About LinkdHOME
Your go-to source for real testing, expert advice, and in-depth technical info for the smart home enthusiast.
Our Mission
The world of connected devices is rapidly growing and transforming. New technologies, frameworks, and vendors are entering the space all the time and providing many exciting opportunities to those interested in automating their home.Â
With this opportunity comes complexity - and threats. The security of these technologies is often lacking, and it can be difficult to know what to look for, or how to protect your investments and your privacy. On top of that concern is the difficulty in navigating a field of competing technologies to achieve the desired results.
At LinkdHOME I’m not interested in writing content for the sake of it, but actually getting hands-on into the details to understand how our smart devices work, and how we can use them to make our homes smarter.
I aim to cut through the noise and recommend only best of breed products that have proven themselves in actual real-world usage, to recognize the good and call out the bad, and then back it up with concise technical articles that allow you to understand the tech behind the gadgets.
As gadget lovers we know that even the best tech can be temperamental and we are going to need to trouble shoot stuff from time to time, so it pays to know what’s going on under the hood.
Our Story
I’m David Mead, the founder and editor-in-chief here at LinkdHOME.com. I have 20 years’ experience in IT operations, security, data protection, and service management. In these roles I have accumulated a wealth of experience across infrastructure, end user devices, and networking solutions in government, corporate, and non-profit sectors. I’ve seen a lot of tech, and a lot of dubious ways of implementing otherwise good ideas using it.
Being a life-long science fiction fan as well, the advent of the smart home has begun to bring many of those sci-fi concepts to life. Even 10 years ago the idea of a Star Trek computer was still a pipe dream, but now we can start to realize that capability in our own homes, even our own pockets. How could I not get into that? It’s exciting to get my hands dirty exploring all the rapid tech changes and innovations that are coming to market every year.
I started LinkdHOME to leverage my extensive industry experience helping literally thousands of people solve their technology problems by acting as a guide to others excited about building their own smart home. To filter out the cheap and nasty products and to show not only what is possible, but how to do it the right way (there are plenty of wrong ways).
Meet the Team
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David Mead
David Mead is a 20-year IT infrastructure veteran with extensive experience across a wide range of business sectors. David has extensive experience with large infrastructure projects and has dedicated himself to helping others with technology throughout his career.
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Floyd Colon
Floyd Colon is an IT professional with over 10 years of experience in developing software solutions for various private enterprizes. He is passionate about the smart home and how it can improve the quality of life for people and the environment.
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Bruce Qin - Contributor
Bruce Qin is currently the IoT gateway product manager from Dusun IoT. He specializes in hardware and software knowledge sharing for IoT devices, especially gateways, modules, protocols, embedded development, and applications.
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Robert Czachorski - Contributor
Robert Czachorski is a civil engineer and smart home enthusiast who co-developed the foundation of H2Ometrics – an idea that used concepts from aerospace technology to solve infrastructure challenges.
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Margaret Arthur - Contributor
Margaret Arthur is a freelance writer and tech enthusiast. She loves to read and research the latest gadget developments and how they fit into our daily lives. When she isn't working, she likes to knit while listening to podcasts.
Our Standards
LinkdHOME.com is dedicated to providing relevant, focused, technical advice that actually answers the questions smart home enthusiasts care about. To that end, depth and technical accuracy are a priority in our guides and how-to content.
We know how frustrating it is to be trying to use a guide to complete a task only to find it out of date, or just plain made up. Guides on LinkdHOME are designed to be easy to follow, comprehensive, and above all, correct.
Technology changes fast, and the smart phone apps we rely on change even faster. These guides will be regularly updated to keep them accurate as much as possible. Sometimes you might encounter one that needs an update, but it’s most likely on our content refresh list. If you can’t follow something because it seems incorrect, please put a request in at feedback@linkdhome.com.
When it comes to product reviews, there are some key things that are important to ensure that our recommendations are based on real-world experience and give you the best, unbiased advice possible. You can read more about this in the review guidelines.
Whenever possible, products are used for an extended period of time. It’s common for problems with technology to crop up over time, but not within a week of plugging them in like many reviews are based on. You want to see what it’s going to be like over the long haul.
Every product has its flaws, nothing is perfect after all. Even if it’s awesome and finds a permanent place after testing, there may be little issues that are a showstopper for you. Those will always be called out.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases, but any links provided are to help guide you to reputable sellers and allow you to check them out for yourself, they are never provided as an implicit endorsement. Read more about this in our affiliate explainer.
Reviews will always give it to you straight. It doesn’t matter if the sample was donated by a vendor, if a seller is offering a big commission, or if there’s no commission at all, the advice given will be as forthright and honest as any given to a close friend.
Scoring will be used only if it can be based on objective, data-driven criteria that make sense for a specific product category. It’s nice to be able to compare products with a simple number, but without objective measurements they won’t reflect the real pros and cons that everyone values differently. That nuance is important. If there are scoring criteria for a particular category, those will be used to provide a better comparison basis for you with clear explanations of how they were determined.
Reviews will not be based on a one-time experience. Customer reviews from multiple sources are also checked to get a feel for how the product is faring out in the wild. Customer support experiences vary, different installation scenarios can surface edge-cases, and bad product batches can skew reliability results. These reports will be factored in to determine the likely impact on other buyers and call out any issues that appear to be a trend.
I am involved in the smart home community and keep on top of hot trends and major issues. Whether it’s a latest open-source wonder child, or a workaround for a long-standing product issue, these topics can end up as inspiration for deeper dive articles to help you guys, as well as factoring into reviews of those products.
Want to know more?
Interacting with readers is always rewarding, and while I might not be able to give in-depth personal product support, I’ll always try to answer any questions you may have. Whether it’s about how to use a product or smart home platform, ways to solve a particular smart home challenge, or if you just want to know more about how operations here, please reach out at any time.