HomeTech.fm - Episode 332 - Holiday Fireside Special

Episode Date: December 18, 2020

The Home Tech Podcast is supported by you. To find out more, go to hometech.fm support. Welcome, everybody, to the sixth annual Technology.fm Fireside Chat. I'd like to welcome my co-host on the Smart Home Show, Richard Gunther. How you doing? And joining us from the Home Tech Podcast, we have Seth and Jason. How you guys doing? Hey, guys. Welcome, guys. Good to see you again.

You as well. Throw another log on the fire. In the dumpster fire. Yeah, there you go. Ah, yes. Throw another flaming trash bag into the dumpster fire of 2020. Absolutely. Indeed.

Indeed. It's been crazy. It's been a wild year. I remember we started this off pretty optimistic. I was listening back to our thing last year, right? Today. Just to kind of get a feel for where we were in our heads. And Richard, you were like talking about being at CES,

like doing your podcast from the floor of CES. And like, I'm just driving down the road going, oh my God, did he? I mean, like we didn't even know what was going on back then. Right. And you were there though. Like you went to CES. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I you were there, though, like you went to CES. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I was absolutely

there. In fact, Adam and I got to record live on the floor one day as well. So the only time we've ever recorded a show live together. True. Seems like a seems like a lifetime ago. Yeah, I had similar experiences. I was kind of thumbing through our episodes for the year and just remembering kind of going back. And it's it's been quite the journey, for sure. It's definitely hard to believe that it's been a full year and that you guys were at CES at the time, so normal, but now it just seems crazy. Yes. So I know we're going to post this show on all of our feeds. So if anybody's new to any of us, why don't we go around quickly and just introduce yourself and your show. We'll start with Jason. Yeah, happy to do that. So Jason Griffin, as you alluded to, Seth and I are co-hosts of the

Home Tech podcast, which can be found at hometech.fm and on all major podcast directories. I won't speak too much for Seth. I'll let him introduce himself. I come from a professional home technology background. So a lot of the angles that I tend to look at the smart home through tend to come more from that business perspective of working in the industry for about 15 years. So we really enjoy doing the show and we're excited to be here for this special.

Yep. I'll echo what Jason says about being excited to be here. And my name is Seth Johnson, the other half of the Home Tech podcast. And I kind of have a similar background to Jason, pretty similar background to Jason. We've been in the industry just about the same length of time, although I think we had different journeys through the whole process. And we've both moved on kind of not really like outside of the industry but more into like the vendor side of the industry and i i do programming stuff most of the time most of the day most of the day yeah programming stuff for

uh home automation gear and websites yay i can i can vouch for that because Seth and I have actually done some work together this year. Yeah, we did. Yeah. Good stuff. I'm Adam Justice. I am half of the Smart Home Show, which I host with Richard. And I run a smart home company. The brand is ConnectSense.

And we have kind of both consumer and now some pro-level products as well. And I can vouch for those pro-level products. They are awesome. Especially their drivers. Yes. Well, I mean, they're good without the drivers, but they're awesome. Richard? All right.

Yeah, and I am Richard Gunther. I am Adam's co-host on the Smart Home Show, the show that we took over from our friend Michael Wolff, the creator of technology.fm and the creator of the Smart Home Show. Unfortunately, he can't join us right now because he's at another virtual event at the moment. But I also co-host, sorry, I also host Home On, which is a show about smart home products for the DIY space specifically. And my background is in the product management and project management side of things, looking at products from a consumer perspective and bringing a user experience background to that. Awesome. So we have a couple different categories we're going to talk about here, and we're going to try to not be too long-winded in each of these, but we'll do our best.

So the first one we're going to talk about is really what each of us felt was the biggest smart home story of the year. So Seth, you want to kick us off? Well, I mean, ignoring the entire global pandemic and how it screwed up supply chains and everything, uh, the biggest smart home story of the year. I don't know. I I'm going to have to go with maybe the HomePod, right? So like the HomePod, we thought it was dead. It turns out it's alive. It got a firmware update and it got a new look like there's a HomePod mini. So that was that was really cool. I mean, not the biggest of the year, but it's like one of the things that happened that was kind of unexpected. Like physically not the biggest. Physically, yeah. Physically, it's the minis. It's really, really tiny.

Well, it was certainly big on our show because Seth predicted it and I didn't. And so Seth finally won a bet with me. That's right. That doesn't normally happen. The check's in the mail, Jason. Yeah, it was interesting to see that. But Seth, I know you didn't have great reviews on it,

but still you think it's one of the bigger stories just in the overall, I guess, story arc of Apple and their investment and interest in the space? Yeah. I mean, I've started to use it more of where it is intended. Like the big home pods are out here in the garage with me all day. I've got them, you know, they can play music in the garage. And when, and, and when I'm working, I can hook up, I have them hooked up to the little TV, big TV behind me. Um, and then, uh, I've got the little one, I kind of stuck on a nightstand and, uh, you know, I can say, you know, turn on the light, turn off the light, you know, kind of use it for those limited capabilities, set an alarm works fine for that. Um, but the big ones, I still enjoy using the big ones more than the little one. And I, I, the little one sounds awful. So yeah, that's.

Yeah. We, we, we talked about this product also. We won't get into it too much, but I still feel like there's a lot of, uh, untapped promise to this and, uh, a lot of things that could still come from, uh, especially that ultra wide band radio. But it had a interesting feature also, which I think transitions nicely into Richard's next thing. What was your biggest thing for the year?

Yeah, my biggest story of the year is that we're seeing more and more products, particularly at the end of this year, starting to release with Thread on board. And this is important because we know that Thread is a key component of CHIP, the Connected Home over IP project. Now, we don't necessarily know

that every one of these products with Thread on board will in some way be chip compatible or chip certified. But it's an interesting coincidence when seemingly nothing had been happening with Thread outside of Google. So I'm excited by this. I think this has a lot of potential for the industry as we see some movements toward standardizing across what have historically been incompatible ecosystems. Yeah, I still have some Nanoleaf thread stuff here to play around, but maybe that'll be an over-the-holidays project for me. And to tie in there, of course, is that the HomePod Mini is one of the devices that has a Thread radio in it. And we still don't know why, but it's cool that it does just because. Well, it's functioning. You can use it with Thread products as a border router, I believe it functions as. So you can go HomePod Mini to those Nanoleafs and get that done.

Yeah, that was one of the features that wasn't even announced on stage, anything like that. It was a footnote that somebody found, literally a footnote in the specs that somebody found later on, which was cool. It's nice to have something thrown in there that no one really knew about. But yeah, I'm playing the wait and see game on thread slash chip, as I did last year. I'm going to hold off judgment until we actually see this stuff shipping. Hmm. That's interesting. You'll hold out hope for Siri in a can generation after generation,

year after year, and then pan it when it does come out. But you're trepidatious about Thread. Richard, I'm invested now. It's sunk off policy here. That's right. All right. Jason, what was your biggest smart home story of the year? home technology, in my opinion, over the last several years. And I think with COVID this year, it really accelerated that, specifically around the release strategy of big studios. So we're seeing more and more studios now go to kind of the day and date release strategy, you know, having what would have been shows or movies that would have come out in the theater exclusively for a period of time are now coming faster and even in some cases instantly to TV. So NBCUniversal, Universal, Warner Brothers,

both of them had big stories around that this year. One of the other interesting trends that I saw in streaming this year was price hikes. So it looks like a lot of the companies that were starting out with the really low prices to maybe get people into the door are now having to correct and get prices to a more sustainable level. So YouTube, Netflix, Hulu all had price increases this year. And then finally, I think just seeing HBO Max finally get out there. You have NBC's Peacock. Disney Plus is only barely a year old now. They came out in November of last year. So really just an incredibly dynamic space that continues to fascinate me personally in the home. Yeah. One thing that I've noticed, well,

a couple of words, the one word that you really said over a few times was trends. And I didn't coin this term. I heard it. I have the gift of remembering things that I heard, but not remembering who said it because I can't remember names at all. But one thing I've heard was that COVID accelerated trends that were already happening. So if you think of COVID in that the the and look at streaming streaming was already happening it was already going on it was it was it was a getting to be a pretty mature industry i think and along comes covid everybody's home and it's all of a sudden like the pedal gets slammed down to the floor and literally less than a month after you know we all went on lockdown nbc universal is announcing you know same that that

that their big movies were going to go direct to streaming and they weren't even going to bother with theaters anymore so like these trends were already happening now just think of a covet as they accelerated all these trends that were already after and we'll probably get into more of those trends later in our conversations here guys Guys, remember when being a cord cutter was going to save you money? It's really funny. $65 for what, Google TV or YouTube TV now? Oh yeah. The paying for basically cable TV while streaming is a joke now. that's the one that you know really gets you know is way through the roof but even just paying for all these individual services i mean we have almost all of them and i'm sure if i added it up it it equals what my cable bill used to be or or more but it's also like the best time

to be a premium tv watcher like Like we have so much good content. And unfortunately, I think there's probably going to be a little blip in that. Most stuff is back in production now, but we're probably going to have some chunk of 2021 that will be without certain things. But, you know, for the most part, we're living in a renaissance era of just great content so absolutely i'm happy yeah i can't complain i've i've loved the the the the quantity the quality not so much the quantity like there's more than i can watch but the quality of tv shows has been just absolutely stunning and amazing and i i think last time we spoke we i hadn't watched

mandalorian like i was i was probably a holdout on it and we finally fired that thing up and holy cow that thing is amazing like it's so good it's not only like a good western like it's a western to me um but some of the shots in there uh there was one on the other night that i was when i was watching it and there's a like a fight scene where they're lining up and i i just i almost threw my remote across the room like the the imagery is stunning i mean it is better quality than what you're going to see in most movies and i'm just blown away by just like the what they're doing with tv shows these days and disney of course, is doubling, tripling, quadrupling down on this now. So it's going to be fun. It's going to be fun.

Yep, absolutely. How about you, Adam? Yeah. What was your biggest story? I would say kind of going into this, but my biggest story was, you know, with everything going on with the pandemic and this, you know, really resonated for me in terms of what we did as a family, like having a year where we're mostly hanging out at home. I think kind of realize the investment or like the value in investing and improving your home. So, you know, a non smart home example is like we bought new couches, like we were going to wait or whatever. It was like this, you know, wait till the kids are old enough that they won't destroy couches. And it was like, no, we're not going to wait anymore. Like we're going to get new couches. But the other thing we've seen, a colleague of mine and I recently went through and

interviewed a ton of our in-wall outlet customers. And what we actually found was a bunch of people, our in-wall outlet sales started kind of ramping up in April. And so, you know, as more people were home, more people had time to take on home improvement projects, do things they wouldn't normally be doing. And I think also kind of the same thing, they saw the value in spending more time at home. And so they wanted to improve their home and add to it.

So I think home automation is a piece of that. And certainly I've done it. And I've done probably more than I would have done in a normal year because we're here, because I had the time. And because we're always here, I also wanted it to be the best experience possible. Yeah. So Adam, I think you've motivated me to pull the trigger on a new couch. We've been waiting for a long time, and I hear you. So just throw caution to the wind there, and if the kids destroy it, so be it. But on a more serious note, I know at One Vision, when this first thing hit, like everyone,

really, we were scrambling to try to figure out what it all meant. And we were kind of bracing for the worst from a business perspective. And generally, this has been a great year for us. And it goes without saying, but I'll say it anyways, like, of course, we would never wish for this sort of thing to happen, but feel very grateful to be in the smart home industry because, by and large, it is an industry that's weathered this storm really well. And I don't have any hard data on this, but anecdotally for us, if anything for us and our partner network, it's been a busier year than ever. So, you know, we do have that to be thankful for. Similar experience to what you're seeing, I think. Well, and know, we do have that to be thankful for. Similar experience to what you're seeing, I think. Well, and you talk about home improvement. I mean, I want to rebuild our shower

in our en suite and good luck finding a contractor. I mean, they're just, they're swamped right now. Yep. Yep. On, uh, to touch on jason's for a minute all these day and date uh releases for streaming services make me want to finally i have a long-term goal to build a kick ass home theater in my basement nice and uh this these day and date releases make me want to do that sooner but i want to wait until I can do it really, really good. And definitely all you guys are going to, we could probably start a podcast or a YouTube show just focused on helping Adam pick all his gear. Adam Seder. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. I like it. That's a good idea. All right, let's do it. Yeah. Don't do what I did with home improvement and

decide to go outside and work in the yard, moving rocks and working on sprinkler systems. Just hire somebody for that. I mean, Richard, just if you're waiting on the contractor, just let them just wait. Uh, because, uh, I started in March digging up things in my yard and I'm still not, I know what I'm not capable of. I'm not happening. I am waiting. Shovels. All right. So let's move on to our next category here. So our next category is our favorite one product or service of the year. I'll take this one uh, try to be brief. And the one thing I will say is, uh,

having Richard as a co-host is very expensive and as a friend, uh, because Richard is really good at recommending products to me. And this was one that I actually like raised a question to him on the show. Um, we have an office that my wife works out of, her home office, and I have BR-30 floods that are hue in there. And so I wanted a light switch, particularly that would not control the power, but would still control the hue lights. And Richard had recommended the Oro switch to me. And I will say this product is not yet where I would like it to be. It has a lot of promise, but this is the light switch slash wall controller that I would build if I were building this product. I think it realizes

a lot of what I would want or I would design if I had gone into that light switch space. It's basically a touch screen in your wall and you can do different things with it, one of which is not control the load. So when I set it up, I said, you know, these are, you know, hue bulbs. Don't leave them always powered on, and this is how I want you to control them. I want to do some other things with this. Like I want to be able to set presets that include color and color temperature and things and you can't quite do that yet there's probably some ways to do it they've released some features but overall i think it's a really cool product and when it so it's kind of

in the experimental phase in the office and when they add some more of the features and things they've promised including home kit they say it's coming i'm not really sure how that's going to be possible given their feature set but they say it's coming then i will go wider with this product elsewhere in the house yeah this is a product that i i love i refer to this as noon or brilliant done right. They didn't try to reinvent the form factor of a switch. In fact, it's a rocker. It's a screen on a rocker. Oh, wow. So it still behaves like a normal dimmer switch. It just also has all of these sensors built into it and the ability to control smart bulbs or standard bulbs. It can be in a three-way circuit.

They really thought through this. You can also have scenes on it. You can have it be a scene controller. It can be an intercom. It can show you who's at the door if you have certain doorbells. It's a really slick system. Adam, I'm going to have to agree with you. Richard is a very expensive friend.

This is ridiculous. I apologize for the impact to your wallet. Well, it beats hooking the Hue up to like, you know, a light and then putting like the duct tape over the light switch so no one ever turns it off, right? That's the proverbial thing you see. So, yeah, I love the proverbial thing you see. So yeah, I love the form factor there and the idea of merging those two, like an in-wall smart switch that is smart enough to communicate with the device and not kill power. All right, Jason, how about you? What's your favorite product of the year? Yeah, so I have to admit, I read this question a little bit differently, so I didn't necessarily pick like my personal favorite product, but I did pick my personal favorite story of the year.

And without question, my favorite story of the year, just because it was so like, it just had my head spinning, like week after week was wise. And they like just the strategy of that, like I just can't wrap my head around the pace at which they are putting out products and the price at which they're doing it. They've got now, you know, of course, they had their cameras that they started with. They've got a video doorbell that I think was like, what was

that, $20 or something? I mean, just insanely cheap, $50. They've got the robot vacuum, a security system that they're like literally giving away if you pay them like $5 a month. They've got the robot vacuum, a security system that they're literally giving away if you pay them $5 a month. They've got a sprinkler controller, a smartwatch. So there's product after product. And I got to tell you, I would not want to be competing in any category that Wise entered. I have my doubts and my questions about the long-term viability of this strategy. I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out what it is that they're up to there. The whole thing feels really weird to me, but it's been an entertaining story. And so that was the one that I picked.

Richard, do you have some thoughts here? Yeah. I mean, this is one where I worry about the damage that they can do to the industry. Right now, their products aren't particularly compatible with other products in the market or even other ecosystems. And so they look like the best known brand out there. But I'm and now everybody's trying to figure out how do you compete with that? Do we try to compete with it? Should, you know, do we need to offer another line of products that can compete with it? I don't know. I don't know. Their products seem solid. They don't

feel cheap. They seem reliable. I've only dabbled with these a little bit I don't use them in my home so I don't know it it is interesting it's absolutely very interesting I have thoughts but I'm going to save it for a later section okay so more little preview of coming attractions there yeah it's it's definitely been entertaining to watch that, especially like the last couple of weeks. I mean, I think we've had a wise story on every single week talking about what they've been up to. Yeah, I don't know.

It's something to keep in mind. They did a survey this year, and only like 65% of U.S. homes do not have any type of smart home device. So we're kind of in a little bubble, living here and talking about home technology. Everybody's got an Alexa in their house. Everybody's got a smart thermostat. No, we're still running up that curve before we get into like mainstream adoption. So product like this is bound to come out.

And I think like the silver lining of this is that if and when it does break, you're not out $300 to $500 on something. You can just, you know, cut your losses pretty quickly. Unlike someone, yeah, someone who has way too many HomePods in his house right now that can't cut their losses and gets made fun of every year. All right, we're going to move on. So Richard, what was your favorite product or service of the year? Yeah, my favorite product of the year, and I took this very literally. I decided on to select something that was new this year and that was also new to me personally. Like I have it. I'm using it.

And in that category is the You by Moen smart kitchen faucet. I saw this at CES. They delivered on time. They delivered in a variety of different finishes and styles, which kind of blew the competition away right out of the gate. They had capabilities that others didn't, like the ability to intelligently control temperature. And the thing that did it for me, like, okay, it's a smart faucet, you can have it pour specific amounts of water, or you can have it fill containers, or you can turn it on or whatever. But the thing that really did it for me was that the installation process was dead simple. I assumed I was going to

have to bring a plumber in and this didn't arrive until we were locked down. And I just figured, okay, I'm going to have to set it aside. And I did, I looked on their website and they had some videos that seemed deceptively simple. And I decided, you know what, I'll try it. So I did. And it was an afternoon's worth of work. It was harder to get the old faucet out than to install this faucet. So I'm very happy with it. My partner, Edward, has slightly different feelings about it. Largely, largely that's because I've set it the way that I want it, which is different than the way that a faucet would normally work. I've set it so that when you wave your hand over it, it always gives you lukewarm water, regardless of what the handle

position is in. I've set it to timeout after a minute so that we don't accidentally keep the water running forever. So there are some things that you can do with this product that make it, I think, a really good product and water-saving device that may not be preferred by everybody in your household. Yeah. It's like the reinvented light switch here all over again. The light switch doesn't turn off the lights. You can't use the light switch to turn off the lights, but this actually seems like a cool product. I heard your interview on your show, uh, that you did and, uh, thought over my head and, um, yeah, this, this is going to be one of those things also that Richard cost me money on,

uh, eventually just hear the tab running here. I have, I have one of these as well. I'll, uh, I'll second Richard's comments about easy to install. I am not super handy. I definitely have my limits and normally kitchen plumbing would not be one of them, but, uh, I was able to get it done, especially with the confidence of Richard telling me you can do this. Um, I'm not super sold on the smart features of this yet. And I actually texted Richard when I saw this in our notes, like, you're going to have to help me love this because I'm not there yet. But I will say I agree with some of the stuff like the automatic, you know, what you set the temperature to and things like that. I've always said, you know, a great smart product

has to be a great product when you're not using the smart features. And I think this one checks the box for that. I'm not sold on the, you know, asking the lady in the can for a quarter cup of water or any of that kind of stuff. Absolutely, no. And that's fluff at this point, right?

And that's only as good as your assistant is at recognizing what you're saying. And mine, frankly, is terrible at that. So I don't use that as much. I could see that one being kind of useful for me. Like I, we have a French press and I drink tea. And so I'm always like filling up the teapot and I'm kind of doing the one, 1,000 to 1,000. Like I know roughly, you know, how long to count, but I'm always, you know, overshooting and putting too much water in there. Cause I don't want to do too little anyways, not a big thing, but could probably save some water. And I like the sound of, of being able to control the temperature. So this sounds like a neat product.

I'll have to, I'll have to check that one out. Yeah. You can have a preset for your teapot, for example, and train it exactly what needs to go in there. Yeah, that seems like that one would be useful for me. I like that. Richard costing everybody money. Yep.

And, man, Lord help our listeners. Get your wallets out. Yeah, no kidding. I hope you get lots of gift cards for the holidays. That's right. Tis the season. Seth, how about you? What was your favorite product or service of the year?

I can't believe no one picked Staples Connect. Why didn't... Come on. Come on. It's back, baby. All right. No. Talk about terrible branding.

I cannot believe that they did that let's overload this brand yep yep yep uh you know i wrote down here quibi as a joke because quibi was like a moonshot that came and went literally within the year but uh i'm just gonna like broadly paint this you know my favorite new product or service is broadly like streaming services. I think we've hit on this a couple of times. It's like, it's been a godsend to have great content delivered anytime on demand when I needed to in this age where like my schedule has been, I haven't had a schedule. I just, I live each day as it comes to me. And, uh, you know, if my daughter's sick, I'm staying, you know, she's staying home

and I get to stay home and play dad. And, you know, it's the first couple of months of quarantine were absolutely insane. And that's when I was outside just digging random holes in my yard. But, you know, streaming services were there and they had great content on them. So I'm really happy with like all the great shows

that have come on streaming services. Quibi didn't have anything that I was interested in. But Apple TV, everything else, Amazon, Netflix, all the great stuff. It really is. And Adam alluded to this before. The price thing, it can easily get as expensive or more expensive than it used to be, you know, before you cut the cord, if you go that route. But I will say that the amount of choice that you have now, and you also hear, you know, sometimes people grumbling about, oh, well, there's so many different apps and,

you know, the content is all over the place and I have to figure out how to navigate it and which ones I want. And I get that. It's kind of the paradox of choice thing. Like it can be a little bit of a headache, but just the amount of choice that we have now, it's a golden age for really, really good TV. And when the hardest thing is picking a great show to watch out of, you know, dozens or hundreds of options, it's hard to complain about that. So it's a first world problems, right? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And Seth, you know, I know this is your pick. I swear. Ted Lasso, I've watched through it twice. Yeah. And I feel like it helped me get through some of the worst parts of this year. Yep. Because it just makes you feel so good. It was I've said this to a couple people it's like the antidote for 2020

like yeah if 2020 is a sickness take some ted lasso and call me in the morning i've heard a lot of really good things and i haven't watched it so you guys might have just talked me into it it's your it's your holiday uh homework there you go yeah it's well well worth it uh don't watch it in front of the kids even though it's on the uh the network that was supposedly supposed to be uh or apple tv which is supposed to be like edited and family friendly kind of there's there's definitely words words in there and things so oh yeah noted i've sold a few apple tv subscriptions after that show came out yeah all right well i think we're going to quickly go through our predictions for last year.

So every year we do we do some predictions. But let's touch on quickly how we did last year and what our predictions were. So, Jason, you want to kick us off there? Yeah. Let me jump into this one. Let's see. So, you know, last year, my predictions were kind of how I guess we sort of phrased this a little bit differently last year. It was like, what are the things that we're really looking forward to? What are some of the biggest trends that we think are going to be the most important? For me, it was how will companies sort of improve the user experience, privacy, interoperability, service and support were three of the big things that I had on there. You know, I think privacy, like most things, is an incremental deal. And we have seen some movement in the right direction, a lot more awareness, certainly a lot more stories about privacy over the last couple of years than

we saw before. Ring and Nest both made some improvements in that regard. So I think things are definitely moving in the right direction. But I also think, you know, privacy is just going to be an ongoing concern forever and always in the smart home. And it'll be kind of one of those cat and mouse games, I think, sort of ebbs and flows. On the interoperability side, I don't feel like we saw a lot of progress. I was looking forward to seeing what Chip, the Connected Home over IP initiative might do. We haven't heard a lot from them, but we have seen some companies playing nice. I think just a couple of weeks ago, SmartThings and Google Nest integration was announced.

So there's been some progress there. And then on the service and support side, I think that I go to the professional side on this one first and foremost in my head, and SnapAV's continued investment in their oversee platform and remote monitoring and management in the professional space continues to be a really exciting trend. Again, slow and steady. We didn't see anything remarkable there, but we're seeing big companies continue to invest. And I think integrators, by and large, certainly the ones that we work with, continue to believe that that service and support strategy is a pillar of any successful company in the smart home, especially as the space continues to get more and more crowded. So, you know, I think overall, those trends were fairly on point. COVID, of course, kind of threw

shade over everything and became the dominant trend of really dictating all of that. But, yeah, that's kind of my assessment of my predictions, as it were. Seth, how about you? What was your prediction last year and did it come true? My prediction was, again, about streaming services. I kind of stole from Jason last year that streaming services would kind of mature and come to market and that we'd see nice user experiences and UIs and that hasn't happened at all. Like I still have my Hulu app deleted.

That has not made it back onto the Apple TV. And the other apps haven't really updated themselves. I think everything's kind of been on pause up until I would say the Disney plus announcement from the other day where Disney just like spent three and a half hours talking about the massive amounts of streaming content they're going to be like directing and making over the next couple of years. So, yeah, I guess, you know, maybe, you know, seven out of 10 on my predictions or so. I think this is a lot higher than you're giving yourself credit for.

I think the streaming services have progressed quite a lot. Each of the companies has made some improvements in their user experience and their user interface. I would argue that probably the new Google TV experience is among the best. I think it's fantastic. They did an amazing job of the Google TV experience that they put on the Chromecast devices. And, you know, you say that it's been kind of sleepy. I don't think it's been sleepy in terms of content. I think there's a ton of stuff happening with, you know, Apple has talked about a ton of deals and shows that are in production. COVID has impacted that, obviously, but there's just a ton going on. And that's kind of what I mean is like, the deals have all been talked about, but like everybody's been for the most part for the past six months on the sidelines.

Right. Like there's there's not really many shows that have been under production that are being produced. Like we're not going to see the fruits of what was announced at the Disney Plus announcement for a little while now. Right. Until until that industry gets its feet back under itself. But it is coming and that is very exciting. How about you, Adam? So my prediction was around kind of seeing where the ecosystems move forward. And I feel like somebody touched on this a little bit, but I don't feel like a lot happened here. I expected a lot more out of chip and connected home over IP this year.

And it really doesn't feel like it's going to come into fruition until next year. And you mentioned earlier, HomePod mini, including thread, it feels like people are starting to lay some groundwork here or trying to make their devices future proof. So I'm still very interested to see where this comes. But, you know, I think this was a chip was like just super newly announced when we recorded this last year. So we were all hyped on it, but silly us to expect it to move quickly.

Well, yeah, I mean, this is the kind of thing that can't move quickly, right? They have to do this right. Yeah, I would agree with that. And at risk of sounding like a broken record, I'll go have to do this right. Yeah, I would agree with that. And at risk of sounding like a broken record, I'll go back to the COVID thing. And I would imagine that this kind of initiative was really impacted by that. Like even if they had plans to move fast, I would

have to imagine that when you get a consortium of big companies like this, all trying to work together to sort of formulate actual progress out of, you know, kind of this nebulous idea of like, how do we work better together? The inability of those companies to get groups of people together in a room physically to work together and start to hash that out. Sure, you can get on Zoom calls, but we all know it's not quite the same. Like it's close, but when you're working on those more complex or, uh, ill-defined challenges, like there is no substitute for having people physically in a room together. And I think we've all experienced that this year. So I I'm sure that was a factor as well.

I can only imagine what those zoom calls are like. Oh yeah. Yeah. Cause you just get like that, that effect that effect of like only one person can talk at a time. So you don't get the little side conversations that can kind of lead to some insights. And yeah, it's just not the same. Along these lines, like I am most disappointed of anyone in Google. They appear to have made close to no progress recovering the capabilities that they took away from customers over a year and a half ago. Well, they've canceled product too.

And they've canceled product, right? Like they literally canceled a product that is on my recommendations for the holidays show coming out at the end of this week. Like, I mean, it's, yeah, who can keep up with it? Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's crazy. And I know, you know, we talked about it on the show, Nest, killing off the works with Nest. SmartThings did some big changes to their API integration. So I think, you know, SmartThings seems to be moving along with that, but I would agree with you. Yeah, we haven't heard much from Google in terms of kind of writing the ship there and getting people back to where they were before. All right, Richard, how about you? What was your prediction for last year and how did it go? Yeah, I was really excited about new stuff

from Insteon that they have been talking about for quite a while, and they didn't deliver. This year, we saw finally the new update from Insteon for the Insteon app. It's a nice update to the app experience that works consistently across the Android and iOS platforms, but we didn't see new product yet. And even this app is still kind of in its infancy. It doesn't yet support tablets natively. There's a lot that they kind of took away in rolling out a new product

that ultimately kind of succeeds what they had in place before. So I am still looking forward to new stuff from them, but they have definitely been way, way slower on the field than I would have hoped they'd be. And this is the point where I put in my standard disclaimer that I have a complicated relationship with Insteon, including occasionally working with them as a consultant. You know, there's a company called Wise I'd like to introduce you to. All right. So then our last and kind of most important fireside chat topic is predictions for the rest of the year. So I know you just talked about your

last one, but Richard, why don't you kick us off? What do you think 2021 is going to bring in the smart home space? Yeah. So I am, I'm sorry to stay on kind of a down note, but my prediction is dire. My prediction is the long overdue shuttering of Wink. I do not believe that Wink will survive 2021. And I don't necessarily think that's because COVID. I think it's because it's a consistently poorly run company that hasn't really done much of anything other than ask their customers for more money. Yeah, I was going to say they were the ones that this year like hurry, you know, we need, you know, passed around the, you know, the pan for money to keep it alive. And it was kind of a fumble out the gate. Yeah, well, they gave people two weeks notice and said, that thing that's sitting on your desk that controlled your house,

that's not free anymore. It's going to cost you monthly or yearly. I forget what they did. Yeah, see my statement about poorly run. They actually got enough pushback that they walked that back a little bit, but eventually they did start charging people for the, their integrations, uh, with something that's been sitting on their desk free. I don't, I don't know.

I, I, this is kind of one of those companies that's just like, why aren't they out of business now? I mean, last time we talked talked last time we sat down and talked about this company they had like there's been like the lights are on but no one's home situation like the the phone lines had been disconnected the tech support hadn't picked up the phone answered any questions at all in in weeks or months and here we are at the end of another year i don't know richard these these guys might be like cockroaches like like i don't mean that like in a degrading way.

I'm just like, after the nuclear fallout, they will still survive. They may survive. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, they do feel like that company. I agree with Seth where it's like, I forget about them. I forget that Wink even exists. And then every now and then a story pops up about them passing around the collection plate, like Adam said, or whatever it is. And it's like, oh yeah, I kind of forgot about them. So I saw that prediction on the list and I don't think anyone in the audience was gasping in shock

when you just made your prediction a second ago, Richard. I wouldn't be surprised, but I don't know. Seth may be right. They seem to be hanging on. They seem to have that staying power, just kind of holding on with that death grip. So it'll be interesting to see. Oh man. How about you, Adam? Well, speaking of W companies that won't make it through 2021, my prediction might be a little bit more bold, but I'm going to say Wise doesn't make it through 2021 uh my prediction might be a little bit more uh bold but i'm gonna say wise doesn't make it through 2021 whoa wow so i said i had i said i had thoughts earlier uh i don't really get their model and you know they seem to be doing really well in the camera space and people seem to like it but sort of to what Seth alluded to earlier um I feel like a lot of they're given a lot of slack

because of what their products cost and so like the expectations are already low because whatever it was 20 bucks it was 30 bucks and then like when they don't deliver on certain things um you know people are like yeah whatever it was cheap but the fact that they keep going into more and more categories just feels like an unsustainable model. And given what I know running smart home products and a smart home business in this space, I don't understand how they can ship product the way they do at the cost they do through the channels they sell it. I know. The answer is very simple. They have $45 million in investor funds. So the question is, how do they exit? I don't see how they exit profitably. Yeah. Well, the one thing I will bring up, I was on a session that a friend of the show's, Stacey Higginbotham, hosted where she was interviewing the founder, somebody high up at the company.

And I thought she went maybe a little far, but she referred to it as a hardware Ponzi scheme, which I thought was pretty harsh. It's a very Stacey thing to say. Yes. Wow. And only she could really get away with that in her soft, inquisitive voice. Yes. The look on the guy's face when she said that was interesting. Yeah, a hardware Ponzi scheme.

It's, like I said, I picked it as my favorite story, but certainly not because I have any affinity for their strategy. I agree with the points that Richard made that the race to zero is a damaging prospect and could have, long lasting effects. And so, um, it does feel totally unsustainable to me. I don't 2021 feels like they're going to weather that they, as Richard alluded to beat me to the punch there, like they seem very well funded. So I don't know if there's, um, if, if there's a play here to, to eventually like try to just get acquired or who knows, maybe even like an IPO, like, I just, I don't know what else they could do. They, they clearly don't seem to be interested in running a business that's profitable. So there's gotta be some other play. Um, and we all know that, that things with tech companies like this are, are crazy. You know, if you have enough money, they'll, they'll kick the can on profitability and, and, uh, try to go after the acquisition strategy or whatever it is, but, um, it doesn't

feel sustainable. It's, it's a head scratcher, um, but they certainly get a lot of us talking, right. And that perpetuates, uh, perpetuates their success to a certain degree. I've got their cameras at home. I picked them up because I needed a few cameras for Operation Mouse Hunt. Seth will remember that one. But beyond that, I don't really use them. I don't really use their products all that much. And it is just a fascinating one to watch. And it seems very unfocused, you know, for a technology company, like they're all over the place. You know there's a smart scale there's a robot vacuum there's a camera there's a sprinkler wearables and i know you know yeah yeah wearables and a smart watch or whatever and it's like i know they're just like oeming or whatever it is from

chow me the odm big odm yeah so like but they're still like adam you don't wear them either there's still like a decent amount of cost that go into like bringing that product in, marketing it, rewriting the software. So it's like looks nice and works, works's a partner in, you know, Asia or whatever that designs the products for you. And then, you know, you put your name on them. And, you know, I don't know to what extent they do the firmware, software, cloud, hardware or whatever. But it almost feels like whatever their ODM partner gives them, they slap their name on it and put it in the market. So it's like, how about headphones? Sure, headphones sure let's do it yeah they have headphones that one that one was just right out of the blue like at least they had a story to go with their lock and how they researched this and they wanted to come out with something different even though it was different technology, you kind of understood where they were going. Headphones? Seriously, headphones? What's next? Backpacks? I mean,

I just don't get it. I told Jason we're going to hold out for the wise car that's like $500. Right. Self-driving. I think to me, though, what Seth said about 65% of the market doesn't have any smart home products. Do we want their first experience with smart home to be with a wise product? For our stuff, I take that very seriously. And if somebody's first product is a ConnectSense product, I want them to have a great experience where they then say, I want more smart home stuff in my home. You don't want somebody to have a poor experience, regardless of what it costs, and say, I'm not doing this smart home thing. I'll wait till it's more mature. So I think there's a responsibility to the whole

industry that they're just being rather cavalier with. I'd agree. Yep. Yeah. Agreed. All right. Next prediction, Jason, what do you have for us? Yeah. I'm going to go back to the COVID thing. I think that when I look at the landscape and just try to think, really try to think about this one, it's like, what is going to really define the next year in home technology? And to me, it's really the effects of COVID continuing to shape usage patterns in the home, even if hopefully, fingers crossed, we get to a better place with a vaccine and better therapies. I think these these it's been long enough. It's been a profound enough change that it's going to have lasting implications in the home even after we're through this. And so specific things like far more people working from home.

So needing better networks, better video conferencing setups, you know, all those sorts of things, I think, will continue to be a very prominent trend. Homeschooling, I know, is something that we're struggling with. I don't know how many kids are going to be going back right away, but just having better technology and solutions in the home for that. Certainly media consumption, which we've talked about quite a bit. So I won't belabor that one. And then one other one that we're seeing more momentum and more conversations around, at least in the professional space, is the wellness, the home health and wellness market. That's been one that's been talked about for several years. Like Seth said earlier in the show, COVID has been an accelerant for many trends in the home. And certainly we're seeing more momentum and more interest in things like just intelligent systems to make sure that, you know, the lighting is good in the home and air quality is good.

And these sorts of things, I do think, will become incrementally more in the mainstream, in the main consciousness of people shopping for home technology. So to put a bow on that, again, I think it's really the lasting effects of COVID, even if hopefully we're able to get to a better place this year, I suspect a lot of those trends will continue. Yeah, absolutely. You know, one of the things I thought was really interesting, and I don't know if what they're offering is any good or not, but seeing Crestron come to the table with solutions for people working at home now and coming up with solutions specifically to address that. And the only reason a company like Crestron would get into something like that is if they believe that this is not a flash in the pan situation, that this is a turning point in how people work. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And we had John Clancy on our show, who's the VP of

residential there recently. And he talked a lot. Yeah. Yeah. It was really enjoyed having him on the show. And he talked a lot about that. And I think it's true. And certainly what Crestron is doing is targeted at a pretty high end user. And anyone out there who was so inclined could set up sort of similar situations at their own home. But for the types of clients that Crestron sells into those homes, they want a turnkey solution. And I think it's really smart for Crestron to come into that market sort of full steam ahead. And I agree with you. I don't think they'd be doing it if they didn't see a big opportunity there.

Yeah, for them, it was mostly a... So we're going to use this opportunity to transition into my prediction, too, because it's kind of like playing off what Jason was talking about. separately in our own thoughts, come to the same conclusion of the effects of COVID continuing to drive what trends are pushed out in the market. And, you know, work from home is a big one for me. I look across our nice Slack chat we have here, Slack. I mean, who at the beginning of the year was even talking about Slack? And then all of a sudden, crazy, everybody knows Slack. It's like, it's like Kleenex and Google now. Right. So, so like, you know, I'm looking across the video and I know, I know at least three people on this call have, have always worked from home. I'm not sure, Adam, you have an office, I think you go to, no, no. Yeah. Well, I used to. I do go there from time to time. I was there today, But yeah, I primarily work from home now.

Yeah. So this is the thing. It was a trend that was already happening. And so now we went from 75% to 100% over the past year by our own metrics. But working from home, I think, is... And I've been preaching this to anybody who, and everybody who will listen since, since like April, uh, you know, CEO C-level executives are going to want to, to have the best audio video experience when they're, uh, working from home. They're, they're not going to, um, they're not going to want to have their wifi jumble up their signal

or whatever. Like they want these professionally installed and, and, and professionally managed, you know, solutions that, that do not fail. They don't want to look bad, uh, to the rest of their board. So like, I've, I've been, I've been leaning heavy, heavily on that to anybody who would listen in, in, in my crowd inside the professional side. Um, and, and that, that's going to trickle down. Like, uh, you know, Richard, you mentioned Crestron had, um, had released somerestron had released a couple pieces of product. And when they did, I was like, oh, they're pretty quick on getting to this. But the reason they are is because they already have all that for their commercial side.

And all they had to do was like take three products, slap them together and put some marketing around it. And like, brilliant idea. Brilliant idea. Yeah, you're absolutely right. And you're right on the audience. It's for the C-suite execs that are now at home. They have the money for it and they are typically not as technically savvy. So something that just makes it all work for them and helps them look good.

Yeah. Bingo. Yeah. And, and, and just think about like what the home office was at the end of 2019 and then what it could be at the end of 2021. Like, I think the home office could, could go through some kind of technological, you know, improvements to where, you know, we're talking about, you know, Adam, you're talking about decking out a home theater, but I think we may also be talking about decking out home offices with lighting and video rigs and that kind of thing as we close out 2021 um so i'm going to kind of lean into that like home office working from home uh the pandemic and everything accelerating that i know we all want to like definitely all want to get back to work and and seeing people someday but i i think more people are probably more excited about get back to work and seeing people someday. But I think more people

are probably more excited about going back to a bar or restaurant than they are about going back into the office and hanging around the water cooler. But, you know, working working from home, that trend, I see that kind of just continuing through the through the next year. So that's where I'm going to put the wood behind the arrow and shoot it that direction. I already decked out my home office. So I know our listeners can't see it, but we're actually recording on Zoom. So you're seeing some of the results of it. I got lighting, I got a microphone. Your video looks great. Yeah. I use all this for all my meetings. So yeah, I had this podcast microphone laying around and you know pretty quick into the

pandemic i was like well i'm on all these calls i might as well sound good yep you know so yeah i mean i totally agree i think um you know i'm more technically inclined so i threw it all together but like i've got a stream deck that i'm using for Zoom calls. I've got, you know, basically like a streaming, a gaming streamer setup that I use for Zoom and business. That's because I'm technically minded. I jumped to that and did that setup. But I think you'll see more products and more things tuned towards that type of a user where they're kind of taking care of those things for

them and making it a lot more user-friendly. More turnkey. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. For sure. All right. Well, those were all of our predictions and that kind of wraps up our fireside chat for the year. I think a great discussion, everyone. And before we leave, why don't we go around and everybody mention where we can find you. We'll start with you, Seth. You can find me at the home tech.

FM podcast each week. I sit down with Jason and we talk about all the news that comes up each week. If there is any news and a couple of picks of the week, some funny things that we find around from the different corners of the Internet, usually relating to home technology. Some other stuff, too. But, yeah. Jason, how about you? Yeah, I'll just echo what Seth said. HomeTech.fm, all major podcast directories.

You can find us on Twitter at HomeTechPodcast as well. We have a lot of fun doing the show. So if anyone's tuned in and hasn't checked it out, we'd love to have you come on by and give it a listen. And Adam and Richard, this was a lot of fun. Really glad we were able to get together and do this. Always enjoy it. How about you, Richard?

Yeah, so you can find what I'm writing, when I'm writing over at the Digital Media Zone, thedigitalmediazone.com. And of course, our shows, I will again promote my show, Home On, over at the DMZ. And if you want to hear some of the things going on inside my head, you'll usually find them up on Twitter at Richard Gunther. Richard, don't you have like alter egos on Twitter? Don't you have like multiple? Oh, I have many accounts on Twitter. All you have to follow is Richard Gunther. Richard Gunther echoes what everyone else in my head is thinking. The schizophrenic Twitter is what you run into.

How about you, Adam? You can find me on Twitter as well, at Adam Justice. Everything my company's up to at connectsense.com. And of course, you can listen to Richard and my show at smarthome.fm and find that wherever you find podcasts. Before we get out of here, I want to give a nod again to Mike Wolf, who kind of set all this up and connected all of us. And so you can find more about what he's up to at The Spoon. That is spoon.tech, the spoon.tech. And that is a food tech and smart kitchen technology site.

And they've been really following how businesses have been changing through COVID as one of their kind of key themes all year long. Yeah, great stuff. I'm glad you mentioned that and bummed we weren't able to have Mike join us this year, but he's doing great work in that smart kitchen space. A lot of fun to watch that develop. So I would recommend people go check that smart kitchen space. A lot of fun to watch that develop. So I would recommend people go check that out as well. And once again, Adam and Richard and Seth, I'm really glad we were able to get together. I hope all three of you guys have a great, great holiday. Yeah. Yeah. Happy holidays and hope everybody has a great new year. I think now I'm going to go and build

an actual fire. In an actual dumpster? Welcome to 2020. Thanks, everybody. Have a great holiday.