Whether or not your smart TV is spying on you, LG wants to make sure the apps aren't part of the problem. The tech giant is banning webOS apps that use residential proxies to rent out your TV's internet connection to third parties.

Standby mode is both a blessing and a curse. Fast startup times and background processes are convenient, but have you ever stopped to ask how much these services are worth to you per year?

Smart home assistants were supposed to get better over time. More natural, more reliable, better integrated with everything else you already use. Google had every reason to lead that charge.

From powerful air movers and whisper-quiet pedestal models to options that double as misters, lamps, and air purifiers, these are the fans that impressed us most.

Your smart home sometimes requires your attention in the same way that your brick-and-mortar home does. Remembering these tasks can help you avoid problems later on.

As predominantly indoor creatures, it’s important to maintain a healthy habitat for the hacker. [Kishan Pratap Singh] designed a clever solution in AirSense, an ESP32-powered air filter.

If you’re thinking of cleaning the air in your environment, you might also want to know some properties about the air coming out of the filter. AirSense measures PM2.5 dust concentration, Air Quality Index (AQI), temperature, humidity, and atmospheric pressure. The various sensors are mounted along the exhaust path of the filter, which lets your know what kind of air it’s pumping out.

The system drives a 150 mm exhaust fan mounted in a 3D printed cap that pulls air through a cylindrical Xiaomi HEPA filter inside a perforated metal trash can enclosure. The ESP32 and an LCD readout of the environmental data also live in the cap, giving the device a sleek look. While [Singh] chose to run the filter continuously, we wonder if it might be interesting to set it up to only filter the air if air quality drops below a certain level to conserve power, especially if you’re on a time-of-use power plan. That would require redesigning the sensor assembly (or running the unit in reverse), so maybe it’s over-complicating things?

We’ve seen the Xiaomi Air purifier filter mentioned before, but under the auspices of hacking it’s filter DRM, an open source air filter designed by [Naomi Wu], and even an ESP32 pressed into service to plug an air purifier into Home Assistant.

These locks, lights, and other smart home upgrades let you add automation without messing up your home’s vibe.

Armed with a self-washing dock and AI navigation, the Beatbot AquaSense X is the ultimate luxury pool cleaner, if you don't have any qualms dropping top dollars for the convenience.

A newly disclosed SharkNinja vulnerability could let attackers access robot vacuum cameras, home maps, and Wi-Fi passwords through an unpatched cloud security flaw affecting millions of devices.

You can fill your home with sensors that measure things like temperature, humidity, whether you left the garage door open, and who’s at home. Valuable as these are, there’s one sensor that stands head and shoulders above the rest in terms of the amount of money and hassle it can save you.

If you've ever wanted Thanos-like control over your smart home, you're about to get your wish. Developer David Ruiz has released a Maestro app in beta that lets you activate devices just by snapping your fingers.

Upgrade your dorm room with smart lights, voice assistants and security sensors, all at reasonable prices.

Smart bulbs are a common gateway into the world of smart home devices. Setting one up is as simple as screwing in a light bulb, and you get instant results with the ability to turn your lights on and off remotely, change the brightness, and even use different colors with the right bulbs. Smart bulbs aren't always the best solution to every problem, however.

I love the Solix S2000’s size and portability, but it isn’t up to every task.

If you don’t have sensors hidden all over your house, do you really have a smart home? These devices make it possible to use all sorts of useful automations and alerts, from turning on lights to avoiding thousands of dollars worth of damage.

Ring video doorbells are a popular choice as they're relatively affordable and simple to set up and use. The problem is that to use the best features of a Ring doorbell, such as accessing your video history, you need to pay for a subscription. If you don't want to keep paying to use a device you already bought, there is another option.

I spend a lot of time at my desk in my home office, and I use my smart speaker multiple times during the day. I wanted a more reliable way to interact with my voice assistant, so I decided to go old school and add a phone to my desk.

SwitchBot’s E Ink smart display is great at what it does, but you’ll need programming chops if you want it to do more.

Summer is the perfect season for outdoor fun, especially if you have a pool and plan on hosting friends and family. This year, entertaining feels even grander with the FIFA World Cup happening alongside classic backyard barbecues. While you're busy preparing, the last thing you want to worry about is a dirty pool. Luckily, Beatbot has you covered with its smart, hands-free pool maintenance devices, and now many of its top models are discounted during its Backyard Bash Sale. So, you can pick up a robotic pool cleaner more affordably.

If you look at the back of your TV, there are many ports that you probably never use. Some older TVs include an RS-232 serial port similar to those that you'd find on the back of old PCs. While the main uses of this port include professional diagnostics and servicing, there are several ways you can use your TV's serial port for other things.