Month: March 2026

SmartWings Blinds Review: Matter over Thread Zebra Shades

SmartWings Blinds Review: Matter over Thread Zebra Shades

SmartWings is no stranger to the smart blinds space. For years they have been supporting a variety of smart home protocols including Zigbee, Z-Wave, Matter over Thread, Matter over PoE and Apple Homekit. They were one of the first manufactures to support Matter over Thread smart blinds back in 2023....

Aqara Camera Hub G350: World’s First Matter v1.5 Camera

Aqara Camera Hub G350: World’s First Matter v1.5 Camera

Announced at CES 2026, and now available, is the brand new Aqara Camera Hub G350 for USD $139.99. The headline feature of this new smart camera is official support for the Matter v1.5 camera standard. Officially published in November 2025 Matter 1.5 specification now allows platform agnostic integration of video...

ESPHome: Micro-Air EasyStart Integration

ESPHome: Micro-Air EasyStart Integration

Very recently I purchased the Micro-Air EasyStart Flex and via ESPHome, got it connected to Home Assistant. What is the Micro-Air EasyStart Flex? It is an advanced and versatile soft starter, designed for all sizes of residential A/C units up to 6 tons (72,000 BTUs). The EasyStart provides a controlled...

ESPHome: Introducing the Seeed Studio Xiao ESP32-C5

ESPHome: Introducing the Seeed Studio Xiao ESP32-C5

Hot off the press is the brand new Seeed Studio Xiao ESP32-C5. This is the first Seeed Studio Xiao module with 5 GHz Wi-Fi support. Built on the RISC-V architecture, it brings together 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz dual-band Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5 (LE), and IEEE 802.15.4 (Zigbee, Thread) connectivity,...