HomeTech.fm - Episode 270 - The TV Fairy

Episode Date: August 16, 2019

On this episode of HomeTech: Can’t-miss CEDIA courses. A “save-the-date” for our CEDIA HomeTech happy hour. CBS and Viacom agree to a $30 billion merger. Is a portable speaker from Sonos finally in the offing? Cortana is getting kicked out of its own thermostat. A review of SnapAV’s new ultra-compact, WiFi WattBox. A new pro-focused Logitech remote. The TV Fairy visits residents of Virginia. 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, August 16th from Denver, Colorado. I'm Jason Griffin. And from Sarasota, Florida, I'm Seth Johnson. Jason, how's it going? It's going great. Seth, how are you? Pretty good. We were discussing my studio, my garage studio has been on the fritz my my audio interface that you plug the microphone into just decided not to work like yesterday so uh amazon brought me a new one today one day delivery there you go amazon to the rescue

yep what would we do it must be that flor Florida humidity. You know, it's been pretty nasty here. I'm not going to lie. Like it's been raining for like a week solid. And I ran outside yesterday and mowed the lawn real quick in between rainstorms and got it done. And then it started raining again. There you go. Let's jump in. We're on the countdown to Cedia here. We are getting really close, less than a month away. I know we've alluded to this last week and wanted to mention here before we jump into Home Tech Headlines, a couple of Cedia courses. So I'll be participating and teaching in a few courses this year. Wanted to quickly mention those on this week's show.

So for anybody, any of the Home Tech pros out there in the audience who are interested in learning some new service strategies, some ideas that you can take back and implement related to service in your business. I know this is a vexing problem for many integrators out there. We've got three great courses coming up. I have a little bit of room left in at least two of these. I think one of them may have filled up this week, but anyways, go check them out. Just head over. We'll include links in the show notes, hometech.fm slash 270. And we've got one talking about sort of incorporating service into your sales process. So how do you talk about service, use it as a differentiator? How do you approach it if you're trying to sell premium service contracts? That one's been a really popular

course. We've also got one talking about how to transition projects out, like closing that last five or 10%, getting it over to service. Again, a very vexing problem in the industry. I know very intimately from my time as a project manager. And then finally, we've got one about service execution in general and the systems and processes and technology that we really recommend people have in place and that we implement with our partners. So a lot you can take away from that one in terms of providing a great service experience and doing so efficiently and profitably, and most importantly, in a way that doesn't drive you and your team straight into the ground. So again, there, there will be three, uh, courses available and we'll have the

links to those in the, in the show notes at hometech.fm slash 270. Seth, I know we also wanted to give a plug to a good, good friend of the show. Greg Scott, I think has a great course coming up as well. Yeah. I wanted to plug Greg's, uh, course, uh, the art of the takeover, uh, kind of, he's been doing that one or a couple of couple of years now and uh it's getting better every year uh but he's a big big time follower of the show he's usually in the in the live chat room um so we meant to give a shout out to that one last week uh and forgot but this week uh we're bringing up these cda courses go go check that out you got you got three courses from jason uh one course over here from greg uh that that That should fill your schedule up. And the rest you should come by the Home Tech Happy Hour, right?

Because that's... That's right. I think we have a date and a time on that. And a place, right? We can announce those three things. And then I tell you what, by the time this show is up, the link at hometech.fm slash happy hour will have all the information that you need

and how to say you're coming, RSVP, and all that good stuff. Um, we'll just, we'll just put that on ourselves and do it. So I think we can make, manage and make that happen. Make the leap. That's right. Yeah. We're looking at, uh, at, uh, Thursday the 12th from, uh, from five to 7. We'll be at the rock bottom brewery there in Denver, Colorado, downtown Denver. So the Rock Bottom Brewery on the 12th, that's Thursday from five to seven is our current plan. Like Seth said, we're finalizing those details this week as we record the show. So definitely if you're interested, go to the webpage and check that out. Be sure to do that. Again, we're finalizing those details. So be sure to stop by the webpage and sign up just to give us that final confirmation so that we have a head count.

And so that, you know, you know, we haven't, we haven't run into any snags, but again, confidence is pretty high that that's what we're looking at. Yep. So consider, consider this a save the date and your formal invitation is your visit to the website there to sign up. Yeah, we could be completely wrong on what we're saying. So make sure you go to hometech.fm slash happy hour. And that's going to be the gospel, right? That's where you have to go to get the truth. What we see on the show, don't listen to it.

No, I'm kidding. That's right. We know where we're going. We're going to this brewery. They have beer, right, Jason? We've checked that off. They've got beer. Done.

They've got beer. That was a prerequisite. Well, for a happy hour, yeah. Made sure that they had beer and lots of it. And yeah, we'll be there. It'll be a great time. Sounds good. Looking forward to that. Awesome. Well, what do you say we jump into some Hope Tech headlines? Let's do it. As we were just talking about, CD Expo 2019 is shaping up to be like no other expo before it.

And CE Pro's Julie Jacobson will once again give the industry a pre-show look at trends, technologies, interesting newcomers, hot happenings, hidden gems, and categories to watch. This is, of course, Julie Jacobson's ultimate CD Expo preview. And it's a webcast they do every year. Yeah. jameson's ultimate cd expo preview and it's a it's a webcast they do every year yeah uh and and uh usually pretty pretty like long but very uh very thorough i guess is what i would say about that yeah i feel like this has become sort of like must watch tv uh in the industry and it's a lot it can be like drinking from a fire hose i i did email julie actually before the show here today there is some conflicting dates.

We wanted to give this a plug because I think it's always good to have this on if nothing else in the background and just get a good sort of overview of what some of the trends and themes are that you might look out for this year at Cedia. The CE Pro website says that this is on September 3rd. If you click through the registration link, it says that it is on september 3rd if you click through the registration link it says that it's on august 21st at 2 p.m eastern both say 2 p.m eastern so i'm not a hundred percent sure when this is taking place i i would probably go with depending on how much is at the show this year could be from august 21st that's true yeah it has been a long show in the past. So, you know, maybe this is a multi-day episode here. Just hang in there. Anyways, yeah. Again, go to hometech.fm slash 270 or just, you know, Google for Julia's show there. And if you're curious about Cedia in general or in the

industry and looking for some of the big themes this year, in addition to we'll be doing a pre-CDS show as well, of course. But Julie's is always great, so go check that out. Shifting gears here, CBS and Viacom have reached a long-rumored merger agreement. The two companies announced today that they will reunite as ViacomCBS. If it goes through, the all-stock deal will bring together Viacom's MTV, Nickelodeon, and Comedy Central, as well as its Paramount Film and TV studio, and CBS's broadcast network and Showtime premium network as well. Wow. Yeah, long-time rumor circulating, according to this story, since 2016.

So it's been a rumor that these guys are going to get together, and I guess they finally have. Yeah, they split up back in 2006, according to this story. And then rumors have been circulating for a while that they were going to sort of get back together. And the announcement, of course, is it's too soon to say if the deal will go through. But according to the Wall Street Journal, they're aiming to be sort of better positioned to fight against cable TV competition and streaming services is what kind of this boils down to. So it'll be interesting to keep an eye on. All right. In audio news, while Sonos may have a two-day press event planned to introduce new products later this month, the Internet has a differing timeline. Yesterday, two of several devices Sonos is rumored to be working on passed through the FCC. And, of course, our buddy over there at Zats Not Funny, Dave Zats, caught them flying through.

Caught the scoop. Yep, always getting the scoop. Yep. One may be a refreshed Sonos Connect, which is the little square device. The refresh they're going to be doing on it adds Bluetooth streaming capabilities in addition to the traditional Sonos mesh. Yeah, I think, you know, the big one here that Zatz pointed out, and this was also picked up by The Verge and several other outlets, is, again, there's a refreshed Sonos Connect. But then there's this other device, like you mentioned, that's pictured in the story. And go take a look at it if you're interested.

But this one is rumored to add this Bluetooth streaming capability. It says the device's primary function will be for streaming with Wi-Fi, meaning it'll typically function just like every other Sonos device, but also features Bluetooth audio streaming and Bluetooth low energy used for simplified setup. So that's what Zatz is referring to

when he says it's something entirely new for the streaming pioneer. So it looks like it's got Bluetooth built in for a couple of purposes and goes on to say that this is probably a portable type device that people have been, according to Zats, long rumored and long pined after portable Sonos. So interesting story. Zats always does a great job of parsing through these FCC filings and sort of distilling it down. So consider this a preview of upcoming events with what Sonos will be showing at their press event coming up here. Yeah, a portable or an outdoor version of Sonos is kind of like that. When I was was selling Sonos like six years ago right like that's

that's what we like when are you guys going to come out with something I can stick outside right like that's that's literally all we asked for and then they never did well yeah and interestingly Zatz talks about in this story he says given the microphone array which he said so he's saying there's a microphone array built into it touch controls dot dense grill i'm guessing this won't be as rugged as the ue boom 3 or the ipx bows revolve two different brand products and more suited for around the house than a jaunt to the beach no yeah i i think it's something you can drag out to the pool when you're having a pool party and then you know if you forget to leave it out there it's a little bit water resistant

and then you can bring it back in and stick it on a little charge base kind of like the bows that he has pictured there that's right that would be perfect but we've never gotten that from sodas and always had to do other things so maybe it's time maybe it's time well past time we'll see all right well speaking of voice assistants there do you remember the cortana powered thermostat Maybe it's time. Maybe it's time. Well past time. We'll see. All right. Well, speaking of voice assistants there, do you remember the Cortana-powered thermostat that launched almost a year ago? By the way, Seth, sidebar, I didn't remember this. No, I didn't either. That's a side note.

The one made by Johnson Controls that was widely promoted as a Cortana-powered thermostat. Well, Cortana is getting kicked out from its own house. The Verge reports that Johnson Controls is rolling out a software update to the GLAS. I don't know if it's pronounced GLAS or GLAS. Yeah, I think it's GLAS. I remember this thing.

It's like a little glass. It looks good. It's a very modern-looking thing. GLAS. Yeah, it is a nice-looking thermostat that gets rid of Cortana. So the software update gets rid of cortana from the cortana powered thermostat quote the microsoft cortana voice assistant will no longer work on

your device moving forward you will still have access to other voice assistants to control your thermostat through the works with functionality of amazon alexa and google assistant said johnson controls in an email to glass users there There you have it. That's hilarious. So like you, you buy this nice Microsoft Cortana, uh, uh, thermostat that has the voice control built in. And then a couple of, you know, firmware updates later, they remove that feature and then just put Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant on it. Good deal. Good deal. And I feel like we, you know, we give Bixby and Samsung a really hard time, but yeah, it's what is going on with Cortana? I just, yeah, I don't hear a lot about it. We've seen it come and go. It's definitely not something, you know what? I, I, I put it up on the shelf already, but in the hub, I had a picture of it.

Uh, I, I, I got a, I got a staples connect for the, uh, for the museum. I saw that brand new in the box museum. It's a, it's sealed and everything. Um, so I'll have to look around and see if I get one of these Cortana things one of these days. Cause that, that's, that's definitely going to end up there. That's on, it's on your hit list. Speaking of the Samsung Bixby, while Samsung's unpacked event was mostly about the Galaxy Note 10 and the Note 10 Plus and a new S Pen and Galaxy Book S laptop, which I thought

was pretty cool. They had an ARM-powered laptop. That looked pretty cool. Plenty of observers expected some news on the fate of the Galaxy Home. However, the Bixby-powered device was notably absent again. Samsung announced the smart speaker a year ago, but it's been beset by delays. Most recently, Samsung targeted a release window of, quote, mid-second half of the year. So that's maybe sometime this quarter uh the the latest word is that samsung is still working on the bixby powered device and uh yeah they i guess

they technically still have some time if they say mid second half of the year so what is that that we're there it's right now we're basically there it's like right now, yeah. It'll be within the next few weeks. So I don't know. It's kind of like become a game, like the Bixby sighting thing we've been talking about. We'll see. I think it may be up for a similar fate as Cortana. You know, it's hard to say.

Like Cortana's just been confused, I think. I just don't... I don't know. Bixby is going to be in a little bit of a different place coming into the market as late as they are. I think that's going to be their big challenge. And I don't know, Cortana, I guess to me, never felt like it was as much of a consumer focused offering for whatever reason. Bixby, the Galaxy galaxy home they're clearly trying to target the consumer market but going to be up against some stiff competition it's a big company like sam's not that microsoft isn't but samsung probably has more more retail channels i guess is is like they could stick these things inside their retail stores they They could stick these inside like the AT&T store and be able to push them or Target or wherever. The Cortana, like remember there was a Cortana tube thing that they had out not too long ago.

It was like a Harman Kardon Cortana tube thing. Yeah, that's right. You know, that kind of came and went. And it used to be on like the front shelf of the Microsoft store. It's no longer there. I don't know what they did with it. I think Samsung is probably a little bit bigger when it comes to consumer mind. If they're out buying a product, you're going to think of Samsung probably before you think of Microsoft for hardware-type products like this.

I think they have that going for them. But, man, it is a uphill battle and if they're not if they're if they're just waiting for this thing to like get really really good so they can release something that is on par with the the assistants that are out right now um you know good for them uh rather than really something that they're just gonna get mocked for but who knows they could they could release something and and it doesn't work at all. It will be interesting to see what happens. We'll see. Yeah, definitely will. All right. Well, shifting gears here, a few stories we wanted to discuss very quickly. A couple of these just more quick mentions that

I'll tee up here quickly. So residential systems, both of these actually, these quick ones I'm going to tee up came from residential systems this week. One of them was a review by Henry Clifford of the new Wattbox 150 series IP. It's like a Wi-Fi unit. And I thought this was kind of cool and wanted to bring it up. Seth, a few weeks back, we had a conversation about remote systems management, RSM, and talked about where I think some of the big greenfield opportunities are in terms of getting remote management of systems to the next level, like getting deployments more broadly dispersed out there amongst the client base. And I think this is kind of a cool product to that end. I talked about more compact, easy to deploy, like the physical deployment,

the software layers, of course, I think there's a lot of opportunities there as well. But on the physical deployment side, small wireless types of controllable outlets that can be put in to things like the kid's bedroom or the master bedroom, all of the places throughout the house where equipment ends up getting installed, but you don't have a centralized rack or a big 12 outlet watt box, or you don't need that. And that's what this device is. It's, it's, uh, I think three outlets, two or three outlets total. I forget. I know only one of them is there's only one controlled bank. Um, so you only get, you don't have multiple, uh, independently switchable outlets. I know that. And anyways, Henry Clifford reviewed it and overall gave it a pretty good review. And so if you're looking for, you know, creative solutions or new products that you can get remote rebootable

outlets into more places in your homes, which I think is a win-win for integrators, I would definitely recommend it. He closed the article out by saying, tested the controller, performed flawlessly. Both outlets are controlled together. There's no surge. We're going to sell them like hotcakes. And I like this part, all of the master bedrooms, kids' rooms, and guest rooms that we've left off of our remote management scopes are now going to be covered. Hallelujah. Anytime we can prevent a truck roll is a huge win for both the, both the integrator and the customer. And so I thought that was well said and worth a quick read.

Yeah. I think, I think where they're going to, I mean, I think where it on the, on the spectrum of being like, uh, no RSM at all.

And then Jason's dream world of the little tiny plug that you plug in and, and walk around with the phone out and set in. This is closer to your dream than anything. It's a step in the right direction. You've got it in the house. It's a smaller device, not as small as what you're talking about. And I think the big thing that they're missing here is there's still the 192.168.1.198 IP address that you can see them logging in with a username and password.

And I think that right there, that's a huge amount of friction that should go away. Agreed. And you can see that. I mean, look at what Sonos did. They're releasing products with that BTLE. So you can do like the instant setup and pair it with your phone, do instant setup, get it online, bada-bing, and you're done. That's where these guys need to move next and you know this can be this is this is still really early days

for this type of product um so i wouldn't i wouldn't it wouldn't surprise me if if the guys over at snap av and oversee or oversee sorry i mispronounced it um get it right go go uh go out and and are able to do something like that in the future. Yeah. Yeah. Smaller, faster, cheaper. I think it needs to, it needs to keep progressing in that direction. But like you said, this is a step in the right direction. So go check that out. The other story that I want to do quickly mentioned again from residential systems was a piece. I don't want to say an excerpt, but kind of an overview or summary of a new Parks Associates report called Smart Home Adjacencies Building the Ecosystem. And the report really talks about some,

you know, it goes into three specific categories and smart vents, smart beds, and smart appliances. And I think there are big questions about all three of those really, and how they might fit into an integrator's business model today. I think we're way out in front of this one here in terms of these sorts of products playing a big role in an integrator's business. But I do think it's an interesting thought exercise to go through and start to envision what does an integration business look like 10 years from now or even five years from now when more of these sorts of devices are connected? Because I think we can all assume that that is going to happen. I mean, homes aren't going to become less connected. They're going to continue to become more connected. So as vents and beds and appliances become increasingly connected to the network and require all of the

support and expertise and design guidance and diagnostics and everything that comes with it. How does that play into the integration business and the CDA channel, if at all, and what does that look like? And I think it's something that as an industry, we should really start to open up a dialogue about and start to figure out how the specification and ongoing management and monitoring, if not the, you know, the full ownership and selling and buying the, you know, buying and selling these, there may be adjacent opportunities here in terms of the ongoing management and design, et cetera. So I think this one is also worth a quick read and we'll be going to check out that report as well.

Yeah, it's fascinating to think about and where this business will be in 10, 15, 20 years, considering how fast it's moved. When you said that we can all assume that more stuff would be connected, I kind of went, well, maybe not. But then again, because there have been studies of people pushing back on this stuff. Like they got it in.

It's not the dream that they wanted it to be. But then I thought about that a little more. And it's like, well, stuff doesn't work how they expect it to work. Like the next rev probably will, right? Like these companies aren't going to sit around and make the same stinky thinking, like not so great, smart lighting control system,

right? They're, they're going to iterate on it and, and eventually get the technology to set up the deployment, the certain, you know, the, all this stuff figured out.

And if you, if you drag that timeline out to an infinite amount of time, this stuff gets embedded and, and, and works really well for, for everybody. And I, yeah,

that, that is an interesting thing to think about. What is this industry? And what, what does an integrator's position look like when that, when that happens and when it, when that's going to happen, like when are those two timelines going to,

or those two lines going to converge and, and, and, and be like, yeah, stuff is easy to install, set up and use. And then, you know, where's the integrator? What are they doing at that point in time? Is the line going up and down for them? And how long is that going to be out from now? I can't answer that, but it's fascinating to think about, though. Yeah. Well, one thing that I think about is at One Vision and with our partners and our sort of North Star is that, you know, really this more full-blown like technology management in the home. Concierge level service where literally everything that's connected in the home, the homeowner is going to need help managing all of that. And so, you know, the most obvious example of that where the Cedia channel will likely expand into, and certainly where our partners and where we want to expand into is the management of personal technology, phones and tablets and computers. And I know a lot of integrators do that today, but maybe not

necessarily in a formalized capacity. And I'd be willing to bet the vast majority of them aren't monetizing it appropriately. And so there's opportunity there. But again, where does that expand out? And to your point, yes, there will be cohorts of the market that push back and that don't get into this fully connected home as quickly or even ever as compared to maybe other segments of the market. But ultimately, from a macro perspective, I believe it's a pretty safe bet that homes are going to continue to get more and more connected. And that's going to come with a whole host of, of, of problems and challenges that there, there will be opportunities to go and solve. Yeah. And I think smart appliances is a great example of that.

We're really at the very beginning of the adoption curve there. And could those sorts of devices, for example, be, be integrated better into monitoring into RSM so that RSM is tying into the appliances and the appliances are saying, hey, you know, there's a, I need a new filter or there's something wrong that could turn into an expensive repair. And who's watching for all of those notifications and who's aggregating that? And then perhaps even coordinating the necessary parties to go fix it. And, you know, there's just, you think of all the pain points and then you take one step further and think about all,

all of the opportunities and somebody is going to step in and fill those. And will it, will it be the Cedia integrator or not? I think is a, is a fascinating question. There's that, there's that movie or not movie, but a series that I kept telling you to watch. I'm not sure if you ever did on Hulu. I i watched a handful of episodes and uh the first i want to say first the first yeah it was a i did i watched a few episodes of that and i i agree i didn't get through the whole uh series but the the the context for those who aren't familiar was that it was it's based in the near future you know it's a near future piece and the technology in the home is very seamless and the way that lights come on and off and the way he's able to talk to and interact with his home is very natural and it's

familiar like the cars the cars feel familiar vehicles feel familiar uh and the home that you would walk in feels familiar but like the home that they live in is, like, this New Orleans home, like, right near the river. And I don't know if you've ever been to New Orleans. These are not, like, new modern homes. Yet, you know, he is a commander of a space shuttle. You would think that he's probably well paid and has a nice house. And there are some elements of technology inside that house like you were saying how they interact and i i i'm just like my mind goes to that when you were talking about like the concierge like somebody has to put that in and you know what happens when one of those weird little light

switches that they just kind of reach over and tap on their lamp what what happens when that breaks do they go to ikea and get a new lamp or is it a little somehow more integrated i don't know but um it is a fascinating timeline to sit back and think i think the concierge idea that's that's got some good legs on it for the near to midterm future but like further out when when you get to that that type of uh integration where it's just expect, like everything just was expected to be in these homes or around you as technology. I wonder, I wonder at that point in time, and I guess we can worry about that in 30 or 40 years when we get there,

what the, what the industry is going to look like at that point. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's all, it's all really, it's all really interesting and there's a lot of sort of near-term opportunities and concerns and threats and all of that that we think about. But yeah, it's fun to zoom out to the five, 10-year horizon and think about some of these possibilities. So I thought this article was definitely worth going in. And it's a very short, you know, it's a quick read. You can go check it out and see if it sparks anything. Well, since we talked about the far future, let's talk about the past. Let's talk about technology in 2020, in 2019, 2020. SnapEV has announced this week that they are partnering with Logitech and they're bringing the innovative line of universal remotes to the custom integration channel.

And what was interesting about this is there is a coming soon labeled Harmony Pro 2400 Advanced Remote Hub and App. And this is on their website. You can go to it. It's kind of is on their website you can go to it's kind of a public thing you can go check it out it looks like the harmony elite and it has a different hub made for uh custom integrators it has poe built in so you can power it without you know a wall wart type you know with a little long cable cable you have to deal with it's got six assignable irs which is this is you know we're talking 2020

yeah technology yeah this is what you think of um but i i do like that it's not going anywhere anytime soon i can tell you it's definitely not especially especially sometimes you hook up an ip controlled tv or an ip controlled receiver and you just have all sorts of problems with it and all the vendors point oh it's this guy this this oh you're using udp blocking on this and this blah blah blah it's like come on it's it's networking cannot be difficult this difficult so uh yeah you fall back to ir you plug it plug an ir cable into this what's nice about it it's got the 3.5 like 3.5 millimeter ir ports instead of the little tiny two and a half millimeter uh ports that the other harmony products two and a half millimeter ports that the other

Harmony products have. And six IR outs, you can route them, which is pretty awesome. I remember really thinking that was cool, you know, 10 years ago when I was programming URC remotes and saying, IR number one, you're going to be the TV and IR number two, you're the cable box. Keep it clean. Yeah. And you'd get little templates set up where you'd like, all right, installers, every single time IR1's on the TV, every single time IR2 is going to be on the cable box.

That's right. Every single time IR3 is going to be on the DVD player and you just kind of move down the list and then you get out to the install and nothing's hooked up, right? So yeah, that was brilliant. It's a joy. You can tell I don't miss too much of ir but i i respect it because it's something you can't kill it just it will not die

that's right i mean it short of the short of that emitter falling off or the you know i guess the cord may be getting damaged or something it it just works um with a big asterisk you know and it's cheap it works it's inexpensive so it's just it's going to be mostly driven by you know tv manufacturers and all sorts of device manufacturers are in no rush to move away from from ir yep out with the new and with the old as they say yeah that's right uh's right. But this is a, you know, kind of a cool-looking offering. The timing is really interesting because I'm sure this was in the works, you know, for a while. Right. And now, of course, SnapAV just finalized the deal, just finalized with Control 4. So Control 4 will be the big control

brand, obviously, in their portfolio now. And so that brings up the question of what does happen to this Logitech sort of partnership or this specific remote. But I think that this remote and Control 4, in general, serve different masters. Ultimately. Yeah. There's certainly some overlap of course, at the low end of, of control fours solution line, but ultimately I think that, that there's, there's room for both of these, uh, snap AV has got a massive dealer base that serves a whole bunch of different types of clients. And as we all know, the landscape is very broad and there's a lot of different needs and customer profiles out there. But it is kind of funny timing and we'll be curious to see how that plays out.

Yeah, the Harmony Elite is retailing at $249 on Logitech's website right now. And you're not going to get into a Control 4 system for 249. You might get the Control 4 remote that doesn't do anything at all for 249 or thereabouts, but you're definitely not buying an entire control system. Doesn't do anything at all, meaning what? You need the

processor. Yeah, you need the processor because the remote's just a Zigbee remote. There's no IR output on it. It doesn't program by itself. Yeah, no, this is uh uh this is it is interesting timing but i think seeing like how far down the price you know these get down to a hundred dollars and some of the like least inexpensive ones are 69 and 49 dollars um you know this this uh this type of product has a completely different market space that it's going into. And I remember seeing that Logitech was having a hard time with their home division,

like selling these things. So if they can stay afloat and keep the product going, I think they're going to do well with it. Yeah, indeed. All right. Well well all of the links and topics we've discussed in our episode this week can be found in our home uh show notes at hometech.fm slash 270 while you're there don't forget to sign up for our weekly newsletter we'll send you weekly show reminders and other occasional updates about all the great things going on here

in the world of home tech once again that link is hometech.fm slash 270. And don't forget, you can join us in the chat room live Wednesday, starting somewhere between 7 and 7.30 p.m. Eastern. You can find out more at hometech.fm slash live. Indeed. All right. Well, moving on here, Seth, to the pick of the week and a real gem this week. I don't know where you turned this one up, but I had a really good laugh when I was getting ready for the show

and watched this. It's like the TV Santa Claus. So the headline says it all. I'm not even going to try to come up with my own creative way of describing this. I might give it a go. I might give it a go, Jason. Oh, you're going to give it a go? Yeah, yeah.

Go for it. Say you're young and you lose a tooth you know uh you you you put that tooth under your pillow and and the tooth fairy comes at night uh and and gives you a quarter or something well flip that around to the tv fairy and if you don't have a tv i don't know how how the tooth thing falls in with this but say you need a tv a TV, the TV fairy is going to come to your house and drop off a TV for you. So someone has a ring doorbell, and the ring doorbell has caught the TV fairy for the first time, Jason. The first time in Henrico County, Virginia, Residents living in a Virginia neighborhood woke up to find free televisions on the doorsteps.

It sounds like a great gift until you see that the TVs were actually older, boxy, like CRT TVs. Very old. This is not a good thing. This is not the kind of TV you want gifted to you. These are like tube TVs. This guy, one guy said, we got an old tube style TV, 13 inch.

He got a 13 inch. Well, what's even better is that the TV fairy actually has a TV for a head, evidently. So as you can see in the video, the TV fairy walking up. And I like this quote. He's committed to his trade said the homeowner that's right yeah this is great and you can tell like he clearly i somehow i think saw the the door the ring doorbell on some of these homes that he was doing this because he did this to a bunch of homes there's like an entire neighborhood oh if i was doing this i would totally target people that

had ring doorbells because you know that this kind of viral thing is going to happen. Totally. And it worked, right? So he's like looking right at the camera and he's literally got like a box TV on his head and he's wearing like a jumpsuit. He stands there and he's holding a tube TV and he slowly kneels down and puts it on the porch and calmly turns down turns around and walks away and uh he did this to an entire neighborhood and several people got footage and you know the there's a video two minute video we'll link in the show notes and the police came out and they had to like load these tvs into the back of a truck and i don't know if this is um i mean it's very clear that this is done to you know as a prank it's a very good viral but i see these tvs sitting out like on the side of the road and no no one wants them they're like i i've what's funny is when you see like on

craigslist and people are like i've got a tv for 50 and it's one of these giant tube tvs it's like you're never gonna sell that just just put it out by the curb and maybe the trash just give up yeah i i will say i will say you literally can't even give them away at this point i will say the tv ferry has good form better than some of these police officers that are carrying the uh the uh the tvs out to a big van uh that he's actually uses his knees and lifts with his knees he doesn't doesn't use his back and i think that may have to do a little bit more with with uh with like function over over fashion because uh he has a tv on his head as well unlike these officers who are lifting with their backs oh my gosh that's gonna be a that's gonna be a problem i don't know if this is like is this some sort of social statement about like the need to watch less tv or like the waste and electronic waste in our

society i i or is this probably just some bored like college kid trying to get on youtube i wouldn't read into it i would yeah i would say i mean i think it's probably the i think it's probably the the latter yeah i wouldn't read into it too much. Pretty funny. It's very funny. Check out the videos. We'll put a link to them there in the show notes. But yeah, I really liked this when he came across and I was like, well, my work here is done for the week. I've got the pick of the week. Yeah, no kidding.

Just falls into your lap. No kidding. Yeah, we got a show title too. The TV fairy. Makes my job easy. Here we go. Here we go here we go all right well if you have any feedback questions comments pics of the week or great ideas for the show give us a shout our email address is feedback at hometech.fm or visit hometech.fm feedback and fill out the online

form cool and we also want to give a big thank you to everyone who supports the show but especially to those of you who are able to financially contribute to our efforts here through our Patreon page. If you want to learn more, head over to hometech.fm slash support and learn how you can contribute to the show for as little as $1 a month. Any pledge over $5 a month, we'll give you a big shout out on air, but every single pledge gets you an invite to our private Slack chat, the hub where you and other supporters of the show can gather every day for all of the great conversations about all things home technology. Yep. And if you want to help out, but can't support the show financially, we totally understand. Uh, we appreciate, uh, some type of nice five-star review on iTunes or a positive rating in the podcast app of your choice. Uh, we're, we're shooting for that five

stars every time. So that's the goal here. That's the goal. All right. And finally, we want to take a quick moment to mention that Home Tech is a proud member of the technology.fm collective of podcasts. You can find other great shows like Home On, The Smart Home Show, and DTNS, The Daily Tech News Show there. Again, that's technology.fm, a great collective of podcasts. We're proud to be a part of that. So go check that out. Yeah. And that wraps up the show this week, Jason. Lots going on. I don't know about you, but I can't, my head's been underwater for the past like three weeks and I'm not sure it's going to be any better by the time we get to mid-September. Yeah. It's going to be a scramble

or a sprint, I should say here to the finish line for Cedia-September. Yeah, it's going to be a scramble or a sprint, I should say, here to the finish line for Cedia, but we're really excited about it. I'm really excited about it on a number of fronts. So really looking forward to that and having it here in my hometown makes things pretty easy for me as well. It'll be a lot of fun. So we'll look forward to seeing some Home Tech supporters at the happy hour. I'll look forward to catching up with you at the show. And we've got a lot of great things going on for One Vision as well. So it should be a lot of fun.

Very cool. And we also, I mean, it's getting into like interview season for us again. It's like feast and famine. And sometimes we go a couple of months without interviews, but now we've got some interviews lined up for the next couple of shows. We do. Yeah. We've got Justin from Leviton coming on next week,

and I've been looking forward to getting them on since reading about the Connected Load Center several weeks back, probably months back at this point. But a really interesting product that brings intelligence right down to the circuit breaker level. So a unique approach there, and we'll look forward to jumping into that. And then the week after that, we've got, uh, seven hugs coming on. We've had them on the show a long time ago, really neat handheld, remote tactile control type of offering, but does

some really cool things. If you're not familiar with seven hugs, uh, go check them out. Seth looks like you've got one in your hand there. Um, and I know they're doing, uh, should I not have said that? No, you can say it. That's fine. Okay. And Seth looks like you've got one, one, one in your hand there. So you've got maybe a little sneak preview. It looks like, uh, they've got some cool things coming up that they're coming on the show, uh, to talk about. And actually I want to also mention that, uh, we're getting Giles Sutton on most likely we're buttoning the details up there, but the week before Cedia, Giles is the VP of industry engagement for Cedia and a great guy. So we're looking to have him on for a quick chat there the week before Cedia to kind of give us a little 15, 20 minute preview of coming attractions for Cedia, the organization.

So looking like for the next three weeks, we'll have guests on every episode. So that'll be, that'll be a lot of fun. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Good lead up right up to Cedia and get us right into the show. And excited for that. Excited to get there and see everybody

and see you in Denver. I'm ready to walk the show. Like, I'm ready. Well, one, I'm ready to stop working right now. I need a break. So Cedia's got to come fast. Yeah, there you go. It's kind of a break, right?

It's definitely an exhausting week for everyone who goes, but it's a lot of fun and really great to catch up with friends and colleagues and see all the cool stuff. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Jason, I think that wraps up the show this week, and I'll talk to you next week. All right. Sounds good, Seth. Take care. Have a good weekend. You too.