On this week's episode of the HomeKit Insider podcast, Scott Harkins from Resideo joins to talk about the new Honeywell Home X8S Matter thermostat and the future of the smart home.

Scott Harkins serves as the Senior VP of Sales at Resideo, that also overseas the Honeywell Home brand. After a tepid first few steps, the brand is going all-in on Matter with the launch of the Honeywell Home X8S thermostat.

This thermostat, announced ahead of CES, is aimed at the premium market alongside Ecobee and Nest. It has a customizable touchscreen display, optional room sensors, and IAQ monitoring built-in.

In the second half of the episode, Scott walks through the implementation of Matter, future plans for the brand, and how he sees the professional market adopting to new standards.

In the news, the Thread Group is touting its latest milestone. There are now more than 1,000 devices certified to run on Thread networking.

Mikrotik has announced the haP be3 Media, which is a combination of a 2.5GB network switch, a tri-band Wi-Fi 7 access point, and a home media server. It is certified to work with Matter and includes a Thread radio as well to act as a home hub.

Homey is launching its own self-hosting solution. You can run it on multiple machines, from a Raspberry Pi to a Mac mini to power your internet-based smart home devices.

Onvis is previewing some of its 2026 devices. It has three new outlets to show off, its first dual-outlet outdoor smart plug, and its first lightbulb — all with Matter support and energy monitoring.

Finally, Aqara has released its H2 wall outlet in the UK. It comes with one or two integrated USB-C ports, Matter support, and energy monitoring.

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