A really cheap way to get really smart lights

[ad_1] Hello, pals! Welcome to Installer No. 96, your information to one of the best and Verge-iest stuff on this planet. (In case you’re new right here, welcome, has your inbox been as busy as mine the previous few days?, and in addition you possibly can learn all of the previous editions on the Installer homepage.)

This week, I even have for you Hole Knight: Silksong (lastly!), Instagram on iPad (additionally lastly!), a derivative for The Workplace, and extra.

And a programming notice: David’s taking on Installer once more subsequent week! It’s been a blast writing the publication whereas he’s been away. Because of everybody for sharing their suggestions and good notes whereas I’ve been steering the ship!

(As at all times, one of the best a part of Installer is your concepts and suggestions. What do you wish to know extra about? What superior methods are you aware that everybody else ought to? What app ought to everybody be utilizing? Drop a line to [email protected] . And if another person who may get pleasure from Installer, ahead it to them and inform them to subscribe right here.)

Hue Necessities. Philips Hue has a brand new lineup of cheaper sensible lightbulbs beginning at $25 per bulb (or $15 every as a part of a four-pack), making them less expensive than its flagship color-changing bulbs. Mother or father firm Signify additionally introduced a brand new bridge, extra new lights, and a wired video doorbell. Hole Knight: Silksong. Workforce Cherry’s years-in-the-making Hole Knight sequel is lastly right here, and early indications all level to it being a worthy follow-up. There’s nonetheless rather a lot to find about it, but when you determine who Stardew Valley creator Eric Barone voices within the recreation, are you able to let me know? Instagram for iPad. Practically 15 years after Instagram initially launched for iOS, the social community now has an official iPad app. However the app has a video-focused twist: if you open it up, the app reveals you a feed of short-form Reels. Android tablets will probably be getting the brand new design quickly, Meta says. The Paper. Peacock’s spinoff of The Workplace debuted in a giant batch drop this week, and apparently it’s really good, even when it takes just a few episodes to hit its stride. It’s already been renewed for a second season, too. Samsung Galaxy S25 FE. Samsung has a brand new mannequin in its extra reasonably priced FE line, with the S25 FE taking some inspiration from the S25 Edge by being thinner and lighter than its predecessor. The corporate additionally launched new S11 and S11 Extremely tablets with a redesigned S Pen. Outstanding Paper Professional Transfer. Outstanding has a brand new E Ink digital notepad, and with a thin 7.3-inch display, it’s one you possibly can theoretically drop into your pocket. I’m a giant fan of small paper notebooks, so the concept of utilizing an E Ink one appears actually enjoyable to me. Chipolo’s Loop. This merchandise tracker and Chipolo’s new Card tracker each have rechargeable batteries as an alternative of requiring replacements. They’ll last as long as six months on a cost and work with Apple’s Discover My and Google’s Discover Hub networks. Mophie Max Headphones Charging Stand. Mophie’s new charging stand is designed to cost your AirPods Max and AirPods Professional (or one other Qi-compatible gadget) concurrently. To cost the AirPods Max, you’ll plug in a USB-C dongle and plop the headphones into the stand, which is able to robotically put them into sleep mode. Appears tremendous helpful, although it’s just a little costly at $150. At the moment I’m that includes Paulus Schoutsen, founding father of the favored open-source sensible dwelling automation platform House Assistant and president of the Open House Basis. With a lot sensible dwelling information popping out of the IFA 2025 convention this week, I figured this could be the proper time to characteristic his homescreen. I used to be very curious how somebody so concerned within the sensible dwelling world really makes use of their telephone everyday — unsurprisingly, Paulus has put numerous thought into his homescreen setup.

Aspect notice: I initially received these responses from Paulus about his iOS homescreen in August, however he advised me this week that he’s since converted to a Google Pixel. He says the setup is basically the identical, with one notable change to make use of extra net apps.

<img alt="A screenshot of Paulus Schoutsen’s iOS homescreen." data-chromatic="ignore" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-nimg="fill" class="x271pn0" style="position:absolute;height:100%;width:100%;left:0;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;color:transparent;background-size:cover;background-position:50% 50%;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-image:url("data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,%3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' %3E%3Cfilter id='b' color-interpolation-filters='sRGB'%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'/%3E%3CfeColorMatrix values='1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 100 -1' result='s'/%3E%3CfeFlood x='0' y='0' width='100%25' height='100%25'/%3E%3CfeComposite operator='out' in='s'/%3E%3CfeComposite in2='SourceGraphic'/%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'/%3E%3C/filter%3E%3Cimage width='100%25' height='100%25' x='0' y='0' preserveAspectRatio='none' style='filter: url(%23b);' href='data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR42mN8+R8AAtcB6oaHtZcAAAAASUVORK5CYII='/%3E%3C/svg%3E")" sizes="(max-width: 639px) 100vw, (max-width: 1023px) 50vw, 700px" srcset="https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/257936_installler_side_by_side_CVirginia.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=256 256w, https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/257936_installler_side_by_side_CVirginia.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=376 376w, https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/257936_installler_side_by_side_CVirginia.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=384 384w, https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/257936_installler_side_by_side_CVirginia.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=415 415w, https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/257936_installler_side_by_side_CVirginia.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=480 480w, https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/257936_installler_side_by_side_CVirginia.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=540 540w, https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/257936_installler_side_by_side_CVirginia.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=640 640w, https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/257936_installler_side_by_side_CVirginia.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=750 750w, https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/257936_installler_side_by_side_CVirginia.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=828 828w, https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/257936_installler_side_by_side_CVirginia.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1080 1080w, https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/257936_installler_side_by_side_CVirginia.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1200 1200w, https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/257936_installler_side_by_side_CVirginia.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1440 1440w, https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/257936_installler_side_by_side_CVirginia.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1920 1920w, https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/257936_installler_side_by_side_CVirginia.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2048 2048w, https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/257936_installler_side_by_side_CVirginia.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400 2400w" src="https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/257936_installler_side_by_side_CVirginia.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400"/> Picture: Paulus Schoutsen

The telephone: I've an iPhone 15 Professional.

The wallpaper: The background is the blurred model of my Lock Display wallpaper, which is a graphic of House Assistant. I by no means appreciated busy wallpapers as a result of it makes it laborious to learn the letters.

The apps: The icons on my homescreen are restricted as I attempt to restrict my display utilization.

The widget on the high is a Sensible Stack exhibiting battery, calendar, climate, pictures. I needed to disable urged widgets as a result of Apple was exhibiting me adverts for McDonald’s powered by Yelp and DoorDash. House Assistant is on my homescreen as a result of it’s one of the best sensible dwelling platform on this planet. I've no social media apps on my telephone, and solely use Bluesky and Mastodon through web site. That manner it’s a poor expertise and I’m extra more likely to cease utilizing it. I used to make use of Quiche browser (found through Installer!). I had it configured with the few web sites I frequent and set the UI to have the ability to rapidly (see second screenshot) open them. After the swap to Pixel, I dropped the Quiche browser and put in my favourite web sites as apps on my telephone. For AI I at the moment use Claude. I used to be utilizing ChatGPT earlier than, however these days use the Claude Max subscription to have the ability to leverage Claude Code for programming, so switched my private AI use to Claude too. Arc is on my homescreen as a result of the iOS app is superb: it isn't a browser. As a substitute, it reveals all my bookmarks from my desktop. When opening a bookmark on my telephone, and it’s supported by a local app (e.g., Google Docs), it'll really open that app. Extraordinarily helpful as my solution to set up information throughout totally different platforms. I additionally use Arc on the desktop and am already mourning the day that The Browser Firm goes to cease updating it. Obsidian I exploit for notes. I solely lately began to make use of it, and that’s really due to the relaunch of the Pebble watches and the rise of AI. Pebble watches don’t work properly on iOS due to the restricted entry third-party apps have. And it made me notice that Apple Notes has the identical limitations. I want open techniques so I don’t have to attend for the maker of my {hardware}/software program to do cool issues. So I switched to Obsidian, which shops all my notes in folders with Markdown information. The motion button is mapped to permit me to rapidly write down a notice with out seeing all my different notes. I wrote a small script that enables me so as to add AI directions inside folders in my notes, and each time I replace a notice, it'll robotically run Claude Code to observe my directions. For instance, my procuring record is robotically categorized and motion gadgets are gathered on the high of my private assembly notes. I additionally requested Paulus to share just a few issues he’s into proper now. Right here’s what he mentioned:

AI! Claude Code is superb. With the ability to have it work on a problem whereas I’m in conferences and rapidly giving it some suggestions between conferences has made me end issues I wouldn’t have had time for in any other case. I additionally love utilizing Claude Code with my 7-year-old, pushing our creativeness to see what Claude comes up with. The opposite day we made a pong recreation that may change the colour of the sunshine through House Assistant on each ball bounce. Z-Wave. We simply launched the House Assistant Join ZWA-2, our tackle making one of the best antenna for this sensible dwelling normal. It’s big, over a foot, and it could attain all of the gadgets in every single place. Catching up with family and friends. We dwell in Brooklyn however spend our summers in Europe, taking full benefit of distant working. Spend time within the Netherlands, Belgium, Hungary, and Denmark. Season three of Basis on Apple TV Plus is once more glorious. Right here’s what the Installer neighborhood is into this week. I wish to know what you’re into proper now as properly! E mail [email protected] together with your suggestions for something and every little thing, and we’ll characteristic a few of our favorites right here each week. For much more nice suggestions, take a look at the replies to this submit on The Verge, this submit on Threads, and this submit on Bluesky.

“Some sequel to an indie recreation a couple of bug.” — DuckInAPond

“I received uninterested in streaming music and all of the ephemeral elements of it so I purchased a semi-janky MP3 participant (they name them DAPs now, I assume) and I’m constructing a FLAC assortment (shoutout to Bandcamp and my vinyl assortment). I’m again to organizing id3 tags 🤘” — William

“I got here throughout a documentary over the weekend about Python, the programming language, and thought it was price sharing. I’m not a developer myself, however I discovered it actually partaking. It tells the story of how this small, quiet language grew to form areas like local weather science, astrophysics, crypto, and AI. The movie additionally touches on some critical conflicts in the neighborhood that just about brought on it to fracture, and it made me replicate on how totally different the tech world is perhaps at present if that had occurred. Even in case you’re not a developer, it’s surprisingly compelling.” — Hayley

“This week I wasted time making an attempt out a brand new RSS app. It was not fairly working so I ended up including a load of aspect providers till I realised that my present resolution does all these items higher. So I simply wish to give some additional like to Reeder. The whole lot I want in an RSS reader app.” — Chris

“I’ve grow to be a giant fan of structure and inside design movies. It’s so fascinating seeing the walk-throughs and listening to commentary of the architects and designers about their very own works and of notable works from others. Favourite channels embrace Archimarathon, Architectural Digest, Design Anthology, Design Seed, and Open House.” — Daylight Categorical

“I'm not a birdwatcher however I do love a terrific movie. This one about birdwatching is the movie of the 12 months.” — Michael

“You may dig this humorous and never tremendous critical, very properly executed birdwatching documentary.” — Andrew

“Tremendous into this (comparatively) new post-hardcore band Static Costume. Significantly their latest track ‘face.’ It’s simply peak 2000’s screamy music with trendy manufacturing and sensibilities. Actually nice throughout.” — cowboyxboombap

“Listening to NTS Radio recently. Nice DJ combine reveals. Unimaginable, by no means paid for one thing sooner. App is stable. The NTS Breakfast Present w/ Flo may be very in style and that appears earned!” — yatrik

I’ve touched on it a bit already, however there was numerous attention-grabbing stuff introduced on the IFA present in Berlin this 12 months, together with robotic vacuums that may climb stairs, a bunch of latest sensible lights, and even just a few occasion audio system. The present sort of looks like a midyear CES. We rounded up a few of the coolest stuff, however if you wish to learn all of our protection, you could find that right here.

David will see you all subsequent week!

0 Feedback Observe subjects and authors from this story to see extra like this in your personalised homepage feed and to obtain e-mail updates. Jay Peters Shut <img alt="Jay Peters" data-chromatic="ignore" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-nimg="fill" class="_1bw37385 x271pn0" style="position:absolute;height:100%;width:100%;left:0;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;color:transparent;background-size:cover;background-position:50% 50%;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-image:url("data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,%3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' %3E%3Cfilter id='b' color-interpolation-filters='sRGB'%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'/%3E%3CfeColorMatrix values='1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 100 -1' result='s'/%3E%3CfeFlood x='0' y='0' width='100%25' height='100%25'/%3E%3CfeComposite operator='out' in='s'/%3E%3CfeComposite in2='SourceGraphic'/%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'/%3E%3C/filter%3E%3Cimage width='100%25' height='100%25' x='0' y='0' preserveAspectRatio='none' style='filter: url(%23b);' href='data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR42mN8+R8AAtcB6oaHtZcAAAAASUVORK5CYII='/%3E%3C/svg%3E")" sizes="125px" srcset="https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/chorus/author_profile_images/195819/JAY_PETERS.0.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=16 16w, https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/chorus/author_profile_images/195819/JAY_PETERS.0.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=32 32w, https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/chorus/author_profile_images/195819/JAY_PETERS.0.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=48 48w, https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/chorus/author_profile_images/195819/JAY_PETERS.0.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=64 64w, https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/chorus/author_profile_images/195819/JAY_PETERS.0.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=96 96w, https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/chorus/author_profile_images/195819/JAY_PETERS.0.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=128 128w, https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/chorus/author_profile_images/195819/JAY_PETERS.0.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=256 256w, https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/chorus/author_profile_images/195819/JAY_PETERS.0.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=376 376w, https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/chorus/author_profile_images/195819/JAY_PETERS.0.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=384 384w, https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/chorus/author_profile_images/195819/JAY_PETERS.0.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=415 415w, https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/chorus/author_profile_images/195819/JAY_PETERS.0.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=480 480w, https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/chorus/author_profile_images/195819/JAY_PETERS.0.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=540 540w, https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/chorus/author_profile_images/195819/JAY_PETERS.0.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=640 640w, https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/chorus/author_profile_images/195819/JAY_PETERS.0.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=750 750w, https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/chorus/author_profile_images/195819/JAY_PETERS.0.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=828 828w, https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/chorus/author_profile_images/195819/JAY_PETERS.0.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1080 1080w, https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/chorus/author_profile_images/195819/JAY_PETERS.0.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1200 1200w, https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/chorus/author_profile_images/195819/JAY_PETERS.0.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1440 1440w, https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/chorus/author_profile_images/195819/JAY_PETERS.0.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=1920 1920w, https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/chorus/author_profile_images/195819/JAY_PETERS.0.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2048 2048w, https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/chorus/author_profile_images/195819/JAY_PETERS.0.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400 2400w" src="https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/chorus/author_profile_images/195819/JAY_PETERS.0.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400"/> Jay Peters Posts from this creator will probably be added to your day by day e-mail digest and your homepage feed.