Sustainable Home

As we wrote in Part 1 of this series, motorized shades and blinds are moving rapidly into the DIY connected home mainstream. You may no longer need to hire a...

Moving beyond the smart LED bulbs that have been the hallmark product of the Philips Hue brand, the company has announced the emergence of the Hue Cher line, a series...

Aiming to elevate the lowly light switch, connected home accessory company iDevices has announced their Instinct line—smart wall switches with onboard voice activation capabilities. Designed with the Amazon Alexa digital...

So, you ask, did CES® 2018 yield a watershed moment for the connected home? If the number of water-related devices introduced this week in Las Vegas was any indication, your...

With much of the buzz around the tiny house movement focused on start-ups making their plays in the micro-housing ecosystem, high school students at the Construction Careers Academy outside of...

Setting a high-water mark for residential thermostat retail pricing in 2011 with the launch of the original $249 Nest Learning Thermostat, the Palo Alto company has brought down the cost...

Designed to appeal to do-it-yourself homeowners as well as professional integrators and builders, smart-home device manufacturer iDevices has released the iDevices Dimmer Switch, an in-wall dimmer that is equally suited...

Giving a glimpse into how today’s connected home could serve its occupants if it were equipped with smart-home products in every room, and on every wall, inside and out, the...

How would a small, modern dwelling look and serve its occupants if it were outfitted with connected home products and technologies in every room, and on every wall, inside and...

With a form factor designed to match that of the typical low-tech water cooler, Aquarius Brands has brought high tech and and high science to the kitchen with the AquaBoy®...

Metal surfaces have earned a well-deserved reputation as the leading roofing choice on today’s sustainable architecture homefront, and for good reasons. The benefits of these roofs are many, including an...

In a concerted effort to elevate the profile of Apple HomeKit—the Cupertino company’s foundational infrastructure for smart-home technology accessory integration—Apple has taken a giant step forward by releasing the fresh...

The Nest Labs app for their line of smart-home technology products has joined the domain where wrist-borne complications, haptics, and glances are commonplace—a world otherwise known as the Apple Watch....

If we were writing the definitive guidebook for smart-home technology integration, the probability is high that we would add flexibility to the guide’s checklist of desirable attributes for these dwellings....

High-performance home building is a carefully orchestrated symphony of site selection, architectural design, component selection, and construction prowess. Having any single element of this quartet out of tune with its fellow...

Can the often-opposing forces of contemporary interior design and sustainability blend into tasteful pairings for your doors? And if so, can you afford to place them on the menu of...

In some cases, it pays to be in the dark. That rings particularly true in the small city of Dripping Springs, Texas, that earned an elite designation in 2014 as...

You don’t need to be Stephen Hawking or Neil deGrasse Tyson to appreciate the benefits pitch-dark skies bring to even casual stargazing. But as naturally-dark skies become increasingly rare due...