Every recommendation on The Smart Home Guide goes through the same process before it’s published. This page explains exactly what that involves - and, just as importantly, what it doesn’t, since we’d rather be precise about our process than let a “tested” badge imply more than it means.
What “tested” actually means here
We are not a formal test lab, and we don’t pretend to be. What we do is more modest and, we think, more honest: every product we recommend is checked against its manufacturer specifications, cross-referenced against UK-specific requirements (electrical standards, fitting types, pricing, and availability from UK retailers), and compared directly against its real competitors rather than reviewed in isolation. Where we genuinely own and use a device day-to-day - which is true for a meaningful share of what we cover, particularly in the Home Assistant and networking guides - that first-hand experience shapes the write-up directly, and we say so.
Where we haven’t personally run a device for weeks in our own home, we don’t claim to have. The research is still rigorous - spec sheets, verified compatibility, genuine price comparison, and cross-checking claims against independent sources - but it’s research, not a lab test, and we’d rather you know the difference.
What we check on every buying guide
- UK compatibility - correct plug type, fitting standard, and voltage; whether a product actually ships to and is supported in the UK, not just available on a US site
- Real pricing - current UK retail price bands, not a manufacturer’s US MSRP converted at a rough exchange rate
- Genuine trade-offs - every pick gets an honest downside, not just a features list. If a product has a subscription requirement, a compatibility gap, or a known reliability issue, that’s in the writeup
- Direct comparison - picks are checked against their closest real competitors, not reviewed as if they exist alone in the market
How we handle updates
Smart home pricing and product availability change often. Every article shows its last updated date rather than its original publish date, and that date reflects when the content, pricing and recommendations were last genuinely reviewed - not a cosmetic timestamp bump.
Affiliate links, and why they don’t change our picks
Some links on this site are Amazon Associates affiliate links, clearly marked as “Affiliate link” wherever they appear. If you buy through one, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you - this is how we fund the time spent researching and keeping guides up to date. It has no bearing on which products we recommend: we don’t accept payment for placement, and a product’s affiliate commission rate has never been a factor in whether it gets picked. See our full Affiliate Disclosure for the formal details.
Who’s behind this
The Smart Home Guide is written by Luke, based in the UK, who has been building out his own Home Assistant setup and smart home over several years - the “My Actual Home Assistant Setup” guide is a genuine, unfiltered account of that, warts and all. See the About page for more.