Helping you Build your Smart Home
Evan Mercer 
Almost every Kwikset smart lock battery is a standard AA: the Halo, Halo Touch, Halo Select, Aura, Aura Reach, SmartCode, Premis, Kevo and Obsidian locks all run on four AA alkaline batteries. The one exception is the SmartCode 955 keypad lever, which takes a single 9V. Changing them takes a few minutes, and Kwikset says … Read more
Apple Home Adaptive Lighting changes the color temperature of your lights through the day on its own: warm white in the morning, cooler white around midday, and warm again in the evening. You don’t build a schedule. You turn it on for a light, and Apple Home does the rest. It only works with lights … Read more
Eufy and Wyze both sell security cameras that cost well under $100 and record to storage at home, so neither forces you into a monthly plan. The eufy vs Wyze choice mostly comes down to what you get for free. Wyze cameras cost less, but their person and package alerts need a Cam Plus plan. … Read more
Every Schlage lock battery is a standard size: four AA alkaline batteries in the smart locks (Encode, Encode Plus, Arrive, Sense Pro and Connect), and one 9V alkaline battery in the Keypad and Touch locks. Changing them takes a couple of minutes and doesn’t erase your codes. The one thing to get right is the … Read more
Honeywell thermostat Cool On flashing on the screen doesn’t mean anything is broken, in most cases. It’s waiting: the thermostat has already decided to cool your home, but it’s holding the air conditioner’s compressor off for a few minutes to protect it. Honeywell says this delay can last up to five minutes, and then “Cool … Read more
The Honeywell T6 Pro is Honeywell’s professional thermostat line: a square touchscreen that HVAC contractors install, sold in three versions (the Wi-Fi T6 Pro Smart, the T6 Pro Z-Wave and a plain programmable model). It’s still one of the most capable Honeywell thermostats for heat pumps and dual-fuel systems, and the Wi-Fi and Z-Wave models … Read more
Last updated: November 2026 The best Tapo camera for most homes is the Tapo C120: a small 2K camera that works indoors or outside, has color night vision and records 24/7 to a microSD card without a subscription. TP-Link’s Tapo line goes a lot further than that, though, from a $35 pan-tilt camera to 4K, … Read more
The Ring Bridge is a small plug-in hub that connects Ring’s smart lights and some of its newer sensors to the Ring app. Without it, a Ring pathlight or floodlight still turns on when it sees motion, but you can’t control it from your phone, group it with other lights or have it react to … Read more
The best smart mailbox sensor for most homes is the Ring Mailbox Sensor: for about $30 it sends an alert to your phone, and an announcement to your Echo speakers if you want, every time the mailbox opens. If your mailbox is far from the house, the YoLink Outdoor Contact Sensor Kit has the longest … Read more
A Schlage lock reset is quick once you know which button your model uses. On the Encode, Sense Pro and Arrive, it’s a button under the battery cover. On the Connect and the older keypad locks, you hold the Schlage button while you reconnect the batteries. Either way, a factory reset erases every code on … Read more