Last summer, I reviewed the Firewalla Blue, a small connected box that promised to help monitor and secure my smart home. I was very impressed by the device back then so when the company offered to loan me their new Firewalla Gold product, I jumped … [Read more...]
Why some smart home devices won’t connect to your Wi-Fi (and what you can do about it)
On last week's IoT Podcast, our voicemail hotline got a question from Mike about his smart Christmas lights. It turns out that he's having issues connecting them to his home Wi-Fi network, which is built around a Google OnHub. It also turns out that … [Read more...]
Ways to protect your smart home being used against you in abusive situations
It truly saddened me to read this article from the New York Times on how domestic abusers are using connected products to make a bad situation worse. Honestly, that’s an aspect of the technology I never considered. And it gives me pause when I joke … [Read more...]
We need more routers that function as smart home hubs
If I had a dollar for every time my wife asked me “what is that new….. tech box for?” I’d be a very rich man. “Tech box” is her generic for all of the hubs, gateways, bridges, access points, and -- more recently -- smart speakers I’ve installed at … [Read more...]