Indoor smart gardens are one of the hottest home trends at this year’s all-digital CES, giving enthusiastic gardeners a chance to automate their green thumb. With the help of smart sensors and digital assistants, growing your own delectable garden can easily be done in the comfort of your own home.

CVS Health is taking protecting seniors’ health to the next level. The company has introduced the Symphony medical alert system to help caregivers monitor the safety and well-being of loved ones, even from afar.

Google Nest and Home Speakers along with several other smart speakers and displays will receive this Guest Mode update. Google says that this new feature is another easy way to control your privacy. Users can see this new Guest Mode feature for smart home devices as an incognito mode in Chrome.

Apple has added a lot of features and capabilities to HomeKit since it first launched. Siri is now somewhat programmable. Along with the ease of setup for almost every product, including those that aren’t officially supported via Homebridge.

The journey of creating your perfect smart home is exciting. Many people fantasize about automated coffee-makers and instant weather reports. Some imagine a home that is the pinnacle of convenience or comfort. But there are several potential pitfalls when just starting out.

First and foremost, non-connectivity is cheaper. There are no Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or NFC components to put inside the lock. There are no developers to keep on staff trying to furiously keep up with software releases for Android and iOS. There’s no need to bake in new features and test them on Android 8, 9, 10, 11, and so on.

Next time you’re frustrated with your smart speaker not understanding you and you’re ready to break things off, try one of these Google Home fixes.