Eight Smart Home Must-Haves
These are the smartest bits of tech for your home.
By Terry Christodoulou
Mon, Mar 15, 2021 5:57am
4 min
4 min
Smart domestic features increasingly inform luxury living. And where once this didn’t move past a robotic vacuum or some sensor lights, the ultimate modern home should be stacked with technology that ultimately makes for an elevated daily experience.
Here, eight absolute must-haves.
Savant Pro
Allows for the control of all smart home gadgetry under one system – think lighting, sound, TV, climate control, blinds and more. Video tiling and the TrueControl app allow you to add up to 9 things to a single screen – including from various streaming services – giving you complete control over your entertainment, while. the system also allows you to program ‘scenes’ to be set, which can lock doors, turn off light and engage security cameras from the touch of an Apple watch.
POA; savant.com
Offmat Tulèr Responsive Kitchen
The world’s first responsive kitchen bench, Tulèr weighs, cooks and washes through gesture controls and touch surfaces enabled by a system of state-of-the-art sensors. You’ll feel like a domestic sorcerer as you magically wave at the workspace to open drawers, commence induction cooking, make the kitchen sink appear and disappear and activate built-in countertop scales – which displays weight via a built in light or chosen device.
POA; tipic.it
Embrace Smart Mirror
Believe it or not, ‘splash-proof’ isn’t even the main selling point here, this so-called ‘smart mirror’ making for easy living with in-built voice command, gesture and touch screen capabilities. This allows a user to work with Google assistant, send emails, skype or video chat with friends, control the lights or play music while getting ready. Or, watch shaving tutorials and more through the 23-inch touchscreen display.
Approx. $1390; embracesmartmirror.com
Ecobee Smart Thermostat With Voice Control
Once connected to an air-conditioner, this thermostat learns and adapts to an occupant’s schedule to deliver comfortable temperatures at all times. Make adjustments via voice control, set timers and schedules and also regulate humidity (if connected to a humidifier).
Approx. $346; ecobee.com
LG’s CX OLED TV
Arguably the smartest TV in market, LG’s CX OLED leads the pack with its webOS technology. The user interface is built around launch bar for apps, inputs and features – which like a computer is customisable. You can Miracast images from your smartphone, screen share and use voice commands through LG’s own AI platform, or trust favourites like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. To help keep the image crisp, Dolby Vision IQ automatically adjusts the picture depending on the ambient light in the room.
$4295; lg.com
Vivint Home Security & Bit Defender Box
Vivint has built a reputation as the go-to for smart home security. With a range of customisable packages, Vivint offers smart sensors (for doors and windows), smart locks (to control remotely), doorbell cameras, outdoor cameras and more all controllable via a single app. You can set the outdoor cameras to record someone’s approach and view them via your smartphone. Physical threats aside, hackers are increasingly breaching smart home technologies. Enter the BitBox Defender, which monitors every device connected to a residence’s network and alerts to any threats by smartphone.
POA; Vivint.com / $149; bitdefender.com
Wi-Charge R1 Wireless Charger
More gadgetry means a greater need to charge. Here, Wi-Charge and its R1 ultra-compact chargers create wireless charging from any power or light socket. With accuracy of 9 metres, it projects infrared beams across the room charging a given device without a second thought.
Coming soon; wi-charge.com
U by Moen Smart Faucet
This, tap, as we would say, offers temperature-controlled water accessible through Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. It remembers favourite temperatures and reacts to conversational requests like ‘a little warmer’. Beyond temperature control, the U by Moen can also disperse water in specific quantities, handy for when cooking and you need exactly 150ml. Offered in a wide variety of styles to cover most kitchen designs.
Approx. $620; moen.com
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A five-bedroom Palo Alto home designed by Steven Ehrlich is listed for $44 million, making it the city’s most expensive listing. Built around a dramatic concrete spine, the home features four courtyards and a pool.
By E.B. Solomont
Thu, Sep 24, 2026 3 min
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For years, tech entrepreneur Asher Waldfogel and his wife, Helyn MacLean, dreamed of building a modern house in Palo Alto, Calif.
The couple, however, worried about clashing with the Mediterranean-style architecture typically associated with their neighborhood of Old Palo Alto.
So they tapped architect Steven Ehrlich to create a design that paid homage to its surroundings with stucco, mahogany and titanium zinc cladding. They spent $20 million over several years building the house, completed in 2005.
Now looking to be closer to their adult daughter on the East Coast, they are putting the five-bedroom home on the market for $44 million—the most expensive listing in Palo Alto.
Waldfogel is an angel investor who co-founded Redback Networks, a telecommunications-equipment company. MacLean previously had a career in fundraising.
The couple purchased the roughly 0.4-acre site for $7.1 million in 2000 and demolished a circa-1930s Spanish Colonial home. The house they built pinwheels around a central staircase. It has 7,900 square feet of livable space, with four distinct courtyards and a pool.
A key feature of the home is a cast-in-place concrete wall, or spine, that is two stories high and about 80 feet long. “There’s a little bit of controlled chaos in what comes out of the form,” unlike a perfectly uniform surface, Waldfogel said. “If you want that, you do it in plastic.”
Waldfogel said he and his wife are thinking about the next phase of life now that their daughter is grown, although they have not decided where they will move. They also have a home in Sun Valley, Idaho.
“Right now we’re just trying to emotionally let go and decide what to do next,” he said.
Palo Alto, an epicenter of venture capital and tech startups in Silicon Valley, is home to some of the country’s biggest tech titans. Sales volume and prices are rising, with a median sale price of $3.5 million for the three months ending in August, up 5.8% year-over-year, according to real-estate brokerage Redfin.
Arthur Sharif of Sotheby’s International Realty—San Francisco Brokerage has the listing.
