On our most recent IoT Podcast, Jeff called into our voicemail hotline and asked about something that I too have been struggling with: smart speaker overload. By overload, I don't mean having too many smart speakers but having these devices taking up … [Read more...]
How to stop guests from voice controlling your smart home
An interesting and slightly amusing voicemail came in to the IoT Podcast Hotline this week: The caller's guests are changing his thermostat settings by voice when they come over. The issue isn't specific to just a thermostat though since, in theory, … [Read more...]
How to get Z-Wave smart blinds working with Alexa
This week's IoT Podcast Hotline call comes from Joe, who has Graber smart blind motors in his house. They work fine with his Wink hub but Joe can't get them to work with Alexa voice commands. There's a reason for that and even a native fix, although … [Read more...]
How to monitor a teen’s driving and what are the privacy implications?
Earlier this week, we took a question on our IoT Podcast Hotline from Derrick, who has a teen driver and wanted to know more about connected vehicle options to monitor driving. Aside from what those options are, Derrick was curious about the privacy … [Read more...]
Switching hubs? Here’s why you should always remove smart devices from the old one
I was doing some research on how to back up smart home hub configurations (spoiler alert: you generally can't) when I had a startling revelation. Several of the devices in my home were actively sending data to Samsung's SmartThings servers. Why was … [Read more...]