In episode 5 of Genius Home, our hosts Ariana Escalante and Caleb Denison take us on a tour of a hillside hangout in the heart of Los Angeles’ Silver Lake area — and this one’s a bit different from the previous homes we’ve explored in this series. Rather than showcasing its smarts with an array of automations, this home’s genius lies in its smart design features and subtle technological touches that purposefully don’t take center stage.
The best example of this is arguably the kitchen. You won’t find any newfangled automated appliances here that invite you to control them with smartphone applications. Instead, it’s merely equipped with top-of-the-line Miele appliances that focus on what’s important: Cooking food. To that end, the stove features both induction and gas cooktops, which affords the inhabitants a high degree of versatility in how they prepare food. This is clearly a kitchen designed by someone who cooks a lot.
Venture out beyond the dining room and you’ll find even more subtle technological touches. Take the home theater room for example. Much like other theaters we’ve seen, this one uses a projector to beam a huge, high-definition image onto the wall — but it also takes things a step further. Instead of beaming light onto the usual white backdrop, this theater projects images onto a wall coated with a special type of gray material that helps boost contrast and provide better image quality.
For another great example of unobtrusive tech, head out to the pool room. To create a swimming area that could be used year-round, the home’s designers built the pool inside an all-glass enclosure. This gives the residents the ability to control the climate no matter what the weather is like outside, but without losing the feeling of being outdoors.
Perhaps our favorite feature, though, is the abundance of greenery found throughout the home. No matter where you go, you’re only a few steps away from a lush, leafy plant. Most of these are equipped with automatic irrigation systems so that the owners don’t have to worry about watering them.
It almost makes you wonder — do our houses really need all these connected appliances, automatic lights, and sensors on every window and door? It seems that the smartest technologies of all are the ones that blend so seamlessly into the background that we don’t even notice they’re there.
Outdoor security cameras are not always practical if you live in an apartment or rental. Drilling into an exterior wall may be off-limits, while pointing a regular indoor camera through a window can create another problem once reflections start showing up after dark.
Baseus is trying to solve both issues with the new PrimeSentinel W1, a $69.99 security camera designed specifically to monitor the outdoors through glass. It mounts directly to a window without drilling and uses a 4K Starlight sensor with an F1.0 aperture for full-color monitoring during the day and at night.
This post is brought to you in paid partnership with Best Buy.
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With AI progressing so fast, it's only a matter of time before we start getting AI companions like the ones we used to see in movies like R2-D2, Wall-E, or Baymax. Now, Singapore-based OKA Technology has unveiled Mori, a cute little AI companion that looks less like a conventional home robot and more like someone turned the Pokémon Foongus into a table lamp.
Mori isn't meant to clean your house or control your smart home, but to serve as what OKA calls a "Nature Companion." It uses subtle movements, warm lighting, nature-inspired sounds, and small reactions to make its presence around the house feel calming rather than distracting. Mori can sit quietly while you read, sway along to music, welcome you when you enter a room, or encourage you to slow down for a moment without requiring a screen or a conversation.