Exploring Smart Home Technology and Products

Welcome to our fifth annual smart home holiday gift guide. Since we made our first shopping recommendations in 2014 we ...

We upgraded our side yard security with the Maximus Camera Floodlight and Kuna Artificial Intelligence. Like many homeowners, we have ...

We upgraded our smart home recently with a sleek and stylish keyless smart lock from Kwikset – the Obsidian. When ...

Here at AppMyHome we love technology and we love to eat. For the last several years we have been using ...

Last week AppMyHome attended the CEDIA Expo in San Diego, the annual gathering of professionals in the $14 billion home ...

Like most data geeks, we have been experimenting with tracking our sleep for years as part of our quest to ...

We have been using the Chamberlain MyQ garage door opener for years and it was one of the very first ...

When we first moved into our home and landscaped our garden, we included two fountains, one on the front porch ...

When we got our very first Amazon Echo we weren’t sure exactly what to do with it. We had been ...

Regular meditation doesn’t require any technology, but it can relieve stress, unleash creativity, and help you cope with all kinds ...

As aspiring home chefs and fans of Top Chef and other cooking shows, we have been coveting a Vitamix for ...

We have been using Kevo Touch-to-Open Smart Locks, together with the Kevo Plus, for several years now and have been generally ...

Temperature can be one of the biggest challenges to falling and staying asleep. In the summer we kick off the ...

It looks like another IoT product has outlived its useful life – today we discovered that our Sen.se Mother has ...

Since our recent story about GE smart switches and outlets, built by Jasco, we have received two more of their ...

When you think about starting to automate your home, you may ask yourself, smart light bulbs or smart switches? While ...

We have been experimenting with different security cameras over the years, both inside and outside and at our mom’s house. ...

Here at AppMyHome we are always intrigued with novel ways to monitor our home and solve problems with technology. Plus, ...

After we began our journey to automate our home, we wondered if there was some way to take advantage of ...

Welcome to our fourth annual smart home holiday gift guide. As we reflect on the past year, it feels like ...

Installing connected devices to handle one task better is great. Lights that you can turn on with your phone or ...

For several years, we have been enjoying cooking at home more often thanks to boxed meal kits from Blue Apron. ...

Our SkyBell smart doorbell was one of the very first devices we reviewed on our site back in 2014. We ...

Our latest experiment with smart home packaged cooking kits is Terra’s Kitchen. When we saw the ads for the service on ...

We continue our review of some of the the latest home delivery meal-kit services with Home Chef. Home Chef started ...

We’ve been enjoying the benefits of weekly meal kit delivery services at AppMyHome for the last few years. It is ...

As we have installed more and more devices in our home, we have become increasingly concerned about safety. We are ...

We have been looking for smart blinds or another way to automate our window coverings for some time. We would ...

We purchased our first Wink smart home Hub in 2014, from Home Depot, not too long after it first became ...

Every year thousands of visitors converge on Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show, the annual exhibition for new technology ...

As we head into 2017, after more than three years on our journey to automate our home, it’s a good ...

Around the same time we installed our mom’s Ring Pro doorbell, we decided we wanted to try out Ring’s portable, ...

Welcome to our third annual smart home holiday gift guide. As we get ready to start our fourth year of ...

If you have been following our blog from the beginning you probably already know we have a SkyBell smart doorbell. We ...

For years, we have been looking at new cars without finding anything that compelled us to upgrade. These days it ...

We have been big fans of the Sengled smart home lighting product line and the way they have incorporated smart ...

Security cameras have been in use for years, long before the DIY smart home revolution. While there have been a ...

We have seen the Automatic Car Adapter and considered buying it for a few years. We probably picked it up ...

We bought our original Iris home hub from back in 2014 and have been using it since then to control ...

When we first started automating our home a few years ago, one of the first devices we bought was a ...

Now that we have recommended holiday gifts, it’s time to think about our own smart home holiday wish list. If ...

Welcome to our second annual smart home holiday gift guide. 2015 has been a big year for DIY home automation, ...

The first time we heard about the Amazon Echo was about this time last year when a colleague shared this ...

We have been using our Kwikset Kevo since early 2014. It was one of the first smart home locks on ...

After testing three other boxed meal delivery services, we once again went back to Blue Apron to complete our Smart ...

Our next adventure in smart home cooking is Plated. Plated seems to be Blue Apron’s first serious competitor in the ...

Over the last couple of years, we have tested several of the leading smart home hubs available in the US, ...

Our home entertainment system was one of the first things we started automating here at AppMyHome. Even before we got ...

While we are in the 21st century, some companies like Samsung still do not know how to turn their televisions ...

Hello Fresh is next up in our comparison of boxed, ready to prepare meals. We received a coupon recently for ...

Here at AppMyHome, one of the most challenging questions we ask ourselves every day is “what’s for dinner?” And like ...

This week our temperatures soared up to the 100s, and at some point, the fan on the outside air conditioner ...

This post originally appeared on Powers Automation – Smart Home Gurus. We are mostly DIY here at AppMyHome, but check out ...

Have you ever wished that your mother still lived with you, to remind you to get enough sleep, drink enough ...

Yesterday Wink had a major meltdown and ours was one of the many hubs impacted. There has been a lot ...

The Sengled Pulse light bulbs, smart LED bulbs that double as a Bluetooth speaker, were one of the hottest devices ...

We have been in the market for a smart irrigation solution for our yard and garden for some time. We are ...

The Wink Tapt is a shiny white smart switch, that looks like half of its cousin the Wink Relay. The ...

A little over a year ago we bought and installed one of the first SkyBell smart doorbells and reviewed it ...

A few weeks ago our garbage disposal had a meltdown. We use it a lot and it had been struggling ...

Now that we have replaced a good portion of our home’s lights with either smart bulbs or switches (16 light ...

The Consumer Electronics Show is the place for companies from all over the world to show their latest products and ...

We recently installed the new addition to the Wink family, the Relay. This device allows control of all the same ...

When we first started our experiments at AppMyHome, there were no real DIY smart home platforms out there, just point ...

  Home automation is hotter than ever this holiday season. If you are looking to surprise that special someone in ...

We had the Orbit Water Valve sort of working with Smartthings but it was unreliable.  So, I repurchased the Iris hub ...

Last week I was on my own in my automated house, without my chief technical officer. I consider myself fairly ...

With all the talk this week about Aereo and the Supreme Court decision, it seems like a good time to ...

With the house almost completely automated we now look for an integrated app to control all the functions. And would ...

I wasn’t going to get the Iris hub since we already have Smartthings but being in Lowes today I just ...

I picked up some additional z-wave gadgets. A GE dimmer, a couple of outlets and a three-way kit, plus an ...

Today’s post is from the other half of AppMyHome, the webmaster and marketer, not the installer and geek. I have ...

Received an email from Chamberlain MyQ today. Seems they have a planned outage this weekend. Which is fine. Thanks for ...

We have been using our SkyBell now for about six weeks and now that the initial excitement has worn off, ...

Sometimes home automation is fun. Well at least showing off the capabilities. Just turned off the laundry room light that ...

Yes they do. These locks are easy to install at least for the physical part. They look like a standard ...

One pleasant surprise was the automation of the garage door. Chamberlain certainly made a simple elegant solution. Basically this is ...

Ok so the bell is mounted. The camera pointed the right way. As a bell works great. As a video ...

Well mostly. Still have to permanently mount to the stucco. Never a fun job. A two sided thick sticky tape ...

Amazon must have received their supply of sky bell automated doorbell Skybells. Others have reported receiving theirs the past week. ...

Just picked up a couple more wall switches. Needed to make a decision. Did I want the wemo light switch ...

Picked up a 3 way z-wave from GE model 45614 three way switch . Figured would be great for the ...

Well hadn’t been using IFTTT up until today. Once all the devices were installed then this made sense. Tried to ...

Last night I asked smartthings to add wemo and hue to our hub. And low and behold this morning they ...