How to save a smart home company

This week on The Vergecast, we enter the Jen-era of Hot Girl Vergecast Summer, with a deep dive into the business of the smart home. The Verge’s smart home reviewer, Jennifer Pattison Tuohy (aka Jen), chats with Ken Fairbanks, a longtime customer of Insteon who ended up buying the smart lighting company when it went into bankruptcy.

Ken shares the story of how one of the original smart lighting protocols, founded in the post-X10 era when home automation moved from wired to wireless, floundered, and how he and a band of users brought it back from the dead. He dishes what he’s learned about how to keep the lights on — from customer loyalty and the value of subscriptions, to what tariffs are doing to the industry and how some hardware companies are just pyramid schemes.

Then, in a special supersized (and we mean SUPER) Vergecast Hotline (call 866-VERGE11 or email vergecast@theverge.com), Jen is joined by smart home expert Richard Gunther, co-host of The Smart Home Show, to tackle a bunch of your burning smart lighting questions. They answer everything from how to move your smart home to which Thread border router you should buy for your Matter setup. Plus, they run down their own smart lighting set-ups.

Further reading:

Insteon’s troubles are a smart home tale as old as time

Insteon Raises the Curtain for the Next Act

Someone turned Insteon’s lights back on

Insteon customers turned Insteon’s lights back on

Thread count: Ikea is stitching together a smarter home

Smart switches or smart bulbs? How to choose the right smart lighting for your home

Controller for HomeKit

Philips Hue Play sync box and gradient lightstrip review: wholly unnecessary, totally delightful

Taming Wi-Fi in the Smart Home:

Leviton’s new smart light switches don’t require a neutral wire

Every smart home device that works with Matter

Aqara’s new seven-inch home control tablet can replace a light switch

These smart lights could solve the kitchen cabinet problem

Hue launches a pricey new sunrise lamp

Smart string light showdown: Nanoleaf versus Lifx

The best floodlight camera to buy right now

How to move a smart home

Moving a smart home - The Smart Home Show

Living with the ghost of a smart home’s past

Smart ceiling light showdown: Aqara T1M versus Nanoleaf Skylight

Binding should be the next big thing for smart home devices

Aqara adds support for 50 new Matter device types

Flic is ready to control all your Matter devices

Thread is Matter’s secret sauce for a better smart home

Google Nest Thread border routers

Google TV Streamer review: smarter than your average set-top box

Google Nest Hub (2nd-gen) review: sleep on it

Why Thread is Matter’s biggest problem right now

The four changes in Thread 1.4 that could fix the protocol

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