HomeTech.fm - Episode 228 - Billions in TP and Oreos

Episode Date: October 5, 2018

On this week’s episode of HomeTech: The latest in home tech headlines including; Speculation on Google’s big press event on Oct 9th The world’s most embarrassing new-product leak, courtesy of Best Buy SiriusXM acquires Pandora Comcast acquires Sky Roku unveils a $40 4k streaming device WiFi (finally) adopts version numbers Samsung reveals pricing on their 85” 8K display Thoughts on Amazon’s new Alexa Connect Kit A new and very compelling device from Caavo And more… Fan of the show? Want to support our efforts? Please consider becoming a Patron!

The Home Tech Podcast is supported by listeners like you. To find out more, go to hometech.fm slash support. This is the Home Tech Podcast for Friday, October 5th. From Denver, Colorado, I'm Jason Griffin. And from Sarasota, Florida, I'm Seth Johnson. Jason, did you get a personalized text message from the President of the United States today? You know, it's weird because I didn't. And I don't know if I somehow missed it. I'm very good at ignoring my phone during the day. I have to admit, that's an art that I, a skill that I have perfected. It's a pretty good skill, yeah. As of late, but yeah, I heard all about it. Well, I mean, yeah, it's like one of those

Amber Alert things, or if you have a flash flood in the area, you get one of those crazy sirens on your phone and it goes off. Right. I don't think there's any way to turn it off. It's like this is what they're using for terrorist attacks and that kind of thing. If something major happens that we all need to know about, if missiles are heading towards Hawaii, they're going to use this again. And yeah, so like, I'm surprised. I mean... I'm literally scrolling through my notifications right now

and I don't see it there either. I don't, I mean, I'm sorry, Jason. I think you get left behind. I think that's all there is to it. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I'm not too sure either. It's hard to tell now. Huh.

Interesting. Well, I'll keep you posted. Maybe I'll get lucky and it'll come through like in the middle of the night and wake me up. Right. It's very, very delayed. Warning. Yeah, I don't know. I'd be interested to know if anyone else didn't get it because, yeah, these things are supposed to go out, I guess, to everyone.

I'm not sure how that technology works but uh nope i must say i did not receive it i've been seeing a lot of pretty funny memes going around about it today though so i did catch some of those yeah plenty of plenty of jokers around so yeah but that it was it was interesting i'm glad i'm glad they have something like that up and running. I mean, it definitely could be. Hopefully, it'll never get used again or never get used other than for a test every once in a while. But if they do need to use it, hopefully, it saves some lives too. Right, right.

Well, we are back after a rare week off. I spent last week, was out on the East Coast for a couple of weeks there and spent last week was out in Boston with the one vision team, which is always a great time, uh, getting out there and getting, getting some FaceTime with the team, but as always super busy when I go and jam packed with dinners and catching up with people. So I was not able to make it last week, but, um, excited to be back here. I got, I got home yesterday. We're recording Wednesday, and I got home yesterday, and last night was the first night in the house. And it was an interesting night. I received a phone call from my next-door neighbor at 2.30 in the morning. Generally, not a good thing. Yeah, I'm going to say, on national alerts with the things going off, phone call from the neighbor at 2 o'clock, no, that's definitely going to be worse.

You'll go with the national alert. No, I definitely want to get the phone call from the neighbor. Something's gone down, if that's the case, yeah. And it turns out that the sump pump in their basement had started going. And that thankfully woke them up. And they, you know, my neighbor, his immediate thought was, oh, great. You know, I have a pipe that burst in my home. And so he's, of course, running around the house trying to figure out what's going on and comes outside to inspect around the house and notices that on the front corner of my house, there's a hose spigot, which mind you, I've never once used. The kids never go to this part of the house ever. And it was wide open, full bore open spewing water out of the side of my house.

And I can laugh about it now because thankfully there was no damage to either my home or my neighbor's home. My water bill is going to be painful this month, I'm sure. But yeah, it had to be some probably neighborhood punk running around playing a prank. And it was a rude awakening, definitely disappointed, uh, that that would happen. And so, um, you know, went to Home Depot today and got the low tech solution. They make little locks that you can put over the hose spigot, which I never knew before, but I would encourage everybody. If you have one, uh, a hose spigot that you're not using, or you're going to be gone for

a while, I would lock that up. And, uh, and the other thing I did Seth today that makes this relevant is I did go online and purchase a flow for my home because with their technology, I thought it was really interesting to think about that, you know, traditional water leak detection systems wouldn't have picked that up because they're based on water inside of your home, but flow would have noticed this massive uptick in water spewing out of my house at, you know, 2 o'clock in the morning, and it would have alerted me,

and probably I would have either gotten up and caught it or, you know, would have shut the water off. So definitely, I think, a good example of where technology, you know, this stuff is fun and entertaining, and we love all of that, but a great example of where the right technology in place would have prevented that from being as big of an issue as it was, even though thankfully it wasn't a huge one, would have saved me a few bucks on the water bill for sure. Right. And what kind of punk goes around

and turns on water? I mean, come on. Yeah. Terrible. Yeah. Oh terrible yeah oh well kids what are you gonna do terrible so yeah we'll be you know we'll be uh taking some additional measures out there to probably get some get some cameras put up and stuff which is something i've been thinking about doing anyways um and it's so affordable and easy to do now that uh we'll probably be going ahead and pulling the trigger on some of those as well there may be some some relevant stuff here. So what do you say we jump into some home tech headlines? Let's do it. So for cameras, yeah, it's holiday season. And on October 9th, Google and Nest are holding a press event to announce their new products and services for the fall. While we don't know what Google announced this year, last year, Google and Nest introduced the Nest Hello video doorbell, Nest Secure Monitor security system, the outdoor Nest IQ camera, the Google Home Max and Google Home Mini, and a bunch of AI efforts that revolved around video analytics and automation.

So, Jason, if it's anything like last year, you might lose some more money in the next couple of weeks. That's right. Yeah, it sounds like a big one. It looks like CE Pro will be hosting also a day after webcast with their Google Senior Director of Google Home, Google Smart Home, Michelle Turner. So we'll have a registration link to that in the show notes at hometech.fm slash 228. Speaking of Google, their annual fall hardware event coming up, one of the expected upgrades to be announced to the Chromecast line appears to have been rather foolishly or embarrassingly leaked by Best Buy, which accidentally sold the unannounced product to a customer who picked it up off the shelf, this being reported via Android police. The customer who posted a photo of the product and an account of the story on Reddit under the name Grove Street Homie. Shout out to Grove Street Homie. Says it didn't even show up in Best Buy's system, but that the cashier rang up the product under a listing for an older Chromecast.

Yeah, well, yeah, and I saw that it didn't work yet either because it requires a new version of the home app which isn't out yet so uh i guess you get there you pay for all right yeah that's right last week sirius xm and pandora have announced a acquisition plans but before the stock market opened uh sirius xm is uh offering or offered to acquire Pandora for $3.5 billion in fake money stock or at $10.14 per share. Pandora would continue to exist as an independent service. The acquisition is expected to close in the first quarter of 2019. I don't know. This is like streaming services for old people to me. Like,

I mean, okay. So don't get me wrong. I like Sirius XM. Yeah. Well, you know, I, I, we have Sirius XM and we used to have it in both cars. Now we have one car that has the radio. So we just kept it in there. It's great for those long road trips and that kind of thing. Like would not, would definitely recommend having it for road trips. But like I, Pandora, man, I haven't listened to Pandora in such a long time. But I can tell you as an integrator, setting up streaming systems, every single client I had,

and they were mostly older, like, you know, they were retirees here in Florida. Every one of them had Pandora. That was the service to set up. Yeah. Well, they were really like the first big household name in pure streaming, and now there's tons of options, but they sort of pioneered a space in a certain sense. And so we'll be interested to see how this plays out. Speaking of acquisitions, Johnson Controls announced that it has acquired the assets of Lux Products Corporation, a leader in residential thermostats and smart home products.

Lux markets several successful residential and commercial lines ranging from timers toostat that features OLED display, among other high-tech features. And in even more acquisition news, Comcast has outbid everybody else to buy Sky over there in the UK. We talked a bunch about Sky boxes here with our good friends over in the hub that are overseas in the hub. They talk about Sky quite often. And I noticed this name and said, well, this is great. Comcast has taken the winning band of about $40 billion to purchase Sky after a three-round auction managed by uk's takeover panel the auction final round each company submitted a sealed bid

and guess what comcast unfortunately won sorry sorry guys you're gonna experience the pain that is comcast over over in the uk yeah good luck enjoy enjoy i saw a headline too that i guess a bunch of analysts were sort of beating up comcast for overpaying for whatever that's worth probably not much but anyways interesting to see that like you said sky definitely a a household name uh across with our friends uh across the pond speaking of tv last week roku announced its most affordable 4K streaming media players ever. The Roku Premiere and Roku Premiere Plus priced at $40 and $50 respectively. Wow. Crazy. Both devices incorporate quad-core processors, 802.11 bgn wireless networking, Dolby and DTS digital surround, and the Premiere Plus

also includes a voice remote. Pretty solid offering there. Yeah, it's 2018, and we have a 4K player with Dolby and DTS Digital Surround for $40. That's wild. That's crazy. Yeah, don't buy it. It really is. It really is.

Apple TV is still sitting around $200. So some numbers you mentioned there, Jason, were kind of confusing. But if you've ever bought a Wi-Fi router, you may have had to sort through the specs. And then they read complete jitterish, you know, like you just said, 802.11 bgn. But going forward, the Wi-Fi Alliance is adopting version numbers. So it'll be easier to tell whether the router or device you're buying is on the latest version this is something that should have happened two decades brilliant yeah we need a sound effect for yeah overdue innovation let's see uh all i got is this one there we go okay that'll work for tonight yeah um so yeah instead of wondering what AC means or N or B or G or Z or whatever the heck they

decide to come up with, you get a number. And the logos look really good. It's got the little Wi-Fi logo with a number on it. It makes sense. The best stories are the simplest ones, right, Seth? Yep, absolutely. Interesting to me, I noticed in this story that they listed wi-fi version 2 like they listed out which one is which one through five and wi-fi version 2 is 802.11 a and i always hear bgn and then there's ac of course to be honest i i like don't even really remember a version a yeah so you're not the only one i don't remember it i remember b b was around it was horrible and maybe a was so bad like because it doesn't i don't think a came out i think a actually came after b or something like that i

don't know they're both listed in 1999 and we're getting a comment in the chat room from doc brown no one remembers a yeah and that's probably probably for a reason um yeah i'm sure there's like a whole bunch of really smart here's mine here's my uh real-time follow-up on the wikipedia page 802 11a products shortage started shipping late lagging behind 802 11b products due to the five gigahertz components being more difficult to manufacture so yeah no one remembers a A because B already got out there and was widely adopted. And then later on, A came into like enterprise, which is why we never saw it. And by that time, everything else started taking over with BG and moving on to the higher technologies with faster speeds and everything.

It's kind of it's kind of wild to think about like wi-fi is not like not really that old like uh it was right it was in the 2000s before it was like standard to have wi-fi in a laptop that's pretty crazy and the last three minute conversation that we just had is proof. If you needed any of that version numbers will be handy. Yeah. Yeah. We should, we should go back and edit the version numbers in on top of that.

I'm not going to. Right. Anyways, moving on to our last quick headline here. Samsung announced its first QLED 8K TV back in August. So just recently now the 85 inch Q900R smart TV is available for pre-order for a mere $15,000. No word yet on whether the 65-inch, 75-inch,

and 82-inch sizes will be available for pre-order, but the 85-inch TV will begin shipping on October 28th. Wow, that's wild, huh? Because I remember maybe two years ago, 4K TVs were 85 inch and they were what? $25,000. So the sizes are going up. The prices are coming down on the same kind of technology, except this is 8K, which is better because it's more than four, I guess. This is just like Wi-Fi. These guys figured it out before the Wi-Fi lines. Yeah. The higher the number before the K, the better.

Yeah. We have 20K TVs before too long that don't. Oh, this is the one with the little ambient mode thing where you take the picture of your wall before you mount it and you have the bricks behind it. Remember we were talking about that? They have. Yeah.

Yeah. So, well, that'll be nice. I'll take two. 15K, that's it. Come on. Yeah. Easy. Yeah. That's at least what take two. 15K, that's it. Come on. Yeah. Easy. Yeah.

That's at least what you're going to pay for that water bill. Don't talk to me like that. That's horrible. All right. Well, this week, Kavo introduced Control Center, an entertainment hub. Let's see. I got to push the button. Three.

There we go. Entertainment hub and universal voice-controlled remote that unites everything connected to your TV. You remember we've talked extensively about the original Kavo, which is the zebra wood version. This new one, unfortunately, does not come in zebra wood. Oh, man. It only comes in any color you want. You lost me. Yeah, any color you want as long as it's black.

Right. Let's see. Right. Which I think for AV components is probably the best thing, best color they could have, quite honestly. Tried and true. Yep, tried and true. Instead of eight HDMI inputs, this has four.

It has many of the same features, but what it does get is a new remote with voice input. Instead of eight HDMI inputs, this has four. It has many of the same features, but what it does get is a new remote with voice input. So it's going to have voice assistants, including Google and Apple built in. Oh, there we go. One cool feature. At least you did it first. Yeah, one cool feature I thought,

you can press a button on the Kavo to find your remote. I've seen a couple of, I think, some of the cable boxes have that feature on it now where i think direct tv or something like that where you press a button on the cable box and your remote will start beeping around somewhere in the house wherever yeah you know uh they've got that feature built in but you can also yell over it google or alexa and and get the same same thing happen like it'll it'll find your remote so i thought that was pretty cool. This huge feature that the original Cabo didn't have,

but this one does have, has HDR and Dolby Atmos, which was a big ding. People were really tearing them apart for releasing this 8-port HDMI receiver without any HDR support. Yep. Right when HDR TVs were coming out. And I think this is kind of like the biggest part of this. It retails for $99.95,

and it has like a $20 a year or $2 a month service fee attached to it, which is way better than the $400 price point the zebra wood version was at. Right. Yeah, this is a big move for them. Big story, I think. I know that we talked several times on the show about Kavo. We've never had them on, but we're certainly going to reach out and hopefully have somebody join us from the company to talk about this. My first overall impression, my biggest impression of this story is what is, like, it seems like on the surface,

and I haven't gone and compared the spec sheets, but other than the number of HDMI inputs, which is down from eight to four, this thing seems to have everything that the original had and then some other than zebra wood right we talked we talked about that but definitely gonna miss the zebra wood yeah it's it's got it seems like everything and then some with a couple exceptions and it's a quarter of the price. It's $100. And I think this looks very, very compelling. I have no idea what kind of margin they're doing on this and certainly seems to be much more of a volume play for the company, whereas the previous unit looked more boutique and focused on a more niche audience, but I'm really, really intrigued to see how this thing does in the market. And I think the promise of Kavo as somebody who has recently in the last six to eight months really begun using more streaming services for both me and my wife and my kids,

and we just watch a lot more content on streaming than we used to. And the, you know, the struggle is real, right? Like trying to remember when my kids want to watch Daniel Tiger versus, you know, Bubble Guppies versus whatever other show they discovered the other day with my wife. Puffin Rock heard of. Puffin Rock. You got to get on the Puffin Rock train, man. And it's like they're asking me for the show, and I have to remember where to look, and I may not even know. And so having a search that works across different, not just across different apps like you can do with Apple's TV app, but across multiple devices, that's a pretty cool technology. And I know there's questions on your end, Seth, about is it a wedge solution? And does this whole problem eventually get solved in some other way that I suppose would be just purely software-based? based and i i don't know but i i think it's a really innovative and intriguing technology and

add a hundred dollars plus you know a couple dollars a month for the monthly service fee i don't know it's worth a shot yeah i mean that that it being a wedge device is is kind of what i've been like this is this is like one of those device things that you buy that has the possibility of getting replaced. I'm trying to think of a good example of what this would be, and I'll probably think of it later on. But, like, I won't say TiVo because TiVo had, like, TiVo was definitely replaced. It's definitely been replaced by software and apps and the cable company doing their own boxes and that kind of thing. But for the most part, it held its ground simply because it was kind of like initially, it was a one-of-a-kind type device.

Like you couldn't really go anywhere else and get a TiVo experience. And if something like that exists with Kavo, I think they have a longer ways to go than I'm giving them credit for uh but i'm i'm not i i have to wonder like this device is what apple is trying to do with the tv app right like the little the little app that's the tv app that tells you um you you log into it and it's like this is what's up next this This is what you were watching. Hey, you may want to watch this. Like that's what they're trying to do. And they're going up against a couple hundred billion dollar company that treats this as a hobby.

So it's kind of like, it's a head scratcher for me. Like I have to wonder what the end game is here for Kavo. But at the same time that like you said the the 100 price point uh is is a good good price point i i think it's way better than the 400 or just unsure if this thing's going to exist in six months type price point that came out uh and you know what i i put my my money where my mouth what mouth is this time and i went ahead and got one. Ah, there you go. So come Monday, I'm going to have one of these sitting on the workbench to test out and work and see how exactly it controls two Apple TVs that I have sitting here. I really don't have anything on my desk other than an Apple TV.

So it will be interesting to see what all it will do, uh, at that price point. And I may like bring it out into the field and, and see what, maybe hook it up at relatives' houses and see, you know, how exactly it works for them, uh, if they like using it and that kind of thing. So I don't know. We'll, we'll see how it works. And, uh, and I, I, I fully intend to kind of thing so i don't know we'll see how it works and uh and i i i fully intend to kind of document this process and and do kind of a a deep dive video review on it not like just an unboxing or anything like i did last time but like something a little bit more like i i gave these guys pretty hard time especially for that zebra wood um in the past and i i definitely want to try you did yeah yeah and i mean even in our show notes,

I, most people didn't notice this, but I do, I, from time to time I do chapter artwork and there was a nice little home tech logo and it had changed over to the zebra wood, uh, for that Easter egg. Yeah. A little Easter eggs in there. I mean, there was, there was definitely, definitely pot shots taken, but I want to give these guys, um, a chance here to defend the product. And I think, I think if I honestly, honestly, this is out of nowhere for me. Like, I had no idea that they were going to even exist anymore. So I'm happy to see that something like this comes out. I mean, at $100, this is, like, directly up against Harmony, right?

Like, this, with all it offers, Google. Oh, yeah. Google and Alexa. Like, this is right up against Logitech. There's no doubt in my mind that this could be as good, if not better, as Logitech. So anything that want us to shut that company down, I will support and investigate further. Yeah, it definitely does go up against them in the entertainment space. I think the Logitech, obviously, big established company, they've got quite a head start in terms of integrating with a broader smart home ecosystem. And who knows, that could be on the roadmap for Kavo in terms of what is the end game here and purely speculation, but that could be one thing that they go after. But

it is hard to say. Like I was saying, it's such an innovative and different approach that it's very hard to... There's really nothing you can compare it directly to. I know it was a couple of comments in the chat room. Uh, Anthony Rainer price point, major deal for me. So totally agree. I mean,

a hundred dollars is a steal for what this thing can do, by the way. It was literally a no brainer. Like as soon as they sent that to me, I'm like, Oh God, Kavo, not again.

And then I started leading. I'm like, Oh, a hundred bucks. Like, okay, you, oh, God, Kavo, not again. And then I started reading it. I'm like, oh, $100. Like, okay, you've got my attention now, sir. Right. I'll subscribe to your newsletter. Yeah.

So, and by the way, we've been talking about this quite a bit, and we haven't heard our previous conversations about it, well, obviously, we'll have links up in the show notes at hometech.fm slash 228, including a great YouTube video on YouTube that Kavo put together that I think does a really nice job the core problem that they're solving right now may have a fairly finite shelf life on it. But the length of time that that is, you know, it's hard to say. Like there are, you look at the story we just talked about tonight, $50 4K, what was it, Roku, $50 4K Roku, it's probably going to be a Chromecast that comes out at this new event that's super cheap. Apple TVs, a lot of people have them, they're higher on the price spectrum. But, you know, these devices are becoming so ubiquitous and so inexpensive that I think there's going to be a long, a fairly long time where people have a lot of these devices in the home. And if you can now go out and spend a hundred dollars to get a device that makes them all work together, and you have your shows that you love on this device and shows other shows that you love on the other device, and you're able to very seamlessly pull them in to one interface that's easy enough for people

in the home to pick up and use, then that's, that seems pretty valuable. So I really, I really like what they're doing and I want to see that I want to see this company succeed. But I'm with you. It's it's a little bit of a it's a little bit of a head scratcher for sure. Yeah. Well, hopefully this thing comes in Monday, I think. I was like, man, I hope they ship from like New Jersey and I see this in three days. But no, it comes from California. So got it. It's taking the slow boat and I'll have it Monday and take it apart, take it out of the box, put it through its paces. And I may even take it apart and see what's inside. I like doing that. So, yeah, I see some green boards. Cool, man. Well, we look forward to it. I know I speak for other listeners of the show when I say that I look forward to hearing about your experience with it.

Like you said, sounds like you've only got a couple Apple TVss maybe you need to go buy one of those new roku's as well yeah well i mean at 40 i mean it's half half the price of this but i only get one hdmi out so yeah i mean this this uh if you go look at their works with list like uh for kava like it it works with roku it works with uh amazon i mean so the fire tv it works with a bunch of stuff like i'm going through and like looking at the list like okay yeah i use that i use that i use that i use that uh sonos plex is on here voodoo's on here um so they they have they have set up a platform here that I think will serve them well moving into the future. And I've got a bunch of this stuff, like Hulu. I've got Netflix. I'll probably end up subscribing to Showtime for a certain documentary that airs this Sunday.

You know, I've got HBO that's on here as well. Yeah, HBO Now and Go are on here. So, I mean, it's like that's a huge amount of things. That's pretty much everything I watch, and I only use the Apple TV. And to put it all in one little box that I can put with my TV for $100, and then I can plug in local sources that work with it too, hey, that's great. Right. I'm genuinely curious to see what this does moving forward. So yeah, could be cool.

Look forward to hearing about it. All right, very good. Well, all of the links and topics that we have discussed tonight can be found in our show notes at hometech.fm slash 228. While you're there, don't forget to sign up for our weekly newsletter and we'll send you some show reminders and periodic updates to let you know what's going on just look for the subscribe button there on the right hand side once again the link is hometech.fm 228 yep and don't forget

you can join us in the chat room live wednesday hey we're back back on Wednesdays starting at 7.30 Eastern. Find out more at hometech.fm slash live. We actually got started just about on time today. So that's pretty good. We did. We try. We try. It's a labor of love. You gotta bear with us sometimes. Alright, cool. We got

two picks of the week? No, just one. One. Just one. One. Just one. Just one. The Nest doorbell? Yep. So this is a Twitter thing I ran across.

We were talking about Nest and their AI earlier, and it reminded me of this one. So this guy writes, I have to go look at his status, BJ May. He writes, my Nest doorbell automatically locks the front door when it sees a face it doesn't recognize. Today, it didn't recognize me. So I went into the app to investigate. Oh, man. That is really funny. Yeah, too good. The Nest actually, he's wearing a t-shirt with Batman on it. And the Nest decided that the Batman, he's the Batman, so Batman's at his front door,

you better lock it. Lock it down. That is really funny. That's a great one. AI. Yeah, this guy has 8,900, almost 9,000 retweets on this post from a guy who's got 592 followers.

There you go. At BJ May. So it's safe to say this one went viral. It definitely did. I cracked up when I saw it. But that's kind of like the little false positives that we talk about with AI and just about anything automated. You're going to get these false positives.

And if your doorbell thinks you're Batman, it's going to lock your door. It's going gonna lock you out don't wear that batman shirt that's really funny that's a good one all right cool well we got some we got a mailbag entry this week seth we got a good one from friend of the show robert spivak and this is a response to a show we did two weeks ago, actually, because we took last week off, but I thought it was a good one and wanted to bring it up and get your reaction to it and talk about it for a couple of minutes. So he said, you know, great podcast, Seth and Jason, but I think you missed the most significant part of Amazon's spaghetti release, he called it. So I think he may have coined that one. ACK, the Alexa Connect Kit.

Oh, damn it. I almost went the whole show. Damn you, Robert. This is a turnkey module that allows makers, developers, indies, and big companies to embed A into any device with very little effort. Low upfront cost and simple licensing, including backend infrastructure from AWS. I'm going to skim through the rest of this here very quickly. The significance of this is even greater when you look at what it takes to build, manufacture, and certify a HomeKit device

through the M5 program, both time and money very onerous. In some ways, the clock and microwave were mostly examples to developers and manufacturers of what they can do rather than Amazon trying to really push the new product categories as big winners. I buy that. I don't think Amazon is super excited about smart microwaves. I think they're trying to demonstrate what's possible there. So totally agree with that. And finally, he says, just the fact that Amazon will provide cloud services ongoing for your connected device

for only a one-time fee means a huge subsidy by Amazon, eliminating a lot of the ongoing operations cost of cloud connected products. So very thoughtful and detailed feedback there from Robert. We really appreciate it. Yep.

I think we briefly mentioned this on the show in passing. It wasn't like anything we covered in depth. So this is definitely a much better idea of what developers and manufacturers can do with this type of device. I would put two asterisks on this. One is this, I mean, not that Apple is any better, but this definitely locks you into the Amazon program that you're not going to use the same infrastructure to develop a, what is it called, Alexa? Yeah, Alexa.

And slash Apple HomeKit compatible device. Like you're not going to do that. So this is going to lock you into Amazon with your device, and you're going to use Amazon services, and you're going to be locked into their cloud services, which they say now they are providing for free or one-time fee or whatever. But that can change. If we do anything with this business in Amazon, especially Amazon,

those things can change all the time. So it is an interesting product. It is an interesting service that they're providing. I think I want to say Microsoft came up with something that's exactly like this a couple of months back. I think we briefly covered that as well. So this is them giving you reference hardware or chips and that kind of thing. Just basically, here's where you start

and start using... You can basically make a microwave pretty easily with this one little device and make it smart. We'll see what happens with it. It's not like they are hurting for any number amount of like products and pieces to be integrated with the amazon platform like it doesn't seem like they're hurting they're just making it a little bit more easy um to get involved and lock down uh so we should like

the biggest thing is like this is this is yes it's nice but it also is this locks you down like you are definitely locked down to amazon right and you won't you won't see companies like philips hue do this because it's going to lock them out of going with google home or apple home kit like they'll just be exclusively making device that works with amazon so that's at least that's from my understanding uh let us know if we're wrong or let me know if I'm wrong. But from what I was reading and my understanding, it's definitely a lockdown play, too. So something to keep in mind. Yeah. There's always two sides or more to the story, right?

And so it's worth pointing that out. Doc Brown in the chat room saying, Nothing is free when you aren't paying for it. You or your information is the real product. So interesting what Alexa may... Because I didn't even need to say it at that time. I was trying to get over there. Interesting what Amazon may be doing there.

There's a good article I read from The Verge this week that I'll link in the show notes right now, Seth, so we can include it. Amazon wants to be the operating system for your life. And it talks about essentially exactly what we're talking about right now. And it says, quote, it's clear now that the company has every intention to make A, the single operating system, the dominating force in the smart home. In essence, they want to be the OS for everyone's physical lives, just as Apple, Google, and Microsoft now control our digital ones. And it goes on to quote a Forrester analyst who says, while today it looks like Scattershot

products being launched, referring to what Robert called the spaghetti release, or what the Verge here refers to as the Blitzkrieg style marketing. While it looks like scattershot, quote, there is a more measured long game here. Consider these products to be a gateway into the customer's lives, one that down the road will make Amazon's intelligent assistant the assistant of choice over other options because Amazon has become so ingrained. And that to me is the big play here. They want to do what they've always done better than any company on the planet. They want to make it easy to work with them. Now, they've always been known for making it easy for consumers. That's their big thing that they always

want to be is the most convenient, most easy place to buy things. But the same here, I think, extends to what they're doing with this sort of move, is they want to make it very easy and very enticing for manufacturers to build their products on the A platform. I'm just going to say it. I can't do it. The Alexa platform. And you can see why. I mean, there are a bunch of really smart people there. They know that there's a war going on right now to own the voice control platform in people's lives over the next two to five to 10 years. And this sort of move is targeted directly at that. That's an interesting article and i i don't think i i i think when amazon first started the echo systems it was one of those like let's throw it against

the wall and see if it sticks type products like they had oh yeah yeah they had no idea what this thing was going to be used for and i think they just they put it out there and people picked up and they amazon's done a really good job of keeping up with what people wanted to use it for and developing those little you know things like home automation like we we extensively talking about using the amazon echo for home automation but there are more people who don't use amazon to turn on and off their lights than there are people who do times the number of lights they're using to turn on like it's it's incredible how many these devices are out there but one of the one of the things that i i found interesting i ran across

this tech crunch story um a couple weeks back and i'll go ahead and put it in the show notes too but the headline on it was uh surprise no one buys things uh by alexa so there we go um so it turns out there was a report on the information that about, let's see, of about 50 million Amazon users. I'm not going to say it. Only about a hundred thousand of them reportedly bought something using the on voice, using the voice interface. So that's, that's virtually no one. So moving forward, like we're talking about like Amazon wants you to use the echo devices and the echo platform, which I'm not calling it by his name now, cause I'm not going to embarrass myself. Um, stupid,

stupid naming. Uh, yeah, but they want you to use it. But the question has always been like, why? Well, of course you want to buy more Oreos and,

and toilet paper and stuff using this little quirky product that sits on your, your kitchen countertop. And I have to wonder, like, they're, they're definitely like not selling these at a profit, right? Like I can't imagine that they are like too much of a profit. Um, and, and I have to wonder what the, like the longer game is like, do they, do they know that these devices, um, are just going to be basically a constant advertisement, like with a little bit of value add in it for you moving forward? I don't know. I don't know how they, I don't know how they, they square this with like what we originally

thought it was going to be, which is a product that, you know, you buy toilet paper and refill your, your, your, I don't know, dryer sheets with, you know, versus like what it's kind of become, which is like this little thing that sits on your countertop and you ask how many cups are in a pint, you know, like that's, is that all it's ever going to be? So I don't know, like everybody, everybody knows Amazon exists, right? Like we, we have to to be. So I don't know. Everybody knows Amazon exists, right? We have to admit that. And I don't know if this is just an advertising play at this point, just to make sure that you have an Echo sitting on your kitchen. An Echo on every countertop, that kind of thing. Is that the goal? It's a good question. And I, of course, can only speculate just like most of us. But one thing that's always hard for me to wrap my brain around anytime I talk about big picture stuff as it relates to Amazon is the scale at which they operate. And when you're as big as Amazon, you can do, well, you can do basically whatever the hell you want, which they do a pretty good job at, but you can do things that don't have to have

an immediate benefit, or you can do things that you think may have a long-term benefit. You don't know exactly what it is, but you're going to strategically throw money at it to get yourself in a better position than your competitors, because you're all going after it, even though you don't know exactly what it is, if that makes sense. And there's also the pure economics of even if they only, by a very small margin, increase the amount of Oreos and toilet paper, like you said, that they sell, a tiny, tiny percentage uptick in that sort of thing for a company that does business at the scale Amazon does represents millions, billions, I don't even know how much. That's very hard for me to even fathom. Billions in toilet paper. Yeah, the kind of just world that company operates in.

So I agree with you. It's fun to think about and speculate. But I think ultimately at this point, they, like most of us in the world, suspect that AI and voice control are big. They're the real deal. I agree. I think they sort of stumbled across this thing. They put the Echo out and didn't really know that it was going to be this smash hit. And they're bearing down right now and figuring out what that means.

And while they figure out the details of that, they're going to go hard at it and try to corner as much of the market as they can. Yeah. I mean, people like it. Don't get me wrong. People, as crummy as the Echo is, it's a horrible product. The app is just disgusting to look at. But people like it. It sits in your house.

It kind of has a personality. It kind of has a temperament, so to speak. Maybe that's just putting on it. But you figure out what it can do to speak. Like you can, maybe that's, you know, just putting on it, but it, you figure out what it can do and what it can do well. And that's what it's there for, uh, and how it fits into your life. And I think they did a good job of, of like finding those maybe 150 questions that get asked all the time and building that into the product initially. And people said, Oh, I could use this to do this. And then it turns out they thought of they thought of that you know by the time they somebody figured out how to do that it was it was built into it so i think they they've done it a great job of getting it in there virally but like

at the same time like i still think that most people i mean just look at apple like they have no idea what the home pod does like it Oh, it's there to play fancy music. But Apple is one of those companies that's like, when they release something, it usually has a purpose. And the only reason the HomePod exists, it seems, is to let the stock people know that Apple can still make a speaker, I guess. It doesn't exist for any other reason. The Siri's crummy on it still.

I think now it has timers. Yay, 2019, 2018, timers. Greaters yeah good job guys multiple multiple timers that's right but like even google like i have the google home sitting in front of me like even it like for me it's kind of like all these devices are like okay well what does it do like what is it there for and i don't think anything any one of them has hit like, like a golden example of what the product is there for in everybody's house. Like everybody uses it just a little bit different and maybe that's it. Maybe everybody using this product a little bit differently is like the path to gold.

Yeah. And maybe I'm missing the whole point of having these devices, but like, I'm not seeing like a continual, like other than asking measurements and doing weight convergence with this Google thing, it does a horrible job of like, I, I ask it all the time to do calculations and it's like, I'm sorry, I don't know how to, so I have to go to a calculator. That's amazing. That's amazing. I just, I don't think that there's, I feel, I don't think I've seen like a number one feature from these products that like everybody uses. Everybody uses it just a little bit differently. And until that's such a broad, that's such a broad thing. Until I think that kind of narrows back down,

I still think I'm going to have this feeling like, what are these devices actually for? Yeah. Cause I mean, I have three of these things in the house and I, I still haven't hooked them up to the lights. Like, shouldn't I be the prime target for that? Like, yeah, there you go. Yeah. That's crazy. Uh, yeah. You know, you're, you're a hundred percent right. And it is definitely a, you know, fascinating time to watch the industry and industry and, man, just speculate about where it's all going to go. And so I suspect we'll be doing this show in another two, three, four years from now, and who knows what we'll be speculating about then. We could still be speculating about what the heck voice control actually means for the average homeowner.

But in the meantime, you've got a whole generation of kids growing up with it. I think about my kids a lot when it comes to voice control and how, you know, they interact with these devices all the time. And, you know, what does that mean in the long run as well? Right, right. Well, if you have any ideas of what voice control is and should be, and if I should go ahead and hook up the lights to the voice control assistants in my house, you know, reach out to us. Give us some feedback, questions, comments, picks of the week or any other great ideas for show. Give us a shout.

Our email address is feedback at HomeTech.fm or you can visit HomeTech.fm slash feedback and fill out the online form. Absolutely. And as we always do, we want to give a big thank you to everyone who supports the show, but especially to those of you who are able to financially contribute to our efforts through our Patreon page. If you're not familiar with that, head on over to hometech.fm slash support. Once again, that's hometech.fm slash support, where you can learn how you can support the Home Tech Podcast for as little as a dollar a month. Any pledge over $5 will give you a big shout-out on air, but every single pledge will get an invite to our private Slack channel, The Hub, where you and other supporters of the show can gather every day for inside baseball conversations about all things home technology.

Yep, and this week we had a patron actually change his pledge from $1 to $5, and we want to give him a shout-out on the show. Yep. And this week we had a patron actually change his pledge from one to $5 and we want to give him a shout out on the show. So yeah, this week we'd like to thank Raymond Chauvelin. So Ray, thanks very much. Yeah, we, we appreciate it, Raymond. And again, to everybody who has supported us to date, we really, really appreciate that. If you're not able to support the show financially, we totally get that. We would appreciate, greatly appreciate you taking a few minutes to leave a five-star review on iTunes or a positive rating in your podcast app of choice. Five stars, that's what we're shooting for, Seth.

That's the goal. We need those five stars. That's right. All right. Well, I had a great time chatting with you this week, Seth. Look forward to getting back together next week and talking you know, talk and shop with you. Sounds great. Well, thanks, everybody, for joining us in the chat room. And Jason, I will talk to you next week. All right. Sounds good. Take care, Seth.