With 2026 just around the corner, I wanted to look back at 2025 and highlight three companies I cover that had a great year.

Ubiquiti

With Wi-Fi 7 gaining market traction, Ubiquiti is becoming a more popular choice for smart homes. The company is adding more products to its lineup throughout the year, with Wi-Fi 7 versions of its access points, and big image quality and detection gains in cameras like the G6 Pro Bullet, combined with software updates. Their entry into the NAS marketing in 2024 could not have been better timed, while Synology stumbled with requiring Synology hard drives. Ubiquiti’s momentum continued to build in 2025 with strong interest in UNAS Pro and great updates to their NAS line this fall.

Aqara

In 2025, Aqara moved from being another strong smart home company to an incredibly dominant smart home leader. From cameras to displays to sensors, light switches, doorbells, and hubs, Aqara is aggressively innovating in so many different categories that it will be hard for most other companies to keep up. Aqara’s super-powerful M3 hub makes more sense to me now than when it was released in 2024. Talking more with Aqara at IFA in Berlin, I was impressed at how high a bar they are setting for themselves. Aqara has big ambitions for 2026 and beyond.

Sonos

After all the app issues Sonos had in 2024, you might have counted the company out of the smart home. But from what I can see, demand for Sonos still remains strong. The company also seems to be on better footing under its new CEO, Tom Conrad, who officially took the title in July. Two of my top 20 videos in 2025 were Sonos reviews I did in 2024. I didn’t have much reason to talk about Sonos this year, but from what I can tell, people are still interested in their speakers. Sonos is not doomed, and that’s a great change from 2024.

The Schedule

This week I will hopefully have another long form video for you, and we will have a livestream that works on Friday 1/2.

If you’re headed to CES, I’ll be part of a panel on Wednesday 1/7 at 4pm talking about the responsive home with Paulus Schoutsen founder of Home Assistant, Jennifer Pattison Tuohy from The Verge, Daniel Wroclawski from Consumer Reports, and Gilles Drieu from ADT Security. We’d love to see you there!

I hope you have a great rest of your Sunday and a great time ringing in the new year.

One of my favorite traditions is to watch the Vienna Philharmonic New Years Day Concert, which airs in the US in an abridged format on PBS. It’s a fun way to feel classy without putting on a tuxedo.

Eric