A lifelong storyteller and gadget nerd, Bertel has spent his entire adult career immersed in consumer tech. He covered news for Android Police during the wild smartphone boom years of 2013-2016, helped readers make use of technology at none other than MakeUseOf from 2014-2025, and continues to write passionately about our digital tools and companions over at How-To Geek. Matter gave him the confidence to build a smart home of his own, and he's happy to share that enthusiam as part of the Matter Alpha team. When not writing about tech, you can find him playing board games with family and friends, binge reading graphic novels, or enjoying leisurely meditations out in the woods.
Battery-powered Matter sensors made my smart home more capable, but once several started dying at the same time, the hidden maintenance cost became obvious.
After two years filling my home with Matter devices, these are the five everyday problems that smart sensors, switches and automations actually solved.
Matter devices can do more than automate lights and locks—I use climate sensors, humidifiers, and soil monitoring to help my houseplants thrive.
Are Matter-compatible smart locks secure? While adding network connectivity introduces potential vulnerabilities through cloud accounts and keypads, Matter's robust local encryption ensures that a smart lock is rarely the weakest link in your home's security.
After spending a year replacing every wall switch in his home with Wi-Fi-enabled smart switches, one homeowner weighs the true costs, unexpected labor, and long-term benefits of the grand DIY smart home project.
SwitchBot's Lock Vision Pro brings multi-biometric entry and native Matter support to a secure deadbolt replacement.
SwitchBot’s budget-friendly presence sensor brings reliable mmWave detection and Matter compatibility to every room, making whole-home automation attainable without breaking the bank.
A true smart home shouldn't require an app for every routine task; it should simply anticipate your needs, starting with mmWave presence sensors that automate everything from fans and exhaust systems to closet lights.
Managing five air purifiers across a large home is a chore. Trading manual checks for smart automations completely changed how we breathe.
I never thought a fan would be exciting, but battery power and smart automation turned this simple appliance into a vital part of my daily routine.
It’s a black-and-white E-Ink frame that lacks deep Matter integration and makes calendar management a chore. So why is it the only gadget my family loves?
Smart thermostats are only as accurate as the single room they occupy. To truly understand your home’s climate, you need to go granular—here is how filling your house with temperature, humidity, and air quality sensors transforms a basic smart home into a truly intelligent one.
At just $10, IKEA’s KLIPPBOK water leak sensor is an absolute bargain. It’s a set-and-forget Matter-over-Thread device that offers peace of mind even if you never connect it to a hub.
SwitchBot’s Standing Circulator Fan is a masterclass in design. It’s quiet, portable, and battery-powered—making it a must-have, even if its Matter integration is lackluster.
At the inaugural Unify 2026, the industry moved from "can Matter work?" to "what can we build?" Here are the big trends shaping the future of your home.
Matter 1.6 is here to fix the frustrations of the early smart home era. With Joint Fabric, NFC onboarding, and smarter thermostats, it’s finally maturing.
I'm not the right customer for the Homey Pro, but I'm not sure who is. At nearly $500, You're getting a marginally better experience than the Homey Pro mini, for nearly twice the price.
Smart lighting is the ideal entry-level smart home project. It's also one you can expand upon for years, with new and exciting options popping up all the time. Smart lighting doesn't merely replace traditional lighting or expand upon what it can do. Smart lighting imagines new way to incorporate light into our lives.
I haven't had the most reliable experience with this product, but I suspect that has more to do with my Thread network than the product itself. If so, that's a hard problem for IKEA to solve.
I could replace my ceiling fans with Matter-compatible ones, but there's a growing likelihood that the ones I already have with integrate with my smart home hub someday.