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Jennifer Pattison Tuohy

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy

Reviewer, Smart Home

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy is The Verge's Smart Home Reviewer. She covers all areas of home automation and connected gadgets, from robot vacuums and video doorbells to smart lighting and locks. Since joining The Verge in 2021, she has been an expert voice on the new smart home standard Matter and has interviewed industry leaders from Google, Amazon, Samsung, and Apple.

A journalist with 20 years of experience, she has covered the emerging consumer smart home space since 2013, writing for The New York Times, Wirecutter, Dwell, Wired (U.K.), The Ambient, BBC Science Focus, Charleston Magazine, and US News & World Report, among others. She received her training on London's Fleet Street with The Daily Telegraph before moving to Sun Valley, Idaho, where she worked in local news for ten years. She now lives in South Carolina with her family, two dogs, one cat, a rabbit, and seven chickens.

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Schlage smart locks now integrate directly with Airbnb.

The Encode Smart WiFi Deadbolt, Encode Plus, and Encode Smart WiFi Lever smart locks can all now be controlled from the Airbnb app. This means you won't have to download separate apps or wait for a host to text you a code, and hosts won’t have to generate new codes for each guest.

The feature launched last year, and Schlage is the first to implement it. Support for Yale and August locks is coming soon.


Siri can learn your favorite music service on your HomePod... as long as it's not Spotify.

The new HomePod‌ software update 17.4 lets Siri learn your preferred music service, so you don’t need to manually set it up or always say “on YouTube Music” after every request. It only works with services that support the HomePod, so if you’re a YouTube Music, Deezer, Pandora, TuneIn, or iHeartRadio user, you’re in luck!

It doesn’t work with Spotify, but you can use this workaround to get Siri to play Spotify on the speaker


Apple’s update notes for HomePod software 17.4, “This update enables Siri to learn your preferred media service, so you no longer need to include the name of the media app in your request. This update also includes performance and stability improvements.”
Siri on HomePod just got a little smarter.
Screenshot by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

Smart home hubs: what they are and why you need one

If you’re planning a truly smart home, then you’re going to need a smart hub. Here’s what you need to know.