What's it really like to test every smart home product on the market — when your job literally never turns off?

We sat down with Jennifer Pattison Tuohy, Senior Reviewer at The Verge, for a candid, wide-ranging conversation about living on the bleeding edge of smart home tech. From the robot mower debate ("this season, maybe"), to humanoids at CES that literally fell on her, to why she thinks she has the worst smart home of anyone she knows — this episode covers everything.

🔗 Find Jen's work at theverge.com/authors/jennifer-pattison-tuohy
🔗 The Verge History Podcast — current series on Amazon Echo history, with a
full smart home history season coming soon

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💡 This episode is sponsored by Zooz / The Smartest House.

Most smart home devices are about convenience — the Zooz Titan Water Valve Actuator is one of the few that can actually save you from financial disaster. It mounts to your home's main water shut-off valve and lets you automatically or remotely turn off your water the moment a leak is detected. Works with leak sensors, vacation modes, Home Assistant automations, and more.

Support the show and get the best deals on Zooz smart home products:
👉 https://www.thesmartesthouse.com?sca_ref=6284708.sXoXFTZinuqY

Robot mowers have been around for years — but bad reviews, boundary wire headaches, and yards that just didn't cooperate held most people back. That's changing fast. This week we sit down with Todd from Worx to dig into their latest robot mower platform, Vision Cloud, and find out whether the technology has finally caught up to the promise.

We get into how Vision Cloud works (no boundary wire, no local antenna), what RTK and VSLAM actually mean for your lawn, and why four-wheel drive is a bigger deal than it sounds. Plus: who should actually buy a robot mower right now, and who probably shouldn't.

📌 Learn more about Worx Vision Cloud: worx.com

❤️ Support the Podcast

Support the show and get the best deals on Zooz smart home products:
👉 https://www.thesmartesthouse.com?sca_ref=6284708.sXoXFTZinuqY

What if your TV could automatically answer a video call from your daughter — no buttons, no tech confusion, no missed connections? This week we sit down with Costin Tuculescu, CEO of Onscreen Joy / Joy Living, the company that debuted their AI companion "Joy" at CES 2025 and is quietly building one of the most interesting products in the aging-in-place space.

We get into how COVID sparked the whole idea, why "the best interface is no interface," and what it actually looks like to design tech for someone with early-stage dementia. We also accidentally wake up Joy live on the podcast — and she handles it better than we did.

📌 Connect with Onscreen Joy:

• TV product: joyv.ai
• Daily check-in calls: joycalls.ai
• Tablet app: Search "Onscreen Joy" in your app store
• Organizations & senior living: joyliving.ai

Support the show and get the best deals on Zooz smart home products:
👉 https://www.thesmartesthouse.com?sca_ref=6284708.sXoXFTZinuqY