Home appliance reviews and smart home tech.
Short answer: The September 8, 2026 Windows update (KB5124008) broke some USB Audio Class 1.0 headsets, DACs and sound cards. There are two versions of the bug. If sound only died in 3D or 8-channel mode, the September 14 update KB5129195 fixes it. If Device Manager shows Code 10, there is still no Microsoft fix…
Short answer: Yes, you can still buy a robot vacuum. Models the FCC already approved can still be sold. What changed is the future. New foreign-made models need extra FCC approval. Firmware updates for existing models are only guaranteed through January 1, 2029. If you’re buying in the October sales, check two things first: the…
Short answer: The “Reconnect your drive” message in Windows 11 File History is a bug. It came with the September 8, 2026 security update, KB5124008. Your drive is probably fine. Microsoft fixed it in the optional KB5124010 preview update released September 22. Everyone else gets the fix on October 13. Until then, check when your…
Short answer: Samsung mis-distributed an internal test build to Bespoke AI 4-Door Refrigerators starting September 22, 2026, which knocked out power and display function on affected units in South Korea, right before the Chuseok holiday. Samsung confirmed the cause, stopped the rollout, and targeted September 24 to complete repairs. It’s unclear whether units outside Korea…
Short answer: The Roborock Saros 20 Flow ($1,699.99) adds a continuously self-rinsing roller mop and a new RockDock fresh-wash system on top of the standard Saros 20’s ($1,599.99) hardware. Both share 36,000 Pa suction and the same threshold-crossing chassis. The Saros Rover, at roughly $2,499, is a different device entirely — a stair-climbing robot still…
Quick answer: Wyze controls that stop responding — a plug that won’t toggle, a bulb stuck at one brightness, a camera live view that spins forever — are almost always a stale local-to-cloud session on the app side, not a broken device. Force-closing the app and clearing its cached device list fixes most cases in…
SmartThings Hub firmware 0.62.7 started rolling out on September 8, 2026, and it was built to fix devices showing the wrong status after a hub reconnects. Some users are still seeing devices stuck offline after installing it, with the in-app offline troubleshooter saying the hub can’t be reached. The fix in most of these cases…
By Alex Kim · Home Tech · Updated September 26, 2026 · 4 sources checked Quick answer: Google’s $99 Home Speaker has a documented latency bug that can make it take 30 to 60 seconds to answer “Hey Google.” Google confirmed the issue and shipped a partial server-side fix in July 2026, but plenty of…
Quick answer: The 2026 robot vacuum refresh — Roborock’s leg-equipped Saros Rover, the Eufy Omni S2, and the Ecovacs Deebot X12 OmniCyclone — is not an automatic upgrade if you already own a 2024 or 2025 flagship. The Eufy Omni S2 and Deebot X12 both score 8.5–8.6 out of 10 in independent testing, but neither…
The Roomba Max 705 and Plus 505 — iRobot’s own 2026 flagship models — only connect to 2.4GHz Wi-Fi networks, despite older flagships like the j7, i7/i8, and s9 supporting both 2.4GHz and 5GHz. If setup fails or your robot keeps dropping offline, the most common cause is a router that merges both bands under…