HomeTech.fm - Episode 318 - Making Dumb Alarms Smart with Konnected's Nate Clark

Episode Date: September 11, 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, September 11th from snowy Denver, Colorado. I'm Jason Griffin, and I'm going to be joining you solo this week. Seth had some things come up. So again, going to be just you and me this week. We have got some crazy weather here in Denver. We're, we're accustomed this time of year to having some big swings in the weather, but we went from 97 degrees on Saturday to about 32 and snowy early this week. So we're all trying to, to make sense of that and not quite sure what to do with ourselves here. But looking forward to jumping into this episode, be sure and stay tuned. We had a great interview with Nate Clark.

Nate is the CEO and founder of a company called Connected. That's spelled with a K, connected.io. And if you're not familiar, it's a neat product. Started out as a sort of a hobby for Nate and turned eventually into a Kickstarter campaign and now into a business that's been around for several years, helping users bring outdated alarm, old wired alarm systems really into the modern age. It's kind of an adapter kit that you can install on those older wired alarm systems in order to tap into the modern features and integrate those panels with things like smart things, home assistant, Hubitat,

and more. So really enjoyed getting into that conversation, learning about the development of that, of that platform, talking a little bit about open source and the importance of that in the, in the connected home and a bunch of other topics there. So again, be sure to stay tuned for that for our interview with Nate Clark from Connected. In the meantime, I did want to jump in to a quick round of home tech headlines and get you caught up on the news this week.

Lutron has announced its first ever integration with Ring smart doorbells. Now lights controlled by a Lutron system can be set to turn on when a linked ring device detects motion or the doorbell is pressed. Adding lighting to these events adds another layer of security and furthers the impression that someone is home. The new integration is supported by the Caseta line from Lutron, as well as raw to select and compatible ring devices. So this is an interesting integration. We had, incidentally, Melissa Andresco from Lutron on the show last week, hometech.fm slash 317. Recommend you go give that a listen if you're curious what Lutron has been up to.

She shared some really interesting perspectives. And on this one, I think this is a nice integration to have. These features will be available, according to this story from CE Pro, September 30th. So at the end of this month, be on the lookout for that. And I think this one is particularly interesting because Lutron's a company we've talked a whole bunch about in terms of how they've created different products for different segments of the market. And they've done, I think, a really good job of having not only very high-end products available, but all the way down the line into those lines like Caseta and RA2 Select. And then you have Ring, another company that kind of came at it from the opposite angle, started very much as a consumer brand, and is increasingly moving into the pro channel. So I think an interesting convergence of two different companies here, and one that should be good news for users.

Apple has just announced a special event on September 15th, where it is expected to show off new Apple watches and updated iPad. You'll be able to follow the event with the news as it unfolds 10 a.m. Pacific, so 1 p.m. Eastern, Seth's true, one true time zone there on Apple's website or via a live stream on YouTube. So this will be interesting. The timing has gotten a bit funky here. Apple typically announces its iPhone. The story talks about Apple's announcement with iPhones usually comes right around September, right around this time. This year, however, Apple confirmed during the company's Q3 earnings call that the new iPhones would be available, quote, a few weeks after the usual late September launch. Of course, presumably due to COVID

concerns. So this has sparked all kinds of speculation and rumors about when that iPhone 12 will come out. According to this story, which I am reading to you from Engadget. It looks like the iPhone 12 will likely be out sometime in October. So don't hold your breath for seeing that new iPhone at this September 15th event, but mark it on your calendar. We'll definitely be keeping a close eye on that and we'll share our thoughts as soon as that news comes out. With football season right around the corner, YouTube TV is making some significant changes to its sports coverage. Beginning today, the NFL Network is available as part of the YouTube TV base membership. Football fans will be able to watch live games,

popular shows like NFL Total Access and NFL Now, as well as league events like the NFL Draft and Super Bowl coverage. So this is good news for sports fans. And I think part of interesting trend that continue to watch in streaming as these offerings evolve is sports and live events in general have been an area for all sorts of reasons that streaming has not gotten quite as much traction in, but that does appear to be continuing to change, and the trend is certainly moving in the direction in favor of sports fans who also want to cut the cord. YouTube TV is also offering new Sports Plus add-on package for an additional $10.99 a month. Looks like viewers there can get NFL Red Zone, Fox College Sports,

Goal TV, Fox Soccer Plus, MAV-TV Motorsports Network, TVG, and Stadium. So a couple I'm not as familiar with there. But the story does compare this to the NFL app where the Red Zone pass for 2020 costs $35. So the savings here alone are compelling. And again, part of that continual trend that we're seeing with streaming services offering more and more options for sports fans like myself. So good news all around. This week, Amazon unveiled its Alexa for residential program. This program will make it easy for landlords to include Amazon and Alexa powered devices in rental units across the country, including the Echo Dot and other products. whatnot will be available from day one in the rental properties. And then renters can move in. Alexa says we'll be able to help with self-guided tours by providing information about square footage, monthly rent, and more. Then renters will be able to link their Amazon account to that to take advantage of all of those features. And once that renter moves out, the property manager

can reset the speaker without removing their connections to existing smart home devices. So interesting play here from Amazon. Candidly, I don't know how useful this would be, certainly to me or anyone who's technologically inclined as a renter. The Echo devices are already so low profile, so to speak, in terms of their installation profile. There's no cutting into walls. There's no pulling of wires required. So I don't know if I was a renter, if I would presumably just prefer to buy my own. The story does talk about some of the privacy concerns with reusing smart assistants. So I don't know, that may be a concern to me, but more so I think just kind of having my own device

at that point would be a little bit more something that I would be into. But who knows, this may be appealing to a certain demographic of renters. And I think from Amazon's perspective, there's not a lot of downside here. Certainly it makes it, it gives them a bigger footprint and they, not that they need that, but getting more exposure to more and more people is obviously the play here for Amazon. And they want to remain front and center for all consumers. They're really going after that mass market, of course. So I think this move makes sense, but I will be curious to see if it actually gets traction. And finally, Blink, the smart home company acquired by Amazon in 2017, has announced a pair

of new cameras that move its business deeper into a subscription model. They can also last for a long time, up to four years of quote normal use on a single set of batteries, according to this story. The new Blink Outdoor will sell for $99 and then the Indoor will sell for $79. They include a free trial of Blink's cloud storage plan that's good through the end of the year, end of that first year. But after that, you will have to pay a $3 monthly fee to keep the cloud storage going. So $3 a month for the cloud storage. And it says they do have an unlimited camera plan. So $10 per month gets you as many cameras as you want.

And users do have the option of saving their recordings locally with the included sync module in any USB flash drive. So more development in the camera space, and that's certainly getting to be a crowded one, but that's another option there. Particularly interested by this battery life that they're touting. It says that the Blink can achieve this efficiency because of its proprietary chip technology. Out of the box, it says that it'll have, let's see here, Blink outdoor and indoor can keep going for up to two years of recording time on a single pair of AA batteries, but they're going to release a battery expansion pack that'll take that up to four batteries. And that's how they get to that four years of use. So who knows what normal use is? I'm not exactly sure how

they're defining that. And if people are actually going to get four years or two years or far less, depending on certain settings, not totally clear in this story. But I can certainly tell you from a user standpoint, that that's an attractive proposition. If you're just looking to get an inexpensive wireless camera, one that can last that long on a single set of batteries is pretty compelling. That'll do it for our headlines. All of the links and topics that we've discussed on this week's show can be found in our show notes at hometech.fm slash 318. While you're there, don't forget to sign up for our weekly newsletter. We'll send you show reminders and other occasional updates here from the world of home tech. Once again,

that link is hometech.fm slash 318. Also, we like to remind you that you can typically join us live in the chat room on Wednesdays, not this week, because Seth, who usually works all of our magic there, again, is out this week. But usually Wednesdays starting around 7, 7.30 p.m. Eastern. You can find out more at hometech.fm slash live. And if you want to follow us on Twitter at Hometech Podcast, we usually send out a quick tweet right before we're about to go live. And we usually get a handful of folks hanging out there live with us, and that's always a lot of fun. So we'd love to have you join us. Well, without any further ado, let's go ahead again and jump into our interview. We've got Nate Clark here, the CEO and founder of Connected. Hey, Nate, welcome to the show. How are you?

Thanks for having me, Jason. Yeah, excited to have you. And we're looking forward to jumping in and talking a lot about Connected. But before we do that, we always like to start our interviews with a little bit of background and history. So give our listeners a little bit of an introduction and talk about some of your background and what brought you to where you are in the smart home today. Sure. Yeah.

Well, my background is mainly in software engineering. I spent about a decade in the San Francisco Bay Area working for various different web companies and startup companies, consulting companies. I guess so. So I've experienced a lot in terms of building applications and interacting with APIs and things. But never had really worked on any hardware. So that's kind of unique that I'm now the founder of a hardware company. Absolutely. Yeah. And let's dive into that actually, because I know that that's sort of an interesting part of your journey that you've been on. And we'll start at the beginning, but before we do that, I do want to set just a little bit of context. So give us the short version,

because we're going to jump in and talk about it in a lot of detail, but give us the short version. What is Connected? Connected is basically an IoT-enabled alarm panel. There are these tens of millions of homes in North America that are pre-wired for alarm systems. A lot of people don't use those anymore because they kind of don't fit the lifestyle of today, like the app. So my idea was to create something that could bridge that old wire technology to the smart home. And that's

essentially what Connected is. It's a little IoT device that connects an alarm system or even just the raw sensors from the wired alarm system to a smart home platform. And it lets you monitor and control your home security from anywhere and avoid paying monthly fees. Got it. I love that idea. I know as a former integrator who's been out in many,

many homes installing technology that a lot of those older wired security systems are out there. And like you said, kind of collecting dust, so to speak, because they just haven't really kept up. So I love the idea of using technology to bring some of that legacy equipment up into the modern age. And let's jump into the founder story. Talk about the personal experience that led you to come up with this idea. Yeah, it was really, you know, it was really kind of one of those things that you just stumble into. And I never had the intention of starting this as a company. It was a little personal side project for me. I was living in the San Francisco Bay Area. It was around the holiday

time and there were some, you know, package thefts and actually a break-in in my neighborhood. And we were going, my family and I were going on a trip to Hawaii January of that year. And so, and also coincidentally around this time, I had just gotten a Samsung SmartThings Hub. And I was playing with it and I thought, you know, it's cool that you can turn on lights and stuff like that. But it was the SmartThings app had a built-in security system that they call Smart Home Monitor, SmartThings Home Monitor is what it's called now. And I wanted to use that so that I could monitor my home while we were in

Hawaii. And then I almost was ready to buy all the smart thing sensors. And then I was like, wait a second, my house already has sensors in all the doors and windows and a motion sensor in the living room. There's got to be a way that I can, you know, integrate those. And so I looked and there wasn't, and I was shocked. And then, you know, a little, you know, I those. And so I looked and there wasn't, and I was shocked. And then, you know, a little, you know, I'm not the kind of person who gives up easily. So a little bit of digging and I found out about these IoT modules called ESP8266 or NodeMCU. Some of you probably are familiar. It's a very widely used and fairly inexpensive Wi-Fi module that you can program. And I'm like, great, I've got programming experience.

And this makes it easy to interface hardware with the software that I already know. I kind of set out to build a little ESP8266-based bridge to bridge those wired alarm sensors in my house to smart things. And I can't remember how long it took me, a couple weeks maybe, on it in the nights and weekends. And I made it work. And it was an open-source project for me. I worked with open-source software for my whole career, you know, everything from, you know, Postgres databases to, uh, you know, programming languages

and frameworks. Um, so I thought this was my way of giving back to the open source community. So I published what, uh, at, at that point was called something different. Um, I don't even remember what I originally called it, but come later. Didn't come until later. But yeah, I published it open source and started kind of chatting about it on the SmartThings community forum, which is a big community for SmartThings users and people loved it. And I started getting a lot of feedback and asks about it. Originally I had just in the read me of the open source project linked to, you know,

the products to buy on Amazon, you know, here's like a node MCU module, he's gonna renew my setter, et cetera. And started making, you know, a little bit of cash based off of the clicks through to Amazon. Affiliate links. Yeah, affiliate links. Correct. Right. But what that gave me, maybe I was making like a couple hundred bucks a month, but it also let me see how much traffic was going through. Like, wow,

there's a lot of demand for something like this for an obscure little niche product. And, and in addition to that, the feedback that I got from SmartThings community users was fantastic. And, and a number of people reached out to me directly and said, Hey, Nate, this is great. I'd love to do this. I don't have the time, skill, where it is. Can you just build one and send it to me? And so after enough people asked me that, I kind of thought, okay, maybe there's a business idea here. And that was kind of the genesis for turning this little open source project into a company. I love it. That's a great way to do it, right? You got enough feedback to validate that idea early on and knew sort of what you were jumping into. Let's take a step back because I do

want to drill down a little bit on that early part of the journey as a software person. And now, as you're very early on and you're getting started trying to build this thing out, under the gun, no less, I'd imagine you're trying to get this done for your trip to Hawaii. I don't know if you got this done in time, but talk about some of those early experiences and how your experience with software helped getting into hardware and also some of the areas where you had to really roll up your sleeves and learn anew. Well, yeah. I mean, I certainly learned a lot about circuitry and a little bit of electrical engineering over the last couple of years as the company has grown. But yeah, early on, I guess as a software guy, it wasn't challenging for me to,

you know, have many different steps of a process to install, like this on this module, and then install this code here, and then import this from GitHub. But I quickly learned that more than step one, step two, step three is too much for most people, you know, and when you leave step-by-step instructions a little bit open-ended, that also tends to be challenging for somebody who's not technical because they're unsure or they're not confident and they want you to tell them exactly Or how do I do that? And so it quickly became clear that if this was going to turn into a product, it had to be easier. You know, it had to be a lot simpler and somewhat dummy to make it into something viable. And that's what we set out to do when, when constructing the first version of the connected alarm panel,

which I launched on Kickstarter that, that next year. Yeah. And, and take us through that, that Kickstarter journey. How, how did that go for you guys? And what were some of the lessons that you learned going through Kickstarter for early stage? Kickstarter was a, a wild experience. It was really, um, a lot of fun, a lot of anticipation, a lot of, a lot of late nights. Um, I was fortunate, you know, the,

the project had gained some traction already by the time I had decided to go on to Kickstarter. And not only that, like I had the community on SmartThings behind it. I had started selling DIY kits before going on Kickstarter also to help fund the Kickstarter because it's also not cheap to do a Kickstarter to do it the right way. So the initial product that I sold

and launched my online prior to kickstarter was i would just buy the node mcu modules and the hardware and stuff like that from china and then repackage and resell them you know i did some of like the the flashing of the modules you know you know one by one i was like flashing mods little you know path you know and sending them out to people and so so we had started amassing a group you know a following um prior to the kickstarter and that was really really helpful um to really be able to activate that uh of things and and followers and then you know you got to do a video and i had never done a video before and and so i i you know i decided if i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do it right so i did spend

some money on the video and strategy um from a group that i that i met out there in california And that went really well. And really just being transparent and open about building and why. And it helps to kind of connect with that Kickstarter back there. But also I think what helped in my situation quite a bit was that we already had working software. You could download it and play with it today. situation quite a bit was that we already had working software working, you know, work. You know, you, you could download it and play with it today and prove that it works. A lot of, a lot of Kickstarter stuff is just some kind of idea, some sort of vaporware and, and it might work one day. And so I think that helped to in, in, in potential back.

Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. And it looks like you guys did well, you $183,000, it looks like from 1700 backers. So, so successful. And, and, uh, I know this, this was a while ago, I think back in 2017 or so. So you've been. Yeah. 17, we, we set our goal to, I think I set my goal to 25,000. Oh, wow. And we hit that in two hours. Oh, wow. So that was really exhilarating.

I'm sure that was exciting. Yeah, it was good. Awesome. Well, let's fast forward a little bit and bring us up to speed today. So you had this early stage idea. You got some feedback. It went from a project to a business. We're now fast forwarded several years.

Bring us up to speed on the current state of your offering, specifically with an eye towards the hardware that you guys are currently offering. Sure. Yeah. So now three years into it, we're on our second generation of hardware. So the Kickstarter version is basically a breakout board for the NodeMCU that made the wiring installation easier. The second generation that we're now selling, still based on the ESP8266 chip, is a little bit more compact. It's better build quality. It's made here in the USA. And it has some built-in, you know,

circuit protection, lightning protection, makes it even easier and more dummy-proof to install. So that's working out really well. And then we just finally, it's been almost a year in the making, started shipping the Alarm Panel Pro, which is, again, something that came out of feedback from our customers. People love the idea of connected, but wanted Ethernet capability if possible. And with the ESP8266, we couldn't do that. So the Alarm Panel Pro is kind

of like the big brother of the Alarm Panel. It uses the ESP32, which you might be familiar with, which is another IoT chip, a little bit more powerful. But one of the main features of this board is that it has Ethernet capability and pro-rethinit, even if you want, supports 12 zones per board also. And so this lets those hardcore, you know, network enthusiasts, security enthusiasts, keep everything wired. You know, now you have your wired sensors and the device itself is hardwired with Ethernet. Right. And I'm looking at your guys web page right now walk me through zoom out a little bit for me in terms of the hardware architecture i see you've got you've got like a starter kit and you've got zone kits in in

different sizes and right talk to me if i'm somebody who's interested in this technology what are some of the things i need to think about in terms of how to purchase and architect a solution for my home? Our product works with any home that's wired with alarm system sensors. And there's really two distinct use cases to use it. One, and the most popular, is to basically completely replace them and connect the connected alarm panel board to those sensors directly. And it works with pretty much all of the sensors, you know, typical door window sensors, motion sensors, glass break sensors, many but not all smoke detectors, CO2 detectors, even like the IR beam detectors and things like that. Anything that makes a simple open-close circuit.

And these are pretty universal worldwide. Each H2O board, the six-zone Wi-Fi-only board, supports six zones or six sensors. So if you have a very large home, then you would need multiple boards. They each communicate independently. And we sell them in kits just to make it easy and to pack it with accessories like mounting accessories, power adapters, etc. We sell them in kits from six zones, 12 zones, 18 zones, and 24 zones.

But just 24, of course, you can have as many as you need. And then the Alarm Panel Pro is essentially the same concept. It just has the additional feature of ethernet capability and power over. There is a second. And this, again, this also was based on user feedback, a second kind of installation method with what we call the interface module. And this is another little piece of hardware that sits in between the

connected alarm panel board and the traditional system. So this allows you to basically make any wired alarm system smart without dismantling it and replacing it. So for those people who want to keep their existing alarm system, if you still use it and you want to keep your old keypads and keep your old monitoring service if you have one. This configuration with our interface module lets you connect those in parallel so that you can still get all the smart home capabilities each zone and then those will be integrated directly into your smart home platform and you can also get remote notifications if the alarm system is triggered or if it's armed or disarmed or even arm and disarm it remotely. Some of these fees you couldn't possibly get on an alarm system from the 1990s. Now you can retrofit it to do that.

Right. And that, I think, answered a question that I was going to ask. I know you guys are a great solution for people who want to self-monitor and avoid the monthly monitoring fees. And that's certainly a growing segment. What about those who do want professional monitoring? It sounds like that second option that you laid out would allow you to do it in parallel. So you're kind of getting the best of both worlds if you're somebody who wants that professional monitoring as well. Yes. that's if you if you have a good deal with your current monitoring company and you want to keep it and you want to keep that traditional alarm panel, you can use our interface module. It's essentially transparent to the existing system. It doesn't even know that it's there.

It just you tap into those zones and be able to monitor it. But, but what I'm more excited about is our partnership with Noonlight. Noonlight is a, is a company that they basically have built an, an API. And, and so we've built an inner, we've helped them build an integration for smart things and for Home Assistant and for Hubitat, the platforms that Connected integrates with, so that you can create automations or triggers if your alarm goes off. And then they will act as the monitoring service and then call the authorities for you. Oh, really cool. That's interesting. And that's only $10 a month. Got it. Talk to me a little bit about the installation obviously you guys started as a diy company and that's still

presumably your your primary market but i do see on your website find an installer or dealer so for those of we we have a lot of professionals in the audience so talk about how that works in terms of professional installation yes uh we we still are primarily selling to the DIY market, but I recognize that, you know, in order to, you know, this product replaces a wired alarm system. So there's no way to get around wires, right? You have to actually plug stuff in. It's no more complicated than say, like installing a Nest thermostat or something like that. You know, we have YouTube videos and installation guides that make it pretty straightforward. It is intimidating for some people, you know, when there's a big chunk of wires coming out of the wall and they're not

savvy about electronics, that is intimidating. So we have been working on building a dealer network around the country with some success, limited success in certain places. And I do have a dealer program. So if there are any commercial installers or smart home enthusiasts who is interested in connected for their home and they don't want to install it themselves, you're right, there's a find a dealer map on our website. And so we can kind of send business to those dealers that way. Got it. Talk to me a little bit about integrations. You've alluded to some names a couple of times,

SmartThings, Hubitat, et cetera. But let's zoom in on that for just a second and talk about how you guys approach that and what are really the core big systems out there that you integrate with? Yeah. So my philosophy from the get-go was to build something that works with everything else. We're not trying to, in contrast to many home security system companies, I won't name names yet, but maybe I will later. But in contrast, they're trying to build their own whole ecosystem. So you buy everything with that brand. That's not my approach. I think these general purpose home automation platforms, particularly SmartThings,

Home Assistant, Hubitat, each of them have their own built-in security system like software. And so my philosophy was to integrate those devices at the most granular native level, right? So when you connect a door sensor to connected, it shows up as a door in SmartThings or in Home Assistant or in Home Assistant. And similarly with a motion sensor and the siren, et cetera. And so those individual entities show up in the Smart Home platform as individual entities.

And the smart home platform becomes the brains of the alarm system. So you're telling smart things to arm your alarm. The connected panel is really just relaying the message. Is the door open? Is the door closed? It's smart things that's acting on logic and deciding if it's an intrusion or if I should turn on the porch light or whatever, you know, whatever automations that you choose. And so that philosophy is,

you know, none of the other home security. And so I think that resonates really well because then that lets you do so many other things with your security platform than a traditional security system. A traditional security system is going to alarm pretty much too late, right? Like somebody has already broken into your house and that's when your alarm system alarms. But with something like connected,

you could, for example, put a motion sensor outside your front door to turn on the lights, you know, to prevent an intrusion, for example, or a driveway beam sensor or something like that to, you know, turn on lights or do some kind of visual warning if your home. So there's a lot of power there. And yeah, I keep mentioning SmartThings, Home Assistant, and HubAttack because those are our three core home automation platform integrations. We also have a community built integration

OpenHAB, which is less popular here in the United States, but it is fairly popular in Europe. It's another open source home automation platform that you can run on like a Raspberry Pi. It's been around for a little bit longer. And we are currently working with a team to help us build an integration for HomeBridge, which is another open source platform that exposes entities to Apple's HomeKit. We're not tackling direct HomeKit integration yet, but HomeBridge is a really, really great solution to get the product into HomeKit. And then earlier this year, I launched a cloud platform, which is now the basis of our SmartThings integration.

But there's a lot more that I wanna do there, integrating with other cloud automation platforms so that you don't need the hub anymore or the thing in your home. So by cloud platforms, I'm talking about Alexa, Google Assistant, IFTTT. Those are kind of on our near-term radar. Trying to, you know, expand and grow our market and grow the capabilities of the product with software by integrating with as many platforms as feasible. Yeah, that makes sense. You mentioned SmartThings several times

and I'd love to talk about them for just a second. I think you have a unique, probably a unique perspective on some of the changes that they've made recently with regards to integrations. And I know this has caused a bit of a stir in the community. Share your perspectives on the changes that SmartThings has been making recently. Yeah, I know there are a lot of people who are upset with smart things. And, you know, it's not, they're not wrong. You know, the smart things are making lots of changes. What has transpired is, you know, smart things started as a startup. It got bought by Samsung. And then Samsung's a giant company, and they're trying to integrate all of their

smart home technologies divisions on brand. And so the original, I guess, flavor or essence of smart things has kind of been absorbed by monolith. So I can see how that frustrates people, especially those who are smart things users early on. From a technology perspective, I really like where they're going though. You know, the original smart has like a groovy IDE where you could write custom code for yourself only and then just upload it to their platform.

And yes, that was really cool and powerful, and it made it very easy for just anybody to do that. So I understand how people are frustrated because that is kind of getting phased out. But for device makers like Connected and for people who have, you know, made it to integrate with this global platform, the technology that they're building on top of AWS Lambda and their API and expanding to so many different devices and other parts of ways to interact with SmartThings is actually pretty neat. And so I think it's one of those things where change is hard

and yeah, you're gonna lose some people in the transition and it's unfortunate. And, you know, SmartThings is going for the mass market consumer crowd. And if you're the hardcore home automation enthusiast, maybe you're not the mass market consumer. For those people, you know, I would really look towards Home Assistant or Hubitat, you know, and that's, I think, one of the advantages that we've had is that I embraced early on, like, we're not going to put all of our eggs in one basket, but at the same time, you know, it's always been a cloud-based platform. Home Assistant is, and Hubitat are local and more security focused

and you run it yourself on your land. So it's not my place to tell you which is better or worse, right? A cloud platform certainly convenient and easy and SmartThings doesn't charge a monthly fee for it. And so if what you want is convenient and easy, then go with that. If what you want is something

easily customizable, go with something open source, like Home Assistant. Yeah, we've had several people reach out through our contact forms and emails inquiring about, as a result of the changes from SmartThings, sort of inquiring about the best

path forward, in our opinion. And I've been quick to recommend more of an open source approach for those more hardcore users that really want to roll up their sleeves and tweak things. I think open source is really attractive. And you're open source still, by and large, everything you're doing, for the most part, is open source. and talk about some of the pros and cons of that from not, not from the consumer perspective, but from your perspective as a manufacturer and how you've embraced open source and, and your user community as well. Yeah. I mean, like I said in the beginning, like I love open source.

I've, I built my whole career working with open source technology even prior to connected. You know, basically every website that you go is powered by some open source code, if not all, you know, so, so to me, it was part of giving back, but all, but also it, it, it helps to create confidence and helps to kind of create this community feeling. Anybody can look at the code and understand how our embedded application works.

And our Home Assistant, our Hubitat integrations are both open source. I am a fan of Home Assistant as an open source platform. There are some very, very brilliant developers working on that platform. And it has evolved massively fast over the past year since I started working with it. So in some cases, open source really helps to move the evolution of a product very, very quickly. That hasn't necessarily been true for Connected. Product is open source, and I do get pull requests here and there infrequently.

We're still pretty much the only ones developing on it, you know? I'm not really, I don't really have a, an open source contributor community, but, but it, it certainly, you know, it, it, it helps and I've seen this anecdotally in a couple of customers, you know, we have one really tech techie, you know, customer who, you know, they can buy a NodeMC module off of eBay or Amazon or whatever and load connected firmware on it and basically build their own. And then realize how great it is and then go and then, you know, their, their parents or their brother or sister or whatever, buy this product because it works awesome. And then, you know, we, we still, you know,

we still get, we still get to close the sale. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I don't, I don't mind, I don't mind giving up a little bit of, uh, you know, our free technology, um, for that reason. Right. You, and you mentioned home assistant. We had a Paulus on the show, uh, back episode 302. So if anyone is listening and is interested, uh, that was a great interview. So hometech.fm slash 302. And I think a really good look at, at open source as a broader platform, right? Home assistant is a great place to look. So I agree with that recommendation and that that's where I've been sending a lot of people to go, go check it out.

Yeah. Paul has done a great job. Um, I was, I was fortunate to be able to meet Paul and have a few beers with him last year, Oh, those were the days when we could travel, right? You know, last year at Oh, those were the days when we could travel, right? You know, last year at Cedia, um, right next to each other. Uh, so that was, that was a good time and he is a brilliant guy. So, uh, you know, I'm glad that you guys recognize the, uh, the power of the open source home automation. Yeah. I think it's a great option for the right, for the right person. And, and we cover a lot of different aspects of the home technology industry I think it's a great option for the right person. And we cover a lot

of different aspects of the home technology industry. And it's a truism to say it, but I'll say it anyways, there is no silver bullet here. And the right solution really depends on what you're looking at in terms of your specific use case and your proclivity to jump in and roll up your sleeves and get under the hood. So I've really enjoyed learning a little bit more about connected and what you guys are up to for anybody who is listening to the show and wanted, wants to maybe learn more or connect with you. What would be the best way for them to do that? Well, first, you know, visit our website. It's connected.io that's connected spelled with a K. Um um and then we have a very popular very active facebook group um it's facebook.com and there's a we have a users group there

i'm also pretty active on the smart things forum the home assistant for them sometimes. And you can always email us, help at connected.io and we'll get back to you. Awesome. Well, Nate, really appreciate you coming on the show. Thanks for joining us. Sure. Yeah, it's been fun. All right. Well, that'll do it for our interview with Nate. As always, I enjoyed the conversation and learned a lot about not only the product, but also enjoyed kind of hearing Nate's perspective on taking this from being sort of a hobby or a little project that he figured out and scaling it up into a business and deciding to kind of stay true to his roots as open source. I continue to believe, as I mentioned in that interview, that open source is an attractive option for those of you out there who are really into tinkering and you want

to make sure that you're kind of hedging your bets. And we talked about the smart things changes and how that's really affected some of the more users, especially those that are really like the more hardcore users. And I think open source is a great way to hedge your bets. So looking at platforms like Home Assistant, for example, as an option to kind of protect you from the whims of these large companies and who knows what any of them are going to choose to do on any day. So I also enjoyed that aspect of the conversation. Hey, everybody. Seth jumping in for the pick of the week this week. Of course, this pick of the week is Jason, right?

Because he held down the fort the entire time I was gone.. Of course, this pick of the week is Jason, right? Because he held down the fort the entire time I was gone. Thanks very much, Jason. Definitely appreciate it. But wait, there's more. I do want to plug our Home Tech Happy Hour one more time before we have it next week. Next week, oh my gosh, it's Cedia already. So if you haven't registered already, head on over to hometech.fm slash happy hour. Let us know that you want to drop by and say hi. Fill out the little online form there and let us know on there what you're looking for out of Cedia this year. We're going to kind of like compile all those together and find some funny ones or interesting ones and read them out on the air and then stop on by. Next Wednesday at 7 p.m., we're going to try and do a live stream

of the Home Tech Happy Hour so everybody can kind of join in and have one big party, I guess, because we're not going to have a party in Denver or wherever CDA was supposed to be this year. I guess it was Denver. Yeah. So we're not going to have the big party this year, unfortunately, but we're still going to get together online and talk about what we saw on the Cedia webpage, I guess. That's what we're going to do. So anyway, hometech.fm slash happy hour. Back to you, Jason. If you have any feedback, questions, comments, picks of the week, ideas for a show topic or guest, please do give us a shout.

We would absolutely love to hear from you. Email address is feedback at hometech.fm. Again, that's feedback at hometech.fm. And shoot us a note if you have any feedback at all. As always, we want to give a big thank you to everyone who supports the show, but especially those of you who contribute to our Patreon page. If you want to learn more about how you can support our efforts, head on over to hometech.fm slash support, where you can support the show for as little as $1 a month. We'll give you a shout out on air at the $5 level and all of our patrons get an invite to our private Slack chat, the hub, where we have a lot of fun with listeners every week talking about all different kinds of topics, usually around home technology, but sometimes some other fun and shenanigans will

sneak in there as well. So be sure to check that out again at hometech.fm slash support. And if you're looking for other ways to support the show, we would really appreciate a positive review on iTunes or in your podcast app of choice. Those reviews definitely help more people find the show. So if you could take a few minutes to do that, we would really appreciate it. That'll do it for our show this week. We'll be back in action next week with Seth. So you'll have a full roster next week. Again, thanks for listening and we hope you have a great weekend.