HomeTech.fm - Episode 368 - Hey, Sonos

Episode Date: November 13, 2021

This week in HomeTech: Google is getting better at watching you sleep, Sonos is getting a voice "assistant," ADT goes solar, and a great pick of the week!

This is the Home Tech Podcast for Friday, November 12th. I'm Sarah Sutter-Florida. I'm Seth Johnson. And welcome to the Home Tech Podcast, a podcast about all aspects of home technology, home automation, industry news, all that good stuff. This week, we've got some home tech headlines that came up. I want to mention definitely starting up the Home Tech Talks again. So if you're a patron, head on over to the patron page and sign up for those.

I'll also be posting a link in the Slack chat, just kind of reminding people about that and get everybody back and registered for that so we can get that going. I'm really excited to finally find some time and sit back and sit down and talk with people a little bit more. Starting next week, it's been really busy. And I think it just needs some downtime, need to chat. There's been a lot of great conversations happening in the hub that I think normally we would actually have together and kind of talk about together. CD Awards just happened. I saw a number of recognizable company names float by. So if you did win one of those awards, congratulations. I really wish that as an industry, we could see what's being applied. I know that some of the way they do these awards, it's basically

like you have a job that you're doing and you compile all your documentation and you basically submit it into Cedia for an award, you know, take photos of the final product and all that, make sure it's installed correctly. But you basically put your entire process on display at Cedia. It doesn't really go anywhere else. No one else can see what you've done because it's kind of, you know, it's not really your house that you're showing off. It's your clients.

So you're going to understand that there's privacy aspects to that as well. Of course, there's security aspects too. If you've installed the security system or camera system, that kind of thing. So understandable that there are aspects of this that you can't see, but it really would be cool if we could, we could get some, some examples or some in general type, just like some general looks at what proper documentation and, and what all this kind of like, what goes into putting these projects together at this size and at this level.

And I've, I have seen personally, I've seen some of these documentation and jobs and they are impressive. So I really wish that our industry had a way that we could, we could show those types of projects off. It really would be cool. But with that said, let's move on. Let's move on to some home tech headlines. All right. Well, Google second gen Nest Hub already comes with the ability to track your, let's move on. Let's move on to some home tech headlines. All right. Well, Google's second gen Nest Hub already comes with the ability to track your sleep patterns. But thanks to its

solely powered sleep sensing feature, I know we talked about this maybe a year or two ago. I don't know when they first introduced this this product in the sleep sensing feature. But now Google's rolling out an update that should help get a more detailed look on the quality of your sleep. According to announcement post on the company's keyword blog, the Nest Hub will now display a sleep staging chart that shows your various stages of sleep, including how long you were awake or experiencing REM, light or deep sleep. Google's also adding an update to the Nest Hub sound detection. So instead of capturing all the sounds in the room while you sleep, it should only track like coughs and snores that it detects

from the calibrated sleeping area. So any sounds from outside of that area will be placed into like another timeline called other sounds. I guess that was kind of a feature or kind of a limitation, I guess, that was noted in some of the reviews that had come out on the product. Kind of messed up how sleep tracking would happen. Like if sound from another person could be heard, it kind of counted against you or something like that. So they made the sensors better. They made the software better. It sounds like a pretty good update.

Additionally, they're getting a new app from Calm coming out in December. The app is basically, I'm sure you've seen this on iOS devices, but it's like sleep stories, relaxing music, meditation sessions, that kind of thing. So they're going to build that on Calm. There are free things on there, but you need to access the entire library. It's about $70 a year to do that. So for that calm premium account. Well, moving on here, thanks to a leak posted on Reddit, starting to look like Sonos

will be releasing their own digital voice assistant. A few years ago, Sonos bought privacy-focused digital assistant startup Snips. And since then, it's been speculated that the company is working on its own digital assistant to help play back music and control its speakers without the need to integrate something like Alexa or Google Home. We've even seen job listings from Sonos related to digital assistants and integrations. If you combine all that news from Reddit, it appears that we're getting pretty close

to seeing what this would actually look like. In fact, they even had a logo of the Sonos assistant. Kind of the logo is like next to Amazon's little voice looking, the Alexa little voice logo. And they had a logo next to Google. So there's some image leaks that have come out from somehow. Somebody got one of these things. So it should be interesting.

There's also a list of generic commands for like playing music and operating, operating the system in general, kind of included in that. Like, so I'll put a link to that Reddit post and you can go check those out if you want to. This is all like the first real clue that the voice assistant or, I mean, it's more like a voice controller, I guess. It's not really an assistant, but it might be real and on the way. Sonos also posted a survey earlier this year regarding a, quote, potential new product offering called, and wait for it, Sonos Voice Control. So according to that survey, to activate the assistant, you just had to say, hey, Sonos. And all the commands would be processed locally on the device. Sonos voice control and Alexa could potentially work together according to this leak.

So that might be interesting to see. I think it's an interesting move, kind of an interesting feature, kind of an interesting add-on. If you just need bare-bones control of Sonos, it's got the microphones, this will do the trick, right? You can tell it to play music and play a particular artist. It can it knows what music libraries you're subscribed to and kind of use those APIs to play whatever music you want. But if you need more integration,

you can add something on, you know, with Alexa, add that ecosystem on to get deeper integration with other devices in your house. Doesn't appear that Google voice will be running, able to be run alongside Sonos voice control. I'm not sure if that is a software limitation. Maybe it is. Maybe it's a Google limitation. I guess there was a story out a little while back about how Amazon didn't care if Sonos had a voice assistant kind of running alongside Alexa at the same time. So it will be interesting to see when this drops as an actual feature, and it will be interesting to see how the reception is from Sonos owners. Sticking with the voice control theme here,

SnapOne has entered into an agreement with voice control specialist Josh AI on integration support through their new driver development, as well as an exclusive distribution agreement enabling U.S. and Canadian Control 4 dealers to purchase Josh AI hardware and software through the Control 4 portal. The two companies have collaborated to develop new drivers to support home control and automation system owners.

The new drivers are certified, Control 4 certified and SDDP capable, and they're already available online and available for download i think these are pretty good synergistic you know relationship here um control four and josh like integrations were already pretty deep i've used the integration uh before i've said it oh a josh ai system up on a control four system it works really well like it it's actually, you know, pretty deeply integrated. Kind of a fun fact, like one of my first contracts that I did when I started working at Blackwire a number of years ago was writing kind of their first integration between Josh and Control 4. It was very basic and kind of like if you compare it today with what they've done, because they've taken and iterated and done so much more than what we started with.

But it was pretty basic and it was it was almost like a proof of concept. Like this is a good idea and you should run run in this direction. And I'm glad they have, because anything that can kind of deeply integrate with other stuff, you know, really, really helps move things forward in the market. And I think you see that with the way Josh AI has approached control for with question on home and all that. This would be great for control for dealers because they'll be able to go on and kind of like not only get the training and everything through the control for portal, but they'll also be able to purchase the products and potentially, I don't know how it works. Maybe, maybe snap AV or, or whatever is, or snap snap one is shipping

the products. I'm not too sure but i know like shipping is kind of a pain but um it will definitely be good for uh josh ai to kind of open up uh a broader uh integration base right that that would be easier for for them to get into a more like a bigger area of work with more dealers selling into more projects. So good for them and good for for SnapOne and Control4. All right. ADT announced it is signed an agreement to acquire Sun Pro Solar. It's the number two ranked by Solar Power World in 2021 for the top residential rooftop solar contracts here in the U S um, they bought them for $160 million in cash, plus an approximately, uh, 77.8 million shares of ADT common stock,

kind of implying a total value of a purchase for $825 million. ADT will rebrand Sunpro as ADT solar and enter the rooftop solar business to offer ADT customers protected, connected, and now powered home. Kind of an interesting, interesting rollout here. Let's see. Sunpro was founded in 2008 and they, they do the rooftop solar systems here in the United States. Sunpro markets, design, sells, and installs, maintain solar panels. They have 3,600, pro markets design sells and installs maintain solar panels um they have 3600 uh they have 3600

uh full-time people working for them here in the state so that's 56 location across 22 states so pretty big company uh pretty big and kind of install base they're in 22 states um and they've been growing pretty quickly 90 year-over-year increase installs in 2020. I saw that they had positive cash flow and quite a bit going on on the good checkbox going on for a company. So it's really a good, I think it's really a good buy by ADT.

They were actually, if I look, I think Vivint has their own solar wing as well. So it's kind of like ADT is kind of catching up there. But this kind of makes sense. This is a technology piece that for a larger company who is already on the job site, this is one of those things that it makes sense for them to get involved with if they can. I'm not sure that there are very many integrators out there that can switch their business into being a solar business as well. But for companies like the size and scope of ADT, it kind of makes sense for them to expand their offerings here, especially in something like

solar, which is definitely going to be a growth industry here in the States moving forward. There there's, if I, if I look around my neighborhood, there's only a handful of house here, here in the sunshine state, right? We're in Florida. Uh, there's only a handful of homes that, that even have, uh, what, what appears to be solar roof on it. We have to be tricky. It's kind of tricky around here because sometimes people will put their pool heaters, like solar pool heaters on the roof. So it does, it kind of looks like a solar panel, but it's not, it's for their pool. Uh, but yeah, it's, it's interesting. Uh, this company solar definitely has a lot of growth here in the States. Uh, there's a lot of rooftops that could go on and ADT is probably looking at that and pretty, uh, pretty bullish on it. So good for them.

Here's another, uh, kind of acquisition thing going on here. And I, this is, this is kind of an interesting one. And it's got a good quote in here from Stacy Hickenbotham over at IoT Podcast. Level Home, the maker of kind of a really cool smart lock that actually sits, funny enough, sits level in the existing doorbell, sorry, deadbolt cavity on the door, has raised an additional $100 million in a Series C round of funding, as well as completing an all-stock deal to buy multifamily residential software company, Dwello. The two moves are a part of a big master plan by Level Home CEO, John Martin,

to grow a new market, while also adding a subscription line of revenue in the mix for Level. Here's a really good quote from Stacey. I'm just gonna read it straight out because it kind of touches on a number of themes and ideas that have been kind of happening over the past year or so

and will probably continue to happen. So it says, if we're reading the smart home tea leaves, it's getting more and more difficult for smaller hardware makers to compete with the giants. And I only expect that to become more difficult as Matter Smart Home Interoperability Standard gains ground next year. Last week, we saw Ecobee sell to Generac, for example.

Earlier this year, June sold to Weber. That's an oven maker selling to the Weber Grill company. Any companies that aren't selling out are trying to bring in new revenue streams in the form of subscriptions. Here's another good example from her. In July, Dave Crosby, CMO and co-founder of Wyze, they make smart home devices, cameras, and that kind of thing, spoke about the need to create a subscription product so the company could satisfy venture capitalists and raise the necessary funding. So yeah, I couldn't agree more couldn't agree more if along with kind of a,

I hate to say this like a slowly market, because I think we've all been as busy as we've ever been, but it's, there's definitely like a component shortage that's, that's holding us back from actually doing the jobs that, that need to get done. Right. But we're seeing a, a big like contraction across the market, which in general means the market is getting smaller and that's not only happening on uh the the pro side of things but it's also happening on like consumer side of things and in this case i mean both level level is a consumer-based product but also kind of in the in with the with the, with the multifamily, like rental or a apartment type software, like a Dwello, um, it's also happening there as well. So, uh, and you see, you know,

snappy V a couple of years back, went on a shopping spree and bought up, you know, all ton of, a ton of companies, ton of distributors around the States. Um, you're seeing smaller companies like, you know, uh, smaller companies like Ecobee, like in Stacy's example, um, go get teaming up with larger companies, uh, smaller companies like the, the solar company we just talked about, uh, uh, sun, uh, solar power, uh, sorry, Sunpro solar, uh, joining a larger company like ADT. Uh, so I think any company that's not on like firm, super firm footing financially, or kind of a small fish in a big pond, they're going to be jumping at this opportunity to join a bigger

company here. And I haven't really thought out how this plays out to, you know, the normal integrator or the regular Joe, right? Like these are big power moves that are happening at a level that most small businesses don't even think about. But eventually these decisions and everything kind of trickle down to us. I'm trying to wrap my head around what that's going to make our market look like as pro installers and as consumers of those pro type products.

Like what is the marketplace gonna look like 2022, 2023, 2024, as these larger companies kind of have absorbed everything and are working to make their products and processes more efficient? Like what is the marketplace actually start looking like? What products are we going to have? And again, as Stacey in that quote mentioned, Matter smart home products start coming to market and kind of vacuuming up some of the DIY market

or even the do-it-for-me market, right? It's supposedly going to make that setup and install a lot easier. What's going to happen to much of that market? Is it going to expand? And are we going to see more and more companies starting much of that market? Is it going to expand? And are we going to see more and more companies starting up for the, you know, the do it for me crowd or the DIY slash do it for me crowd? I don't know. I don't know. It will be interesting to see what happens. Um, we we've definitely seen in my opinion, we've definitely seen the middle

of the market, uh, the homes that were typically contracts that were like $30,000 to $90,000. You know, that may not seem middle of along the line, but like if you're just talking a few rooms of audio and maybe a home theater in there, like that's, you know, that's pretty normal for an AV company here in the States to kind of live off that. And those projects are just, I mean, they're few and far between these days. Everything has kind of gone one way or the other, either down to the do it for me stuff, install ring doorbells and, you know, some ring cameras, a basic security system, or you're going the complete opposite direction, full blown home automation, custom interfaces, control for Crestron system, lighting control, panelized lighting control,

all that good stuff. It's going the other way. So the stuff in the middle, you start fighting over scraps and those projects start going in different directions. And I wonder what those companies, I mean, I used to, I used to live there. It's kind of why, why I'm thinking about it so much. That's, that's what my company did. We, we, we focused heavily on those and I wonder where those companies are going to go. I, if I was still running or part of that, I don't know what our sales solution would be. We would, I would think that we'd have to step up into some of the larger installs to support, you know, the level of technicians that we had at the time and the level of staffing that we had at the time,

for sure. Um, I don't think we could have gotten by on do it for me type solutions and low margin products without, you know, completely, uh, redoing the business for, you know, as a labor business or as a like a service oriented business where there's there's there's RMR coming in for service contracts and that kind of thing. So hard to think about. But I'm I'm really kind of interested to see where this all brings everybody over the next three or four years. So kind of a long discussion on a on a short story, but there we go. All the links and topic discussed tonight can be found over in our show notes at home tech.fm slash three 68. Again,

that link is home tech.fm slash three 68. All right. All right. I got to pick up the week this weekend. This was sent to me a couple of weeks ago by friend of the show, Gavin for me to check out. I kind of had a side conversation with him about home automation platforms. He said, hey, have you seen this? I've been kind of toying around with it. Check it out. It's called Scripted, S-C-R-Y-P-T-E-D. I think you can get it at scripted.app or something like that. I'll put a link to it in the show notes. It's a home automation platform powered by Node.js. So, all right, already a little geeky, but hear me out.

It looks pretty interesting and pretty well done. Um, since it runs on no JS, which no JS, if, if you don't know, that's basically JavaScript, it's, it's a, it kind of a programming language that was, that was born out of a web 2.0 technologies. And it's kind of taken off right now. Like I do a ton of work in Node.js right now for server side stuff and programming on websites and that kind of thing.

Most everything I do is centered around Node.js these days. And there's a number of ways to get that up and go in your house. Most techie people like me would probably get this up going up like in Docker on maybe a Synology NAS or something like that. But there's a ton of ways you can get this up and going. I'm not going to really go into that. But it's pretty, since it's such a big technology, I guess, it's pretty flexible in the way it runs.

But here's what it does that is actually what's really cool about it. Scripted integrates with the three major home hubs. It says you can control your things with your voice or whatever preferred app that you have, whether it's Google Home, Apple HomeKit, or Amazon Alexa. So this is kind of like, no matter what you decide to use in your house, this kind of acts as a bridge between all of those platforms. Kind of like Matter is promising to do one day before,

you know, that's kind of the idea, like no matter what you use. But this kind of goes a step further. Like you can actually set up products that are only working on the Amazon Alexa platform, but bridge those back into HomeKit and use them there. That's kind of cool. They also have a ton of plugins for like direct integrations with devices like Hue, a bunch of like cameras, common cameras that you can get in there, smart things, Chromecast, LifeFX, Wemo, Nest, Home Assistant, all the names and brands that you know and love. It's a really cool project.

I like this. It keeps you in control of controlling devices that the way that you want them to kind of be controlled. You don't have to make a decision on what platform to land on. If you're kind of a little bit geeky and can set something like this up, this may work for you. So very cool.

Very cool stuff. Thanks Gavin. We're going to have to keep an eye on, keep an eye on this one and see where it goes. If you have any feedback, comments, pics of the week, great ideas for a show.

Give me a shout. Email address is feedback at home tech about FM. We can visit home tech. FM slash feedback and fill out the online form. I do want to give a big thank you to everyone who supports the show, but especially those who are able to financially support the show through a Patreon page. If you don't know about the Patreon page, head on over to HomeTech.fm slash support to learn how you can support HomeTech for as little as a dollar a month. Any pledge over five bucks a month gets you a big shout out on the show, but every pledge gets you an invite

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And with that, we're going to wrap up another week in home tech news. Not not not too much going on. I think I did miss one story about a new wise like eighty five dollar eighty nine eighty dollar like camera thing, outdoor camera that came on the market. Wow. First of all, But, you know, I feel like with Wyze, we cover them so much here on the show and talk about them so much. I don't want to get into like accused of advertising for them. But yeah, it's interesting. It's about at least $100 less than the first Ring style camera, right? Like Ring, I think is one 79. So this would be a hundred dollars less. And it, it, it looks more like the, the bigger ring, uh, brother,

like the, the one that has the two lights on it. This, the wise also has two lights on it. And I think that one's significantly more like two, $300. So, um, may, may, maybe the right product for some people. I'm not too sure. I kind of want to get one of these and install it and check it out and see how it kind of performs head to head with a couple of the Ring devices I have. Pretty curious about it. And for $80, it may not be a bad thing.

Anyway, one more Home Tech headline, I guess, that popped in right here at the end. That wraps up the week's news. Everybody, have a great weekend and we'll talk to you next week.