
How to save a smart home company
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
created: Aug. 12, 2025, 1 p.m. | updated: Aug. 12, 2025, 3:58 p.m.
It seems like every other month, we hear about another smart home company going out of business, leaving you scrambling for a new way to turn on your lights.
This week on The Vergecast, The Verge’s smart home reviewer, Jennifer Pattison Tuohy, chats with Ken Fairbanks, a longtime customer of Insteon who ended up buying the smart lighting company when it went bankrupt.
Then, in a special and supersized (and we mean SUPER) Vergecast hotline (call 866-VERGE11 or email [email protected]), Jen is joined by Richard Gunther, cohost of The Smart Home Show podcast, to tackle a bunch of your burning smart lighting questions.
They answer everything from how to move your smart home lighting, to how to choose smart switches or bulbs, to which Thread border router you should buy for your Matter setup.
Plus, they run down how they have smart lighting working in their own homes.
5 days, 10 hours ago: The Verge