Reviewer, Smart Home
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy is The Verge’s Smart Home Reviewer, meaning her family lives in misery, so yours doesn’t have to. She covers all areas of home automation and connected gadgets, from robot vacuums and video doorbells to smart lighting and locks. She joined The Verge in 2021 and is a leading expert on the smart home standard Matter.
A journalist for three decades, she’s covered the smart home since 2013, writing for publications including The New York Times, Wirecutter, Dwell, Wired, The Ambient, BBC Science Focus, and US News & World Report.
She received her training on London’s Fleet Street with The Daily Telegraph newspaper before moving to Sun Valley, Idaho, where she worked in local news for ten years. She now lives in South Carolina with her husband, two children, a dog, a cat, a rabbit, and seven chickens.
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The much-needed reinvention of the voice assistant is almost here
Siri and Alexa could one day be totally amazing instead of vaguely annoying. But only if Big Tech can get it right.
Leaked images indicate a new smart lamp is on its way, with its lampshade fixed at an interesting angle.
However, according to HueBlog.com, the lamp uses Hue’s “multi-source light” technology, which uniquely allows you to control the direction of the light in the app.
There’s no pricing yet, but it appears the wired lamp comes in black or white with a cork base.
I’ve been trying out the new widget, now available in Public Preview, which lets you put shortcuts to Google Home devices directly on your Home screen, and it’s very useful.
It can be resized to one tile, three tiles, six tiles, or a total of 9, and can control devices like lights directly, but cameras and thermostats launch the Home app.
Correction: The widget is still only available in Public Preview, not for everyone, and it has up to 9 tiles.
1/3
Apple has a new Focus mode.
Reduce Interruptions uses the company’s new AI to review notifications and only show those that “might need immediate attention” — like a message telling you to pick your child up.
As someone who is inundated with nuisance notifications and has failed to make Apple’s non-smart Focus Modes work for me, I’m looking forward to this one.