The holidays are here, and as I grabbed my suitcase to pack for my yearly trip to see family, there was this unavoidable trepidation of “leaving my home alone” for such a long period of time. This time was even more intense because I’d just moved into a bigger new place, and this would be the first time we’d be away for more than a day. Even more worrying was that we’d just installed a few new smart home products, and I wondered how they’d behave while we were out. Or if they’d be any useful.
As I mentally rehashed every scenario in my mind, I started taking notes of everything I had to test and every setting I needed to enable/disable/check before leaving. So here’s a bit of a refresher if you’re also jetting off for the holidays, based on my experience.