Tesla Energy announced Heat Pump Optimization for Powerwall 3 and Powerwall 3P in Europe on 30 October 2026. The feature lets the battery system tell a heat pump to run harder when the roof produces more solar power than the house uses, or when grid electricity is cheap. In its post Tesla called the heat pump "one of the biggest electrical loads in
A lot of energy hardware already has a local data interface that often goes unused: DIN-rail energy meters, solar inverters, heat pumps and ventilation units often speak Modbus. The protocol comes from industrial controllers and needs no cloud or account. Once it works, you can poll voltage, power and energy counters as often as the device allows.
Renesas announced the RL78/G21 on 28 October 2026, a new 16-bit microcontroller aimed at the control boards inside air conditioners, refrigerators, washing machines and microwave ovens. It is not a wireless chip. It is the part that runs the motor, compressor and sensor logic, sitting next to whatever Wi-Fi or Thread module makes the appliance "sma
Anker's eufy brand has put the SoloCam E50 on sale in the US. The outdoor camera was first shown in late September, and MacSources reported its official launch on 29 October 2026. eufy's store sells it as the "S340 Next-Gen" for $229.99, and positions it as the outer perimeter layer of the company's Edge 5.0 security system: a camera meant to watch
DTE Energy and battery maker sonnen announced on 29 October 2026 that Michigan's first residential battery virtual power plant (VPP) is starting. The two-year pilot, approved by the Michigan Public Service Commission, will connect nearly 100 homes in Ann Arbor through their sonnen batteries and let the utility coordinate them as one grid resource.
Dutch startup Ona has launched a €165 kit that turns an ordinary split air conditioner into a price-aware heater. The idea, described by IO+ on 29 October 2026, is simple: run the air conditioner in the afternoon when electricity is cheap, let the concrete walls, floors and ceilings soak up the heat, and coast through the expensive evening hours on
BrainChip launched the AKD1500 Raspberry Pi 5 Development Kit on 29 October 2026. It puts the company's Akida AKD1500 chip on an M.2 card attached to a Raspberry Pi 5, so developers can try event-based, always-on AI on a board they probably already know. The kit is on sale now in BrainChip's online shop for $1,295, excluding tax.
ecobee, the smart thermostat maker owned by Generac since 2021, announced Home Summary on 29 October 2026. It is an opt-in feature in the ecobee app that uses AI to turn a day of activity from the thermostat, security devices and home energy system into one short written summary. The rollout to customers starts the same day.
Bitdefender and NETGEAR published their 2026 IoT Security Landscape Report on 28 October 2026. It is based on telemetry from roughly 10.4 million home routers protected by the two companies, collected from January to September 2026: 5.4 billion security events and about 1.2 billion vulnerability observations.
