Google is opening up its smart home to AI agents, letting tools like Claude and Open Claw access and control your connected devices and analyze your home's data using the standardized Model Context Protocol.

Google Home MCP is a new integration that lets third-party AI agents control and monitor your smart home and act on your behalf. It "allows any AI agents that support MCP, including Google Antigravity, Claude, Hermes or Open Claw, to securely work with all of the devices and event history in your Google Home ecosystem," Taylor Lehman, group product manager at Google Home & Nest, said in a blog post.

According to Lehman, Home MCP integ …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Early users of Dyson's CameraJet are reporting that water is getting into the battery compartment of the newly launched $499.99 electric toothbrush. One user posted on the r/Dyson subreddit that their model "broke within 30 seconds."

The problem appears to stem from the device getting wet, which is a big issue for a toothbrush. In a post earlier this week, a Reddit user in the UK wrote that his unit appeared faulty and then discovered water in the battery compartment. Several responses to both posts indicate the issue is affecting multiple units.

Read the full story at The Verge.

Hands-free unlocking is the future of smart locks. The best smart home tech removes friction, and having your door unlock for you as you walk up is as frictionless as it gets - no passcodes to remember, no need to have a free hand to wave, press, or poke at the lock. One way to achieve this nirvana is through facial recognition. You already unlock your phone with your face; why not your home?

Hands-free unlocking using geofencing has been around for a while, but it can be slow and unreliable, and requires an app running in the background on your phone. Newer innovations - facial recognition and unlocking using an ultrawideband (UWB) radio - …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Philips Hue has announced a connectivity upgrade for its Matter-over-Thread-enabled smart bulbs that will allow them to run both Thread and Zigbee at the same time. The change means you can connect compatible Hue bulbs and fixtures directly to a Matter ecosystem - Apple Home, Amazon Alexa, or Google Home - while keeping them linked to a Hue Bridge and the Hue ecosystem.

"Today you cannot have Zigbee and Thread running at the same time, so when you commission it, you have to choose," Philips Hue CTO George Yianni told The Verge. "If you want to then later switch, you have to reset it."

The same is true of dual-protocol products from compan …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Smart lighting company Philips Hue has launched its first wired wall modules. Installed behind existing wall switches, the new devices bring non-smart lights into the Hue ecosystem for the first time. Hue also announced new Play table and floor lamps that are more affordable versions of its Signe series, along with upgrades to its E14 candle bulbs that add a broader white light spectrum and Matter-over-Thread compatibility.

The new lights are now available globally; however, the Wired Wall Switch Modules are Europe-only. Signify CTO George Yianni told The Verge that there are currently no plans to launch them in the US, but the company woul …

Read the full story at The Verge.

The new Thread Networks Diagnostics Tools app from Thread Group, the standards body behind the wireless IoT protocol, officially launches in beta today. The app, which arrives in beta today on iOS and Android, is the first dedicated tool to provide visibility into your Thread-based smart home network. I've been testing the alpha version of the Android app on my complicated home network and, with a bit of extra legwork, have diagnosed several issues with my Thread setup.

Thread is one of the protocols the smart home standard Matter runs on. But since Matter over Thread devices began arriving in 2023, there have been reports of people struggl …

Read the full story at The Verge.

The smart home networking protocol Thread is adding a new way to onboard devices without a Thread border router. The feature, called Thread Direct, is designed to let users set up Thread-powered devices - such as smart plugs and smart locks - using only a phone or mobile device equipped with a Thread radio. Current devices with Thread radios include many iPhones, newer Pixel phones, and the latest Samsung flagships.

Thread is one of the networking technologies used with the smart home interoperability standard Matter. A low-powered, low-latency mesh networking protocol, Thread provides a way for devices to talk to each other locally in your …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Matter, the smart home interoperability standard, might finally get a feature that should have been there from day one: a single shared Matter network managed by multiple ecosystems. With this feature, called Joint Fabric, smart devices added to the network will be controllable by any authorized platform - Apple Home, Google Home, Amazon Alexa, and the rest. No need to "share" your smart light between apps; set it up once, and control it everywhere. It's like your smart home is a joint bank account and your platforms of choice all have signing authority.

Joint Fabric is part of the new Matter 1.6 spec announced this week at Unify, the Con …

Read the full story at The Verge.

I'll admit it. I was wrong. Wildly colorful lighting is delightful for your smart home - well, outdoors, at least.

Smart lighting is one of my favorite features of the smart home - it combines convenience with ambiance, letting you change the entire look of your room with just a press of a button. But, other than the occasional pop of color, mostly in my kids' rooms and outdoors around the holidays, I've never found much use for color-changing lights. I prefer the subtler effects of tunable white light combined with dimming to set the scene indoors, and that preference also extended to outdoor lighting. Until this summer.

With an influx o …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Apple's HomeKit Secure Video service is getting in on the Apple Intelligence party to bring more descriptive alerts from your connected cameras and let you search footage using natural language. The Apple Home app is also getting better notifications powered by AI and is finally adding support for energy reporting.

These improvements were announced at WWDC last week and will be publicly available this fall. I've been playing with some of the features in the developer betas for iOS 27 and tvOS 27 for a few days, and based on my first impressions, Apple's HomeKit Secure Video is much improved - enough to put it back in contention for me as a …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Apple and Google are updating their smart home streaming devices to Thread 1.4. As first spotted by Matter Alpha and 9to5 Google, the latest spec has arrived on compatible Apple TVs in the tvOS 27 developer beta and the Google TV Streamer through a software update.

This lays the groundwork for these devices, which serve as Thread Border Routers, to implement Thread credential sharing, enabling them to connect more easily to an existing Thread network rather than creating their own.

Thread is one of the connectivity protocols the interoperability standard Matter runs on. The original plan was for Thread Border Routers to all work seamlessly …

Read the full story at The Verge.