HomeTech.fm - Episode 235 - HomeTech's 2018 Black Friday Special

Episode Date: November 21, 2018

On this week’s episode of HomeTech: the latest home tech headlines plus our annual Black Friday roundup! There are great some really great deals on home tech this year. Don’t waste your time scouring the internet. We’ve done the hard work for you!

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 Wednesday, November 21st. From Sarasota, Florida, I'm Seth Johnson. And from Denver, Colorado, I'm Jason Griffin. How you doing, Seth? Good, Jason. Happy Turkey Day. Yes, you as well. Thanksgiving is here already. It's hard to believe. What are your plans? We're staying at home. So we're staying at home. We're not traveling anywhere.

But we... Thanksgiving's kind of a big deal in my family. Like, we've already had a Thanksgiving. We've already cooked a... Like, we call it pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving. And about sometime... Oh, wow. Yeah.

This is serious. Yeah, it's serious because we decorate the house for Thanksgiving, tear it all down, decorate for Halloween, and then tear that down and put it back up. Well, reverse order, right? Halloween, then... Is it Halloween? No, no, because we do pre-Thanksgiving before Halloween. Oh, my goodness.

Yes. Yes. So the spiders come out and they go away. You guys really are serious. Yeah. We already warm up. We know what we're already like warm up we know what we're gonna cook we know what we're gonna have uh if we want to experiment that's when we experiment you know and see if some dish is gonna gonna fly with the rest of the family it's a test run yeah if you

you don't get it right you're out so it's uh yeah so what are you guys doing yeah we are we're gonna stay local as well it'll be our first time doing that that in a while for reasons I won't go into. We've got some travel plans after Thanksgiving, but this year for Thanksgiving, we're going to be here in Colorado. And some friends of ours have been kind enough to take us in so we won't be completely orphaned for Thanksgiving. We're going to head over with our kids, and they've got a couple of kids that are about the same age as ours, and they're going to have some of their family who lives here in Colorado over as well. So that'll be a nice time. We're going to go hang

out there and just take it easy and enjoy the fact that I don't have to be responsible for cooking a turkey. Yeah, take it easy. That's the key on Thanksgiving. Take it easy. Get that, what is that stuff? Tryptophan? Is that what you need to get? Tryptophan. Yeah. Load up on that and just pass out. Load up. That's right. That's right. Well, speaking of Thanksgiving, Seth, this is our annual show. Again, I can hardly believe that it is up on us already, but we are going to jump into a whole bunch of Black Friday specials. And I know we're aiming to get this episode out a little bit early this week so that it releases at least a day or two prior to Black Friday. But we've gone through and assembled quite a list. We're going to run through it and give some highlights. There's way more stuff on there that we're going to have time

to cover in detail. But after the show, if you want a more comprehensive roundup, definitely head on over to hometech.fm slash 235, and we'll include all of the details there so you can take a look. Well, before we do that, why don't we jump into some Hometech headlines? Let's do it. French hardware startup Netatmo was acquired this week by Legrand. Terms of the deal are undisclosed. Legrand and Netatmo already collaborated together on some products. Back in 2017, the company announced that it would work with industrial groups to connect everything in your home, starting with Legrand and Velux. Big moves by Legrand. I mean, for an M&A, they've been on the M&A move for the last couple of years, right?

They definitely have. They definitely have purchased everyone or attempted to purchase everyone. Like, they've done a lot of stuff. So, very impressive. And Netatmo, pretty good gear from what I've seen, right? I've seen their weather stations and their, like, indoor monitoring things. I think they have, like, a canary-type device with a camera, like an indoor camera thing as well. But I like the way it looks, but I've never used them.

So it's interesting to see them get scooped up by the big arm that is LeBron. Yeah, exactly. Speaking of mergers and acquisitions, SnapEV has acquired Volutone, one of the largest independent distributors serving the home technology integrator market. The acquisition adds seven branch locations, six in Southern California and one in Las Vegas, to SnapAV's four locations in the Midwest, which SnapAV picked up with their acquisition

of AllNet earlier this year. Jason, I heard this. My office is based in Phoenix, and they were freaking out, and I was like, I've never heard of Volutone. Like who's Volutone? Yeah. Who are they? But they said, oh, they're huge. Yeah. You mentioned that to me. Yeah. They're, they're very big out in Southern California where I worked for a number of years. And like the story alludes to Las Vegas.

So generally in the Southwest, very well known and a big move for SnapAV. You mentioned mergers and acquisitions and SnapAV has been on the warpath there as well. And it's very interesting to see them continue with this strategy of expanding local presence. So we'll certainly be keeping an eye on that. Speaking of SnapAV, they have also announced a partnership with Nest Pro, the program that provides home technology professionals with access to and discounts on smart home and security systems from Nest and its sister company, Google. It's kind of a funny way to refer to that relationship. SnapAV will carry the full range of connected products from the companies ranging from thermostats to monitored alarm systems and Google Home voice assistants. That's a great deal for integrators because I think, I mean, SnapAV is huge.

Obviously, they're buying up everyone and they're even bigger now. But one-stop shop. Yeah, yeah. I mean, this Nest Pro program has really, I mean, they've done a good job of getting out in front of integrators on a lot of things, even though some of the products in the past weren't all that great to install. I think it's getting better, and with partnerships like this, it's going to get even better. Right. According to Huawei CEO Richard Yu,

the company is writing a new digital assistant for markets outside of China, including the U.S. The company already has a digital assistant in China called the Chaoyi, I guess. I think you did good on that one. Which operates... That's how I would have tried. It looks like a Chaoyi. Chaoyi? I don't know.

Which operates in Huawei smartphones and in smart speakers called the Huawei AI Cube. Bringing a digital assistant to countries outside of China, however, would position Huawei as a major tech player in the U.S. and not just another smartphone manufacturer in the perspective of the average U.S. consumer. Some of these major, major companies like Xiaomi and Huawei, they're major in China. They do more than just smartphones. And we don't even we don't know them. We don't hear of them, but they're there, man. And they're, they're massive. Yep. Yeah. It will be interesting to see how this progresses. I, I suspect the, they're going to have a little bit of an uphill battle given the headstart that

Google and Amazon have here in the U S but options are always good. Moving on here. Alexa recently added a wake on land control method that can turn on sleeping connected gadgets in the home that otherwise won't respond to voice control high sense lg and vizio are already banking on the technology and plan to deploy it in their tvs over quote the next several months end quote according to amazon so this one is uh is an interesting story. And I think one that could easily fly under the radar if you're not super familiar with control methods. And wake on LAN is obviously a fairly standard function that's out there in the world of control. But having that built into a platform, a DIY consumer platform like Alexa, is not all that common. So I thought this was a

noteworthy story. Yeah, I think this is a huge story. It's bigger than you're giving it credit for, Jason. And we were talking about this a little bit more in the pre-show when we set this up. The Wacom LAN, it's known in our circles. It's known in the IT world. And it's a very, very standard packet that any control system can send out. So it's known in the it world and it's a very very standard packet that any control system can send out uh so it's it's not a like what's good is like we could send that packet to an lg tv or a video tv as a custom integrator but until it gets enabled to accept that packet and turn the tv on or turn on or even wake up the the interface, that's gold. So it's great that Amazon's getting this, but you know what?

Since it's such a standard thing, that means that we all get it. We all get this wake on LAN feature that goes into Hisense, LG, and Vizio TV. So I think this is great for integration as a whole, not just Amazon. Yeah, I agree. I agree. Just in time for the holidays, Google Assistant is introducing a bunch of new smart home features, including the ability to reply to broadcast messages, create and use cookbooks, and access enhanced storybook content for kids. Sounds fun. Sounds like they want you to really get involved with using Google Assistant during the holidays.

Yeah, yeah. Well, we're definitely going to get to that. And Google has some great deals, incidentally, for Black Friday. I think the one that's most interesting to me in this one is the stuff for the kids. And they talk about, there's some mentions about STEM careers and STEM education in this story. And I think that that's one of the areas in terms of smart speakers and AI assistance that I'm particularly interested in is how can we actually leverage that technology to make it more interactive and educational for our kids so it's not just about yelling at Alexa to play their latest favorite song. You know what I mean? So I think it's really cool to see companies continuing to invest in that. Moving on here, Roku will start shipping its wireless speakers, which work with its TVs and

can also pair via Bluetooth with mobile devices. These will start shipping on November 16th. So that's actually in the past here. These are already officially shipping by the time you'll hear this. A set with two speakers and both remotes will normally cost you $200, but if you can wait a bit, you'll get $50 less starting on the 18th, which again, by the time you hear this will be in effect. And through Cyber Monday, which is November 26th, you will be able to buy a set from Roku's website for $150. So you can save a little bit of money there. Nice, nice. Love some Roku.

Just when you thought the virtual MPV Element IQ PD market had reached its threshold for new services, Silicon Dust HD Home Run DVR products announced a new premium TV service. The service costs $35 a month for live access to many of the top cable channels, including ESPN, HDTV, TBS, AMC, Nickelodeon, Fox News, and CNN. In all, the package includes 45 cable channels from 21st Century Fox,

Disney, NBC Universal, Discovery, Viacom, AMC Networks, and Turner. This is big. I have one of these things. This is what runs channels the channels app this is what most people use if they need a ota to uh to to um ip type product and uh man this is great this is this is awesome yeah and yet another option for people looking for you know non-traditional ways to access streaming or video content in general i should should say, not just streaming. And man, it's fascinating. It's definitely, to me, been the story of the year. The evolution we've seen

in streaming and over-the-top content is pretty crazy. Speaking of which, a little bit of a follow-up story, Seth. We alluded to this last week. A little bit more information surfacing on the DirecTV streaming box. This story from Variety.com. AT&T's DirecTV is about to introduce a new TV set-top box that's based on Google's Android TV platform and ditches satellite connectivity for over-the-top streaming, according to a new FCC filing. The new device is being described by these documents as, quote, the new AT&T DirecTV Wireless 4K OTT client. So that's a bit of a mouthful, but confirms a story that we talked about last week where the CEO was talking about this new potential move eventually away from traditional satellite hardware and the boxes that attach to it and

moving more to a streaming client to access the same content so really interesting to see this right right i i mean satellite can go in places that internet isn't right so if you're out in the in the boondocks and you and sometimes you only have access to satellite for both TV and Internet. So I don't know if this is going to replace all of DirecTV's business, but it's very interesting to see them moving into a more stream. I mean, they've had this set up for a while, both DirecTV and Dish Network. They have their streaming services uh set up so it's very interesting to see them kind of move a little bit further away maybe away or maybe augmenting their business with with satellite right gives you an option as a as a customer apple has now fully exited the wireless router

business the company had previously the company had previously stopped selling the airport express router and now apple's website and retail stores will no longer carry the airport extreme or airport time capsule modules uh users interested in the apple made router will have to turn to other retailers retailers third-party sellers or ebay to find any remaining inventory before it sells out for good and as good as a router it is don't go get one of those things just get something new like a hero or you, you know, like a Amplify or something that's going to get updated. I mean, it's a good router,

and there's been no, like, major exploits in it that I know of, but, man, get something that is getting security patches, especially for a router. Don't go looking for old hardware on eBay. Yeah, well, and beyond security patches, it's just the radio technology and continued advances in there. And we've known about this story for a while. We talked about it. Stories have been surfacing in the press for a while now about Apple's move out of Wi-Fi. And

to me, no evidence to back this up. I don't know anything, but I can tell you that it looks like Apple looking at this market and saying, is this really a good place for us to be investing resources? And I think with the explosion of mesh Wi-Fi and very inexpensive and great alternatives, I should add, these aren't just cheap. They actually work really well. Apple has decided it simply doesn't make sense for them to continue to invest there. They'd have to get into mesh and keep up with all of that. And certainly they could do it, but they've decided clearly that it's not for them. So kind of the end of an era, Seth.

Apple Airport stuff has been such a workhorse around the network in the home for so many people for so long that it's actually really interesting to see them completely exit the business. Yeah. The final nail in the coffin, so to speak, right? Yeah. Like you said, we've known this was coming for a long time. They announced they weren't going to support them or sell them anymore. And here we are.

They pulled them from the stores and shipped off the excess inventory somewhere else. But I mean, I doubt anybody had been buying them either like what right it doesn't seem like this prudent thing to do i feel like we should have a moment of silence i'll just play taps in the background all right well that'll do it for our headlines this week. All of the links and topics we've discussed here can be found in our show notes at hometech.fm slash 235. And while you're there, don't forget to sign up for our weekly newsletter where we'll send you show reminders and occasional updates about all of the great things going on here in the world of home tech. And with that completed, Seth, I think we're ready to jump into our Black Friday roundup.

What do you think? Yeah, let's go ahead and start. We've got this, we kind of got it like grouped by manufacturer or major brand, I guess, is how we should look at this, right? Yeah. Yeah. Of course, the big ones that start ones that start off, start off everything. Google, Google has a number of Black Friday deals. I think the big ones that stood out to me, they've got Nest Cam, Google Home, Google Chromecast, all that good stuff. The big ones that stood out to me are the Google Home Hub. It's $50 off. And then they've got some various package deals on the Google Home Mini, which can get the price down to, get this, Jason, from what? What does this thing normally run, like $35?

I think it gets it down to $23 if you buy it in a three-pack from Costco. So not such a bad deal. Yeah, yeah, crazy cheap. Like you said, they've got a number of deals. I think the Google Home Hub jumped out at me as a new product and one that I'm considering $99, which is $50 off. That's a percentage-wise, obviously a very significant discount and a product that if you're interested in, you know, $99, that's not a lot of money to go kick the tires on it. Like you said, they've got some package deals, uh, the Google home mini really cheap.

You get a single one of those for $25 now, which is $24 off. It's literally like half price. Uh, they were $49. Okay. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. They were 49 before, and now you can get them for 25 or like you said, you can go to Costco

and get a three pack for 70. So you save, I think about $5 there if, uh, if I'm doing math in my head correctly, but, um, as we'll see, as we move through some of these other companies, a lot of package deals this year. And I don't know if I just noticed that more this year, or if it's a, a trend that is starting to pick up steam, but a whole lot of bundled deals, not just from individual products. This one is three Google Home minis for $70, but a lot of companies are doing things like Google, for example, has a Google Home Hub, Google Home, and Wi-Fi 3-pack. You can save $129 if you buy all of those together. Clearly, companies are incentivized to, once they get you as a customer, that acquisition cost is already done, and they want to drive the sale price up as much as they can.

And we're seeing a lot of that in Black Friday deals this year. They messed up on naming these things, I think, or branding or something. Because the Google Home Hub, I know I was excited about it, but I completely forgot which model that was. That's the one with the little 7-inch touchscreen. Yeah. I almost paid full price for one of those the other day at Target because I was walking through and I'm looking at it. And I was like, well, let me play around with it and see how it sounds. It sounded great.

It sounds like a pretty – I mean, the touchscreen is beautiful. It's got a nice interface. I was like, this thing is awesome. But, yeah, $50 off would be even better. Yeah, smoking deal. I have to keep an eye on that one and see where I can pick one of those off. But yeah, good deal. Definitely. Like you said, we're, we're sort of, we're going to organize this a little bit by, by like manufacturer or provider,

as you said, because that, that is a, probably a better way to talk about it. Moving on here. Amazon has a ton of deals. We're not going to rattle all of these off. Again, we're going to have a more comprehensive list in our show notes at hometech.fm slash 235. But a couple of things really jumped out at me as it relates to Amazon. Number one, the Echo Look. And I know, Seth, you kind of did a double take on this one because we talked about the Echo Look when it first came out, but it hasn't gotten a lot of attention in the press since then. And this is the device that has the camera built into it, and you can try on different outfits in front of it, and it'll tell you how you look or something. I don't know.

It's a confusing device. But the specific reason that I bring it up is because this is an absolute fire sale. They have it on sale for $50 on Black Friday, and this, Seth, normally sells for $200. It's literally like 75% off. Well, I mean, this is that product that takes pictures of you in your bedroom, right? Yes. This is the one that, like... Yes, it's that one.

Yeah. I mean, I don't know. It's very strange, very strange. And I can't find some of these deals are, I think they may pop up later. Some of them have like these bundle ones are a little difficult. And I think Amazon could make this better because I'm trying to find deals that do like the bundles where you can bundle a light switch with something else. It's very, very difficult on Amazon's website, at least the way I know how to shop, to find them. So I wish they'd make that a little bit easier.

But this one's still saying it's still up there at that $200 price point. So maybe on Black Friday it will be down to $50. You can pick one up. I noticed the same thing. And, you know, I checked across several different sites that were talking about this. And clearly it's something that many sites are reporting. But yeah, if you go look at the site right now, we're recording on Monday. It's still listed for $200.

But yeah, if you want a device that takes pictures of you in your closet for a fire sale price, Black Friday is your day. So keep an eye out for that one yeah i mean amazon in general there are a ton of products that they they i mean the this this ugly fire tv recast thing that they they sell for 229 like it's it's uh 179 now like the they're they're they're launching all sorts of deals on their website so we'll include a couple links um on our show notes uh to some of the couple of things that we that stood out to us um but amazon man they not not just their products but they're they're they're selling all sorts of crazy deals on other things too and and ring now is included in their product so um you know i saw on there that you can get a ring alarm for $188.98, which is, I guess, they have it 30% off.

It's usually a little bit more, $260, $270. But you can also get, like, what are those cameras, the Blink cameras, bundled in with it for a decent price as well. So, and that's when I was looking at the ring doorbells. Like, they're selling for $99. I was checking at the, the ring doorbells, like they're selling for 99. I was checking them out and then Amazon pops up this little banner at the top that says,

Hey, you may want to look into buying a ring alarm and a blink indoor camera for 60, 69, 99. So, uh, about $30 off on that. Right. Not bad, but it's, it's kind of buried in their site. Maybe, maybe they're making it harder to find for people just kind of coming to the site looking for deals and then people are going to a specific product. I mean, they're like trying to cross sell them

on other products that they own. So Ring and Blink are both owned by Amazon. Last I checked, I think it's Blink. That's a good upsell for them. If they can get a doorbell and then get me in for the alarm and get me in for the camera. That's it. Yeahsell for them. If they can get a doorbell and then get me in for the alarm and get me in for the camera. That's it.

Yeah, they did it. That is the mentality for sure. They've got you as a customer. And once you're there at the checkout, they want you paying for as much stuff as possible. And we're definitely seeing that. So all kinds of bundles there with Amazon. Echo subs, Echo dots, Echo Dot Kids with the Fire HD tablets. There's a whole bunch of different deals from Amazon. So if you're interested in any of that, go check out our

show notes. Sonos as well has a promotion. It's safe to say you can bundle an Echo Dot with anything on their website and come and get a deal with it. Yeah, and you're going to get a get a deal exactly they've got smart plugs the the new amazon smart plug that came out recently there wasn't a whole lot of fanfare around that but they do have a smart plug that has you know alexa integration built into it five dollars with any purchase of an echo device so crazy uh crazy cheap lots going on at. So certainly go check that out. As I was about to say just a second ago, Sonos has a deal with them. So if you own a Sonos One, you can get one of those smart plugs or a smart bulb for $10. And you can clearly see what these companies are doing.

They just want to bring you into the ecosystem. And they're practically, in a lot of cases, even literally giving the stuff away to get you there. So really interesting. Yeah, that smart plug is $25 normally. So pick it up for $20 off. It's insane. It's crazy. So definitely go check that out if you're in that ecosystem at all or considering it. Amazon and Google both frankly have a have a ton of really good deals this year that we've barely touched the surface of moving on to apple though home pod hold on hold on i got one thing okay i have one thing i i just put a link in our back channel there go for it i just put a link yeah check out that link uh to the Amazon smart plug and look at their, their hero image at the top.

And I'm, I'm about to have an OCD like fit. Why? You see the screw? The screw is crooked. The screw is crooked, Jason. How could that be the hero image?

Why would they do this? Why would they do this? All the integrators are going to look at that and be like... See, I would have it vertical. I would have it vertical as well, but at least, I mean... At least if you're going to go horizontal. Oh, it looks even worse if you zoom in on it. That is bad.

Oh, oh. All right. Let's put the OCD aside here and move on. Amazon does have some really great deals this year. Moving on, though, Seth. To Apple, who prides themselves in the way they design their products. That's right. That's right.

They would never have a hero image with a crooked faceplate screw. Just saying. They wouldn't even have screws on their faceplates. It would just be a wall with an outlet on it. Yeah, exactly. But Apple has, you know, they've got a few things going on. Some deals with MacBook Pros over at Best Buy if you're in the market for a new computer. Some deals with iPads.

I think actually a pretty decent deal here. It looks like Target, Walmart, and others will be marking the 9.7-inch iPad 32-gig model to $250. And that's regularly $329. So again, percentage-wise, that's a pretty significant discount. And if you're in the market for a new iPad, that's definitely one that you may want to take a hard look at. Yeah, I'm actually... That one is a great deal for an iPad. Regular $329 down to $250, that you don't see often.

So if you can pick one of those up, grab it. I think that's a great deal. Apple does not discount their product very often. You don't see it discounted very often at all, especially around $70 off. But I think the HomePod dropping down to $249, being a whole hundred dang dollars off, wow. That's great.

And I'm not a huge fan of the HomePod. That one went back. But I think if you can pick one up for $249, you'll have a great speaker for $249. I think that's probably the price point it should be at for what it can do, quite honestly, like how it sounds and what it can do. And I think that's a great price point for it to be. I wish it was that way all the time. Yeah.

So, again, that'll be at Best Buy. And $249 for the HomePod is definitely one of the best prices that I've seen out there. I think maybe the best price that I've personally seen for the HomePod. And Seth, the question is, would $250 have been an acceptable price point or would it still have gone back? I think it would have been acceptable at $250. Yeah. I think for the performance that I got out of it, I thought it was great. For how limited it was,

it was just basically Apple Music and what I could home, what is it, AirPlay over to it, a little less impressed with. So I think at $250, though, I think it's a great speaker for $250. Got it. So go check that out. Moving on here, Ecobee.

You can buy two of them. Yeah. Save $200. Right. There you go. Moving on here, a smaller manufacturer, but a well-known name in the world of home tech, Ecobee has announced several deals. And I think the nicest one that I've seen

here is the Ecobee 4, which is their newer model. I've got the Ecobee 3 at home here and I love it. Ecobee 4, $50 off. So $199 down from $249. That's available on Amazon and presumably on Ecobee's website. I didn't double check that, but a pretty good deal. Like I said, I'm a big fan of Ecobee. I've had it in my home for several years now, and it's been a very reliable and easy to use product and would definitely recommend it if you're in the market for a smart thermostat. Give Ecobee a look, and at $50 off, you're getting a pretty good deal there. Right. Yeah, I would say ecobee is definitely my favorite one i think the four is even going to come with

a sensor as well so you which you don't get with many of the other ones like if you've got a nest or something you'd probably pay around the same price but you wouldn't get the extra sensor the remote sensor that's right yeah yeah i think that's a cool feature of it um as well as having the microphones for the voice assistant i guess it lacks at this point uh to to integrate with so um check that out and a couple of other things to check out of the eco b3 light and is uh 30 bucks off and the eco b switch plus which i don't think anybody has bought is about 20 off uh we haven't heard anything about that that product i'm not even sure how it works i know uh you know i i just i haven't heard anything about it so yeah curious to see how long that one stays around yeah i i haven't either um

hard to say obviously i know that eco b is most of what we've heard about them this year has been about alex Alexa integration into their thermostats. And I believe that Switch Plus has Alexa built into it, which is nice. If you've got Alexa in your home, particularly if you've got a bigger house and you want to add a microphone to maybe a hallway or something, you could throw that Switch in there. But yeah, I don't know. I'm with with you i haven't heard a lot about it but um at 79 dollars 20 off a pretty good deal and yeah certainly go go kick the tires on it right yeah yeah and one one thing like when we this first came out i think we were speculating on like could this would be really cool if it did intercom like it'd be an awesome intercom right

like right you could you could yell into one echo and it would come out in somebody's light switch, maybe in a guest bedroom or something like that. I don't know. Um, but for, for whatever reason, Amazon has not enabled that API for third party integrated integration. So, uh, Ecobee, the switch plus, and I'm assuming the Ecobee 4 don't have that particular killer feature. So, um, while they can do,'s like alexa light it's not really

the full full alexa experience that you'd get interesting off of uh off of the the dots and the in the the the look is the look a real i guess it is i mean i don't know go ahead and get a look put it in your bedroom instead of the ecobee switch i'm gonna say it's a better deal at fifty dollars and it can take pictures of you yeah at fifty dollars buy it at fifty dollars and if you're weirded out by the camera put some duct tape over it there you go great right gotta have some duct tape right yeah well yeah you could use duct tape or painter's tape oh man get gaff tape, I think, is what you should put on there because it doesn't leave the sticky film on there. Well, moving on here to Sonos. Put a link to gaffer's tape deals in the show notes as well.

I'm a big fan of painter's tape myself. The blue stuff is great, yeah. Anyways, moving on here to Sonos. They've got several deals going on there. I got to say, none of these jumped out at me as particularly big deals or things that you just got to go look at, but they're all good deals. And if you're in the market for some Sonos gear, now's a good time. They got the Sonos One, which is, of course, their new-ish speaker that has all of the Alexa.

And I think Google Assistant is coming next year. Coming. It's been coming for a long time. It's been coming since last year. Anyways, Sonos One, $175. That's $25 off. So that device normally goes for $200. So you're getting a decent savings there. The Sonos Beam soundbar, which is their newer

soundbar, is $50 off. So you're going to get that for $349 instead of $399. And the Sonos Sub is $100 off, which is a good discount, but that Sub's still going to run you $500. It is not a cheap Sub. I think it's $599 normally. So you're looking at $499 now, $500. Not a small chunk of change, but if you've got the funds, it's certainly going to beef up your system and make it sound quite a bit better. Yeah. At that price point, it's a steal. It is a great sub too when it's combined with any one. I've never heard the beam in person but i mean i when i when i sold the uh the soundbar uh that they had the the demo that i i would do is i just unplug the sub and uh we'd listen to some clip without the sub in place and then plug the soundbar

plug it back in and it augments the soundbar sound in such a way that, I mean, the soundbar sounds excellent. So I think this is the play bar I'm talking about. That sub is a beast, and I would highly recommend it. If you've got $500 just floating around, it sounds as good as some of the standard subs I put in that were like $1,100. Yeah, I was going to say that. Yeah, I mean, $500 is not a small amount of money, but for a good powered sub, it's also not outrageous by any stretch. No, no. There are options out there that are $1,000 or more is almost a baseline level, pardon the pun,

a base level for a good powered sub. So at $500, that's a great deal. And like you said, it's really going to make any Sonos system that you have in your home sound a whole lot better. Right. It's almost obnoxious. Like it can perform well enough. Like you just go in and you can turn it down. I would do that quite often. That's a little loud. Let me turn it down. Keep that in mind. More bass is not always better, right? Yep. Yep. And those prices, I saw that they were good on Sonos.com and Amazon.com. So we saw that Sonos in there, we've touched on this a number of times, but we saw that their financial stuff that they were going to be pushing deals out through Sonos.com. And here's a good

example of how they're doing that. Right, right. Well, moving on here, not a manufacturer, but a big, big provider in the world of home tech, home technology in general, Best Buy. And we wanted to summarize a few of the deals that they have. And Seth, one that jumped out at me is the Echo Show. And this is the first generation. So as listeners to the show are probably aware, Amazon has come out with a second generation of this Echo Show that looks a whole lot better than the first one did. The first one got a lot of knocks on its design. And I think rightfully so, it's not a great looking device. But if you're interested in picking one of these up for

cheap and you want the functionality and you're okay with buying something that is not the latest and greatest, this is a crazy discount. $130 off. It's selling for $100. So it's over half off. This is another one of those fire sale prices. And if you're looking for one of these devices and you want to get it for very cheap, you can pick it up for $100. And this thing used to retail for $230. So it's quite a deal. Yeah. Aside from it being the first generation device, I think it does most everything the new one does. It just looks like an old miniature version of a, what, 2006 DLP TV? That's exactly what it looks like an old uh miniature version of a what 2006 dlp tv that's exactly what it looks like

it's got the it's got the shape of like an old rear projection tv which is yeah which is weird but you know uh function over form on this one i guess if you're if you're going for that that's yeah the second generation does look a lot better, so keep that one. We talked about Ring before and Video Doorbell Pro and Chime Pro bundle for $180, which is $120 off. That's pretty good, actually. I would snap that one up if you can. Yeah, Best Buy has a bunch of really good deals. Lenovo 8- inch smart display with

google assistant for a hundred dollars again that's a hundred dollars off so that device used to sell for 200 but you know you talk about that one and you talk about the echo show and what i go back to in my head if i scroll back up on our notes here google has has the Google Home Hub for $100. And that's a current device. I think that Lenovo is, right? Lenovo is as well. That one just kind of, it came out before the Google Home Hub. It came out before the Google Home Hub. And I'm not 100% sure how it stacks up spec-wise,

but that one is a current device. I think the Echo show first generation although it's a great deal at 130 off looking at the lenovo as well as the google home hub it's not super attractive i think you've got two other options there that are probably better for the same price yep i'd agree i'd agree on that grab Grab the Lenovo or grab the Home Hub. Right. And don't... Don't get involved with Amazon.

Unless you want an old DLP-looking TV on your kitchen counter. Right. Yeah, exactly. Because that's what it's going to look like. In which case, the Echo Show first generation is a knockout. Just do it. Slam dunk. Exactly.

Arlo, we don't talk about arlo too often um not my my first like go-to indoor outdoor camera system uh but not my last like they do what they say they're going to do but they can get kind of expensive when you get a lot of them and they i think they charge like a monthly or yearly um subscription get your video, just like Ring does. But the Arlo Pro, they have a four-camera indoor-outdoor camera system for $445. And if you go to Costco, you can get a three-camera kit for $300. So $150, $170 off respectively. It's pretty good deals on Arlo if you're in that ecosystem. Maybe, Jason, maybe you're looking to get some security cameras put up around the house so yeah the ones that turn on your water

can get caught I'm just I I am uh I'm not there with the wi-fi stuff still on outdoor camera indoor cameras I think they're great outdoor surveillance I I still, I just am not convinced in the Wi-Fi connectivity and having to keep an eye on the batteries. But wiring up PoE cameras and investing that money is substantially more, orders of magnitude more expensive than going to Costco and picking up a three-camera kit for $300. So certainly worth considering. I'm not there yet, but if you're looking for an inexpensive way to put some surveillance up on the outside of your house, Arlo, I think is generally a good option. I've seen some mixed reviews, but overall they seem to be positive and for the price, you know, doesn't seem like

you can really go wrong. Yeah. I mean, even so the ring spotlight cameras, those are, uh, those are, those are wifi, but they're hardwired kind of a hybrid because they use the high voltage wires that you have. Uh,

or they can, they can, I guess you can use a battery or they have a, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. They've got several different models, but they do have a hardwired one. Those have to be hardwired because they have the LED lights on them. They look like an outdoor light fixture. Those things are what? Excluding sales are $200, I guess. I think they're $249 or $200. Well, they may be $50 off right now. It looks like they're $200 everywhere online right now. So just putting that into perspective, you get one of those where you get

uh about two two and a half to three of these uh under the under this plan so um six one way happened as in the other if you're looking for the arlo stuff or you're looking for stuff where you can't get wires to it may be a pretty good deal for you yeah definitely well seth what do you say we move on to TVs? I think no Black Friday special would be complete without some mention of TVs. And as you would expect, there are a lot of really good deals to be had out there. I want to start with LG. They've got several discounts. We're not going to itemize all of these, but they do have some discounts on the OLED series and they're super high endend like LEDs that they have.

You can save a little bit of money there. There's not huge discounts, but if you're in the market and you have the budget for it, those are going to be phenomenal TVs. And now is going to be a great time to go shop even at the high end for those TVs. This one's kind of crazy though. The LG UHD 4K LEDs. Okay. So these are the LED TVs. I don't know exactly which model this is because as you can imagine, there's dozens of different models, but they've got an 86 inch model, Seth, for $2,500, which is $2,000 off LG's suggested price. Now, as with all things TVs, that's $2,000 off LG's suggested price. And anyone listening to this show probably knows that TV manufacturers suggest prices, but you can always find them for way cheaper than that but still

i mean this is a tv that they used to the msrp on this thing used to be 4500 and you can get it for 2500 now so you know 86 inch tv yeah any way you cut it that that's a good deal and an 86 inch screen is that's a big screen it's more than i have one of those i have some room yeah that's a big screen it's more than i have one of those i have some room yeah i don't have room for it yeah so that may be worth checking out if you've got a a media room or a little theater that you're really trying to to get a big display and uh looks like it looks like that could be a good deal yeah yeah and uh speaking of deals this is our our tv we kept coming back to, so I'm assuming this is the one you're going to go pick up Black Friday. The TCL 55R 617 55-inch 4K Ultra HD with Roku built in. This thing is selling for $629 on Amazon and pretty much everywhere else I looked it up.

It was $630. So that's a $700 or $800 TV, I want to say. I think it's $799 normal price. Yeah, I believe so. Yep. Dropped on down to $629. So I think you're going to be on Amazon later tonight. It may be time. Yeah, we've talked several times about the TCL. This is the sixth series that came out this year. And we've talked a bunch about it on the show and I've been half jokingly talking about how it's time to upgrade here at the Griffin house. And I think that a black Friday, maybe the

time $629 for this 55 inch that is really highly reviewed. You know, every, everywhere you look about the TCL six series, you hear good things about it. And a lot of people seem to refer to it as one of the best values out there right now. And at $629, I think our, our budget can afford it. So I'll, I'll keep you posted, Seth. Yeah. And it's, it's almost like, it's almost getting into the neighborhood for 55 inch 4k TV that, that looks good from all reports that are out there. Man, that is getting crazy. That is just absolutely, like, it's almost, it's tempting to just pull a trigger on one of those. Yeah.

629, wow. Yeah. Well, if you're really looking for a bargain TV, keep in mind you get what you pay for here. Sharp has a 55-inch for $250. And Sceptre, I don't even know how to pronounce it. Sceptre. Sceptre.

Like the, yeah. Sceptre, 55-inch 4K UHD TV, $250. $150 off. I've never even heard of this company, but a 55-inch TV for $250. I'd be a little bit leery seth but if you're looking to get a a relatively big display for a very small amount of money i don't know maybe maybe you want to go check these out uh yeah i mean i'm looking at the reviews uh on these to see see how they came they came out the scepter one has some funny ones verified purchases on on on walmart that let

me just quote a small in all caps section of this stay clear of this you get what you pay for it with three exclamation marks oh boy uh so yeah i uh i wouldn't want to get and they actually paid 450 for it so and regret regret their purchase uh Oh, wow, there's Seymour. Oh, okay. It's quite a long paragraph. So, yeah, I may not go to Walmart and get the Scepter 55-inch TV for $250. No. No. No. No.

Sharp at least has a little more brand recognition, but, I mean, I haven't been happy with the picture on sharps for a long time. But with that disclaimer, I haven't seen them in a while either, just because I've kind of had that bias floating in me. Well, you're not alone. I think back to a decade ago, and I remember the Sharp Aquus was like one of the big TVs out there that a lot of people were doing, And I think they sort of took a nose dive in terms of quality. So I don't know. I mean, moral of the story there is if you're looking for a dirt cheap TV and you really don't care about quality, genuinely don't care about quality, it's crazy that you can get a 55-inch TV for under $250 now. But a company that's been moving sort of in the opposite direction,

I would say, of Sharp, at least in terms of reputation, is Vizio. And they started at the other end of the spectrum and really being like the bargain basement TV, and that was their thing. And they've moved up in the world, and they certainly make some sets that are more regarded now as premium sets, the P series being their flagship. And there's a few deals floating around out there on the P series now. So certainly go seek those out. If you're, if you're in the market, Vizio is worth a look. One of the bigger deals that I saw was on the 70 inch D series. And this is, let's see, recently priced around $800 can, can be had at Walmart, Costco, and Target for just $470 on Black Friday. So that's almost half price.

So $470 for a 70 inch TV. Crazy deal. Uh, yeah, I don't, I don't know don't know man that that one's scary too yeah wow that is wild 70 inch i mean that's that's i mean you you definitely would need 4k content hopefully on it i you know i wouldn't 1080p may not look very good on it but uh 4k should look pretty good at native resolution but wow 470 that one you know what i should get that and put it behind me here so i can like put up a green screen or something there's something behind me yeah cover you anyways that that's uh you know that's it there's obviously a lot more out there in terms of tv deals so go hunt those down we'll include some more information on these in our show notes at hometech.fm slash 235. Last thing I think we wanted to touch on really quickly before we get into a couple of

our personal favorites was gaming. And we're only going to spend a second on this. I know we don't talk about gaming a lot on this show. It's not really in our wheelhouse, but I have to imagine that a lot of our supporters and listeners are into gaming, and Black Friday is, of course, a really great time to look into that. So we'll include some specific links, but suffice to say there are deals out there on all of the consoles, Xbox One X, the Xbox One S, a couple of deals out there where you can get some discounts there, Nintendo Switch, PS4, they're of deals out there where you can get some discounts there. Nintendo Switch, PS4, they're all floating out there. So some deals worth looking into if you are into gaming.

And go check those out for sure. Yep. Well, you kind of hinted at it there. Jason, you've got a couple of bullet points here for things that you're personally interested in this year. And I've got a couple of them. I'm quickly adding to the bottom down there because I didn't get this far down on the list when we were looking at this earlier. But I got a couple, two or three on there. So let's go ahead. The first one has me intrigued. And I think I'm going to have to get this. This looks great. Yeah, I am a big coffee drinker, and we have a Keurig here at home that I'm a huge fan of. I'm not a coffee snob, and it's super easy.

Just throw a pot in there, brew a cup of coffee, call it a day. And this headline caught my attention right away. Keurig launching a cocktail making pod machine. This is amazing, Seth. So this is a partnership between Keurig and Anheuser-Busch. And they are, quote, hoping they can remake the success of coffee pods, but with pre-mixed cocktails and beer. I don't even know how that works. The new joint venture called Drinkworks is debuting its first product today called the Drinkworks Home Bar by Keurig. And so this device looks a lot like a Keurig. It takes single pod servings and turns them into cocktails complete with alcohol. It comes with a companion app.

Not sure why you would need that. You can do reorders. The machine costs $300. Each cocktail pod costs $3.99 or $15.99 for a pack of four. It's intriguing, but it's going to get expensive. Very expensive. If I consider, if I like, look at how much I use the Keurig to drink coffee, and then I translate it over to cocktails, this might look really good. It doesn't look so good for the bank account, no.

Really interesting looking product, though. You'll have to go check this out there's a a great picture of it here with like martinis and beers and moscow mules and all the other great stuff but yeah i really i don't i don't understand how this works like the alcohol is included in the pod it's very it's very strange it it doesn't really matter how it works it matters that it does work yeah and when you press a button you get a cocktail you get a cocktail yeah that's that's really all i care about when especially in the morning when i turn that thing on i push that button and the coffee comes out and i can drink it uh and i'm pretty bad i have i have

both the keurig and i have a little nespresso maker. And I will frequently go back and forth to both of those pretty much all day. Yeah. I'm with you. I'm with you. Yeah. They are addictive for sure. The other thing, several different STEM toys out there, and I'm assuming everybody listening is familiar, but just in case you're not, STEM is a term for science, technology, engineering, and math. And STEM toys have become a lot more popular in recent years, which I think is great. My kids are a little bit young, I think, to enjoy any of these toys really, but we found several of them that we'll include in the show notes. And if you're interested in getting your kids exposed at a young age to things like coding or working with their hands to build products, as opposed to just staring at a iPhone screen or an iPad all day,

then STEM toys are a great thing to look at. And I think this year's holiday season is shaping up to be one of the better I've seen in recent years in terms of how these things are developing. And there's things like 3D printers or drone building kits, a Harry Potter coding kit, this cool little flip bot that has magnetic building blocks that clip together and you can build different robots with it. And none of these things are outrageously expensive. I mean, all of the things that I rattled off, even the 3D printer, which is the most expensive of them, is $300, which is not crazy. It's not a huge amount of money. Everything else I rattled off is below that. And so very affordable things that you can go out and buy to get your kids exposed to science and technology and math and working with their hands. And I'm such a big fan of that, that I felt

like we had to at least mention it on this show. And like I said, we'll include some links to some of these more specific things if you're interested to go check them out in our show notes. Yep, absolutely. I love these things. These are, these are great. The drone, the drone builder kit made me laugh. I, uh, I don't know if you've heard of this company called Amcrest. Um, somehow I, they're a camera company. Yeah. They, they do like these rebranded Dahua cameras or something like that. Um, anyway, they're a, uh, they're, they're a funny company. They, I, somehow I got signed up on their email list and they sent me a coupon for a new Amcrest drone. I'm like, Oh, a drone. That's funny. Um, it was like a $60 drone. A coupon made it $50. And I'm like, oh, a drone. That's funny. It was like a $60 drone. A coupon made it $50.

I'm like, okay, well, that's a no-brainer. I'll just add it onto the Amazon list, put the code in, get my $10. And I ordered the thing in, and I flew it around the garage, had some fun with it, and said, all right, let me check it out. Check it out tomorrow and play with my daughter in the yard. And, you know, I started flying around in circles. It got up in the air caught some caught some wind the five all of five mile an hour wind that we had and it would not come back like for

the life of me i could not get the thing to come back so i just watched it float off into the distance as my daughter started crying and saying airplane oh no as it crashed into a neighbor's tree never to be seen again so um she for the rest of the day, she would look over that direction and point and say, airplane. Oh, that's crushing. Yeah, yeah. She enjoyed the five minutes that we had, or five or ten minutes that we had flying that little thing around in circles. Well, maybe cheap drones aren't the way to go. No, next time I'll just take $60 outside and just throw it in the air.

Throw it. And watch it fly away. Wait for that five mile an hour wind and just go throw $60 up in the air. Yeah, great inside. Don't take it outside. I wouldn't not fly it around inside with people present too. Because, I mean, there was like blades, you know, like these little tiny blades that could probably hurt her or something.

So I wouldn't do that. I have a couple of picks I finally put down at the bottom there. blades that that could probably hurt oh yeah hurt her or something so we didn't do that um i got i have a couple picks i finally put down at the bottom there um one of them you you were brought up the stim toys and i was looking at those and and one thing that i have seen in the past that has really caught my eye and i i i've got to talk about it somewhere because i don't get to talk about these things very often um are the lego architecture uh series of uh things and i put a link to one there. Oh, wow.

But you can kind of scroll down and see some of the bigger ones that they have. Like they have the Eiffel Tower, Las Vegas, Vistas. They have some that are like the Guggenheim Museum, which are a lot crazier and more detailed. But these I could lose money with Jason. Like I could really lose money with, I could, I could sit and build these. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and the Seattle space needle done right there. I mean, that would be all over that. These are really cool. And they look like the actual real building. So it's kind of wild to go through those and see those series

and think about how much money I would lose on those as well. Well, these aren't crazy expensive either. Like, Legos can get very expensive, I know, because my kids like them and my nieces and nephews like them. And these aren't outrageous at all. The London skyline here we we're looking at $32. That's not a bad deal. This is really cool.

These might not be, but the ones I have seen are considerably more expensive. They can get up there. Oh, I'm not surprised to hear that. So I'll paste the U.S. Capitol building is $99. But it looks good. It looks like the U.S. Capitol building is $99. But it looks good. It looks like the regular Capitol building. I've seen some of these that have been up in the $200 and $300 range. So, yeah, the White House, $159.

Statue of Liberty looks like it is $119. So I think there may be two different series to that, like the ones the kids can put together that are small. But they definitely make the big ones too. Um, so something to keep an eye on. Yeah. Yeah.

Get your wallet. Definitely start saving now. Yeah. Yeah. Cause these things, um, I saw them one year in person. I,

I, I was out Christmas shopping and I just stared at them. I'm like, no, no walk away, walk away. Yeah. So, um, that one. And then,

uh, this little, I don't know if you've seen this, uh, it's, it's been kind of, uh, pretty popular this year is this little vector robot that Anki makes. I have seen this. Yeah. I was just looking at this actually. So this, this little guy, um, it's like a little friendly robot, um, that you can get and, and, uh, put it on your, it's got like a little friendly robot that you can get and put it on your, it's got like a little charging base and it'll go back to and charge itself if it starts running low on batteries. But it basically sits on a countertop or on your floor and wanders around and kind of does its own thing all day. And you can talk to it. I think they have Alexa that they're building into it soon or later. I'm not sure.

Yep. But it's kind of like it's got its own, it does its own little thing. And it's kind of like a little robot pet that you can get. I forget how much these are. I think they're like $200. $250. Yeah, a little pricey. Yeah. A little pricey, but it looks like a fun toy.

I don't know if this is something that I would wait maybe until next year to see what the next generation looks like, but it's getting there, man. The little thing makes these cute little noises, and it's got this cute little face or eyeballs on it that kind of can light up and make different faces. It can tell your voice. Like if you were talking to it and it says, call me, you know what, my name is Jason, it would say Jason, and says, call me, you know, my name is Jason. It would, it would, it would say Jason and it would call me Seth. So it's got some little,

little things built into it to make it more fun than, than robot toys that we've seen in the past, I guess. But I don't know. It seems like the little robot companion stuff, it may be getting there. Especially, especially with this, like it looks kind of cool. Yeah. It's funny you brought this one up. We didn't plan this ahead of time, but I was just watching a video on this one recently had surfaced in my feed. And I think we'll include the video from their website in the show notes. Really interesting looking little product. I'm not sure exactly what it does, but it's... It does nothing.

Cute is the word that came to mind. It's like this cute little robot that sort of hangs out and does certain things. Again, I'm not really clear on what it does, but I find myself strangely drawn to it. And I think it's perhaps an interesting glimpse at the future of robots in the home. I know that's a trend that we've going back to our fireside chat a year ago with Mike Wolf, who we're hoping to do that show again with here soon, talked about robots. And I think it's something we'll continue to see in the home. And it's going to start out with these cute little toys and things like that, but it's eventually going to expand and continue to grow into things that are more useful and more intelligent. And even if you're not in the market for this one, I would highly encourage you to go

watch the video. It's a very interesting little device. Yep. And for what it can do, it can do nothing. Like, really? I mean, it can do some things. It's just basically to be like a robotic pet or something like that. It can take pictures of you. It can hear you and talk to you. They've got sensors in it where you can, like, pet it, and it makes these cute little adorable sounds and that kind of thing. But it really doesn't do much more. Like, it's just a toy.

A rather expensive toy, but still just a toy. So it's kind of marketed to be like part of, part of the family, right? That's sort of their, right. It's like a puppy that doesn't make a mess. Yeah, exactly. Too much of a mess. So go check that out. And on that note, Seth here, we'll, we'll wrap up our, our black Friday roundup.

I know we, we covered a whole bunch of ground and I'll mention it one last time. We'll have comprehensive show notes and links to all these deals in our show notes at hometech.fm slash 235. So go check that out. Like I said, I know we covered a whole bunch of different stuff. And if you're interested in clicking through and finding out more information on that, we'd love to have you stop by the website. Don't forget to join us in the chat room live each Wednesday starting 7 to 7.30 p.m. somewhere on there, Eastern. Find out more at hometech.fm slash live. As we move forward here towards wrapping the show up, Seth, a picture of the week. I think we've got a good one here. You were on on a little i don't know if it

was a vacation or if you would call it that or just a couple day trip down to down to uh universal right and you saw some pretty interesting oled technology there yeah we were just hanging out the parks there in orlando and uh over at disney where's this disney springs which is kind of like the shopping center area for for Disney. We like to pop in there from time to time. And I went into the the Planet Hollywood because we actually hadn't been in there. And I was kind of curious as to what what what it was, you know, what what the restaurant looked like inside, because, you know, it's Orlando and they always do crazy things. Um, and I walked up the stairs and, uh, I, I saw this, we've been talking about these OLED windows, uh, for a long time. Like it seems like every CES that comes by, we, we find a video of it. And I, I finally saw one in real life. Uh, and this,

this had to have been like a 70 inch or 80 inch TV turned sideways. I mean, it was a massive piece of window. Um, you can see a full mannequin in there uh but what they what they did was they they they use the oled technology where you can you can play video on that oled layer but when it when the video is off or on fully i really don't know how it works to have that that clear thing but you can see right right through the picture and on any point in the screen they could they could turn on and off like lettering or you know whatever and i think i took a video of the one of uh was it dorothy's dress or something like that from the wizard of oz yeah they had a couple of these they had about four of them in this hallway that i was in and uh man i thought it was really

cool like really no it's neat interesting use case for know, it was kind of like window shopping, I guess, but the window is animated and you could see videos of the costume and that kind of thing. Just yeah. I think it's a, uh, it's a really, really cool video. And like you said, Seth, we've, we've talked about OLED technology. It seems like after every trade show and you'll go and you'll see this, this technology being displayed where the OLED can literally be totally transparent. You can see right through it, or they can activate certain pixels in certain areas. And although it's not necessarily being used in the home right now,

you think about some of the interesting possibilities. And when you go check out this video, you'll see what we mean. And it is really mind boggling to see display technology that can go totally transparent and then all of a sudden flip on and the whole thing changes and they've got different elements moving around the screen and combining that with what's behind it. It is really cool. So this video was a nice grab. I'm sure your wife appreciated you standing there taking a video and in planet hollywood while you guys were waiting for dinner yeah if you listen what are you doing exactly like no we have to go back and look at these uh you can probably hear my daughter saying are we

you know where are you going i think i cut it off before she started talking or something but uh yeah it's it was a cool use of the technology. You can kind of see in the frame there, like the R2-D2 off to the side. That one didn't have the window tint or whatever they use on it. And this one did. So you can kind of see that there is a difference. But they were these like boxes or window boxes that you would see in a store front. But the entire thing was a TV and I thought it was pretty cool. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

If you want to, moving on here, if you have any feedback, questions, comments, picks of the week or ideas for a show topic, definitely give us a shout. We'd love to hear from you. Our email address is feedback at hometech.fm, or you can hop on over to the website at hometech.fm feedback and fill out our online form. We definitely read all of those messages and would welcome your feedback. And we want to give a big thank you to everyone who supports the show, but especially those who are able to financially support the show through our patron page. If you don't know about our patron page, head on over to hometech.fm support to

learn how you can support Hometech for as little as $1 a month. Any pledge over $5 a month gets you a shout out on the show, but every pledge gets you an invite to our private Slack channel, the hub where you and other supporters of the show can gather every day and talk about the inside baseball conversations, um, about home home technology. I've been, I've been seeing a lot of stuff go by about, uh, so somebody picked up a cavo and kind of gave their little review in there. I still haven't done mine, but I'll get to it eventually. But I thought it's been interesting to see some of the conversations that have been coming up in the past couple of weeks.

Yeah, there are always great conversations going on in there. So we would definitely encourage you to go check that out. And we did want to send a big thank you out to Josh Kim, who came in with a $5 pledge this week. Josh, thank you so much for that. We really do appreciate it. If you're a listener to the show and you want to help us out but can't do so financially, totally get that. We would appreciate you taking a few minutes to leave a review on iTunes or your podcast app of choice. We are shooting for five stars, nothing less, but we'd love your reviews regardless. And if you would take a minute to do that, we'd really appreciate it. Yep, absolutely. Well, Jason, that wraps up this week. I hope you

go get your injection of turkey and pie for this week. And we'll maybe get to sit down and talk to you next week. Or I think we're having a projects project, aren't we? Yeah, we are actually looking forward to getting James Ratcliffe, who's a friend of the show, runs an integration firm over in the UK called Homeplay. And James is going to join us to discuss a little bit different of a projects project. So typically when we've done these, we've focused on a listener who's done a lot of cool things in their home. Like I mentioned,

James owns an integration company over in the UK and just completed an amazing showroom project. And it is one of the coolest showrooms I've ever seen. I've never been there in person, obviously, but I've seen some amazing pictures of it. And James is going to join us next week to tell us all about that. So I really look forward to it. Yeah, me too. Me too. Well, Jason, have a great Thanksgiving. And you as well. We'll talk to you next week. All right. Sounds good. Take care, Seth.