TNW 417: Smart Home Year in Review - Looking Back At Smart Home News
Tech News Weekly (Audio)
Leo Laporte
4.0 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 18 December 2025
⏱️ 65 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy from The Verge joins Mikah Sargent for the final episode of Tech News Weekly for 2025! Are AI health coaches the future for wearables? A look back at smart home news and devices in 2025. And how AI image generators have changed over time.
- Mikah talks about an article written by CNET's Vanessa Hand Orellana about AI health coaches in wearables and how it showcases innovation within healthcare, but also the data concerns if data breaches or unauthorized access to the data occur.
- Jennifer reflects on the smart home news and smart home devices highlighted in the past year and shares her excitement about news such as IKEA releasing Thread-supported devices, but also laments on companies like iRobot filing for bankruptcy.
- And Allison Johnson of The Verge joins the show to talk about how AI image generators are improving as various models have learned from their mistakes & fumbles that occurred in their early beginnings.
Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Guest: Allison Johnson
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Micah Sargent from Tech News Weekly, and this week I'm joined by Jennifer Patterson |
| 0:04.2 | Tui of The Verge. |
| 0:05.1 | I kick off the show by talking about a great piece from CNET about the current state |
| 0:10.6 | of AI health coaches. |
| 0:12.4 | Then Jennifer Patterson Tuey has a wonderful look back at the year in smart home news and devices |
| 0:19.8 | before Allison Johnson of the Verge stops by to talk about how |
| 0:23.3 | AI image generators have changed over time and how worse is actually better. All of that |
| 0:30.9 | coming up on Tech News Weekly. |
| 0:35.2 | Podcasts you love. From people you trust. |
| 0:39.6 | This is Twitter. |
| 0:43.1 | This is Tech News Weekly, episode 417, with Jennifer Patterson-Tooey and me, Micah Sargent, |
| 0:50.0 | recorded Thursday, December 18th, 2025. |
| 0:53.4 | Smart Home Year in Review. |
| 0:57.2 | Hello and welcome to Tech News Weekly, |
| 0:59.3 | the show where every week we talk to and about the people making |
| 1:02.1 | and breaking the tech news. |
| 1:04.2 | This is our last official episode of the holiday season. |
| 1:08.8 | We've got a best of coming up. So I am very excited today to be joined by our wonderful co-host. It's Jennifer Patterson, Toohey. Welcome back, Jen. |
| 1:19.6 | Hello, thank you. It's been a while. Sorry I wasn't here last month. I was in the rainforest, so I missed you. |
| 1:26.6 | I can't blame you though. I can't blame you though. Yeah, I hope so. I hope in the rainforest, so I missed you. I can't blame you, though. |
| 1:29.1 | Yeah, I hope so. I hope so. It sounds like a lovely time. I'm really excited. Jen has worked |
| 1:35.5 | to put together some kind of year-in-review stuff. So we're going to have Hergo second. So I'm going |
... |
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