Women's groups are calling for tech developers to take into account women's safety. Women's groups are calling for tech developers to take into account women's safety. Domestic abusers are increasingly using AI, smartwatches and other technology to attack and control their victims, a domestic abuse charity says. Record numbers of women who were abused and controlled through technology were referred to Refuge's specialist services during the last three months of 2025, including a 62% increase in the most complex cases to total 829 women. There was also a 24% increase in referrals of under-30s.

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Your home is only as smart as the hub that orchestrates everything behind the scenes. We'll help you pick the right system for your home-automation needs. It's never been easier-or less expensive-to build out a state-of-the art smart home. We have other roundups that name the best smart home components-everything from the best smart bulbs to the best smart speakers, but in this story, we name the best hubs-the central controllers-that make home living more convenient. While the lines are becoming increasingly blurred, we see two basic types of smart home systems: Those focused on convenience first-the hubs listed here-and those focused on home security first (and here are our top DIY home security system picks).

Smart homes don't need to be complicated or expensive. Take a methodical approach and keep an eye out for bargains and you can enjoy many of the conveniences of living in a smart home without spending much at all. The secret is to start slow, and to invest in a few solid products that will have the most impact, I'm talking electrical outlets, lighting, climate control, and the like. In other words, you can probably get by without a smart washing machine, but installing a smart thermostat will be a game changer for both your comfort and living expenses. One of the keys to successfully getting a smart home up and running is to ensure everything you install is fully compatible and interoperable. Many smart home ecosystems were originally designed around a central hub and wireless protocols that were supposed to hit it big, but that either never really took off or have faded in importance and mainstream appeal.

A smart speaker makes for an easy first step into smart home technology. Before you kit out your house with thousands of dollars of lighting and security upgrades, you can familiarize yourself with voice-assistant technology while enjoying music, podcasts, and news in a hands-free home environment. Here are our top picks in several categories. If you want information about smart speakers in addition to our top recommendations, scroll down the page to read our in-depth buyers' guide. Alexa is the most popular voice assistant, and the 2024 edition of the Echo Pop is the best value in Amazon's smart speaker lineup. While it's not a true smart display, it is equipped with a touchscreen that can display the time, date, weather conditions, and other information. It can also show album art while streaming music (not that we recommend this speaker for that task).

"Alexa," I asked the Echo display in my kitchen, "what was that song from The Hills? You know, that MTV show? Can you play it on the Echo Show in the office?" The old Alexa wouldn't have had a prayer of answering such a poorly worded query. But the new Alexa, now packing AI-enhanced smarts, handled it easily.

After more than a year out of sight, Alexa –the new Alexa with its AI-powered revamp–took center stage at a crowded coming-out party in New York City on Wednesday, and I got a first-hand look at what this turbocharged voice assistant can do. Following the big unveiling, we were all led to a demonstration hall with about a half-dozen break-out rooms, where we were able to see and hear--but not participate in--Alexa's new conversational tricks, from controlling smart home devices and researching sports tickets to suggesting recipes and dialing up tunes on Amazon Prime Video. If all that sounds like old hat, consider this: While the old Alexa requires falling back into what Amazon devices head Panos Panay rightfully described as "Alexa-speak," the new Alexa is a far more flexible and understanding companion, capable of sussing out your intentions from the vaguest of queries, and--at least, from what I saw on Wednesday--getting it right more than it failed. While the demonstrations we saw appeared carefully choreographed, we were frequently assured that what we were seeing and hearing was the "live" Alexa, rather than a canned demo--and from someone who's spent a fair amount of time with ChatGPT's Advanced Voice Mode, the exchanges sounded genuine. Here are my biggest takeaways after sitting through Amazon's Alexa show-and-tell, starting with… Naturally, everyone's waiting for the new AI-powered Alexa to bungle a command or start hallucinating, but the demos I saw on Wednesday went surprisingly smoothly.

Hubin Zhao (hubin.zhao@ucl.ac.uk), and Luigi G. Occhipinti (lgo23@cam.ac.uk) Abstract At-home rehabilitation for post-stroke patients presents significant challenges, as continuous, personalized care is often limited outside clinical settings. Additionally, the absence of comprehensive solutions addressing diverse rehabilitation needs in home environments complicates recovery efforts. Here, we introduce a smart home platform that integrates wearable sensors, ambient monitoring, and large language model (LLM)-powered assistance to provide seamless health monitoring and intelligent support. The system leverages machine learning enabled plantar pressure arrays for motor recovery assessment (94% classification accuracy), a wearable eye-tracking module for cognitive evaluation, and ambient sensors for precise smart home control (100% operational success, <1 s latency). Additionally, the LLM-powered agent, Auto-Care, offers real-time interventions, such as health reminders and environmental adjustments, enhancing user satisfaction by 29%. This work establishes a fully integrated platform for long-term, personalized rehabilitation, offering new possibilities for managing chronic conditions and supporting aging populations. Stroke is the third leading cause of disability worldwide, affecting more than 101 million people [1, 2]. Post-stroke recovery is not only a prolonged process but also a resource-intensive one, imposing significant economic and caregiving burdens on families and healthcare systems--a challenge exacerbated by global aging [5]. For many patients, the home becomes a critical environment for rehabilitation, as opportunities for continuous and personalized care are limited outside of clinical settings [6].

Have you ever seen a movie where someone enters a posh home and immediately uses a big control panel to secure their house, turn on their lights, get news updates, and so on? That's essentially what a smart home hub does, and you can get one now at a great price if you want. The Amazon Echo Hub is a central control panel that connects all the smart home devices in your house, and right now it's on sale for just 125 on Amazon. Whether you place it by the door or put it in your bedroom, it doesn't matter because it just works. The Echo Hub's dashboard is customizable, so you can add in your favorite widgets, check in on your smart doorbell camera feed, quickly turn off the smart lights in your living room, send your smart robot vacuum on a cleaning job, or arm your security system.

There are a lot of fantastic smart home devices on the market now, but it's not always easy getting them to talk to one another and work in unison. That's where Matter comes in: It's a standardized set of rules for getting smart home kit gadgets to speak the same language. Every smart home device comes with its own apps--but what happens when you want to turn off your lights and heating with one voice command? Or want to use smart plugs from two different manufacturers? Matter aims to standardize all that.

LG has introduced a smart home hub called ThinQ ON that has the technology to control not just LG-branded appliances but also other smart home devices. It comes with a built-in speaker that gives you a way to talk to LG's AI voice assistant, so you can use it to look up information, as well as to control your smart devices with spoken commands. LG says its technology can "understand the context of conversations" and can determine your preference for a specific device. It could, perhaps, tell your preferred temperature for the thermostat or the washer cycle you typically use. And it can notify you when a task is done, such as when the dryer cycle is finished.