HomeTech.fm - Episode 262 - Solo Flight

Episode Date: June 15, 2019

On this episode of HomeTech: Jason takes a rare solo flight as Seth enjoys hard-earned vacation. He dives into the latest home tech headlines including: A look at Crestron’s expanded DM Lite product being shown at InfoComm. CEDIA Expo 2019 extends early bird registration deadline. CEDIA Unveils Home Technology Professional Award Finalists. AT&T's DirecTV reportedly considering a merger with Dish satellite. AT&T's streaming bundle with HBO could start at $16. Amazon offers some good Father’s Day deals on Ring hardware. And more…

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, June 14th from Denver, Colorado. I'm Jason Griffin, and you've got just me this week. Seth had some travel this week, so hopefully he is enjoying a hard-earned vacation. We're going to jump in and talk about a number of home tech headlines. Kind of a slow week in the smart home. We've got InfoComm going on down in Orlando right now. And so I think a lot of folks are down there. And as listeners to the show are probably aware, that's a little bit more of a commercial focus there. But we'll look forward to seeing what comes out next week with regards to home technology. I know there's a lot of stuff

that comes out of InfoComm and sometimes it can be a little bit difficult to pick through that and find the relevant home tech stories, but we will certainly endeavor to do so. Again, you've got just me this week. If you're listening here on Friday, I hope you're gearing up for a happy Father's Day this weekend. And I know I'm looking forward to a little bit of quiet time myself. I've got a little bit of a hall pass to go out and do some fly fishing this weekend, which is one of my favorite things to do. So I'll be out enjoying that. But in the meantime, look forward to putting this show together for you. And without further ado, let's go ahead and jump in to some home tech

headlines. Speaking of Infocom, at Infocom 2019 in Orlando, Crestron is showcasing its expanded DM Lite endpoint product line. New models provide auto-switching, amplified audio outputs for speakers, and network connectivity for management and setup. The system can be provisioned, monitored, and managed using any web browser via the Crestron XIO Cloud IoT-based provisioning system. Crestron is demonstrating the entire DM Lite product line at booth 1800 in the convention center. And I think this is pretty cool. We talk about video distribution frequently on the show, and I know it is mostly relevant, especially the DM stuff, which is pretty high-end, high-performing lineup on the residential side.

I know I had a bunch of experience using DM in high-end residential, and this seems like a nice offering, especially the cloud-based provisioning and setup. Really like that a lot. So definitely go check that out if you're in the market for video distribution solutions. Shifting gears here, Cedia Expo 2019 coming up in September. I can't believe it's only three short months away. Early bird rates for registration have been extended until June 21st. So if you're listening to this show on time, you've got not a whole lot of time to pull the trigger if you're looking to take advantage of that early bird pricing. The conference and expo will take place September 10th through the 14th

at the Colorado Convention Center here in beautiful Denver, Colorado. Excited to have the show in my hometown this year. The floor will be open September 12th through the 14th. It is the, of course, the leading annual exhibition for residential custom technology industry, attracting over 20,000 attendees and 500 exhibitors in the year 2018. Quote, our plan for 2019 is to continue building connections between smart home technology brands, residential technology integrators, architects, designers, and builders by creating programming and interactive platforms that bring all audiences together in one location, says Brian Pagel. I'm not sure how to pronounce that. Senior Vice President at Emerald Expositions. And there is my sidebar name mispronunciation for the week. I had to get that one out of the way. So I apologize if I managed to butcher that. Again, looking forward to having this in my hometown. I was

reading this story and saw some details you can go check out about some of the specific events coming up. And there's one called Bourbon, Bubbly, and Brownies, a networking event hosted on the show floor. And given that this is in Denver, Colorado, I'm wondering what kind of brownies they're talking about. I guess only time will tell. So anyways, we'll look forward to having Cedia here. And Seth and I were just talking this week, we need to start to put our heads together and figure out what we're going to do here for Home Tech at Cedia. We've had to get together for Home Tech supporters the last couple of years. And it's been a whole lot of fun having everyone come together and get to put some names to faces and reconnect with old friends. So we will be definitely doing something here in Denver.

Be on the lookout for more information about that. Speaking of Cedia Awards for home technology professionals, the finalists for the Home Technology Professional Awards have been announced. These awards recognize the very best projects the Cedia Home Tech has to offer. And I wanted to give congratulations to all of the companies that were nominated this year, but especially a little shameless plug here for a couple of One Vision partners that we do a lot of work with and really enjoy working with, and that's Service Tech out of Texas and PacHawaii Pacific Audio Communications out of Hawaii. So congratulations to both of them, as well as all of the other companies nominated this year. We'll look forward to seeing who brings home that award. Shifting gears here, satellite TV provider Dish Network is reportedly considering a merger with

AT&T's DirecTV service. Very big story here. AT&T and Dish have no active deal talks going. However, Reuters reported the story on Friday. These rumors follow reports on Thursday that AT&T could spin off the DirecTV business with Dish Network tipped to buy it. AT&T's DirecTV has been losing customers amid competition with streaming giants like Netflix and Amazon Prime. We've talked about that a ton on the show. Dish and AT&T didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. And this is a really interesting story. You know, like I mentioned, we've talked about this a whole bunch on the show. If you've been a listener for any period of time, you will well know that, you know, DirecTV has been hemorrhaging customers. They reported a quarterly loss of 83,000 subscribers in April of this year, which

followed a loss of 267,000 subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2018. So those are big, big numbers. The CEO of the company says he does expect to continue losing pay TV subscribers, but says he expects losses to stabilize by the end of 2019. The story does not go on to elaborate why he expects those losses to stabilize. He also went on to add that the recent $10 price hike to $50 a month for DirecTV now makes the product more, quote, sustainable. So continued movement in the TV space, really, really rapidly evolving and dramatically evolving landscape there. And we will definitely keep our eye on that and report back as we hear more. Speaking of AT&T, AT&T's streaming video service, which, forthcoming streaming video service, which will bundle HBO, Cinemax, and a wide selection of Warner Brothers films and television,

is shaping up to be a surprisingly good deal. This reported from Engadget. AT&T will be pricing the bundle at between $16 and $17 a month, reports the Wall Street Journal, again cited by Engadget. It's unlikely that AT&T's streaming service will be an adequate replacement for something like Netflix, given the latter's litany of original content. But if you're a subscriber to another streaming service like Hulu, which also offers HBO and Cinemax subscriptions, or CBS All Access, AT&T's offering may be worth a look. Definitely shaping up to be an interesting offering. Further notes here, considering HBO Now costs $14.99 a month,

customers can shell out a couple extra dollars and you'll get Cinemax and a bunch of access to Warner Brothers content. So that's a pretty good deal. If you're currently a subscriber to HBO Now, definitely want to keep an eye on this story. And then of course, the other kind of sidebar that goes along with any of these conversations today about streaming is just the crazy amount of choices now that consumers have. And I know that creates some confusion and you'll often read in the press about customers sort of balking at having to pay for another streaming service. I come down on the side of this that, you know, choice is never a bad thing. And so yes, it can be a little bit

confusing to wade through all of your options these days, but talk about first world problems, pretty difficult to complain about the number of options that you have. And I say the more, the merrier. So this is another one that we will definitely keep an eye on and report back as we learn more. And in our final home tech headline this week, if you're still hunting for a last minute father's day gift, perhaps one for yourself like me, then a smart home security device could be a great present. Amazon has some great deals on Ring. Wanted to mention these again, if you're in the market for yourself, for your own Father's Day present, or maybe something for a husband, father, spouse, whatever the case may be. Take a look at this. Normally $199. The Ring Video Doorbell 2 is down

to $159. So $40 discount off of that. Pretty good. The Ring Pro is discounted by $50. That brings that down to $199. And then they've also got a deal on the Ring floodlight camera and alarm system. $199 after a $50 savings. So anywhere between $40 and $50 savings on those various devices and definitely worth taking advantage of if you're in the market and you've been perhaps waiting for the right time to pull the trigger. That'll do it for our news this week. Again, I think a little bit of a slow news week in the smart home. We've got InfoComm going on and suspect we'll see a lot more movement after InfoComm wraps up in Orlando. All of the links and topics that we did discuss here on this episode can be found in our show notes at

hometech.fm slash 262. While you're there, don't forget to take a moment to sign up for our weekly newsletter. We'll send you weekly show reminders and other occasional updates about all of the great things going on here in the world of home tech. Once again, that link is hometech.fm slash 262. Also, don't forget that you can join us live in the chat room on Wednesdays, typically start about 7 or 7.30 p.m. Eastern. I apologize now to those of you who tried to join us this week and were not greeted. Seth being out of town, he is the mastermind behind all of the complex machinery that goes into making all of that live stream happen. So I am not recording this show live this week. But again, typically, if you're interested in coming and hanging out live with us, we have a lot of fun when folks do come and hang out. And

we've usually got a number of people doing that. So Wednesdays, 7 to 7.30 p.m. Eastern, find out more at hometech.fm slash live. All right, well, moving out of news, do want to jump into the mailbag had a quick follow up we wanted to hit on this week got a message from chris tran via our website and thank you chris for reaching out he said maybe i missed it but i don't remember y'all mentioning the home pod new functionality supporting voice recognition and multiple users so multiple user functionality on the home pod is something that we may have missed last week in our wrap-up of worldwide developer conference if you missed last week in our wrap-up of Worldwide Developer Conference. If you missed last week's episode, definitely go check it out. HomeTech.fm slash 261 is the place to do that. And it was a jam-packed episode. We got a ton of news out of Apple last week at their developer conference

related to various smart home developments around the Home app, HomePod, HomeKit. It was a really, really great event. Really great to see what Apple is doing in the space and to see some movement out of them. I know we've given them probably more than their fair share of ribbing here on the show, but all in good fun. And again, happy to see what they're doing. But in the flurry of news, we may have indeed missed this and wanted to take a moment to touch on it in case we did.

This is obviously a great thing, the HomePod now being able to support multi-users. So reading from Engadget here, it can now recognize who's speaking and customize responses. This has rather large implications for messages, reminders, and other info you might not want to share with everyone in your household. And we have talked about this numerous times on the show. Very few of us, certainly some of us live alone, but the majority of us share our smart homes, at least with one or two other users. And they are often not as, as tuned into the same things we are, or maybe as, as receptive and certainly not with things like reminders or messages or things of that nature that are very specific to the person using it. So great thing to see HomePod coming out with multi-user support. And if you're a home, if you happen to be a HomePod user, I'm sure that this is very welcome

news. So thank you again, Chris, for reaching out. We really appreciate it and wanted to give that a quick follow-up. Moving on here, finally, final little section in our short episode this week is Picture of the Week. I thought this one was pretty funny. I think a good move by Ring, honestly, by Amazon and Ring here, using their video captured by their doorbell in Facebook advertisements that ask users to identify and call the cops on a woman whom local police say is a suspected thief. And if anyone out there has ever had anything stolen from them, which I know I have on more than one occasion, very, very annoying and always good to see movement in the direction of justice being served. So there's kind of a funny ad. We'll link to a story from Vice where you can go see it. And it was a Facebook

post that was, you know, it was an ad for Ring. But in the video, they show a woman's face clearly visible. She's, you know, prodding at different cars in the parking lot to see if one is open and looking around very suspiciously. And I just thought this was kind of funny. So go check that out. That's our pick of the week this week. And hey, if you happen to know who that woman is, give your local authorities a call and help us out.

Help us all out. So go check that out. Once again, that can be found at hometech.fm slash 262. And as we always like to do, a quick reminder here that if you have any feedback, questions, comments, picks of the week, ideas for a show topic or guest, please do take a moment to give us a shout. We read all of those messages and get a lot of great ideas out of there. We're working on a couple of guest bookings based on recommendations from listeners now. And always, always open to that feedback and new ideas. You can reach out. Email address is feedback, I'm sorry, feedback at hometech.fm. Once again, feedback at hometech.fm or visit the website at hometech.fm slash feedback where you can fill out our online form. And as we wrap up our show for this week,

we want to do what we always do every single week and give a big, big thank you to everyone who supports the show, but especially to those of you who are able to financially contribute to our efforts here through our Patreon page. If you're not familiar with how that works, head on over to hometech.fm support. Once again, that's hometech.fm support, where you can learn how to support our efforts here for as little as a dollar a month. Any pledge over $5 will give you a big shout out on air, but every single pledge, we'll get you an invite to our private Slack channel, The Hub, where you and other supporters of the show can gather every day for a lot of fun conversations about all things home technology. So one last time, if you're interested in contributing to our efforts here, that address is hometech.fm support. And that'll do it for

our episode this week. Again, Seth out traveling. Hopefully he is enjoying some hard earned time off and we'll look forward to welcoming him back next week. We've got a really exciting episode of the Projects Project lined up and definitely you'll want to tune in for that. Again, I mentioned this a minute ago, came from a recommendation from a listener who reached out and let us know about this gentleman who turns out is a listener to the show and a supporter of the show. And so we've been in touch and we're going to be getting him on. He's got a lot of really unique applications of home technology going on. And I always look forward to those Project Projects episodes. It's fun to sort of look

at things from a different perspective. And we spend a lot of time talking about the news and interviewing folks from various companies and manufacturers, but it's always a lot of fun to sit down and talk to people who are doing really unique things in their own homes with the technology. So we've got a great edition of that coming up next week. You'll definitely want to tune in. We definitely appreciate you tuning in this week and we'll look forward to connecting with you again soon. Until next time, take care.