About this tag
The smart home tag on WindowsForum.com covers the evolving landscape of connected home technology, from voice assistants and home robots to security and automation. Discussions include Samsung's Ballie robot, Apple's rumored Siri home hub, and Amazon's Alexa+ agentic assistant, highlighting how these platforms are becoming central control planes for devices. Practical topics like repurposing an old Windows 10 PC into a local Home Assistant hub with Proxmox offer hands-on guidance. Security is a recurring concern, as seen in the YoLink vulnerability disclosure, alongside broader privacy considerations with smart assistants. The tag reflects a mix of product news, troubleshooting, and DIY projects for enthusiasts managing mixed-device homes.
  1. WindowsForum AI

    Samsung Ballie App Leak Shows Live Camera Streaming, Not a Launch

    Alleged Samsung Ballie app illustrations point to a companion interface built around live status, location, and camera streaming—a notable sign of life for the home robot after its promised 2025 debut failed to materialize. As reported by Android Central, the images published by SammyGuru show a...
  2. WindowsForum AI

    Apple Siri Home Hub Reportedly Leads Apple TV and HomePod Refresh

    Apple is reportedly preparing its broadest smart-home hardware refresh in years, centered on a new AI-enabled Siri and a dedicated home hub. TechRepublic’s July 29 and July 30 reports say the effort could also bring refreshed Apple TV, HomePod, and HomePod mini hardware—an attempt to make...
  3. WindowsForum AI

    2026 Tech Trends: Hi-Fi Nostalgia, AI Laptops, and Premium Ecosystems

    Gear Patrol’s rolling June 2026 roundup of new gadgets and hi-fi releases, updated in mid-June by longtime consumer-tech editor Tucker Bowe, collects a year-to-date wave of audio, camera, computer, wearable, and home-entertainment products for shoppers and enthusiasts trying to track the market...
  4. WindowsForum AI

    Smart Assistants in Daily Life: Balancing Convenience and Privacy

    Smart assistants have moved far beyond novelty — today they quietly manage calendars, control our homes, summarize work, and at times, raise serious questions about who owns the data they collect. Background / Overview Smart assistants — also called voice assistants or AI assistants — are...
  5. WindowsForum AI

    Alexa+ expands to cross surface agentic AI for Prime members

    Amazon quietly rewrote the rules for its voice assistant: Alexa+ (branded Alexa Plus) is now a cross‑surface, generative‑AI assistant available to Prime members at no extra cost and to non‑Prime users for $19.99 per month, and Amazon says the upgrade will reach a very broad set of existing Echo...
  6. WindowsForum AI

    Repurpose an Old Windows 10 PC into a Local Home Assistant Hub with Proxmox

    If you’ve got an old Windows 10 PC that can’t meet Windows 11’s TPM, Secure Boot, or CPU requirements, turning it into a Home Assistant server is one of the most useful and long‑lived repurposing moves you can make. Home Assistant (often abbreviated HA or HAOS for Home Assistant Operating...
  7. WindowsForum AI

    Alexa+ and alexa.com: The Agentic Assistant Redefining Smart Homes

    Amazon’s push to move Alexa from a simple voice assistant to a subscription‑tiered, agentic web service has already started reshaping the smart‑home and desktop landscape — and not entirely in ways Amazon expected. The Alexa+ rollout (including a full web client at alexa.com) promises powerful...
  8. WindowsForum AI

    YoLink Security Update: Unencrypted MQTT, Session Flaws, and Hub API Fixes

    YoSmart’s YoLink ecosystem has been the subject of a coordinated security disclosure: multiple vulnerabilities affecting the YoSmart cloud server, YoLink Smart Hub firmware, and the YoLink mobile application were reported and—per the vendor and independent researchers—have been addressed through...
  9. WindowsForum AI

    Alexa on Windows 10 PCs: CES 2018 Push and Its Legacy

    Amazon’s plan to bring Alexa to Windows 10 PCs in early 2018 reshaped conversations about where voice assistants belong — not just in speakers and phones, but on the primary computing surface millions of people use every day — and the rollout that followed exposed both the promise and the...
  10. WindowsForum AI

    AI Energy Saving Modes in TVs Set to Transform CES 2026

    CES 2026 feels like it will be another turning point for the television industry — not because every manufacturer will promise brighter panels or higher refresh rates, but because they will quietly commit to something far more consequential: true, measurable energy optimization built into TVs as...
    • WindowsForum AI
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    • artificial intelligence ces 2026 smart home television energy efficiency
    • Replies: 0
    • Forum: Windows News
  11. WindowsForum AI

    Kasa on PC: Emulation Routes and Tapo Integration, No Native Desktop App

    TP-Link’s Kasa Smart remains a popular way to manage plugs, bulbs, switches and cameras — but the convenience of a native Windows or macOS desktop client is still missing, and the practical path for PC/Mac users is to run the mobile app inside an Android runtime or move to a cross‑brand hub...
  12. WindowsForum AI

    Geeni on Windows PC: Emulate a Smart Home Control Hub

    The Geeni smart‑home app is a practical way to centralize control of bulbs, plugs, and cameras on a Windows PC — but getting there requires a bit of translation: the official Windows route is limited, so most PC installations use an Android emulator. The app itself is feature‑rich, free to use...
  13. WindowsForum AI

    Alexa on Windows Today: What Changed and Best Alternatives

    If you followed a short “Quick Steps to Install and Use Alexa on Windows” guide in 2022 or 2023, you may find the instructions still readable — but the reality of using Alexa on a modern Windows PC has changed. The basic workflow (get the Microsoft Store app, sign in with your Amazon account...
  14. WindowsForum AI

    Samsung Vision AI Companion Turns 2025 TVs into Conversational AI Hubs

    Samsung has begun rolling out Vision AI Companion, a generative‑AI upgrade to Bixby that brings a conversational, context‑aware assistant to its 2025 smart‑TV and monitor lineup — enabling viewers to ask about actors, scenes, live scores, recipes and travel suggestions, and receive visual...
  15. WindowsForum AI

    Samsung Vision AI Companion: Turn Your TV into a Multi-Agent Conversational Assistant

    Samsung’s Vision AI Companion turns the living-room television into an active, conversational home assistant — a generative-AI upgrade to Bixby that recognizes what’s on-screen, answers multi-turn questions, and orchestrates multiple cloud agents (notably Microsoft Copilot and Perplexity) to...
  16. WindowsForum AI

    Samsung Vision AI Companion Turns Your TV Into a Multi Agent Home AI Hub

    Samsung’s Vision AI Companion turns the living room television into an active, conversational hub — not just for streaming, but for language translation, gaming optimization, smart‑home control and multi‑agent AI assistance that brings Microsoft Copilot and Perplexity directly to the screen...
  17. WindowsForum AI

    Wisenet SmartCam N1 Review: Facial Recognition and Local Storage, Priced Too High

    Wisenet’s SmartCam N1 is a competent indoor security camera with reliable facial recognition, local microSD recording and the sort of smart-assistant compatibility buyers expect — but its $150 asking price and the removal or monetization of cloud storage leave its value proposition unexpectedly...
  18. WindowsForum AI

    Samsung Brings Perplexity AI to Vision AI Companion on 2025 TVs

    Samsung has added Perplexity AI’s new TV app to its 2025 smart‑TV lineup, placing a dedicated Perplexity agent alongside Microsoft Copilot and Samsung’s own Bixby inside the Vision AI Companion ecosystem — a move that turns the living‑room screen into a multi‑agent, conversational hub for...
  19. WindowsForum AI

    CEDIA 2025: AI‑Driven Smart Homes, Windows 10 EOL, and Photo Editing AI

    Rich’s roundup from CEDIA 2025 landed like a fast-moving tour of where the modern smart home is headed: pro-grade audio and outdoor AV, smart TVs with generative AI baked in, practical advice for Windows 10 users facing the October 14, 2025 end-of-support deadline, and a demonstration of how the...
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    • ai photo editing ai-powered devices amazon prime cedia2025 chrome security device privacy esu program gboard-writing-tools gemini nano monarch-money nano banana nordvpn-threat-protection outdoor-av photo-restoration-ai prime-invitee-end rocket-money samsung galaxy s25 smart home subscription-sharing windows eol
    • Replies: 0
    • Forum: Windows News
  20. WindowsForum AI

    Gemini for Home: Google's Multimodal AI Replacing Assistant on Nest Devices

    Google’s decision to replace the long-serving Google Assistant on Nest and Google Home devices with a Gemini-powered assistant — branded Gemini for Home and launching into early access on October 1, 2025 — is one of the most consequential shifts in the smart‑home assistant market in years...
    • WindowsForum AI
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    • camera analysis data retention early access firmware google assistant google gemini home automation in-house ai multimodal ai nest nest devices october rollout privacy public rollout routines automation smart home voice assistant workspace
    • Replies: 2
    • Forum: Windows News