditional paddle switch. That's a good thing though – the standardized shape and design means that it's much easier to implement the switch into your existing setup, especially if you want to use it in two- or three-gang arrays. Of course, it is a little different than traditional light switches. The main switch isn't actually a paddle at all – instead, it's a touch-sensor that will alternate on or off states. Next to the main touch sensor is a rocker switch that controls brightness – press in at the top to turn brightness up, or on the bottom to turn it down. It's easy to press, and when you turn the lights on, it will turn them on to the last brightness setting. Also on the front can be found an LED light to indicate status. It was bright enough to see perfectly fine, when needed. As with any electrical work, if you have any doubts about installing something like a light switch, you should contact a professional electrician. Seriously – if you don't follow proper protocol, you could get electrocuted. Make absolutely sure that the power is off to any wiring before doing any electrical work whatsoever. As someone who has spent plenty of time with various smart light switches over the years, I was perfectly comfortable installing the Eve Dimmer Switch. When you install it, you'll need a neutral wire – which allows the switch itself to be powered even when it's in the off position. This basically helps the switch 'smart' – it means it can stay connected to your smart home at all times, allowing you to control it from afar. If you don't have a neutral wire, you won't be able to install the Eve Dimmer Switch. There are a few other considerations to make when installing the Eve Dimmer Switch. For starters, the switch is quite large – so much so that you may have trouble fitting it into your existing receptacle, especially if there's a lot of wiring in there. I was able to make it work, but it was a very snug fit, and you don't want to have to push it in too hard, as doing so could dislodge wiring – which could be dangerous. The body of the switch extends almost 1.5 inches from the plate. Last but not least is your smart home setup. The Eve Dimmer Switch doesn't connect through Wi-Fi – it only supports Matter over Thread. So, not only will you need a Matter hub to use it, but you'll need one that serves as a Thread border router. Thankfully, these aren't that rare these days – if you have recent smart speakers, smart displays, or a recent Apple TV 4K, you might already have one. With Matter support, you can set the device up within your preferred smart home ecosystem, and you do not need to install the Eve app if you don't want to. Through Matter, it'll easily work with HomeKit, Google Home, Alexa, SmartThings, and more. You won't miss out on any functional features by not using the Eve app – all dimmer switch functions work in the Matter spec. The Eve app will let you do things like configure the status LED light and monitor usage, but if I didn't test the Eve app for the purpose of this review, those features wouldn't have been enough to convince me to download it separately from my other smart home apps. Actually using the Eve Dimmer Switch is exactly what you would expect. The touch-sensitive panel was highly responsive and adjusted lighting immediately. That said, the touch sensor means that it could be easy to accidentally turn the lights on or off, especially if the switch is installed in a multi-gang array, and you're fumbling for another switch in the dark. I used the switch in a single-pole, single-gang setup, so I never accidentally controlled the switch. I found the brightness controls to be clicky enough, and it was easy to adjust the brightness to the desired level. Holding down on the brightness controls will quickly raise or lower the brightness – though perhaps not as quickly as a slider would have. Because it works through Thread, the switch was also very responsive when controlled through a phone or through voice controls. Thread essentially functions as a mesh network for your smart home, which is why it's able to work quicker than other smart home standards. The switch never felt slow or unresponsive when I turned it on or off through Apple Home, and while there was some delay when using Siri, I'm comfortable pinning that on Siri rather than the switch itself. The Eve Dimmer Switch is kind of the complete package for those who want a Thread-compatible option with dimming. You'll pay for it though. $50 is still a lot to spend on a smart switch, but the fact is that there aren't that many options out there that have both Thread and dimming – and the ones that are available, like the Inovelli White Series Smart Dimmer, actually cost more. I would expect to see more dimmer switches with Thread soon (Aqara has one coming down the pipeline), but for now, if you want dimming and the responsiveness of Thread, the Eve Dimmer Switch is your best option.
Forbes
4 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
TP-Link's New Tapo Cam Lineup Matter With The HomeBase H500
Tapo H500 and new cameras launched TP-Link is beefing up its Tapo smart home lineup with a raft of new security cameras, headlined by solar-powered 4K cameras, a clever dual-lens HybridCam, and a much anticipated smart hub that adds facial recognition and Matter support to the mix. The new Tapo Smart HomeBase H500, which was first teased 18 months ago at CES 2024, is finally here. More than just a local storage box and bridge with software smarts - as per companion hubs from the likes of Arlo and Reolink - the H500 is able to act as a Matter controller for third party devices too, so presumably you'll be able to create automations across the Tapo ecosystem and devices from other manufacturers. This being Matter though, there is a slight caveat in that it can't control all device types. The CSA gives brands the tools to support a huge range of categories and gadgets now but it's up to individual brands and platforms to implement those tools. In the case of the H500 it's limited to just lighting, sensors, switches, plugs, and door locks for now. We'd hope that more categories will be added down the line and, of course, you'd expect it to be all set for when security cameras do finally come to the Matter party. Aside from the Matter action, the H500 also boasts AI smarts, face tagging, and support for up to 16 Tapo cameras and 64 sensors. The new Tapo Smart HomeBase H500 (rear ports) It comes with 16GB of onboard storage and room to expand to a whopping 16TB via SATA, giving you the option to keep recordings completely local, with no subscription required. It connects via Ethernet or over dual-band Wi-Fi, and the H500 processes AI detection locally, so it can spot faces, vehicles, pets, and even track strangers across multiple cameras, without sending anything to the cloud. Cameras still aren't part of the Matter spec, as mentioned, so the Tapo cams only work with Alexa, Google Home, and SmartThings for now, but that's true of everyone else, too. On the camera front, the new Tapo MagCam 4K Solar (C460 KIT) and Tapo VistaCam 360 Solar (C660 KIT) are the standouts from a bumper launch. The new Tapo MagCam 4K Solar (C460 KIT) Both feature 8MP image quality, color night vision via a starlight sensor and F1.65 lens, and built-in solar panels so you don't have to mess with recharging every few weeks. TP-Link tells us they can run for up to 55 days on a full battery, and only need around 45 minutes of sunlight per day to stay topped up. The VistaCam model adds 360-degree pan/tilt control, while both support 24/7 recording to the H500 or a microSD card. If you're looking for something indoors, the Tapo RoomCam 360 (C260) brings the same 4K chops to an outlet-powered pan/tilt cam. It's got AI detection for people, pets, and vehicles, a physical privacy shutter, and can even listen out for specific sounds like crying babies or breaking glass. Tapo's new HybridCam Series is also pretty interesting, especially the $69.99 Tapo HybridCam Duo (C246D). It combines a fixed 125-degree wide-angle lens with a separate 6mm telephoto pan/tilt lens, so you can keep tabs on wide spaces and zoom in on details without needing two separate cameras. Smart tracking is built in, so if one lens spots movement, the other can automatically follow it. There are more affordable options in the lineup, too, with 1080p, 2K, and 3K pan/tilt versions starting at just $29.99. All support on-device AI detection, multi-mounting, and IP-rated weatherproofing. The wired VistaCam C560WS fills out the range at $99.99, offering facial recognition and 24/7 recording at 25fps, with night vision and pan/tilt control. All of these new Tapo cams can record locally, either via microSD cards or to the HomeBase, and include free AI-powered alerts for people, pets, and vehicles. No cloud subscription is required, although TP-Link still offers its optional Tapo Care service if you want offsite backups. With the HomeBase in place, you also get a bunch of extras like facial recognition across all Tapo cameras (even older non-AI ones), smart event categorization. There's also a dock for a tablet and TV integration is possible from its HDMI port for multi-camera live views. There's a built-in mic and speaker too, so the hub can double as an intercom for your cameras or video doorbells and it also has a 110dB alarm siren on board too. It's a big ecosystem push from TP-Link, especially with Matter support now baked into the H500. While the platform still doesn't cover cameras, that's on the roadmap so TP-Link is nicely placed to benefit. All the new cameras, along with the HomeBase H500, are available now on Amazon or direct from TP-Link.
Android Authority
4 days ago
- Android Authority
Yale's new Smart Lock with Matter is the perfect smart home upgrade for people with app fatigue
Yale TL;DR Yale is releasing its new Smart Lock with Matter support. The lock can be set up and operated entirely within Google Home. Operation requires the use of a Matter hub with a Thread border router. How many times have you considered a new addition to your smart home, but stopped yourself at the last moment? Do I really need another app in my life? Another account I'll have to create? App fatigue is a real thing, and with as many as we need to interact with on a daily basis, sometimes adding one more feels like just too much. Earlier this year, Yale introduced its Smart Lock with Matter, and unlike plenty of other smart locks, this one's Matter support means you won't need to download a separate app just to use it. Smart home fans have been hearing about Matter for years, and while the standard has made big promises about streamlining interconnectivity, the actual Matter experience has proved a bit frustrating at times. Thankfully, that's really starting to get better, and Yale's new Smart Lock sounds like a perfect example of what doing Matter right looks like. Even with smart home devices that you ultimately control through Google Home, initial setup often requires the manufacturer's app. But with this new solution from Yale, you really can do it all straight through Google Home, from configuration to ultimate usage. If you want to, you always have the option to connect over Bluetooth with the official Yale Access app, but consider that more an invitation than a requirement. And because everyone's using Matter, you're not stuck with Google Home, either, and can control the lock just as well with Alexa, Samsung SmartThings, or even Apple Home. Like you'd only expect from a modern smart lock, Yale's new entry supports features like creating guest passcodes, letting you enforce limits on how and when those can be used. The one big asterisk here is that in order to tap into all this Matter-enabled smart home fun, you're going to need the right hardware, and beyond the Yale lock itself, that means a Matter hub with a Thread border router. The good news is that there's a fair chance you already have one: If you've got a Google TV Streamer, Nest Hub, or Nest Wi-Fi Pro router, you should be all set. You can pick up the Yale Smart Lock beginning today. It is available in Snow or Matte Black and priced at just under $190. Later this year, a third 'Ash' option will be added. Got a tip? Talk to us! Email our staff at Email our staff at news@ . You can stay anonymous or get credit for the info, it's your choice.
