David Mead

Best Video Doorbells For Apartments (2025 Update) Video doorbells are convenient and enhance security outside your home. Apartment residents need not be left out. See this guide on what to use without drilling.

My updated recommendations for Apartment video doorbells based on my current test results.
linkdhome.com/reviews/best...

Oh, looks like the Blink Doorbell is now available in Australia. That'll need testing.

TMEZON Smart Home Video Doorbell (24T) Review The TMEZON Bell 24T Smart Home Doorbell demonstrates surprisingly good image clarity for its price range, but there’s very little else to praise.

linkdhome.com/reviews/tmez...

Amazon Ring Cashes in on Techno-Authoritarianism and Mass Surveillance Ring founder Jamie Siminoff is back at the helm of the surveillance doorbell company, and with him is the surveillance-first-privacy-last approach that made Ring one of the most maligned tech

After years of activist pressure, lawsuits, and bad press Ring made much needed reforms. Now, they’re pivoting back to mass police surveillance as a business model. www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...

Ending production of Home Assistant Yellow Software support continues, and we start looking at what hardware is next for our power-users.

⚠️ WE'RE ENDING PRODUCTION OF THE HOME ASSISTANT YELLOW ⚠️

Rest assured, it will continue to be supported 😌 but if you've considered buying one get it before stock runs out! Learn why this decision was made, what support looks like moving forward, & a peek into the future 👇🏼

r/homeassistant - Reddit Water Monitor — Home Assistant integration for smart water sessions + leak detection

Happy #WorldWaterMonitoringDay! 🚿 Today we highlight a custom integration that may help in this area - Water Monitor. 👏🏻

markaggar built a local-first integration to understand water usage & guard against leaks. Check it out and see if it can help reduce your water usage. 💧

Farewell to the Starling Home Hub one of my favourite pieces of smart home technology https://www.thesmarthome.blog/starling-home-hub-discontinued-a-farewell-to-a-favourite/

Best Video Doorbell Without A Subscription (2025 Update) No one needs another subscription, so when looking for a good video doorbell option you'll want to look at what's available now that doesn't command ongoing fees.

I've updated my selections for good video doorbells that don't need subscriptions. There's some interesting options in here. linkdhome.com/reviews/best...

Agreed. It's become so overused it has lost all meaning. It now boils down to "I don't like this". If 'woke' is your argument, you have no cogent argument.

As a bonus, being nice to the LLM forces them to spend way more money processing the extra words in your response.

Most people should use a password manager, but there's no one-size-fits-all recommendation. ssd.eff.org/module/choo...

Eufy C30 Video Doorbell Review The Eufy C30 offers excellent motion detection and video quality, but lags on two-way talk and notification performance.

My review of the Eufy C30 doorbell is up. It's a surprisingly capable model for the price, but with some clear limitations. linkdhome.com/reviews/eufy...

Battery rundown is still in the works. It's been particularly windy so I'm going to do another pass to ensure it's fair.

Pros And Cons Of Cloud Based Smart Devices "No hubs!" you say. "Wi-Fi is fine" you think. But is it? Learn about the real pros and cons of cloud controlled smart devices before choosing.

Given Google and Belkin bricking more smart devices, I felt compelled to write (yet another) article on why cloud control is bad for smart homes. linkdhome.com/articles/pro...

Cloud-based smart home control sucks, and this is exactly why. It's notable that the Belkin devices with HomeKit support will continue to work. Local control is the only viable, remotely secure way to build a smart home.

The Tapo D210 completed it battery rundown test today. An impressive 98 days at high sensitivity and frequent motion tests. Second only to the Ring Battery Doorbell Plus at 102 days.

Eufy C30 doorbell box held in my hand

What have we here? Including a memory card? Nice.

Just a gripe about applying the 'desktop colors your app' to the icons as well in agreement with you sentiment...I think.

Icon colors are such a massive visual queue when you're looking for something I can't imagine having them all the same. It would drive me nuts.

Eve Energy (Matter) Review The Eve Energy smart plug provides fast, reliable operation over Thread for any smart home that supports Matter. It’s a high-quality product let down only by its bulky form factor.

Finally got around to running the Matter-based Eve Energy through my test panel. Full report is now available: linkdhome.com/reviews/eve-...

That's a reasonable assumption if it's a FIDO endorsed format. I'm keen to try it out when I get some time.

'Meta' and 'privacy' really don't go together in the same sentence.

What’s new in passkeys - WWDC25 - Videos - Apple Developer Discover how iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and visionOS 26 enhance passkeys. We'll explore key updates including: the new account creation API for...

It's good to see some movement on proper Passkey transfers from Apple. I'm still concerned that it requires 'participating manager apps' even though it uses FIDO standard data interchange. Really hope it takes off. developer.apple.com/videos/play/...

I'm finally happy with my Sensibo automation in Home Assistant. This Node-RED flow makes it completely hands-off and seems to be working flawlessly now. I've even included some self-healing in the event the data link get's stuck.

YouTube video by LinkdHOME Wemo Smart Video Doorbell Night IR sample

Wemo's doorbell camera doesn't produce a great result, unfortunately. The lowest image clarity score I've had so far. youtube.com/shorts/sFIZv...

Thanks, I took too long to jump ship.

die cast metal wall bracket for the Wemo smart video doorbell

When most video doorbells use a cheap plastic wall mount, Wemo comes in with a solid metal one even with a bargain price point.