Take a virtual tour of the CNET Smart Home, our living lab for smart home tech
From Louisville, Kentucky, to your screen of choice. See inside the home CNET uses to test the latest smart home products.
Do you love tech and wanna see something cool? Then please allow me to direct your attention to the brand new home page for the CNET Smart Home. Linger for a minute on the gorgeous time-lapse of the house as it sits underneath our expansive Kentucky sky. Scroll down, have a look inside and walk around, virtually.
We've broken the place out room-by-room to give you an idea of what we've installed. You can see the kitchen, the dining area, the living room, the master bedroom and other spaces all mapped out, and we've labelled pretty much everything. Hover over the dots to find out which devices we're using where. My favorite thing is the Lutron Serena smart shades.
Come take a tour of the CNET Smart Home!
Think of the house as less of a unified experience built on one single platform, and more of a living laboratory where we're constantly adding or swapping devices as they come out so we can test them out in a real residential setting. (No, no one actually lives there. Yes, we're there testing products every day. And yes, this is CNET Smart Home 2.0 here in Louisville -- here's a tour of the first one.) If you're wondering what to buy for your own home, you might consider a smart ceiling fan from Big Ass Fans like we have in the home, for example, but our list of the best smart home devices is the best place to go for those recommendations.
As in the real world, the smart home technology we have in the home is always changing. Think of this view as a moment in time -- when we've cleaned up for company. Even since we shot the virtual walkthrough in June, we've installed Kohler's new, smart kitchen faucet that works with all the major voice assistants. ("Hey Alexa, tell Kohler to pour me a gallon of water.")
Wondering what's down those stairs off the living room (it's the basement), or about the garage interior and other spaces the virtual tour doesn't reach? We test products there as well -- like these garage door openers, for example. Even our utility closet is worth popping into, as depicted in this review of the Sense energy monitor. Hopefully we can include those areas in the future. For now, the virtual tour gives you a pretty good idea about the feel of the place and what we have installed there.
Take the tour and check out our daily coverage across the entire smart home landscape. Our goal, as always, remains informing you about every aspect of smart home technology, from products, to breaking news, to how you can make the most of what you've bought and what it all means for your privacy. We're fortunate to have a great-looking home to serve as the backdrop -- and launchpad -- for all that coverage.