The house that does things

A smart home rarely announces itself. It just quietly stops needing you to flip switches, and then one day you notice the whole flat is negotiating with your phone. Here is today's batch of things that do a bit more than they used to.

Start small: the Nedis smart plug turns any socket into something you can switch off from bed, and it happens to keep a running tally of how much power whatever's plugged into it is actually drawing. IP21 rated, so it will tolerate a bit of ambient damp without becoming an incident.

For bulbs, Hombli's color E27 pair skips the bridge entirely, connecting straight to wifi and offering the usual sixteen million colours you will use maybe four of. It comes as two, which is the correct number for anyone who has ever mismatched lamps in the same room.

Govee's 170 cm floor lamp is less a lamp than a lighting installation that happens to stand in the corner: three zones, Matter compatible, and a ripple effect designed to wash the wall behind it rather than just the room in front. It asks to be pointed at something.

Not everything needs an app open to work. the WiZ portable button is a battery powered physical control for whatever smart bulbs you've already got, for the moments when unlocking a phone to dim a light feels like the wrong amount of effort.

Overhead, Govee's hanging lamp runs the same Matter RGBICWW logic as the floor lamp but from the ceiling, with its own three lighting zones to split colour across a room without buying three separate fixtures.

And outdoors, or along a mantelpiece, or wherever fourteen metres of lit string ends up going, the Philips Hue Festavia lichtsnoer carries twenty unbreakable globe bulbs that switch between white and colour, built to stay outside without minding the weather.