The home automation partnership featuring Amazon, Apple, Google, and others is taking off, with an official name for its standard, an enormous list of partners, and a release timeframe.

Mark Gurman of Bloomberg reveals that the HomePod mini contains an undocumented—and unused—chip that can sense temperature and humidity. “Take Control of Apple Home Automation” author Josh Centers offers a couple of possible explanations.

Apple has announced that it is discontinuing the original HomePod to focus on the HomePod mini. The company will continue to service and support the HomePod, and it will remain available while supplies last.

If you garden, it’s time to think about starting seedlings indoors in many parts of the world. “Take Control of Apple Home Automation” author Josh Centers shows how you can use HomeKit to help.

After several privacy controversies and pressure from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Amazon is rolling out end-to-end encryption for its Ring video doorbells.

Have a dark place in your home you’d like to light up, such as under the range in your kitchen? The HomeKit-compatible Hue Lightstrips are flexible (literally), easy to install, and bright. So, so bright.

In which Adam Engst finally hops on the HomeKit bandwagon for real and gets totally sucked in, installing smart outlets, controlling motorized shades, and adding some Flic buttons. 

You can use a home security camera without sending its video stream off to cloud storage that’s accessible by the camera’s maker—or anyone who can log into the account. Apple’s HomeKit Secure Video works with existing iCloud subscriptions and numerous third-party cameras. Glenn Fleishman, author of “Take Control of Home Security Cameras,” looks at HomeKit Secure Video’s strengths and weaknesses.

Apple announced the HomePod mini, a smaller, less expensive, and more rounded version of its two-year-old HomePod. The expanded speaker line has little in the way of groundbreaking features as it competes with speakers from Amazon and Google, but at least it’s now more affordable.

Apple’s upcoming tvOS 14 and additions to the company’s HomeKit home automation framework won’t rock your world, but they offer some nice improvements.

Don’t want your HomePod’s Siri responses being too loud at night? Matthew Cassinelli has come up with a tip on how to automatically quiet the HomePod at bedtime.

Home security cameras are all the rage, but you have to start with the reason you want one in the first place. Do you want to record criminal behavior? Spot wildlife? Know your kids came in before midnight? It’s all about intent, and many people discover they have multiple overlapping desires.

Apple is teaming up with Amazon, Google, and the Zigbee Alliance to create an open-source, security-focused communication standard for smart home devices.

Security researchers have revealed that Amazon’s Ring doorbells were transmitting Wi-Fi passwords in the clear. That’s now fixed, but what other devices might be exposing your network traffic?

iOS 13.1 is here to fix numerous bugs in the short-lived iOS 13.0 and to provide some features that were missing from iOS 13’s initial release. Alas, there are still more features that Apple has pushed off to a future iOS update.