HomeTech.fm - Episode 406 - A Hurricane of Iguanas

Episode Date: September 30, 2022

This week on HomeTech: A hurricane is heading to Florida, Alexa gets new skills, the EU is taking on IoT security, Yale updates the Assure Lock, Google offers a cheaper Chromecast, and Sonos gets a cool turntable. All this, the pick of the week, and so much more.

This is the Home Tech Podcast for Friday, September 30th. From sunny Sarasota, Florida, I'm Seth Johnson. From Powell, Ohio, I'm CJ Hollister. And from cold, pickering Ontario, I'm Gavin Campbell. And welcome to the Home Tech Podcast, the podcast about all aspects of home technology, home automation, weather, weather events. Yeah, it's going to storm here. So how do you know I'll make it is if the podcast does get posted on Friday.

Or Saturday. Yeah, or Sunday or the following Monday. This weekend. And what's hilarious about all of us is that we're all going to get affected by this hurricane you know obviously seth you're going to get the worst of it but it's going to travel up to ohio we're going to have a day or two of awful weather and it's going to go up to canada i think it's already been up there hasn't it gavin yeah and the one thing i'm nervous it might affect our pawpaw crops up here so i don't want that to happen there's a short window when we are able to get and eat these pawpaws and i just don't want that to affect. There's a short window when we are able to get in, eat these pawpaws. And I just

don't want that to affect it. You need to move. That shouldn't be a problem. Yeah. We're, we're making it, we're making a ton of money off these router hats and, uh, the, the special edition, uh, ubiquity dream saver one you came up with is really, really hot, hot to try it. So yeah, router hats.com everybody. If you want to go check out that from from last week's show how many how many domains are you up to now seth i mean i don't like it must be like a several dozen right like your domain bill every year must be like nuts i mean you can you can pay some out like the important ones you can pay more than one year at a time and then you don't really worry about them for a while. It amazes me that you could just spin up a website

just that quickly, you know? Like you had little routers with hats on them and everything. Like it was amazing. It's not very hard. Photoshop is actually pretty good these days in object detection and masking and all this fun stuff. So it was actually, it didn't take very long. I, it took me longer to pick out the hats, honestly. So as,

as one would expect, but this is great. This can be a total business by itself. It really could be. I'm very, I'm convinced of it. Betsy. All right. Let's move on here. We've got a, I'm convinced of it Betsy alright let's move on here we've got a bunch of stuff to talk about today and most of it is around well there's going to be a couple events that we're going to talk about

we'll go over those later in the show but there's a bunch of stuff happening this week Corsedia is this week but we're not going to talk about it until next week because I think all the show news and everything is going to come out of it as we go through this week there's an Amazon event too we'll talk about it till next week i think all the show news and everything is going to come out of it um as we go through this week there's an amazon event too so we'll talk about all that later um but we've we've got we've got some follow-up things to talk about and uh a couple

of news stories that kind of came to our attention this week but uh first up fiber gavin what's going on here you you're telling me that you got fiber to your house? Well, the lines are there. So I heard some banging at the side of my house today. Ran outside. There were two guys there. They're dressed official, and they were doing something at the side of my house, so I felt safe. But yeah, after questioning them for a bit, I realized they were actually running the fiber line. So the line is there.

It's at the side of the house. It's not connected yet. There's a nice little trench in my lawn. Tomorrow I'll find out if they cut through my irrigation system at all. That will be fun. But it's almost here. I can't wait. Getting gigabit upload or multi-gigabit upload, it will be sweet. Very nice. Very nice. Well, I have news here too. I was watching the neighbor's house while they were out of town and noticed they had a package on the front door, ran up there and got the package. And then I was like looking around and there was some trash on the ground.

I'm like, oh, I better pick that up for them. And it was one of these door hanger things that you see these guys go around, hang on the door when they don't get to talk to anybody. And clearly there wasn't one in my house, but there was one at theirs. And I picked it up and I looked at it and I've got this now. I don't know if you guys can see this. It says Gigabit America. What does it say? Building Gigabit.

Yeah. And it's got a guy on VR, which has nothing to do with Gigabit Internet. But we obviously need Gigabit Internet for that. Yeah. It says right here, they're expanding frontier into our my neighborhood and to give them a call and um i stole this from my neighbor's house and uh and gave him a call and sure enough frontier is going to be doing the fiber hookups in uh they said november now who knows what's

going to happen after this week it's probably going to take another year but um good news i could get up to see i saw this logo two gig right there which isn't the alarm panel oddly enough um yeah one gig or two gig and i did confirm i talked to him i think the one gig was like um 60 or 79 a month something like that i, it was roughly half of what I'm paying now. I was going to say, that's not bad at all. No, no, not at all. And it's symmetrical. So one up, one down. I'll take it. Any data caps, do you know?

No, I don't think they have data caps either. They just like their internets. So yeah, I will take it. I'm so happy for you, Seth. After all these years of struggling, you know, you're finally coming up today. The house is going to get knocked down tomorrow. So what's it matter? We'll see what happens.

At least you'll have gigabit internet. At least, yeah. We've got to get the essentials back on. Power and internet. Yeah, Ron's saying it's time to batten down the hatches. Yep, I've been doing that today. Got the plywood behind me. I got half of my windows. I think I got like five or six more.

They're the big ones. So I saved those for the last, I guess. There's a new skill that Alexa can do. You put in here, Gavin, talking about how you can turn your lights off in a couple of minutes. Yeah, these are one of the things. These are the things. Alexa is always changing and you never hear about

these things until somebody tries it and then you see a reddit thread about it so apparently if you say hey a lady turn off the light in three minutes it will now set a timer to turn off the light so you could be leaving a room and tell her to turn it off in 30 seconds and she'll turn it off in 30 seconds it's a new feature it's kind of cool i tried it i was like hey that actually worked i was actually surprised it worked that's cool no it really is nice yeah it's a good idea and i'm sure it wasn't that hard to implement you know you know we're always bad talking her you know so you know when she does her, you know. So, you know, when she does something good, you know, you got to really, you know, point it out. Like, I really hate when she does things like change shades to blinds or blinds to shades. It's, you know, like, that drives me nuts.

One day she'll, you know, respect when I say blinds. The other day she won't. And I have to call it shades. I don't know why. That's weird. That it rolls back and forth from day to day. It just depends on which server you're talking to. And it's got a different patch on it. It's like, oh, this has got the shade patch and that's got the blinds patch. Whoops. Doing a little A and B

testing. Sorry. It's probably true. Yeah. A and B testing on you. And yeah, that's funny. And then you got here some notes about the new Hubitat firmware update uh that is yeah so habitat released a new 2.3.3 firmware update this week and as usual it's got new drivers new apps new app features they retired some apps lots and lots of bug fixes which was kind of scary that they have so many bugs to fix but at least they're getting fixed and some significant platform updates so you know like behind the scenes stuff modifications to z-waves zigbee that type of stuff so it's worth the update just go out there and update it and you know like they they left out one feature they pulled it at the last minute i don't know if i can really talk about it nobody's listening i was looking so forward to it well it's mentioned in

the forums it's mentioned in the forums. It's mentioned in the forums. So it's the HomeKit integration they were working on. So at the last minute they pulled it, I guess they want to just get it working much better. So I'm looking forward to when they finally release that because then you won't need HomeBridge anymore. Yeah, nice. It'd be nice to get rid of at least one dependency and they can kind of roll their own platform on it and just kind of build it a little bit tighter than then what you can do with like a with homebridge yeah and and they're making some big moves so you know they don't really talk about

what they're working on but somebody pointed out that they showed up on the matter uh what is it the matter list of companies you know um so the csa, I think. The CSA group. So that being said now is like, we can kind of expect them to be doing something with Matter in the near future. Yeah, maybe they are going to do like a more official integration. And this was like just how they're planning it out

or something. So that's interesting. Yeah. Very cool. All right, go update. You're supposed to update. You must update. Update all the things.

What do you say we jump into some home tech headlines? Let's do it. Yeah, because if you don't update, the European Commission is going to come get you. I was trying to transition to that, and then I realized we have the little sound thing to play. It wasn't going to work. But the European Commission wants to ensure

that everyday connected appliances are less vulnerable to cyber attacks by mandating that manufacturers strengthen security through their whole life cycles. The Cyber Resilience Act, presented on Thursday in Brussels, aims to become a global standard by introducing mandatory cybersecurity requirements for every product with digital elements, kind of known as basically Internet of Things devices, and it will make consumers, will give more consumers more information about those products and, you know, what they're buying. The commission's proposal will oblige manufacturers to take cybersecurity into account when designing and developing their

products and ensure that any vulnerabilities are handled effectively for the expected product lifetime or for a period of five years, whichever is shorter. It's kind of interesting, five years. And they'll also have to actively report any exploit or vulnerabilities, incidents, all that good stuff, provide security updates for at least five years and provide consumers with, quote, clear and understandable instructions for the use of the products with digital elements. Manufacturers who do not comply with this will basically either have their products banned from the single market

or they'll be slapped with a fine of between 2% and 5% of global turnover. So it's got some teeth to it. It's just got to make it through the commission here and pass. But I don't, I'm okay with this. This sounds pretty good. People should be doing this, right? Getting the smack down. I mean, honestly, I'm kind of disappointed that it's not like 10 years. I mean, five years is definitely a good time. But for example, like an iPhone gets updates for, you know, six, seven or eight years. I feel like mission critical infrastructure should get a little bit longer. But this is definitely more than like any government official in America is going to do.

So can't really complain about that part. Maybe they'll publish that expected lifetime, right? So if the lifetime is six years, like, well, we will handle this all the way through six years. Or if it's four years or two years or one years one years who would buy a product that has one year of support right no i want the one that has six yeah because it's it's it's more than the average or whatever yeah it's pretty good idea this is awesome like like it's a good first step you know i just hope that one year since we'll make it to um other parts of the world because uh all that's gonna happen is they probably just will

leave their devices out of Brussels just to stay away from this and not have to deal with this, right? It's like, listen, we could do all this shady stuff around the world unless, you know, just don't go to Brussels, right? I think this is like anywhere in the EU this would apply to. Once this passes, it would be any EU eu country and either you're going to sell in eu or you're just going to be not selling there or you're going to get fined like that's but it's great this is what we've been complaining about for many years like i think we even had a rant on the show once when um wise did it with their wise cam you know they just said oh we're no longer supporting this but as a security vulnerability, right?

This is the type of stuff that I like to see, like these devices as they get older, either get them out of the place so we don't have the vulnerable devices out there or still continue to patch them. Five years is a bit too short because some of these IoT devices last longer than that, but at least it's a good start you bring up a good point too seth about the you know have it on the packaging or something like that i really think that's what eventually needs to happen with all these electronics is that you're basically given a set time that at some point it's not going to be updated anymore

here's kind of the time frame for it you know like just like an expiration date for food you know this this product's going to last you until September 23rd of 2028. And then at that point you should retire it and get a new device. And maybe that is walking towards this. And I would like that myself. And, you know, like my, um, fire alarms have that type of thing, you know, when they reach the end of life, they start giving you a little chirp, you know, which is an indication that, Hey, we need to be replaced now. We're no longer supported. Yeah.

Yeah. And even on the packaging there, they tell you don't use these after 10 years or five years or, you know, whatever the limit is on them. But, yeah, I think this is a great idea um and you's not like it's not a mat it's like the crossover from the product that comes out of europe to here is not the same like they have different products completely different products different manufacturers different form factors of devices lighting control systems all sorts of stuff so like i think this is a good model, though. And if we could get something like here, we don't need the US to do something.

We just need California to pull something like this off. Then everybody else will be like, well, you can't sell a product in California. Forget it. You're going to have to do it. And that's what's happened on some of the password initiative for California, right? They passed a law that said you couldn't use default admin, admin, login, right?

You had to, the first time you log in, your device has to set up and you have to do a new password. And now, like every time I go into a device, I've changed its stupid password. So it's like, I try to change it back to admin, it won't let me. So it's, that's good.

I mean, it's good security practice and everything. Now it's just admin1234! That's good enough it's, that's good. I mean, there's good security practice and everything. Now it's just admin1234! That's good enough. Anyway, that's security. Well, speaking of security here, Yale is updating its flagship product with a brand new design, a wider range of connectivity options,

and even more styles to suit your home. The previously leaked Yale AssureLock 2 is out and priced between $160 and $260 and available in four main variations. There's two touchscreen models, both with and without a key cylinder, and two keypad models, one keyed and one key free. By default, all models will include Bluetooth connectivity, though you can upgrade to a version with built-in Wi-Fi. But perhaps the most interesting part of this is they'll all be able to accept add-on modules that will enable additional wireless connectivity. So it's easy to upgrade your lock after you've bought it. It's kind of nice.

Additionally, Yale says, I think they did this before, right? I'm pretty sure they've already had these modules for Yale locks. But additionally, Yale says the SureLock 2 will be one of the first Matter compatible smart locks. So they'll have one of those modules available for that later this year. TJ, you're the lock guy. Tell me, what do you think about this? Honestly, I think this is a pretty attractive lock.

I mean, it doesn't look like anything too crazy. They've made it a little bit smaller than the previous versions. I really like the previous versions. I really like the previous versions myself, and I always get the one with the key and the physical buttons. I don't like the idea of not having a physical key override in case the electronics die. And I don't like to have to worry about if my button, if my fingers are going to touch the buttons, if it's like one of the touchscreen ones. But I think this is a great lock for the $200 price range. The little modules make it super easy. So you can get whatever variant you want.

You can get Wi-Fi, Zigbee, Z-Wave, or even Matter coming up. So it's a no-brainer if you're just looking for a great looking lock. And that just works every single time. So there's a touchscreen one and then a keypad one that has like physical buttons. Is that what I'm getting at? Yeah. So basically you have two different options. One is without a key and one is with a key.

And then each option has a physical button or a touchscreen option. So you get to basically choose if you want a key or not. Oh, yeah. These look way better than the previous versions. Yeah. The other ones weren't like, you know, the best looking. They look way better than the previous versions. Yeah. The other ones weren't like, you know, the best looking they were, you know, they looked like locks. I mean, they weren't attractive or anything, but these, I think genuinely look nice. Yeah, no, they,

they look great. Um, compared to the other, other ones. Um, and, and these other ones are the ones that have always like with the keypad feature, I think if you like put your hand over all the keypad or whatever it will detect that and it'll lock the door like that's a feature but always when i'm walking by i would like touch it and it would lock and i would pull the door behind me and would slam with the doors the cylinder coming out into the door for break everything every single time yeah it breaks makes makes a mess so i did i did not like that keypad but so you can get the keypad feature and and not have that problem hopefully yeah it'll probably be something else to annoy me but it's pretty cool i do like this gavin you're gonna get some of these um i might

get one i i already have two yale locks i only have three doors so i have two yale locks um i have them without the key but i figure the chances of them both dying at the same time and I can't get into my house are very slim. Right. It'll probably happen to me next week now. But, you know, like right now. That key is a liability. Somebody can pick that lock. I know a guy.

Oh, get out of here. You know, it's hilarious. Every time I'm on like Reddit or something, everybody's like, don't get the one with keys somebody's gonna pick your lock and i'm like you realize like nobody's gonna go around just picking you just need a bump key you just bump it and then like bricks are so much cheaper guys yeah nobody like yeah come on throw a brick through a window and then you're in people that have these smart locks usually have like glass doors or something so you can easily walk through it like or you put it on like a really old garage door from the early 1900 something so you can easily walk through it like or you put it on like a really old garage door from the early 1900s that you can just kick in it's amazing how um you being in

security like how technically advanced people think criminals are like no what's gonna happen is you're gonna leave your door open and they're just gonna walk in and steal something and walk right back out that's what's gonna happen i always imagine a criminal coming going to walk in and steal something and walk right back out. That's what's going to happen. I always imagine a criminal coming up to my house and, you know, cutting my lines, cutting my internet, you know, cutting my power and going around to the back and then cutting the camera line. You know, they're just going to run and take whatever. And then you're going to have camera footage, give it to the police and they're just going to say nothing we can do about

this. Yep. Sorry. We don't know. Yeah. he's a regular yeah we know who he is but no he's bad news it was always funny being a locksmith you know i'd go to these lockout calls and people somebody locked their their key inside the the restaurant or the business or their house or whatever and you try to pick it for like two, you know, two to five minutes. And then after that, if you can't get it, like you're pretty much not going to pick it open. So you just drill it open at that point. And everybody's like, oh, my gosh, like, what do you mean?

You can't just pick it open. Like it always takes like 30 seconds on the movies. And I'm like, yeah, that's a perfect situation and a really awful lock. Getting the lock picking lawyer. He he can get it open pretty quickly. Have you ever been in the middle of a parking lot trying to break into your own car because you locked the keys inside it and not one person

stopped to see what was up? Yeah. You know, they just kept walking by like, oh, yeah, look, that guy's breaking into his car. No one ever stopped to say, hey, is that your car? They probably noticed how awful you are at it. They're like, well, obviously that guy's not a criminal's not criminal that's my first car don't have to worry about that doesn't he doesn't have a brick in his hand or a spark plug exactly yeah yeah get that sharp porcelain

uh it's well interesting um i i like this i have a dead slag slag lock over there that needs or needs a replace. And it looks kind of this. It's the same vintage as the previous yellow one. So it kind of looks the same. But this looks a lot nicer. You're right. I like this.

And having the door, if you do get the key built into it, it looks like it's flat or built into it. It looks really good. It's a good design. Very good design. Very nice. All right. Well, let's move on here.

We've got a couple new products, more new products on here. So confirming some rumors, Google has unveiled Chromecast with Google TV, in parentheses, HD. It's a device that offers features from the $50 4K model

at a significantly cheaper $30 price. So unlike the original $35 Chromecast, it actually comes with a remote, which eliminates the need to use a smartphone, which is nice. Remotes are great. And then you can control it with the mobile device as well if you wanted. Other key features here, right there in the name, it's got a lower 1080p resolution, but it does keep the HDR support. That's kind of nice. The new device looks identical to the 4K model with an oval shape, short HDMI cable, and USB-C input. It comes preloaded with all the popular streaming services, including Netflix, Disney+,

Apple+, Apple TV+, I guess, HBO Max, Prime Video, YouTube, and everything else, basically, because it's a Chromecast. And what else did you expect? Seems like a pretty good deal. I don't know why they would focus so heavily on making it $20 cheaper when the $50 model is sitting right there and can do 1080p with HDR. But I guess if you want to save $20, now is is your time yeah that's what i was i guess i was confused about and i originally i thought this was like one of the original chrome cast and i was even more confused by that um but i guess if you're comparing this to like a fire tv or something you might find this more appealing but other than that i agree i don't know why they

spent time on this to make it 20 cheaper um but it's a thing you can buy now i can't talk and i don't i've never had a chromecast never looked at one so these ones work pretty good i mean honestly i had the 4k one when it first came out and i liked it um because it was just like the chromecast but it gave you the physical remote so you didn't have to have your phone every single time. But I think it's a great device for the price. And I think the remote is probably one of the better ones out there too.

So worth it for $50. $30, right? $30. Well, yeah, that one's $30. Yeah. I was thinking the 4K though. Might as well just get 4K. In my opinion. I was comparing it to like maybe the Apple TV, but they're totally different price ranges at that point right like up here it's like apple tv is like 120 to 150 or even more i think

now with the 4k versions and stuff right so yeah i guess for that price it's worth it yeah it looks like you're you're right it looks like they're competing with fire tv because the fire tv light is basically 29 comes with a remote you can see one with the alexa voice remote included for ten dollars more and then for fifty dollars you're basically price match right there with the 4k fire stick which everything i've ever heard about the fire stick things like they're not great like they don't i don't like them they always go really slow for me i think they always yeah i've had problems with them too after like six months six to twelve months too it's like they just get even worse.

Yeah. Um, honestly though, what I just thought of is, uh, Google got rid of the Chromecast audio and what they should do with this is just add a 3.5 millimeter port and just make it a Chromecast audio and Chromecast TV all in one or Google TV, I guess. Uh, but that way you could have a chromecast audio source all on one device you're just trying to get sued by sonos man that's google if you're listening make that happen pay your patents though pay your patents first and then do that because that's a genius idea i wonder if anybody's thought of that yet there you are there you are um well uh speaking

of speaking of sonos and just made a joke there, but Victrola, this is a brand that's been making record players for more than 100 years, has introduced the Stream Carbon. It's a $800 turntable that can directly connect to a Sonos system and allows you to stream your records all over the home. Have you ever wanted whole house record audio? And a lot of people do. Yeah, it's common, I guess.

Victrola says it's one of the first of a few more planned devices in the Stream lineup as well, so I have to keep an eye on them and see what they come out with there. Hardware-wise, the Stream Carbon is a bell-driven turntable with aluminum platter and an Ortofon 2M red cartridge. I don't know. I'm not a guy. There we go. Thank you. It's got a pre-built, it's got a built-in preamp. I know what that is. Traditional RCA outputs, also know what that is. And if you want to hook it up to older speakers, that's what you would use. It's also got wireless and ethernet connectors.

You know, if you didn't want to put it on the wifi network, I guess it's kind of common with Sonos gear, like especially the higher end Sonos gear, you'd have both wifi and ethernet connectivity. So that's, that's nice. Um, and design wise, it looks pretty minimal. It's got a knob on the front there, uh, that Victrola says can control the volume, uh, that's being of the audio that's being played and, uh, the speaker grouping somehow. I'm not sure how that works, but it seems interesting. I know, Gavin, I know it sounds like I know that you have records and you know how to say ortophone. So are you going to get one of these?

I won't get one of those. I have two turntables as it is in the back there, and I just hooked them up through my Sonos Play 5. So that's how I get it into the Sonos ecosystem through that. But this totally makes sense because you can get one of these and you don't have to have a Play 5 or any input device. It just, through the network, it adds it in. It saves you some money. It's an expensive turntable.

And the only gripe I have about it, it needs a dust cover. Like these things gather dust. Why would you not have it needs a dust cover like these things gather dust why would you not have like a minimalist dust cover or are they gonna sell that as an accessory for another 200 we'll see i thought i thought it came with one but it was like a partial dust cover or something no it was one of the grapes on there it said it didn't have a dust cover interesting record players gather dust trust me a dust cover is like essential like even my mom's old old record players from the 60s had dust covers i remember i remember having playing with

my my dad's record players and um some sometimes we can get them to work but like i we didn't use them very often but um yeah they had these big like plexiglass yep covers you had to take off of them so yeah yeah it is it is pretty nice looking and uh if you go online a lot of people are always asking how to connect their record player to sonos and the only answer you have is to buy like a connect or a port or even a play five and connect it directly to there um this is a nice all-in-one solution eight hundred dollars i think it's a lot of money for a connected turntable but if it integrates directly and you don't have to do anything funky with it then

totally makes sense i hope you're not just paying for the tech in this turntable though i hope i hope it's a solid turntable right like if it's a flimsy turntable and you're paying all that money just for the tech, uh, I wouldn't be happy with it. Now I would, I would assume that it's a very nice turntable. Um, but even if it, you know, realistically it's maybe a two or $300 turntable, you know, depending on what you value the Sonos connection as. So, I mean, a two or $300 record player is pretty nice nice but if you already have an existing one then this doesn't do anything for you you might as well just get the porter five yeah just do just doing the math if you if you take the 789 price point and subtract four nine four fifty dollar four hundred and fifty dollars for the sonos was it port i guess

you would have to add a minimum yeah um then then you're left with $350. So that, that would be an okay record player, right? It's okay. Okay. Price point. I mean, they're probably paying a little bit more for Sonos and licensing and all that stuff. And yeah, so it's probably $150 record player at that point, but, um, yeah, at least, like you said, it's a turnkey solution. You don't have to go jump through these hoops to get, um set up the way you want and the only thing it's missing is a seems to be a dust cover um so what are you gonna do well maybe you'll get a cheaper option here soon so yeah yeah they did say that there was going to be some more stream turntables will be coming hopefully at a lower price point so does it at least come with a 45 adapter for my 45s you know did they skip out on

that too is that a 45 adapter in the back i can't tell i just realized even with this thing well this has got a knob so how we is we can't put this inside the uh the database but we definitely get need to get those yale locks in the database oh absolutely yeah and even even uh even some of the other things like the google chromecast with the remote it's got a remote now so we gotta get that in there so pbd pbb all right well all the links and topics we discussed tonight can be found on our show notes at hometech.fm slash 406 nothing in the mailbag this week but we do have a fun pick of the week. I think someone posted this in our Slack chat. TJ, was this you? Were you the original? Were you the OP, the original poster? I was. I found it while mindlessly browsing Reddit. So you're welcome.

This is really cool. It is a, someone has taken their basement in the land where you can have basements and they have taken their basement and basically made it into a 1980s version of a video store and um took them four this is four long years and i believe it uh but it's it's very well decorated it's got the like the what's that linoleum tile floor with like checkered floor it It's got what would be neon in the 80s. It's probably LEDs now because who would buy neon? Run around the top. The ceiling's painted black. It's like got a red and black motif, but walls and walls and walls of videos. this is kind of like one of those, um, I've seen people do this before when they're doing like themed theaters, like they'll do like, um, a room before the theater that kind of like brings you into that theme. And then when you're in the theater, it's like

a theme theater for that as well. Um, it's kind of, it's kind of what they have here as well. Like it's, it's, it's a room that's like a precursor to his theater, but maybe he's got like a workout room too with some workout equipment and everything in it as well, like buns of steel, I'm sure, is in there. But this is a pretty elaborate setup here. This is pretty incredible. Just flipping through and looking at the covers covers of the dvds and everything

he's even got like a snack bar and places to sit uh kind of brings back some memories of going to the video store back in the 80s he left out no details i i thought this was great he has vhs he has laser disc um the part that got me laughing was he even included the adult only room like that that you know like that kind of detail just completes the whole thing the posters brought back memories of some of the movies this would be a great place to just you know go and watch one of these old movies yeah i'm looking through here uh to see if we can find the original poster on here to see if he has any additional details but man one of the top comments is here it's like a has any additional details, but man, the, one of the top comments is here.

It's like a memory, but you can go there. That's, that's, that's a great, that's a great, that's great. Anyways,

again, are there late fees? Yeah. It was anything like my blockbuster where I would go and get charged, you know, just unreasonable, uh, late fees for not returning my videos. I won't like it very much and I will continue to use my Plex server, but to each their own.

This is actually really cool. I do like this. I don't know if you'd notice, but did you notice that the kitchen is actually hidden behind the movie shelf? The kitchen is hidden behind the movie shelf the kitchen is hidden behind the movie shelf yes so look for the picture with the kitchen and you'll see how the movie shelves open up right before it genius oh yeah it's like a doorway and you just kind of like push through and go into the kitchen yeah like it's little details like that that you know i like very cool yeah no he definitely spent some put some some blood sweat and tears into this thing this is this is crazy uh

it's very well done yeah all these shelves of videos and everything wow incredible the anti-streamer, I guess. Do you have this? That was only on Netflix. You know how much time he wastes having to rewind those tapes? Because nobody ever does it for you. Yeah, exactly. Used to have tape rewinders. You guys remember those? Yep. Well, most VCRs have them built in now. Jeez.

I mean, it was a separate device. We had a rewind button on our VCR, Seth. I had that too, but it was a separate device. You could rewind it a lot faster. VCRs, man, VCRs were great technology. Until your tape got chewed up. Yeah, or the head wore out or whatever. Or your mom accidentally records over your WWF recordings with her daytime television.

Young and the Restless or whatever it is. Yeah. Right over Royal Rumble. Oh, man. He's not bitter. He's not bitter. All right. The Yale and Sherlock's have been added to the price per button database.

Good deal. All right. I feel better now. Yep, yep. All right, well, if you've got any feedback, comments, pics of the weeks, or great ideas for a show, give us a shout. Our email address is feedback at hometech.fm, where you can go over to hometech.fm slash feedback and fill out the online form.

All right, we've got some events coming up. Big events. Yes. Big ones. This week, of course, is I know we did it. We did a lot of talking about the Ohio Pawpaw Festival, but here in Florida, we actually have a plywood and gasoline generator smell festival going on this week. I'm not sure how long it's going to go on, but that'll be happening.

I think they call that hurricane. And let's see, the Amazon hardware event, that is going to be on the 28th. So here in a couple days, yeah, two days, on Wednesday, we'll have a good something to watch while the hurricane's rolling through. And then Cedia actually starts on the 29th, goes through the 1st. So there's going to be a bunch of stuff coming out of the pro space

and talked about out of that. It'll probably have this week full of news. They generally start leaking and launching things ahead of the show. And then next week on the 6th, so we'll probably get back on our recording schedule on the 1st, right? Or not on the 1st, but on the Monday. So we'll talk about CDN Amazon. That'll be good. And then we've got Made by Google, which is right after that on the 6th. That'll happen. We'll probably talk about that the next week. But lots going on. Oh, and there's a State of the Open Home Talk that'll

be going on in November. So November 13th. mark your calendar. That's, that's, that's home assistant's going to be doing that. And there's a, there's actually a bunch more vendors besides home assistant, but as that gets closer, I'm sure we would talk about it a little bit more, but kind of cool, um, to see all this stuff kind of like going on and all these products and everything, new gear coming out and um you know maybe we'll even have a matter event to talk about sometime soon i don't know busy busy calendar in the next couple weeks i like to see all these events other than apple get highlighted you know like it makes things excited exciting you know amazon always has some it has an interesting event same with google they have interesting events know, Cydia, you pros go crazy.

I don't know why around Cydia. I don't know either. It feels like everything leaks from there. We've heard about it before. Gosh. I need new brackets for my thermostats and stuff. That's why. It's got to be a flush mount nest thermostat.

I need a bracket for that. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's... I don't know. All the Home Pro stuff will be... We'll have some updates from some companies on that. I guess Crestron's going back to the show. And that's good for Crestron.

I feel bad for them because they kind of like pulled out of the show because like resi's not going to be a thing at crestron they they left the market basically they get back into it with you know different leadership really focused on doing something really cool and in the home they start launching crestron what is it crestron home crestron home yeah looks like a sweet product it's got like modern design to it like modern programming design to it it's a modern product for um 2020 you know it is the most modern home automation platform there is um and then like covid hits and they have supply chain issues and you can't buy any of their stuff like it's it's i do feel bad for him and they have supply chain issues and you can't buy

any of their stuff. Like it's, it's, I do feel bad for him. And then they're like, Oh, let's go back to the show and, and talk about all the stuff you can't buy. But, um, yeah, I don't know. It'll be, it should be a good show. There's already been some, like, uh, I've had a couple of leaks of some products that are people have been talking about. And then, um, I don't know, there's already been a couple of interesting things posted, uh, like origin acoustics, getting Velodyne branding back. Like they're going to import either import Velodyne or just

pay for the branding and do their own speakers. I don't really know how that works, but I assume that they're just paying for the Velodyne name and maybe some proprietary technology or something like that. But we'll talk about that later in our Cedia roundup or whatever we're Cedia slash Amazon roundup we're going to do next week somehow. I'll have plenty of time, trust me. I'm pretty sure as long as I have power, I'll be able to get this done. But I don't know know it should be a busy couple weeks and um i'm glad for it because there were some times during the summer like there wasn't really much going on like looking around like what project there's there's there's nothing no news at all um with the supply chain crunch and like the news cycle it was just it was dead so glad to see we are starting to get some announcements

back from these companies. Should we, should we take a bet on how many times we'll see matter mentioned in the Cedia news ecosystem? It's gotta be pretty low. Probably like two or three times. Yeah.

Is matter big for them at all? No. Matter doesn't matter for anybody. It doesn't matter for anybody. Definitely not integrators. So I'd be curious to know if any Matter news comes out of it. Because everybody's kind of got their own communication standard anyway. Right.

I'm sure nobody in the professional space is waiting for this. But I'm curious to see if any company is like, oh, yeah, by the way, we're going to support Matter as well. They've already been doing the architecture and everything, like in more proprietary ways. But they've already been doing what Matter, they've solved what matters trying to solve right just on smaller admittedly smaller systems or smaller um fewer devices i guess i'll say like but i but i want to be able to add my 20 smart plug to my five million dollar control four system exactly i don't know you're gonna add it but yeah i mean we've talked about this before with Gavin and his firmware updates,

like in doing the ZigBee firmware updates, like with Control 4 and Crestron, you just push a button and it's just taken care of. And if you come back to it and it says update failed, it's like, okay, well, maybe I'll go reset the device. And when it wakes back up, it'll go back into its firmware update thing. But I mean, I've go reset the device. And when it wakes back up, it'll go back into its firmware update thing. But, I mean, I've never had the experience that Gavin's had when updating firmware.

But I can see how it can be a different thing on the DIY side where you don't – the manufacturers of those ZigBee devices and light switches and everything don't necessarily know what the other side is, what is connected to them. So they kind of have to be more generic. With your firmware updates, though, you're not updating Z-Wave devices or ZigBee devices. You're updating, I guess, Crestron devices, I'm guessing, at that point. Well, depending on who it is, it could be ZigBee.

Not Z-Wave, though. I don't think anybody uses Z-Wave. Control 4 uses ZigBee. Control 4 uses Z-Wave as well. They have some Z-Wave devices they support now. Interesting. And I think the new core processors actually have this 700, is that 4 uses Z-Wave as well. They have some Z-Wave devices they support now. Interesting. And I think the new core processors actually have this 700, is that right, Z-Wave 700 chip?

Yeah. So they've got that built in now. But I think that was limited towards like door lock, like just a few Z-Wave devices. I don't think they support everything, and I have no idea how to write drivers for it. Because if I did, I'd probably try my hand at it, but I don't think they've ever

published an api around that no ask around anyway should be fun uh should be a fun week and uh we'll have to get back to it so firmware firmware updates drain the battery uh now i'm going around training switching batteries on all the devices i updated uh yeah it it makes me wonder i had um i had some devices i was using for garage door sensors, and I put an alert on them because you can measure the battery level on them, and it'll report when the battery's low. So I have a little report that sends me an email when the battery's low. And they died a long time ago, and I put new batteries in them.

And they came back online and started working, whatever. But I'm thinking I got it like a few days later, I got a like low critical battery level. Like, wait a minute. I just put new batteries in. I bet, I bet that's what happened. Even on the control four system, I bet it was updating the firmware and just kind of took out the battery. Now I should probably go put another battery in before it dies. Yeah. Z-Wave devices, they sleep a lot, right? And then they have a configuration option where you can say, wake up every, you know, 12 hours and report in. And usually when that reports in, it will say, Hey, I'm here. And then the controller can do whatever it wants and then, you know, let it go back to sleep. Right. The only other time it checks it is like,

if it was a sensor, it would check in when that sensor gets tripped, then it will just send its value. Right. So when you're doing a firmware update, basically that sent that device is staying awake that whole time. So it drains the battery. So if it's your garage door openers and that is too short, then you want to change it to like every 12 hours, 24 hours and let it sleep. That's fine. It will help with the battery. Or if you were doing firmware updates, that's probably what could have happened there, too. Yeah, I bet that's what it was. I just thought about it after piecing all this together in our conversation now.

That's probably what it was. One thing I have here is like CD a show number bets. I don't know. You guys want to, like last year, they reported basically 1,400 people showed up and they were like, oh, this is a success. But now this is going to be in Dallas. It's not in Indianapolis.

I've heard excitement about this. Record turnout or something, supposedly. Well, I mean, if you're starting at 1,400, there's only one way to go. You want to say it's a record. But I don't know. I've been hearing I've been hearing people are going. I've been hearing people are not going. So what's your number? I'm going to put it at ten thousand, I think. I don't think they're going to break ten thousand. So I'll put it at nine thousand nine hundred ninety nine. And I'll leave the ten thousand to somebody else. Man, I'll be a little 9,999 and I'll leave the 10,000 to somebody else.

Man, I'll be a little more optimistic. I want to go 15,500. Historically. So Gavin, so, you know, this is like a 20,000 person event. And so 1400 people is very low, but I don't know. I just don't, i don't think they're gonna they're gonna break the the 10 000 i'm gonna put it lower than you seth oh dang well i just don't know if there's a not a lot of things happening this year you know like we're still at the edge i think it'll be bigger the next year but i just don't know if it'll be as big as 10 000 well nobody here cares about covid anymore so i think it'll be a big one you said 15 500 yeah that's what i said yeah and then gavin

what are you at you're lower than me uh i'm lower than you well knowing like half that crowd are you just gonna say one dollar i think gavin just said one i'm just'm just going to put it $1. $1. $1 Canadian. CAD next to that. No, not $1. It's, oh, yeah. One patron. One patron. All right. So Gavin has taken the low end there.

So we'll have to see what happens. And I don't know. I'm curious to see what they, I mean, it's definitely going to be a bragging moment for them to say that, you know, 15 or 20,000 people showed up. Like if they did, that would be great. It would, I'm kind of with you, Gavin. Like, I don't know how many, I don't know how many people are wanting to go back to this kind of show.

I know there's a lot of people who do, but I don't know how many, I don't know exactly how many people want to. I just have, I just have my guess and I i i there it is 9999 people i just think they'll only get 20 000 if that's like 10 000 of them are looking for a shelter from the hurricane right yeah i mean i know vendors that are like in saint pete where this thing is like supposed to hit at least you know it was earlier before i uh you know logged on for this but um that they're there in St. Pete and the same thing actually happened to us five years ago. And when we were in San Diego and, uh,

the same vendor and myself, like we all basically, there's some guys in Miami, like there was a big hurricane coming up, like a five. Uh, and the track line was like right down the highway, like where I live, like you just see it. Um, so we all flew back. I got the last flight into town and put boards on my house. And sometime in the middle of the night, I was like, we have a less than one year old and there's a hurricane, like a category five hurricane that's about to hit here. Let's just leave. So we drove. We just drove straight across the state to the other side where the hurricane wasn't.

We still lost power over there and had to drive back home. But at least we weren't here in case anything happened. So we're going to try and wait it out and see what happens. I don't know. Things get crazy tomorrow. We may try and do the same thing. But I don't know. I think we're going to stick with it.

See what happens. Just be safe. Yeah, we're in the business into this thing. I'm not jealous at all. No, no. It's time to move. Not when you get fiber. I know, right?

I'm finally getting fiber. I'm finally getting this 2 gig fiber. I'm going to move. Can you imagine all the iguanas that are going to be flowing and flying around and drop on people? Oh, man. Yeah. Yeah.

Hurricane of iguanas. All right. Well, we want to give a big thank you to everyone who supports the show, but especially those who are able to financially support the show through our patron page. If you don't know about our patron page, head on over to hometech.fm to learn how you can support Hometech for as little as a dollar a month any pledge uh uh over five dollars gets you

a big shout out on the show but every single pledge gets you a private or an invite to our private slack chat the hub where you can uh what were we talking about today there was some crazy stuff floating back back and forth in there today um tj is putting hard drives on top of aruba's i don't even know what that's about i was just showing off the size of the panasonic tv that's what it was that's what i was i was just cracking up laughing yeah so if you have a panasonic tv on wednesday the 28th this is another event for our event calendar here um at midnight or sometime onwards you may see an update for your tv who knows who knows what's gonna happen should be done by midday um on thursday but you know who knows who knows

what's gonna happen your tv is just gonna go down and it's gonna need update there you go enjoy your entertainment device she's crazy anyway uh all that stuff is in there and uh we can be all laugh about it. If you want to help out the show but can't support financially, totally understand. Just appreciate a five-star review on iTunes or a positive rating in the podcast app of your choice. That wraps up another week here in Home Technology News. From everyone here, have a great weekend, and we'll see you next week. Take care.

See you next week. Take care. See you next time. Now for our 45-minute dissertation on pawpaws. Oh, there we go. That was funny last week. It was, it was. No. It just kept going and going and going. I'm like, I've got to end this. I've done more editing on this than I have on the actual show.

So I was like, I need to stop to find a place. Let's educate everybody on hurricanes. Yeah, well, in Florida, you measure it by if, so like you go to the store and the water, for whatever reason, people think they need to take water bottles. So they, they, they'll buy the water bottles and then,

um, they'll, they'll, they'll grab those and those will go first. And, um, the Publix brand, which is our supermarket store,

those will go cause those are cheap. And then you'll start seeing the best, the, yeah, they're actually pretty good. And then they'll see like Zephyr Hills, which is kind of a local spring thing. Yeah.

And then you'll see like Aquafina go. But if anybody touches that Dazani stuff, if that's touched, then you know you just need to evacuate. Get out of town. Like nobody wants that stuff. That's the worst tasting water. Amazing that they still sell it

just because it's so bad. It is. I mean, it just, nobody wants, it's just there on the shelf. It could be an entire empty shelf, no water, fully stocked on Dasani. There you go. You know when you have a shortage, when that starts to disappear.

Yeah, no, people are panicking. If the Dasani is going, yeah, people are in crisis mode. And you probably just need to leave town. It's like the Waffle House thing. Did you guys know about that? Like the Waffle House? The FEMA basically measures like if an area is devastated, if the Waffle House isn't open.

So like if they will just drive down in the road and it's like, oh, well, this Waffle House is open. This area is not that bad. And they'll just keep going until they find one that's closed. And it's like, well, if the Waffle House people can't make it into work, this place is bad. And they'll just get off the exit and go help people. So that is our federal government. You can go five kilometers and pick up. No, we don't need any of that. We just need wall files. Done.

That's your sensor right there. That's your sensor. Well, maybe they need the Desani for toilet water or bath water. That's why they're buying it. They're just flushing it down the drain, literally. Nobody needs a bath that bad. It's just Florida in the middle of summer. You come out dirtier than you went in.

It's always the middle of summer in Florida. That's very true. That doesn't matter what time of year it is. Yep. Yep.