HomeTech.fm - Episode 290 - Jitterbug Remote

Episode Date: February 14, 2020

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, February 14th, Valentine's Day. From Denver, Colorado, I'm Jason Burping. And from Sarasota, Florida, I'm Seth Johnson. Happy Valentine's Day. Indeed. What are your plans, Seth? romantic plans we uh because of my wife earlier in the weekend hey you wanna get a babysitter lineup you wanna you wanna go see a movie and she's like yeah but i'm only gonna go to the one place like the dinner i don't know you guys have these i'm pretty sure you're doing your dinner like it's a dinner theater and there's only like 30 seats and after six o'clock there's like it's only 21 and up and you can get an adult size

beverage at an unreasonable price and the tickets are just insanely expensive it's like we can only go to this one place definitely got those and um i'm like all right cool that that solves a whole lot of problems because uh it's all it's all in one it's an all-in-one package you get the drink you get a nice meal you can can get and watch a movie. Perfect. So I get on and I'm like, what movie do they have? 1917,

which looks like an awesome movie, but that's that war movie thing. Yeah. So that one was out. That was out instantly. Maybe not. Maybe not for Valentine's Day. We were watching the Oscars

and she said, I have no desire to see that movie. I'm like, okay. So that one was out. And then Sonic sonic the hedgehog was the other offering sonic the hedgehog i was gonna say why don't you just ditch the movie and go see like uh paw patrol on ice no but it's bad boys we're seeing bad boys the martin lawrence reboot with will smith yeah so that's that is going down We're seeing bad boys. So romantic. Such a charmer. She'll get some Prosecco and some popcorn.

And yeah, and I'll get a nice little gin-based drink, and we'll go from there. Indeed. Cool. Well, yeah, my wife and I are going to do babysitter and dinner out as well. So that'll be nice. It's a rare treat for us these days so definitely looking forward to that and hope uh hope everyone listening is having a great valentine's day as well uh happy valentine's day to you and yours but seth i think i think we got uh less romantic matters to jump into here

yeah and just one more quick thing if you didn't know it's valentine's today today and you're listening it's valentine's day today and you're listening, it's Valentine's Day today and you're listening. Don't forget. You got some work to do. Yeah, yeah. That's right. That's right. May already be too late. All right, Seth, what do you say we jump in to some home tech headlines?

Let's do it. Big show going over in Amsterdam this week. ISE giving us plenty of headlines to go off. Wait, not much news out of is he we got a couple stories to hit on uh do the crickets yeah yeah it's been really quiet this week is he is not like it's cdia right like is he is mostly it's commercial i would say right yeah i i don't know i've always um i've always found ISE to be a little bit of a tough show to cover from a distance. Right. I think because it's such a big show. There's commercial and pro AV,

and there's definitely home tech mixed in there. But I think when you're here stateside trying to cover it, just through what you read in the headlines, it's a little bit of a tough show. So we do have a couple of stories we're going to tee up, but we're going to look to get a couple industry colleagues I know that are over there on site. And I think maybe next week we can get someone on to talk about their key takeaways. But I'm with you, Seth. I haven't seen a ton come across in the headlines that's really jumped out at me yeah it's been i it's been kind of shocking i don't know if it's been shocking like maybe the resi companies have gone over there and been said you know this really isn't the most opportune time for us to get a message out with all this other news going on because it does look like there's some some things that are happening on the like the commercial side

if you were running a tv studio or something like that, you may have some interesting things pop up in that space. Or maybe, Seth, I have a theory on this. Yeah? Maybe we just need Julie Jacobson to come out of retirement. That's what it is, yeah. The coverage is horrible, right? She could cover some ground.

She was a fast woman. If you ever saw her at the show um you didn't see her for long because she was in and out of booths and gone that's right with her with her pad she'd take a picture on one of those old little cameras not a cell phone it was a camera and then she'd she'd be gone and uh that was it that's the only that's my memories of julie uh at most of the shows i saw her at that's's right. That's right. All right. Well, let's jump into what we do have. What do you say?

Yeah, one thing I saw, Samsung was showing off a full range of displays with the HDR10+, high dynamic range standard and 100% color volume. So nice displays. They were available in a choice of 65, 75, 82, and 98. So these are big screen sizes. The displays are also capable of producing 2,000 nits of brightness. So bright HDR screens. And guess what, Jason? They're 8K.

8K QLED. Got to have those Ks. Yeah, you need them all. While these are actually targeted for digital signage, like this is the commercial side of things, I think this is usually a pretty good indication where the company is going to be moving in the resi space for the future. But these are solid screens.

These are premium screens, right? Because 65, 75, 82, and 98, 8K TVs, 2,000 nits, these are going to be probably pretty pricey, I suspect. And we'll see this technology kind of like whittle its way down into consumer products later on. Yeah. Yeah, agreed. Impressive looking display technology. And like you said, always kind of an indicator of where things are headed, both in the consumer market. And then I always think of like, really, really high endend residential the uber high-end when they do really you know i've seen lots of very creative applications of

of digital signage type technology in that space as well so interesting to see they they have that wall thing too right like the wall yeah and guys in our industry like drool over that thing and i'm like, but why? Why would you ever put that in a house? But people do. People see that, and they say, yeah, they say, I want the 587-inch wall screen thing in my house. Give me the most expensive thing you've got. Yeah, never mind that I'm going to need like three air conditioning units to cool that thing down and keep it properly ventilated.

But yeah, 583 inch 8k wall they have a 437 inch and a 292 inch 4k uh like 219 and 292 inch 4k display so um yeah you can get pretty much any any size samsung tv you want indeed within reason 583 i mean you know details yeah moving on here isc 2020 crestron has unveiled its new mc4-r 4 series control system this is designed to meet the needs of small to mid-sized homes and mdu installations the mc4r is powered via poe and has a full complement of built-in control ports and includes the Infinite EX wireless gateway. So this looks like a nice option for, you know, those smaller units. They mentioned MDU specifically. I know the high-end condo market is doing pretty well here in Denver and certainly in many other markets. So this looks like a nice option for Crestron dealers. They

also itemized out some of the latest features. And I don't know how many of these are new versus how many of them are ongoing, but they itemized some of the things that you would see at the ISE booth from Crestron Home. So things like smart TV support, direct access to streaming services like Netflix, hulu things like that from crestron screens and remotes enhanced ux for access of control elements like garage doors gates and door locks support for pool and spa live camera monitoring password protective sensitive subsystems support for google assistant and, and a few others. So yeah, it looks like Crestron continues to develop the now so-called Crestron Home platform. And I think

that's good to see, Seth. There's been some speculation over the last couple of years about their commitment to the residential channel, but they're continuing to invest. Yeah. Yeah. And this is good to see. Some of these things are like table stakes, right? Like garage door gates, door locks. You would expect a home control system to support those kind of things in the year 2020. And, well, I guess they're just enhancing the user experience to those. So it's always good to get new features. I like it.

A good update. Yeah, there's a last thing here. A quote from John Clancy, VP Residential. We're committed to applying the full force of our unparalleled engineering resources and expertise to make Crestron Home the best smart home experience in every way. Again, that's John Clancy, VP of Residential. And I know he was brought in around the time where Crestron had pulled out of Cedia. It was after that, but kind of breathed some new i think faith from the residential channel into crestron and he's been a big advocate for residential and uh seems to be doing great work so good to see yeah i think wasn't he uh president or ceo of one of like the larger crestron yeah dealers yeah i

believe someone say somewhere in the northeast yeah so he's he's uh he's a good uh what do they call him a good uh advocate there we go thank you he's a good advocate what do they call him? A good advocate. There we go. Thank you. He's a good advocate for the resi side of things. So it's good to have him on board. Because they keep doing good stuff. Good work.

Yep. Well, good news. We got some bad news here. Lumastream, it's one of the early leaders in low voltage lighting for home and business, filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on February 5. In the Middle District of Florida, Tampa Division, hey, it's just right up the road there. They're based right in St. Petersburg. Your neck of the woods.

That's right. The company eliminated most of its staff for the reorganization, pairing the headcount from 20 down to 6. Wow. And it says, here's a quote from LumaStream CEO, George Gordon. We intend to move through this process as quickly as possible. We believe that we are well positioned for a quick and successful restructuring in chapter 11, and we intend to emerge a stronger and more competitive company. Rough. Awful. Yeah. 20 down to six is a, that's a big, a big drop.

So you feel terrible for the folks who, who lost their job. You can only hope they had some inkling that it was coming. That's the worst. When, when people are completely blindsided by this sort of thing, who knows? I mean, it would be complete speculation for me to wonder how long this has been, you know, the writing's been on the wall. It does look like they're going to try to restructure. So this doesn't mean LumaStream is going away. It of course shakes confidence, I'm sure, which is a big deal for any company, but I think especially relevant for a company like LumaStream.

And the reason I say that is, you know, they are a pioneer in this low voltage lighting market and i think low voltage lighting as a whole the biggest challenge that that category has is confidence from builders and consumers because it it requires you to make a leap away from traditional romex wiring which has been around forever and everybody's comfortable with it. And so to make that leap of faith and go to something like low voltage lighting in the home, especially, is a big leap. So anytime you see a company like LumaStream having financial difficulties like this, it's definitely going to be a significant setback, I would say, for low voltage lighting as a category yeah and the technology these guys

had um their booth just got bigger and bigger every year you could go by and see the advances that they would make in both their fixtures uh you know and how how they were controlling light i think these guys were showing off um like the what is it the like uh color correction uh stuff well before it was kind of a popular thing or at least right when it it was became popular I noticed that their booth was showing that off down to like I think one percent dimming capabilities they had some pretty impressive tech so it says here that they the company posts thousands of commercial and residential installations including six years worth of installations in Tesla showrooms.

So if you've ever seen one of those Tesla showrooms, we actually have one here in town. All the lighting in there seems to be LumaStream, which I would never have known, I guess. If you go in one of those showrooms, it's a nice showroom, but they have some linear lighting and this and the other but like i would not have have known that the lights that were shining in that were any different from the lights that are you know across the way in the apple store or uh some other you know victoria's secret or some other right uh random uh mall store it all looks fine to me it's all their lights always worked right yeah a couple tactical things here Lumastream will not accept new orders at this time. They're working with customers, quote, working with our customers to meet all obligations on open orders. They will provide remote support to customers with new and

existing installations. And then one other interesting thing of note, it said as word of the organization spreads, Lumastream is eliciting more interest from potential investors than ever before, especially among dealers and other channel partners, according to company founder and chairman Eric Higgs. So looks like people from the channel rallying around to help financially here, and only time will tell if that's a wise move or not. But I can certainly see the immediate business case for wanting to help LumaStream stay afloat. Again, low voltage lighting is a big deal in terms of like an infrastructural investment. It's not a light lift to make the commitment to go to that technology, both in an individual home and then as an integrator to support that product is a big investment. And so this is really unfortunate. I hope the company and the dealer base is able to navigate this with minimal pain, frankly. Yeah. And Chapter 11 is not like, well, obviously the people are laid off,

but Chapter 11 is not like a complete destruction of the company. Chapter 11 is reordered. Right. It's a restructure. Yeah. So I think it kind of puts the debt on hold for a little bit, and you can kind of see if you can get your feet back underneath you. Not a painless process to go through by any measure, but hopefully they will come out the other side of this, like you said, stronger and more competitive company.

Because I would like, seriously, I'd love to see a company like them stay around uh they i i'm serious when i say like i saw these guys way back when i worked for claire controls i was we were in our little booth at claire and i looked over and saw this guy sitting at a table showing off uh it was like literally one of those 10 by 10 booths and you put the table on it and you're showing off uh low voltage lighting i'm like that's really a cool idea you know like uh yeah years ago and you know they slowly built and built and built and then uh yeah it's it sucks to see it go this way but hopefully they'll be able to hire everybody back and get back on on track here right all right well moving on from, the past couple of weeks have been

a rollercoaster ride for Sonos. The smart speaker maker ended 2019 with a record quarter selling close to 3 million devices and growing its fiscal Q1 revenue by 13%. Then Sonos faced the backlash that we talked about on the show, Seth, from its loyal customer over some of its most loyal, sorry, from some of its most loyal customers over a decision to end support for older devices. Let's also not forget the decision for the company to sue Google for patent infringement. Now there's another development that hasn't gotten nearly as much attention but could prove just as important for Sonos in the long run. In the last corner, Sonos quietly began experimenting with services as a way to generate recurring revenue.

It's a notable change for the company with their long focus on hardware sales alone. So they began trialing a service called Flex in the Netherlands last quarter. Again, this has been kind of quiet here, but this service offers consumers the option to rent Sonos speakers starting at around $16.50 U.S. per month, quote, basically buying Sonos as a service, end quote, said Sonos CEO Patrick Spence. They've also began reselling dedicated music services to stores, hairdressers, and other businesses in the last couple of months. This is very interesting. Now, Jason, I have an offer for you.

You got a few rooms in your house. Would you like to outfit your house with some nice wireless audio system for maybe like, I don't know, 50 bucks a month? Would you do it? I don't know, 50 bucks a month. Would you do it? I don't think I would. Yeah, I was just looking at the price. I'm like, oh, that's not so bad, maybe for like one speaker. But then for a whole house of them, I mean, that gets expensive pretty quickly.

Not as expensive as, you know, nearly expensive as buying, you know, a bunch of Play Ones and putting them around the house. You know, your upfront costs, at least. it's uh interesting yeah it is interesting like 16.50 a month so i got several rooms like you said i'd be like 50 a month i mean after a few months i could have just bought them so i i don't know like i was trying to think I was trying to think of something witty and funny to say, but in all honesty, does it include anything else? Are premium services packaged with it, for example, like a Spotify subscription or Apple Music subscription? I feel like if they were maybe to go down that route, they could make the economics a little more attractive because they might be able to get deals with their scale that they could then pass along to me as a consumer. I don't know. Sonos is not a dumb, you know, there's a lot of smart people working at Sonos. So I got to think that they've done some research and they've figured out that this might be an attractive offering, but I have trouble seeing how it would work for me as a consumer.

If you go to flex.sonos.com, you can see how it would work. I mean, you can see how it would work because they have pretty pictures, but I cannot read how it would work because it's all in Swedish chef language. I have no idea what this is. I cannot read this at all. Yeah, these words. I mean, I can read a little bit of German if I cross my eyes, but I cannot read Swedish.

What do they speak here? Where is this at? This is in the Netherlands, and I just used Chrome's translate function. So, yeah, it's from 15 euros a month, you get as—oh, here you go. That's the—okay, this makes more sense. From starting at 15 euros a month, you get as many Sonos as you want as long as you want. Oh, so you just return them when you're done. It's not—yeah, it's—okay, so, like return them when you're done. So it's not, yeah, it's, okay.

So like here's one, 25 euros per month, you get a Sonos Beam and two Sonos One. So it's not per speaker. Interesting. It's like packages. So the economics there make a lot more sense with that in mind. Free installation, they'll come set it up for you. So now is it more attractive to you?

At 25 euro a month? Would you get a little beam and surround sound system? Well, I, I'm definitely one of those people that's got like sort of monthly billing, starting to get like monthly billing fatigue. Right. You know, that's a real thing I think. And so that said, I have a ton of things that are on monthly that I, I love having them that way. Just the recurring and it's easy. But this to me, no, not super attractive to me.

I'm probably not the target market. I listen to very little music these days. So I'm definitely not the target market, I guess. Anyways, interesting though. It is interesting. I can see how this could be good for certain people who like to do this kind of thing. Like just, I rent an audio system for a couple months if I like it and maybe return it or something after that. I don't know, does it say on the page,

because I'm still kind of like looking around, if there's like a minimum time that you have to keep it around or is it? I don't see that either. No, I don't see anything to that effect. There's literally no fine print on this page. This is like, the font is huge on my screen, so. Yeah, it is a very like,

I don't know if it's just a, to me as an American, this site looks very like. Scammy? Not scam scammy like it just looks it looks kind of dated i guess uh yeah yeah it's it looks like an old website is what it looks like together yeah i don't know i mean it is a trial thing that they're they're rolling out so um anyways yeah tangent yeah, it says more is coming. There's a quote here. We definitely see the opportunity for services that can augment the opportunity for our customers.

Spence said, you'll see us experiment with some things and you'll see us scale them based on what's working. So, you know, I think good for them. Like my opinions aside about the value of the service, I like seeing companies be experimental and, and innovate. And that's how you figure stuff out. You got to go through that messy process of, of doing things that, that don't work to find what does. And, and so I, I like it. I'll be interested, interested to see how this develops. Yeah. And, and they are fighting deeper pockets that are providing cheaper products, right?

So Google, Amazon, Apple, well, maybe not Apple, but they're fighting deep pockets for their war for the audio in the living room kind of situation. So we'll be, like you said, we'll be interesting. There was, in the story that we'll link to, there was a number of things about how IKEA kind of, that was the boost of their sale there at the end of 2019. Because they remember they had the Ikea, oh geez, I can't remember the name of them. Some Funisk speakers. Yep. And so they, they did evidently did pretty well with those. And so, but they said that

according to the financials, if you look at them, the IKEA bringing in a lot of new customers isn't really worth that much of the company. But then they say just yet, because if you think about it, if IKEA is bringing these in and then Sonos starts going after end users and consumers with some kind of subscription plan, maybe they offer their own music services through Sonos or they start getting kickbacks on Apple music subscriptions or Amazon subscriptions, who knows what this looks like. Those customers that have Sonos devices and Sonos ecosystems inside their house are going to be a lot more valuable to the company. Right, right.

No, that makes sense. So anyways, very, very interesting. We'll be curious to see how this goes, if they find success with it and if they scale it up. I know it's not infrequent that I talk to integrators who are, you know, those who are kind of really thinking out long-term about the future of the industry and the whole idea of home technology as a service, AV as a service. It's a fun thought exercise, if nothing else. I don't know how the economics of that end up working out and the viability of it,

but it is intriguing to think about where that may all head. Just went to rentatheater.com. It's parked on GoDaddy, so somebody owns it. There you go. Sony has introduced a new remote control for its... I'm not going to make it through this without laughing. A new TV for... Jason, this is horrible. Sony has introduced a new remote control for its TVs in Japan, and you most likely won't be using it in your sofa. The device, spotted by The Verge, isn't just a remote control. It's also a wireless speaker that you can bring around the house with you.

Oh, this is beautiful. It looks like a typical speaker when viewed from the side, and it's bulky enough that it won't disappear into thin air or between the cushions of your couch. It definitely won't disappear into thin air or, you know, between the cushions of your couch. It definitely won't disappear into thin air. The top panel, however, has all the buttons you expect. All the buttons. Let me repeat this.

This thing won't disappear anywhere. All right. The top panel has all the buttons that you'd expect a remote to have, except its volume adjuster is a big giant knob the remote speaker hybrid will be out in japan on february 22nd and is now available for pre-order in japan for uh let's see 20 000 yen which is 182 us dollars i don't know jason i i think i'm gonna have to get on like get one of these i think uh i i think they must have hired their uh industrial designer from um what's the name of that jitterbug yeah old people the phones for uh for the elderly. That's what this looks like.

It looks like a jitterbug remote. Well, I mean, it could have its place, right? What do they make those? I've seen those too, like giant IR remote. Oh, yeah. You see them at Walgreens or CVS. The gag gifts, yeah. So you can walk around with this remote and the TV sound comes wirelessly from the TV to the remote?

Or does it, I don't know, this sounds fascinating to me now. Yeah, that's the impression I get. It'll play the TV sound. So I guess that's kind of, in certain applications, that's kind of useful, I feel like. Because when you have, I know sometimes if we watch TV in the bedroom, the TV is kind of far away, so you got to really turn it up to hear the dialogue. But then an action scene comes and it's blaring loud, like going to wake up the kids. So having a speaker that you could set maybe on the nightstand in a bedroom, that would be kind of cool.

I did read that this has the ability to plug headphones into it too. Like I know some of the, I think Roku remotes have that ability where you can plug headphones right into the remote so your sound comes through the headphones. So that idea of like being able to take the sound from the tv and put it somewhere else there are some applications there where it's kind of useful but it's certainly not pretty if you're interested in getting one of the model numbers the srs-lsr200 which implies there was a 100 at some point in time. So it's also wire.

I mean, it's completely wireless. It got lost in the couch. Yeah. So it's completely wireless. It has batteries and a little battery charger thing you can set it on too. It says, what, 13 hours of battery of usage, I guess. Yeah. Very interesting.

Yeah, here you go. The company says you can use the device to, say, watch TV from across the house without having to crank up the volume. Splash-proof, you can use it in the kitchen while cooking. So I could see that. Like, our TV is kind of far away, and we could put it, like, if you're in the kitchen and you wanted to watch something other than Bubble Guppies. I don't know, like Peppa Pig? Is that?

Sorry. I'm jaded. Or Frozen frozen as we were talking about the show yeah yeah that's all that plays on tvs these days oh yeah yeah uh anyways interesting go take a look at it uh won't be going in my house but uh under the under the banner of experimentation, there you go. Yeah, and I think it also could be useful experimentation, right? Like this actually, like you said, does have a, it's oddly designed. I will give you that. Oh, it has a little bamboo handle.

Jason, I've got to get one of these. Oh, I'm sold. The little, you can see in the picture there. Oh, I see it. Yeah, it flips up. It has a little bamboo handle see in the picture there oh i see it it flips up it has a little bamboo handles you can just walk around the house with this set it down while you're doing the dishes clean up i'm gonna take all my laughs back i think this is just throw the throw the throw the bamboo handle on it it's a little bit look how that's designed that's that's that's

perfect so yeah yeah i'm gonna i'm gonna say this is this is 2020s this is the best thing that's that's that's perfect so yeah yeah i'm gonna i'm gonna say this is this is 2020s this is the best thing that's come out of ise this is 2020s uh new product of the year i'm settled you have it seth's i'm gonna buy a tv just for this i'm gonna buy a sony tv i don't have a sony tv a complete 180 all right well moving on here uh after Disney+, HBO Max, and Peacock, were you hoping to see another puffed-up media company launch a streaming TV service? Because according to CNBC, Seth, that's what you're about to get. all, by the way, have surfaced ViacomCBS not just satisfied with offering streaming services like CBS All Access, BET Plus, or Nickelodeon's multi-year partnership with Netflix. The company is now planning, in addition to that, those offerings to launch some kind of mega offering, which combines many of these properties. Apparently, the plan is to keep existing services operating

while marketing the larger Umbrella subscription as an upgrade that doesn't cost additional money. I have no idea what that means. Similar to AT&T's HBO Max, NBC's Universal, Peacock, or the Disney Plus Hulu ESPN bundle, the idea is that a combination of live sports movies and kids programming will pull customers in no matter how fatigued they may be and this reporter is very clearly fatigued yeah well i feel like i just had a stroke listening to all that i mean i wasn't sure

a minute ago what i thought about rewriting the lead but you know no it was just like the dump of at&t hbo max nbc universal peacock disney plus hulu espn plus like yeah i mean i guess all these are out there they all have their little corners of the market that they've cornered um and you know i'm i'm happy with netflix disney plus hbo now which i guess will be we'll have to transfer over to HBO Max. So I'm happy with those so far. But there are a couple of shows that I've seen come on like Hulu that I've wanted to see. So I may go in and turn that on and off on an as-needed basis

to go back and watch some shows. So I don't know. It's interesting to get this, so like a combination of things. It's always nice to see them bundling things back together. And hopefully. Yeah, I'm just confused about it. So first of all, it's like incredibly difficult to keep track

of these massive conglomerates like ViacomCBS. Who owns who? Who owns what? And like, I just, I can't even begin to wrap my brain around it. But the thing that confused me more is it says apparently the plan is to keep these services operating while marketing the umbrella as an upgrade that doesn't cost additional money. So I guess maybe what they're saying is you would get all of those individual services for just the aggregate price of what each would cost you separately, like the

sum of that without paying a premium. But what makes it attractive then? I would think at least you'd get a discount. So I don't know. I'm a little confused by it, but clearly the takeaway is more streaming, more services, more options, and that's the new normal. And we all just need to get used to it and stop complaining about it, like this reporter. This is actually not, to me, a problem. You're fatigued. Get over it. This is is options uh to me options are a good thing so yeah it is a combined it's a combined options of all of these services into kind of like what hbo max is doing for hbo now and all the other properties that at&t sucked up when they did their big buyout of whatever they bought. I don't even remember now. It's so confusing.

But it's almost like we're getting back to the point where we have cable companies that aren't really cable companies. They are going to be just an app. It's either you get the Disney app, you get the AT&T app, or you get the ViacomCBS app. And those are the three choices you have. It's better than just having the choice of one cable company. We still have that monopoly to kind of get over.

But at least you can kind of pick and choose what fits your taste better and buy it that way. And hopefully for a price under, like it says, under $10 a month, it'd be nice to have. Right. All the links and topics we discussed tonight can be found at our show notes at hometech.fm slash 290. While you're there, don't forget to sign up for our weekly newsletter, which includes even further analysis, as well as other industry news that may or may not have made the show.

Again, that link is hometech.fm slash 290. Absolutely. And don't forget, you can join us live in the chat room Wednesday evenings, typically starting around 7 or 7.30 p.m. Eastern. Find out more at hometech.fm slash live or follow us on Twitter at hometechpodcast. And we'll send out those tweets typically at least around 10, 15 minutes before we jump on air. And you can come hang out live. It's always a good time.

We got Bruno in the chat. He says he's in Hong Kong. Everything's okay there. So glad to hear that longtime friend of the show, Bruno, hanging out there in China. Kind of scary place to be, according to everything you watch on the news these days. But, you know, stay well. Stay well, my friend. Yeah, no kidding.

Indeed. All right, Seth. Well, let's move on. We've got big pick of the week this week. This is big news. There's kind of two parts to this. I think one of them is I'm really happy about. The other one, everyone seems like they're super happy about.

And to me, it wasn't really bothering me. But Netflix autoplay. The national nightmare is over. So this is like, apparently this was really pissing people off. I did not realize that. The next episode one always bothered me a little. And only around one specific use case, if I would fall asleep. Yep.

Yep. That was the worst. Like if I fell asleep and then I woke up and I'm like, whoa, what happened? And, you know, I didn't know if I missed half an episode, an episode and a half. Like I had to go back and figure that out. So I'm like, whoa, what happened? And I didn't know if I missed half an episode, an episode and a half. I had to go back and figure that out. So I'm glad I can now disable that. But the other one that everyone is kind of celebrating over, again, I didn't realize this was such a hot button issue, the autoplay previews.

I like those. Am I the only one? Well, no, you're not the only one. I feel like I'm the only one. You're not the only one. I liked them. The problem was is that I would just watch the previews for at least an hour, and my wife was like, just pick something.

I was like, well, no, I really don't want to watch anything. I watch all these previews. I feel like I've seen all these shows now, and I can just go to bed happy. But, yeah, no, we're totally excited to turn that one off. I don't think I would mind that one as much if the sound didn't come on. If it was just the thing playing in the background, like whatever, you know, preview. And if I wanted to watch it, I can kind of like click into it or something and get the sound kind of like, like your web browser does these days with, um, with like video.

If there's video on a webpage that you go to, it'll start playing, but it won't like the web browser itself will mute the audio and then you'll have to go in. No, no. I really want to listen to that. Oh can play it like that's what we should have i mean that would be a good middle middle ground but right i always you know hated turning it on uh to netflix and getting into the thing and then like having some weird preview of some strange show pop up uh and and having to like quickly jump off of it onto something else uh or you know just trying to move move the cursor around until it um you know until i found what i was looking for it's kind of like hot potato like don't stop there too long it'll start playing on you yeah you get like sucked into the uh trailer black hole yeah yeah

exactly it would just never watch anything i just watch trailers all night so and the autoplay that i that would not see that one didn't bother me too much but i i i have occasionally fallen asleep and then woken up to have finished a series and like hmm probably probably good to go ahead and just turn that one off but i do i do like that feature i don't know i'm kind of conflicted on that one yeah i um i'm conflicted a little bit too i think the ideal scenario if i could wave my magic wand would be that it still comes up and and prompts you to where you just simply click a you know okay and it'll play the next one without having to navigate back out i think it does or whatever i think it does that right i so i like

that but like the default is today if you don't do anything then it keeps playing right right and that to me is problematic because if you fall asleep which i am want to do, it's one of the few times I watch Netflix these days is we're laying in bed and we have a show. And, you know, it's one of the few times that I watch it. So I don't know. But I didn't realize this was like such a source of national outrage. Oh, yeah. I mean, I think the previous one was probably the biggest one. And like I said, it wouldn't be that big of a deal.

Well, that's what's interesting to me because I really like those. If it was just muted, I think I would be fine. But it wasn't muted. And playing Hot Potato or just hitting mute and browsing Netflix on mute was kind of pretty common around here for a while. So I don't know. I do have one quick pick, one more pick of the week, I guess we can kind of throw in here. And it's, uh, it's actually not on Netflix, but on Amazon. Yeah, it's on Amazon and it just, it just moved over there. It just, they just popped up with two seasons of this show. Uh, it's called the counterpart.

Uh, it's, uh, I think it was on stars or something like that. It had one, it had two seasons. It's really an interesting show. It's like a cold war. I don't know how to explain it. It's, it's cold war show based in Berlin. It's got JK Simmons, the, the guy that's on like the Spider-Man movies.

And sorry, this is on Amazon. Amazon. Yeah. It's called counterpart. I, I, I,

I've been watching that and really, really pleased with everything that comes out of the show. From what I heard is that it didn't get renewed, so it's only two seasons. They put an end on it. If you just want a show to watch that's actually kind of smart and fun to watch, watch it. Because every episode I've watched so far has been interesting, held me on the edge of my seat and wanted me to see, you know, what the next thing was. And J.K. Simmons is actually a pretty good actor. He's always fun to watch. So. Awesome. Yeah. I can't say too much about it because it gives away too much of the show, but it's a neat show. Yeah. Always looking for new shows. Anthony in the chat room started

season four of Better Call Saul. I'm going to be all over that. I love that show. And I saw the new episodes up on Netflix recently. So I'm assuming that's what he's talking about. Is that the Breaking Bad thing? Yeah. It's like the prequel. Yeah. Those shows were too dark for me. I mean, I say that. They were just like, I'm not in the mental space these days to watch that type of show. I really am going to have to. It's going to be a while before I get back into that, right? I don't know.

You kind of have to be in the mindset on this. Well, speaking of dark, we're watching You right now. Have you watched that one? You? Just why are you? What's it on? It's on Netflix. I think originally it was on a different

one but it's on netflix now and i think there's two seasons we're almost through season one and it's uh it's a good one i mean it's it's kind of silly but it it's like a stalker this guy's like stalking this girl that he met and there's this whole it it's it's got some stylistic elements that again are kind of out there and silly but if you're looking for a light light entertaining but kind of dark uh it's a good one check it out so it's it's not it's a comedy it's not it says this is a psychological thriller yeah but but no it it's it's sort of ridiculous and out there like there are times where you'll you'll laugh but yeah it's no it's it's uh it's it's dark so if that's if that's not your thing stay away from this one look at the description anthony put in the uh in the chat

there one one tree hill stalker edition anyways yeah we need like a what are you watching segment on home tech there's so much yeah there's so much stuff out there to choose from but uh it absolutely is gold oh and and i guess i will throw another pick of the week too just like this may not be for everyone uh the little america series on uh on apple tv um have you have you seen the british baking show thing no i have not okay so on netflix if you if you want something that is the most lovely television show you will ever watch in your life, it's called the... I think it's called like British Baking Show. I think it's like very... it's got two people on it that are judges, and then they have...

like basically they do a bake-off and they they cook british food and it is the most lovely and entertaining happy show you will ever watch in your life if you just want to feel good if you had a bad day just wouldn't need to pick me up that on yet they make beautiful food and they make bad food depending on what happens but um that typically there's there's really good desserts and British baking type things happening. And then the characters on there, the people that run it, do such a great job. It's just delightful to watch.

And I kind of got that same feeling when I watched this Little America series that just came out on Apple TV+. If you have that service, check that out. Pretty fun too. Very cool. Every single episode I've watched has made me smile at the end of it. Like it's just a feel good show and there's, there's things in it. You're like, Oh, this is going to make me feel sad or, or wrong or, or something's going

to go wrong here. And they just kind of make you laugh. Like, so I don't know, just check that one out. If you want a good show, those two, we could certainly use more of that these days definitely totally the opposite of better call saw and you yeah and yeah and you i can't figure out why i'm in such a bad mood all the time well that'll do it for our impromptu uh this week in streaming on home tech thank you for tuning in if you have any feedback, questions, comments, shows that you like, picks of the week, or great ideas for a show topic or

guest, give us a shout. We would love to hear from you. Our email address is feedback at hometech.fm. Again, that's feedback at hometech.fm or visit hometech.fm slash feedback and fill out the online form. And we want to give a big thank you to everyone who supports the show but especially those who are able to financially support the show to our patreon page if you don't know about our patron page head on over to home tech dot fm slash support learn how you can support home tech for as little as one dollar a month any pledge over five dollars a month gets you a big shout out on the show but every single pledge every pledge gets you a quick automated invite to our private slat chat the, where you and other supporters of the show can gather every day to chat about what you're watching on TV.

That's right. That's right. That's what we're talking about. And if you're looking for other ways to support the show, we would definitely appreciate you leaving us a review on iTunes or in your podcast app of choice. Those reviews definitely help more people find the show. So if you, again, if you enjoy the show here, help spread the good word by taking a few minutes to go and leave a review, we would really appreciate it. Yep. And finally, Home Tech is a proud member of the technology.fm collective of podcasts. If you like podcasts about home technology, you can find other

great shows like Home On, the Smart Home Show, and DTNS over there at technology.fm. Absolutely. All right, Seth. Well, I hope you have a great Valentine's Day and a fun show here this week. I'll look forward to reconnecting with you again next week. Sounds good, man. Have a great weekend and I'll talk to you next week. All right. Take care.