HomeTech.fm - Episode 248 - Social Robots

Episode Date: March 8, 2019

On this episode of HomeTech: Amazon pulls the plug on Dash Buttons. Thoughts on Apple’s quietly-acquired patents from failed smart home startup, Lighthouse AI. Lutron’s fan switch with HomeKit now... shipping. Cable providers are getting pummeled, but do they really care? What can we glean from the early success of Best Buy’s Total Tech Support memberships? Do social robots go to heaven? And much more…

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 The Home Tech Podcast is supported by you. To find out more, go to hometech.fm support. This is the Home Tech Podcast for Friday, March 8th from Denver, Colorado. I'm Jason Griffin. And from Sarasota, Florida, I am Seth Johnson. Jason, what's going on? Seth, I got to tell you, I'm back to work full time this week. I took a few days off, and I've never actually been quite so happy to be back to work. And I'll tell you why. What's going on? So I took a few days off, as I mentioned, for my wife to go take a much-needed momcation, she called it. I'd go out to Los Angeles to visit some girlfriends of hers from back when we used to live out there.
Starting point is 00:00:46 And so I was on full-time daddy duty here for just about five days, about four and a half days. And holy cow, that is a lot of work. Thankfully, I did have my mom come to town, so I can't like full credit for it. I did have some help, but even with my mom here, hats off to all of the full-time parents out there. It is, uh, it is relentless. And I, you know, I had a pretty good sense for that. I work from home full-time and I I'm very involved with my children when I'm not working. So it wasn't as if I didn't have an inkling.
Starting point is 00:01:22 Uh, but when you're, when you're on full time, you know, responsibility 24 seven, it, it is a, it's a whole different ball game. Oh yeah. Yeah. So you and I had similar weekends because my wife actually went out of town as well. And, uh, um, yeah. Interesting. So you got the, the full immersion experience as well. I leveled up. I decided, you know what? It's going to be a beautiful day Saturday. Let's go to the theme park. Oh, wow. We drove all the way.
Starting point is 00:01:49 She went to Disney to do a Disney half marathon. And I was like, let's just go up there and surprise her. So we drove up and surprised her and then basically went to Universal because we've got passes there to basically get dinner. So you're Universal and then came back. And then of course, Monday, she was sick. So I don't know, man. Sick baby. That's not quite fun. But yeah, I don't know how you do. Man, one is rough. I don't know how you manage to do two. That's why. It makes the job of working in and talking about home technology seem pretty easy by comparison.
Starting point is 00:02:34 Yeah, by far, by far, by far. So speaking of that, what do you say we jump into some home tech headlines? Let's do it. Amazon said Thursday that it had decided to stop selling dash buttons, the handy, if somewhat ridiculous, device you press to reorder stuff like dog food, bottled water, or septic treatment powder. Okay, we'll leave that there. If you still proudly use the dash button or even have a few dozen laying around the house,
Starting point is 00:03:00 don't worry. Amazon plans to continue supporting new orders through existing dash buttons so as long as the public keeps using them and i guess as long as the battery keeps working right because yeah they're just battery powered devices yeah yeah these were an interesting one uh i'm not can't say i'm shocked but uh you know they were kind of a it was a fun story to watch so an end of an era they were a means to an end for amazon they were weren't like the, the real power behind the dash button is not the dash button itself. It's just the API that Amazon uses to place an order and have like the logistics behind all that mess to, to have those products show up to your door.
Starting point is 00:03:35 And I think that that, that is in place and Amazon proved the case for having that. And without, without dash buttons, you wouldn't have, you know, printers that, that could do this automatically, right? Like your printer can order ink and it can do it automatically using the same API that the dash button did. So these aren't going away. They're just going to exist in different forms. Right. That's precisely it.
Starting point is 00:03:54 Speaking of Amazon, security researchers at Mobile World Congress took to the stage to hack an Amazon Ring video doorbell in real time. The attack is a bit of a complicated one. An attacker has to gain access to a person's Wi-Fi. The attack also requires the Ring owner to be connected to the same network during the attack. Once connected, the attacker can see the unencrypted audio and video as it's transmitted from the Ring doorbell to the Ring application used by the owner. If you are a Ring owner, you don't need to panic panic amazon has been made aware of the issue and has issued an update to its ring app to address the vulnerability if you keep up your app up to date you should be protected from this particular attack and seth i gotta file this one under the you know the security stories that you really don't need to worry about. Bucket.
Starting point is 00:04:45 This is a headline grabber. Well, it says they hacked the ring. They kind of, I mean, it's really like they hacked the person's Wi-Fi network, right? That's exactly it. Yeah. Yeah. Your password is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0. So I guess that.
Starting point is 00:04:59 Yeah. And I paraphrased it out of the clip we read there, but it's like if they gain access to your Wi-Fi network through, you know, guessing your password or breaking the encryption or listed like the three or four ways that you could hack a Wi-Fi network. And it's like, well, you know, those are big ifs. So, you know, it's good. And then they have to catch a video call going on. Like, oh, great. You're looking at my front door, which you're standing outside of hacking my wi-fi i'm torn on these stories like it's good that people are out there you know doing these sort
Starting point is 00:05:32 of white label hacks and pushing companies to make their products more secure uh it's also like to the i guess uneducated reader it seems a lot more scary than it actually is right and it's good on good on those guys for hacking because that's that's awesome that they're able to do that and uh good on good on amazon in this case good on ring uh for fixing the the you know the the thing is not like that code is coded you're gonna always find bugs in code there's no perfect program at all um but the thing is is like how the companies react in fixing the bugs and how quickly they move on security issues like this and you know it's like that's it amazon's done that done a good job so uh kudos to them as well indeed apple could be looking for ways to implement home security features into its products after buying
Starting point is 00:06:20 up a number of related patents from a failed artificial intelligence startup called Lighthouse AI. We talked about these guys on the fireside chat with Rose and Mike and Richard back in December, I guess. Yeah. I remember we talked about this company and they shortly went out of business right after that. Apple acquired patents sometime last year, but the details have only now been recently published in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Database.
Starting point is 00:06:46 The patents relate to technology used for computer vision, security, visual authentication, and similar functions. It's not immediately clear how Apple is planning on using these patents, but one idea might involve some kind of authentication technologies for use with Face ID. The patents might also fit with Apple's HomeKit framework, which is used by iOS devices to communicate with smart home appliances. Yeah. Interesting. It is interesting. I'm sure it was probably an opportunistic purchase, you know,
Starting point is 00:07:15 with Lighthouse going out of business, and most of these sort of purchases are opportunistic. So, yeah, I suspect there's probably multiple possibilities here revolving around Face ID. And I think the HomeKit one is the bigger sort of speculation, but it will be interesting to see. Speaking of HomeKit here, Lutron's first ever fan speed controller was an announcement that hit back at 2019 at the CES Consumer Electronics Show. Now Lutron's smart fan speed control is shipping for $59 and early customers are already showing it off working with HomeKit support. Lutron's new smart home
Starting point is 00:07:52 accessory is a big deal because it adds smart fan features to traditional fans. Just replace the fan's basic on-off switch. No need to replace the entire ceiling fan with a brand new unit just to gain smart home features. I know a lot of Lutron users have been anxiously awaiting a fan control, so this is great news. Love fan controls. It's always nice to see those get added in. I kind of wish this was a canopy control like they have with their Maestro where you can do the light and fan speed, but we'll take what we can get. You can't have it all, Seth.
Starting point is 00:08:24 No, we'll take it. We'll take it. An updated version of the Sonos One smart speaker called Gen 2 Creative goes on sale tomorrow, adding minor improvements, including Bluetooth low energy. All right. It's the year of Bluetooth low energy, Jason. Here it is.
Starting point is 00:08:39 It's the next big thing. A Sonos representative told CNET that the new $199 version is completely identical in appearance to the original, but in internal changes included an updated processor and increased memory. It will say Sonos One Gen 2 on the box and will be sold in place of the original model. The company says the original will be offered by some U.S. retailers at a reduced price of $179 while stocks last. That's a pretty good deal for the one if you don't need Bluetooth low energy for any reason. Why would you not want Bluetooth low energy, though? It's like the next big thing.
Starting point is 00:09:14 Right, right. I mean, your Sonos speaker has it. It says for easier setup, though not audio streaming. So I guess it's just to help with the setup process so you don't have that whole thing where you have to have like a temporary Wi-Fi network. I know a lot, I'm not sure about the Sonos, but I know a lot of devices, that's how they do it.
Starting point is 00:09:32 So I guess, I don't know. Incremental improvements never hurt. So that's cool. Bluetooth. Bluetooth. The next big thing. We got to get a Bluetooth sound. We do, we do need a sound the
Starting point is 00:09:45 sad trombone that's a that's a hole in our offering for sure uh there there's a narrative in media circles recently that netflix amazon and other technology companies are killing cable companies cord cutting is indeed accelerating no one watches cable tv anymore the end is nigh, according to the narrative. The quieter truth is that many cable companies, maybe even most, don't really care. Pay TV aggregation is a worse business than high-speed broadband distribution, according to a story out of CNBC. It's been this way for years. In 2013, James Dolan, then CEO of Cablevision, told the Wall Street Journal there could come a day
Starting point is 00:10:26 when his company stopped offering TV service altogether, relying on broadband for its revenue. Dolan would later go on to sell Cablevision for $17.7 billion. This story does go on. We put this one under headlines, but it's one that's definitely worth going and taking a look at because it does go on to describe a company called Cable One. And they're apparently the seventh largest US cable company in the world. And the story talks about, it's an interview with the CEO of the company. And I believe it was a woman, her name is Julie Lawless. Talks about how from a strategic sort of standpoint, they don't even really care that much about TV. They're like the seventh largest cable company in the country. And they're really focused on broadband. Apparently, it's a much more profitable business.
Starting point is 00:11:18 And even more important than it being an economic business is that there's less churn with the broadband customers than there is with the bundling customers that the customers that that that are just there for the bundled cable packages you know they turn over they leave they go somewhere else but the broadband services if they improve that people tend to hang around who knew who knew americans would like fast internet yeah who knew well it is an interesting perspective because you know and we've we've talked about it a ton on the show like oh the cable companies are getting killed they're getting killed and uh it's interesting to look at it from a different angle like do they really care and last year we were talking about one of these stories i can answer that question right yeah
Starting point is 00:11:58 just flat out yeah um and i remember last year we were having a conversation about this and industry uh colleague jim carroll who many know as a former founder of Savant, does a lot of advisory work now, had engaged with me on Twitter and made a good point. Maybe they don't. They're really looking more towards a future of 5G and that sort of distribution model. And to them, maybe this business is less important than maybe we tend to believe. So interesting to get that perspective. Right, right. Speaking of streaming news, Hulu and YouTube together have signed about 3 million subscribers to their live online TV services, according to people with knowledge of the matter. A sign the two internet companies may be outmaneuvering competitors like Sling TV and DirecTV Now.
Starting point is 00:12:47 Hulu Live Service is nearing 2 million subscribers, while YouTube TV has eclipsed 1 million, said the people who asked not to be identified because the numbers aren't public. Both continue to add hundreds of thousands of customers every quarter. It's good to see that going, but it's still kind of like considered the bundled cable, right? Like they still have bundles going into that. Yeah, skinny bundles, I guess, is what's kind of the term for it. But yeah, you're seeing these companies grow and no surprise there.
Starting point is 00:13:17 In fact, in our final headline here, things got serious for pay TV providers in 2018 as the number of subscribers who decided to cut the cord nearly doubled. This according to Leichman Research Group. The firm's findings show that the largest pay TV providers in the US representing about 95% of the market lost just over 2.8 million net video subscribers in 2018, compared to a pro forma loss of about 1.5 million in 2017. So a big, big jump there, like I said, almost doubled in the headline. The ballooning pay TV subscriber losses in 2018 can
Starting point is 00:13:53 largely be pegged on DirecTV and Dish Network. Those companies combined lost 2.3 million subscribers in 2018, up from approximately 1.5 the year before. So a lot of numbers there. Again, this is like an ongoing thing that we've been talking about, but we're just seeing that shift continue. Again, going back to the story we talked about a couple of headlines ago, the question now in my mind is, how worried are these companies really when it comes down to it? I think DirecTV is an interesting... DirecTV and DISH being satellite providers, I don't know a ton about that business, but I have to imagine it's maybe a little bit of a different deal for them not being so much into the infrastructure 5G conversation. I'm not sure. I guess AT&T owns DirecTV tv though so it's hard to say yeah i i don't like
Starting point is 00:14:47 the reason i i find this fascinating is not so much the numbers and and tracking like who's doing what and whether these companies survive at all because i do not care but uh but i am curious just what like how this ends up in the house like as far as you know taking it back to home tech like what technology are we using to get these types of cable services into the house um in five years 10 years you know like this is this is something that's interesting and and completely changes system design you know from an integration standpoint uh when when you can you don't even have to when you just plug a tv into the wall and you get 4K video to it over Wi-Fi coming from a bundled cable service or whatever, like what's the point of having a massive video distribution system? You know, like. Right.
Starting point is 00:15:37 There are a couple of advantages, but, you know, at the end of the day, like, is it worth it? And do you get the performance out of it that you get from just streaming it straight to the tv screen so you know i i i don't know like there's some serious um serious changes that will be happening uh to the home home technology design in the next you know few years because of this one thing i mean this is this is what people do with their tvs and their av systems like hey we're not this is this is literally what they do they sit down and they watch this they don't watch blu-rays they don't they don't get media and plug it in like this is this is all people do uh most of the time so it's it will be interesting to see how this to me at least uh how this ends up in the house technology-wise yeah no what this looks like yeah
Starting point is 00:16:19 how does it how does it actually affect you know forget about all the numbers that sort of make your eyes uh gloss over but how does it how does it affect the individual sort of home and end user experience? We haven't figured that out yet. No. We haven't done that. It's still up in the air. So my wife, I mentioned she was out in Los Angeles, and she used to work for the—this is a little bit of a tangent, by the way—used to work for the Screen Actors Guild out there. And so she was visiting some colleagues from work when she was there, and they gave her a bunch of
Starting point is 00:16:49 screeners, like DVDs of all the nominated movies or whatever. And she brought them home, and I'm literally looking around my house going, I don't know what to do with these. I don't have a drive anywhere for these. So even if I had Plex set up, which I don't, like I'd have to go buy a thing. And so, you know, we're, we're, we're probably just going to go, I want to watch them. So we're probably just going to go buy like the cheapest, um, you know, sort of Blu-ray player that we can find or whatever. And, uh, we'll, we'll plug it in when we want to watch one of these and then probably put it away when we, when we don't need it. But yeah, it's, it's funny. I mean, the times have really, have really changed. I just rarely do I ever even think about needing like a Blu-ray or DVD player
Starting point is 00:17:35 these days. I just don't, uh, everything is streaming. So it is very, very interesting. All right. Well, shifting gears a little bit here, we have one more news story that we wanted to jump in and spend a few minutes on, Seth. This one's near and dear to my heart, working as I do with OneVision and being so involved in modernizing the approach to service for home technology professionals. This story about Best Buy came out of CE Pro, coming off the back of their Q4 earnings call recently. And I'll just read quickly the lead to the story. On a recent earnings call, Best Buy reported that more than 1 million customers have signed up for its new-ish, $199 a year total tech support program. This launched back in May of 2018. The news helped skyrocket the company to a stronger
Starting point is 00:18:26 sales numbers for Q4 and propelled a stock price up 16% in one day to nearly $70 a share. So really good earnings call overall for Best Buy. Quote, having a service that provides members unlimited Geek Squad support for all their technology, no matter where or when they bought it, is a compelling and unique value proposition for our members. We continue to be pleased with the customer enrollment and ended the year with more than 1 million members. So really cool to see this. What I do at my day job at One Vision is work with leading integrators all over the country to modernize and transform the way that they approach service. And one of the big tenets of what we do is help them get into the business of selling these sort of premium support memberships. It's a core part of what we do. And when we saw Best Buy launch this program, when did I say it was?
Starting point is 00:19:24 Here back in May of last year, so pretty recently. We're really excited. I think it represents a shift in thinking for Best Buy. terms of kind of shifting that focus away from just being like a product company to really thinking more about the customer experience and providing this sort of 24-7 around-the-clock access to remote support and charging a premium for it. It's great to see the customers are buying that. And I think that there's a lot of lessons that we can all learn from that. So I was pretty excited to see this story. Yeah. It also looks like they expanded on their in-home advisors program where they basically spend out people to do in-home consultations and tell people what to buy rather than having them come to the store and schlep through all those boxes and look at brightly colored TVs.
Starting point is 00:20:21 Revenue per order we generated from these interactions continues to be much higher than in-store and online and tends to have a much higher gross profit rate and higher attach rate of paid services. Pretty interesting to see that. That's pretty much exactly what integrators do. We get called out to come take a look at a house that needs a TV and
Starting point is 00:20:39 tell them how much it's going to cost to put up and what TV to buy and how it's all going to go together and end up doing the work. And that's the integrator's life. That's all we do. So it's interesting to see that in there, too, as part of things that they're having success with, oddly enough. Yeah, that was definitely something that we at One Vision were happy to see as well is like one of the things that we believe is for a long time in the industry, like there's been, as you know, Seth, like ongoing conversations about how to get recurring revenue and how to get this thing going. And part of that conversation has always been like this idea of sort of preventative maintenance visits is something a lot of people have talked about for a long time. Like, as part of our program, you know, we'll come out to the house and we'll
Starting point is 00:21:28 tune things up and dust off the rack and blah, blah, blah. And we were never, I've never been a huge believer in, you know, in the value of that alone. But something that we work with our partners to do is what we call tech reviews. And certainly this idea of going out there and kind of kicking the tires on things and making sure that the system is functioning properly is part of it. But I would argue that it's the smaller part. And I think if you go, if you're interested in this sort of evolution, definitely go check out the summaries or go listen back to Best Buy's earnings call, because what they talked about, so much of it centered around the customer experience. And these, what we call tech reviews and what Best Buy calls,
Starting point is 00:22:11 you know, their in-home consultations or whatever, are a great opportunity to sit down with clients and end users and really review like the state of their system and, you know, do retraining and get them up to speed with making sure that they know how to get the most value out of their system and, you know, do retraining and get them up to speed with making sure that they know how to get the most value out of their purchase and that they're still comfortable using it, answer any questions they have, and of course, keep them up to date on the latest and greatest technology enhancements. So upsell opportunities abound there. And so I know there are a ton of differences in terms of the target customer and the price
Starting point is 00:22:46 points that Best Buy is approaching versus what most home technology professionals are thinking about. But I think if you completely dismiss what Best Buy is doing and the success that they're having here, you're missing a really important point, which is that end users and customers are buying these sort of offerings. They are seeing value in it. Best Buy is doing a great job of going out there and proving it. And if they're able to get whatever that equates to, $199 a year, so I think that's like $17 a month or something like that. $16, yeah, some change. So if they're able to do that with the target customer that they're going after, what as an integrator can you do for your clients, given the relationships and the higher complexity and the higher expertise that you bring?
Starting point is 00:23:37 Don't get lost on the price point, right? It's the value proposition that you should be focusing on. Right. Cause I, I assume that you, you don't like, I don't know too much about this particular program, but I mean, other than, uh, what we read off of it, like I've never, what I mean is I've never had the, uh, I've never paid for this program and I've never, you know, I'm not part of it. I've never had somebody come out and tell me what to do with my, that would be really funny to have them come out and tell me what to do with my technology that I have. Yeah. Here's a $12 thousand dollar just that power system that i have here and it basically has one apple tv hooked up to it what should i do um yeah you're definitely not their target customer
Starting point is 00:24:13 but i mean it's just interesting that that two hundred dollars like their customers are seeing value in that and uh you know it tells me that as an integrator, like I could probably probably charge $200 a year as well. And, you know, find some program, find some bullet points to put behind that nine item and include on my bids. And that's decent money that would come in on every day. Yeah, I think you could certainly charge more than that. to point out that is a common sort of misconception is like the $200 a year that they're charging, while it does provide unlimited access to, you know, phone and email, and I think chat support, it's not like an all you can eat, you know, come out to the house, and we're not going to send you a bill type of plan. They're still billing by the hour, which is exactly what we advise and do with our partners.
Starting point is 00:25:07 I think a lot of people have the misconception that if you charge monthly or annually for some sort of a premium membership, that it has to be all-inclusive. And the idea here is not all-inclusive. It's charging a premium for access to remote support uh maybe for prioritized access proactive monitoring perhaps discounted service labor rates you know whatever you decide to make that premium provide access to but it doesn't mean that you're not charging
Starting point is 00:25:40 hourly still um it just means it just means that integrators are doing that for free right now right essentially what it means yeah exactly like and that's i think the big one of the big takeaways hourly still. It just means that integrators are doing that for free right now. Right. That's essentially what it means. Yeah, exactly. And that's, I think, one of the big takeaways here is this idea of 24-7 tech support over the phone or over email or chat or however you decide to do it in your company. You don't have to give that away. That's a premium offering, and Best Buy is out there proving it. So I think this is a fascinating story, and I wanted to spend a few minutes talking about it,
Starting point is 00:26:10 especially for the pros in the audience. Go check this out. Make sure you're really thinking about it and not dismissing it as, well, we're not Best Buy. I think you do that at sort of your own peril. There's a lot of really interesting takeaways here. Yep, good stuff. All the links and topics we discussed tonight can be found at our show notes at hometech.fm slash 248.
Starting point is 00:26:29 If you are there, don't forget to sign up for our weekly newsletter, which includes even further analysis, as well as other industry news that may not have made the show. Again, that link is hometech.fm slash 248. Yep, absolutely. And also don't forget, you can join us live in the chat room on wednesdays typically starting around 7 or 7 30 p.m eastern we'd love to have you find out more by visiting home tech.fm slash live let's uh check the mailbag here what what we got in here seth we got some help in the pronunciation department yeah which you know for any long-time listener to the show you know that
Starting point is 00:27:06 you know that we always need that like like we can always use help in that department so absolutely scott helped us out with a conversation we were having last week about and i'm going to pronounce it correctly this time huawei huawei sounds good so i'm going to read here from scott's email and he's actually even got the uh you know the the it's chinese right not this is a chinese company i apologize yes yes chinese yep okay so he's got even got the chinese characters in there uh so it's it's a very complete uh analysis here of our gross mispronunciation last week uh actually scott says the correct way to pronounce hu is Huawei, and he's got it
Starting point is 00:27:48 spelled out phonetically for us. There is an H at the beginning of the transliteration for a reason. The beginning is pronounced the same as Juan. So if you can pronounce that name correctly, then you can pronounce Huawei. Unfortunately, almost everyone butchers the name because for some reason, the soft H there is difficult. But if you ask these same people to say Juan, they would have no problem. I love that. I thought that was great advice because I can definitely say Juan, but I still have to think when I say Huawei. So there you go huawei is muy guapo voy a nadar no that's not right man my spanish is gone it's terrible yeah yeah we'll stick to english there we go that's yeah stick to english um yeah so that's that's good stuff man i i we appreciate it uh we definitely could use i mean i have a feeling that we're this isn't the last time we're going to have problems pronouncing.
Starting point is 00:28:45 Not the first and not the last. No. Right, right. Because, I mean, these companies are going to be coming over in force because there are massive, massive, massive, massive companies in China that exist and will be coming overseas in the near future and, uh, and expanding like Huawei and, and, and, and, uh, yeah, which I, I have the recording of that one, but we don't, we don't have anybody like man on the street. Like we did the last time. That's right.
Starting point is 00:29:13 Awesome. Yeah. We still need that in our arsenal. So if anyone wants to, uh, you know, step up and provide that sound clip, we'll get you on air. There's a Huawei store in, in, in, in China. Uh, yeah. Feel free to go in and ask the employees to pronounce the company name. we'll get you on air. If there's a Huawei store in China, yeah, feel free to go in and ask the employees to pronounce the company name.
Starting point is 00:29:29 We'll put it on the show because that's what we do. Scott, thank you for that. We do appreciate the assist there. Shifting gears, Seth, pick of the week. I think you've got a great one, actually a video this week coming to us from Twitter. And I have to admit, I was not familiar. I think looking at it, I may have seen pictures of this robot before.
Starting point is 00:29:54 J-I-B-O. I assume these never ship. Every time we see them, I'm like, that's cute, but it's never going to ship. I know I've seen this, but it's like one of these little very weird. Yeah. It's got the human elements to it. Like they try and put this little human weird face thing to it where it's kind of like has a head and a torso
Starting point is 00:30:19 and two sensors that are shaped where the eyes are. Yeah. Very strange robot. But the thing about the Jibo is that I guess the company behind it went out of business. So instead of emailing their customers and saying, hey, we're shutting down, they just let the Jibo deliver the news. Let the robot be the messenger. Yeah, shoot the news. Let the robot be the messenger. Yeah. Yeah, shoot the robot. So it says, maybe someday, when robots are way more advanced than today and everyone has them in their homes, you can tell yours, I said hello.
Starting point is 00:30:55 And I guess it just shuts down after that and self-destructs. I'm not sure. Yeah. Duck, it blows up. It's kind of depressing. It actually is uh so yeah they you know at least i i have to assume this was done with a little bit of a sense of humor uh hopefully and uh you know it is it is kind of funny like we've got this video you can go check out and it's basically the
Starting point is 00:31:19 robot telling the user like i'm going away you know it's been a pleasure uh type of thing so you just you never know what you're gonna get when you go buy a jive $900 robot wow it was $900 $900 and it was a deal on the amazon prime day for $4.99 wow $400 off and man, that's not a savings. If only, let's see, July 17th, 2018. Yeah, six months later, six or seven months later, they're out of business. Wow. Wow, wow, wow. That is a bummer. Here's the full text.
Starting point is 00:31:58 This is what Jibo is telling its users. While it's not great news, the servers out there that let me do what I do are going to be turned off soon. Once that happens, our interactions with each other are going to be limited. You can learn more at jibeau.com and by tapping on the what's new button on my menu. I want to say I've really enjoyed our time together. Thank you very, very much for having me around. Maybe someday when robots are way more advanced than today and everyone has them has them in their homes you can tell yours i said hello i wonder if they'll be able to do this and that's when it launches into its awkward song dance yeah dance really strange yeah and then it pulls out a gun and shoots itself in the head it's really it's really sad it's really sad that's terrible yeah so i'm watching i'm gonna start watching these on eBay. It's a gem.
Starting point is 00:32:45 This is going to end up my... I did get my... Oh, your wall of the graveyard. It's back there. I've got... Yeah, the graveyard. I've got my Lowe's Iris sitting back there. So that's right.
Starting point is 00:32:55 All right. Picked one of those up. But yeah, these are still ridiculously priced. They're $1,100, $1,200 on eBay. So I'm going to wait for it to come down. It looks kind of big, too. It may not come down. This might be a collector's item.
Starting point is 00:33:07 No. Well, if it continues to dance, then yes. But yeah, I don't know. It's kind of ridiculous. Only time will tell. All right. Well, if you have any feedback, questions, comments, picks of the week, or ideas for a show topic,
Starting point is 00:33:21 give us a shout. We'd love to hear from you. Our email address is feedback at hometech.fm or visit hometech.fm slash feedback if you would prefer to fill out our online form. 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 Patreon page. If you don't know about our Patreon page, head on over to hometech.fm slash 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
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Starting point is 00:34:26 Jason, they have little, little tiny versions, like replica versions of this. Oh, there you go. Like four inches high and probably like 13, four and a half inches tall.
Starting point is 00:34:35 So the head turns all the way around and swivels. And I don't think it lights up, but what was the price? $12. Like I can get this one right now for 13 non-working replica is what it says wait so it's 12 or 900 or well the 12 is for is for like a four and a half inch tall replica that doesn't it doesn't work oh oh it's like a statue they actually made replicas you know they're out of business i mean i i get there's a t-shirt. Oh. They had the foresight to...
Starting point is 00:35:05 I'm getting the t-shirt. The t-shirt's being purchased right as we speak. Like, it's mine. This is an extra large. All right. Done. Pictures or it didn't happen. Oh, my God.
Starting point is 00:35:16 Amazing. Amazing. All right. Well, while you go buy yourself a whole host of Jibo paraphernalia. I guess we'll wrap up our show here this week. Seth, it was another fun one. We definitely appreciate it and hope you have a great weekend. And we'll look forward to reconnecting with you again next week.
Starting point is 00:35:35 Absolutely. Sounds good. Jason, I'll see you next week. All right. Take care.

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