HomeTech.fm - Episode 427 - Ring Arms a Paywall

Episode Date: March 12, 2023

On this weeks show, Ring puts some of its core features behind a paywall, Amazon hopes to launch a satellite internet service, CEDIA 2023 planning woes, multiple project updates, and a pick of the week!

This is the Home Tech Podcast for Friday, March 10th. I'm Sarasota, Florida. I'm Seth Johnson. From Lewis Center, Ohio, I'm Tija Huddleston. And from Pickering, Ontario, I'm Gavin Campbell. And welcome to the Home Tech Podcast, a podcast about all aspects of home technology, home automation, and Cedia. We're all going to Cedia, right? Right, guys? Yay! Yay! I'm slowly knocking stuff off the list.

Like, buy a booth space. That's what my task for this week is. Spend lots of money to buy a booth space. I don't know if you guys know how much booth spaces are, but they're very expensive at Cedia. And it's just like renting a concrete floor space. You don't even get anything with it.

You have to bring everything in and and set it all up and stuff it's not gonna be fun pay to have it all shipped pay to have it all set up do this do that yep yep yep big old investment yeah it's gonna be fun i guess so we'll see what happens um yeah yeah tj you've been talking about in the hub i've been seeing you guys get uh food suggestions i think gavin's up for getting some rocky mountain oysters that's what it sounds like yeah it sounds like he really wants them i mean i i hear they taste like chicken so yeah a little bit of fried chicken while you're in denver never hurts i heard they're extra salty

though but uh i i okay i'll be honest i only just learned what Rocky Mountain oysters were. You know, I thought it was seafood, you know, like I hear oysters. I was like, all right, let's go eat some seafood. You guys have taught me something new today. And wow, that's all I have to say. But if someone wants to pay for my flight to Cedia, you know, like I'll eat them. You know, if you want to dare me, I'll try them out. You know, flight to Cedia.

I think first class. I don't I don't think I would like hesitate to try them, but I also wouldn't go out of my way to try them. It's just not just not on my list. You know, I have a bunch ofanish restaurants and some pizza places on the list but rocky mountain oysters have not made the cut the first when i googled rocky mountain oysters the first story that came up was everything you want and didn't want to know about rocky mountain oysters and why people eat them so yeah i will uh we'll put the link to that in the show notes uh because i don't really know why people well people eat anything i guess that's that's

the truth that's true so what what's the truth. That's true. So what's the most exotic thing you've probably eaten? Like I was saying, I ate Wendy's over the weekend. Oh, yeah, that could mess with your stomach. What would we classify as exotic? I mean, from like a faraway place or like an odd food combination. Animal or something. You've had frogs, you know, you have the basic.

I know you've had alligator. I mean, I think one of the, probably the strangest foods I've had frogs you know you have the basic i know you've had alligator i mean i think one of the probably the strangest foods i've had is like a curry mango um but nothing like nothing yeah it's pretty gross but that's not strange i've had that it's not a good flavor i can't really think of anything exotic i guess i don't know you haven't even had a beef patty yet uh no i technically have yes i have everybody's had a beef patty yet. No, I technically have. Yes, I have. Yeah, everybody's had a beef patty. What are you talking about? Oh, Seth, though. He technically has.

You have? Yeah, he went to the place and bought one. We made him. Oh, he did get one? Yeah, yeah, we made him. All right. All right. I wasn't sure if you actually fulfilled that.

No, no, no, no. And I went to a restaurant in Orlando and had oxtail. Like, I'm going out of my way. Oh, wow. Yeah, I know. I'm going out of my way to get some spicy food from jamaica like it's happening i'm impressed no it's it's good food but both of you better be willing to uh to eat while we're in denver because i i really don't do vacations i do foodcation so all of my uh travel is based around different restaurants and what I can eat.

So food tech podcast. That's right. GPT. GPT. Yeah. That's going to have to be a domain like a like a like a dot com level. I'm sure. Yeah, I know.

Now, but we're getting, you know, getting the final touches on CDS. So if you know me at all, like i don't i'm not a person that plans anything like this this far in advance like i usually wait till like a month or two but i know if i don't start talking about this and start planning and and scheduling things i'm gonna forget till the last minute and then everything's gonna be gone yeah so i i've got the hotel booked for cd now i just got the flight booked for cd uh we'll be there the second through the ninth. So we'll be there Saturday to Saturday. Got the rental car booked for about four or five days so we can go explore outside of Denver for a little bit.

So, you know, getting there, surely but slowly. Yeah, I mean, and not for nothing, but like there's a lot of people that are booking things right now. I mean, between if you go look at the floor plan, it's, it's mostly filled out. Like there's, there's a lot, there's a bunch of empty spaces still showing, but that's naturally how things go. And then they kind of like tighten it up later on or people jump in later, but like all of the big booths and like Crestron, Lutron, like most of the floor is booked out. Like we're, we're kind of off on the, on the side. I was kind of reserving a booth today.

So we could, we could have a place to live and that's easy to find, I guess, is kind of what we went with. And yeah, we're just off on the side and off on the side in the corner as one does in our company, it seems like the most appropriate place for us. So we're, we're going to hopefully be on the right-hand side all the way down to the end. So like when you walk in the door, turn right, and you'll find us down on the end there. But that was a long, drawn-out conversation at work, and it's been a lot of planning still to go because we've got to get furniture and all the stuff that you just talked about. Like all the equipment has to show up and get set up and all that.

So many logistics behind it. I'm not jealous of that part. I just got to get on a plane and head there. That's it. Yeah, it would be nice if that was all we had to do. Hopefully I can get that wrapped up. Most of the preliminary logistics wrapped up this week. I got Infocom wrapped up.

We have a booth there. Ooh, nice. I can't wait. You'll see me there too. We're going to be seeing each other a lot this year we're gonna high five like in toronto i feel so left out it's and it's like it's where we first met at seth i know right that was crazy that was a while back yeah that was yeah greg was there yeah that was a great show pre Pre-COVID. Good times, good times. All right.

Well, we've got no news this week again. Just a couple of headlines, but, you know, the news is there. But what do you say we jump into some home tech headlines? Let's do it. All right. Well, along with a new CEO, Ring has announced new plans to place several of its core features behind a paywall, which means existing users will need a ring protect plan to maintain some of the features they currently enjoy. Starting on March 29th,

the home and away modes on camera devices will be shifting from being free to subscription based and support for Alexa is also heading behind that same paywall. So basically if you want to use the Alexa integration with your ring devices, you'll need to upgrade to having a Ring protection plan. It's not just Ring's camera-based devices that are getting hit. If you pick up a Ring alarm security system after March 29th, those in-app features will also be behind a paywall, effectively meaning that you'll have to pay to arm or disarm your

alarm system, receive notifications, or have any security automations set up. Existing Ring alarm users will maintain those features even if they don't pony up for the Protect plan. For its part, Ring says there are some features that will remain free to use, such as live view, two-way talk, and motion detection. Yay. But that's not stopping users on the internet from expressing their frustration uh with the change so far it appears to apply only to uh users here in the

u.s and canada but we'll probably see this roll out through europe and other regions in the upcoming month this is kind of wild like this seems like a core use of the ring system and now you've got a kind of upgrade to this ring protect plan to even arm and disarm your system it's kind of wild that that sums it up right there it's a core feature you arm and disarm like what else are you gonna do with your ring security system and for them to lock it behind you know paywall just means now you have pretty much half the pay just to use it yeah right and i think a lot of people are not happy about that i honestly don't think i've ever used these modes um but i do find it annoying that they're going to take away something that used to be free and make it

a paid option now um you know and i think in a lot of developed countries probably only the eu uh they might actually get in trouble for this because they're taking away features that somebody bought a product for uh and putting it behind a paywall but in america they're not going to do anything about this oh no not at all they'll probably this is not a word yeah um i i i have used the arm in away mode on my alarm system and i guess that kind of integrates and it's kind of the same thing for like the cameras but I've never changed any of the settings on the camera the cameras just kind of do their thing and record motion detection and all that stuff but I've never used the cameras in arm in a way mode like specifically if that makes any sense so I'm kind of in the same boat TJ I don't think I've ever used these features other than arming disarming alarm system I will

say that like the ring ring alarm is is a nice ish piece of equipment and it's it works well enough um for the most part there's some issues that you can get like stuck open or closed contacts that don't quite react because it's the z wave and it's like a one-way communication and they don't like pull for changes evidently but i know at the at our office we we from time to time have to basically go around and open and close every door to get the contact to check in it's kind of weird um yeah that's and and there's we've reached out to ring support and they're just like yeah there's we don't have any tests we don't have anything there's no way to test this uh and you know we've

deleted everything and done everything, redone everything, reset of everything. It just doesn't work right. So from time to time, it works right most of the time. But, you know, when you're in a hurry, basically, it says, if in a hurry, do not work, is basically the automation routine set up for that.

But yeah, I don't know. This is really, really frustrating and strange to see them do. And I will say, all the positive things about the Ring alarm system, it doesn't integrate with anything, right? It doesn't really work outside of its own little box in its own Ring ecosystem. So even if you are in the Ring ecosystem and you're paying for the Ring Protect, there's no automation at all for it. Like you can't integrate other devices with it without having like a reverse engineered home assistant version, that kind of thing. There's no like third party integrations or API provided by Ring for any of their devices, really.

So it's a closed ecosystem. Now, does it work if it's paid? I don't know. Like this kind of to me, like it seems like a closed ecosystem. Now it doesn't work if it's paid. I don't know. To me, I expect at some point they're going to ruin it for me. Whether they're going to take away a feature or ruin a feature or lock you into some type of subscription. They got to make money somehow, right? They're having issues trying to find out how to make money. And I think this is just a cheap money grab for them. Yeah, it definitely feels like a money grab because they're not, they're not, if they expanded the system and said, hey, ring protect now. Yeah, you got to pay to arm and disarm your system because it doesn't, you know, we're not making money on the product and we're supposed to be making money on the product. But at the same time, we'll open up integrations. I would say it's a net benefit for everybody but since there's no integrations for the system like it seems like this market is really ripe for a low-cost security system and i see a ton of them like on alibaba

that are made by maybe like chow me or its subsidiaries even like the why i think wise has an alarm system yeah i was gonna say why like it seems like it the market market is primed for something to come in and just outright replace Ring that has integrations with everything and can just kind of work as good as a Ring alarm system does for people. Because they certainly set up a low bar here. It's not a very pretty or, you know, it's a cost-effective system for sure, but it's not like, it's not a very pretty or, you know, it's a cost effective system for sure, but it's not very pretty. Instead of looking for a system that integrates with your home system, check your home system out your home automation system, because they have built in security built into that as well, too, right? Like Home Assistant has Alarmo, you know, and that does pretty much the same thing the ring does, You can automate it and stuff all integrated.

Hubitat has their home security monitor and stuff like that too. So like you don't really need a ring system. You know, if you want something that's integrated, you got like, just check what your hub offers. Yeah, but having a dedicated security system is definitely the way to go if you want the monitored security portion of it. Just because you know what you're going to be getting and you're not going to worry about the smart hub doing weird stuff with it. But it sounds like you're already having issues with the ring one, like the way Seth pointed out, like the sensors dropping off and everything. Like in the end, like that's no better than any other you know home system at that point

right monitoring system it just you need something super reliable nothing's as reliable as a hardwired system yeah and that's also the problem the one we're using the retrofit module at the office so it's like it's a retrofitted like it's all hardwired but unfortunately

it goes back to a module that's wireless and that's that's what keeps disconnecting I agree I think i think a hardwired or a hybrid type monitored system would be great to have um keep an eye on the connected guys uh they they're they're out there trying to get in and kind of do some breaking into the space a little bit with kind of bringing automation modules into things. WISE is probably another one to look at if you're looking at a retrofittable solution. I don't know. I'm kind of like, at this point, I don't really have any reason to use my ring alarm system anymore, other than I'm kind of grandfathered into a low cost plan

where I don't pay that much per year, but that might be changing. If they could change this, they may change that. And my home security system setup is mainly just for monitoring. To be honest, like if someone's breaking into my home, by the time police get there, they probably got what they want and they're out there anyway. Oh, for sure. So when, you know, something gets tripped, it basically will text me, call me, you know, email me, you know, and I'll be able to watch video feeds of what's going on and that type of stuff. So I'm good with that. I don't need something to make tons of noise and try and scare them off because they're going to get what they want and get out anyway. Yep.

Yep, that's true if it's if it's just a like a smash and dash or whatever uh yeah they'll they'll definitely get in and and uh do what they need to do and get out before anybody's going to show up um a lot of people keep their valuables in kind of the same places you know master bedrooms are typically where we see the break-ins happen people run in there open up some drawers steal some jewelry do what they have to do and take off and if grabbed a few hundred bucks in jewelry, that's a few hundred bucks in jewelry they didn't have a few minutes ago. So I don't know. It'd be interesting. I do think that the market is primed for something that works well across all spaces with integration. even a little bit extra um if it if it worked like the ring does where you know the keypads are kind

of like wireless with batteries or you can hardwire them like there's a lot of good design that's gone into the product but unfortunately it's just it's always been like held back by the software i think um and i i really wish they did it it was more reliable and did integrate, period, outside of its own ecosystem. I don't know why they held it back as long as they have. And now they're making it even harder. I wonder what this will do for these third-party automation things that are kind of tied into the reverse-engineered API.

I guess as long as you are paying for it, you're able to arm and disarm, that's not going to break. Yeah, and this is only for the cameras itself, As long as you are paying for it, you're able to arm and disarm. That's not going to break. Yeah. And this is only for the cameras itself. So it doesn't seem like anything else is affected by this yet. Well, cameras and the alarm system. So both of those things. It's pretty much their product line.

I mean, is it the alarm system? Yep. Yep. The alarm system is getting it too. So maybe the lights? I don't know. Do the lights count? Well, according to this email, it just says ring doorbells and cameras will require a ring protect plan for home and away mode.

The story we have in the show notes says both. The top part talks about the cameras, but then also ring protect for the alarm system. Basically, before March 29th cutoff and after 29th cutoff. Interesting. Buy it now if you want those features to stay the same, I guess. That's nice. Less than a month notice as well. It's a good company.

Jeez. All right, let's move on and talk more about Amazon. Amazon has just recently received FCC permission to launch over 3,000 satellites and start offering home internet from space. The company hopes to bring high-speed internet to 300 to 400 million customers worldwide. Amazon's banking on if those customers have access to high-speed internet, they'll be more likely to be online and use Amazon products. More video streamed, more Amazon orders maybe, more music listening to.

That's all, in theory, gets them a little bit more money. Let's check on the Alexa division to see how that's working out, though. Anyway, it may have been a good plan a couple of years ago. FCC is given Amazon until mid-2026 to have at least 1,600 satellites in space, or they will face losing that approval for the project amazon's amazon says for their part they plan to start launching uh test satellites later this year kind of interesting i i wonder i wonder what amazon prime internet's gonna look like it's gonna it's a spacex competitor uh whether it's spacex starlink starlink yeah starlink

competitor uh we've been hearing about this rumor for years now you know as spacex starlink starlink yeah starlink competitor uh we've been hearing about this rumor for years now you know as soon as starlink came on they were talking about oh amazon's looking into this too pretty interesting that we'll have all these little satellites flying around up there what do you guys think uh gavin this is going to bring you know more internet options to you here in canada like you need anymore like you need anymore what do you think about this space seems to be getting full right now. I was looking at a map of everything floating out there, and it looks like there's a lot of things circling the Earth now. And they're going to be adding, what, thousands of more satellites up there now?

So, yeah, that's just adding, you know, I hope they're clearing it up because, you know, I have a feeling the space around the Earth is going to be full of junk before we even get a chance to go up there if we ever get a chance to go up there yeah i'm gonna see a lot more posts on local facebook groups asking what is this thing in the sky and it's just gonna be a bunch of satellites you know going across and lighting up the the whole sky are we over balloons now it's uh are we done with the balloons and nobody cares about balloons anymore we're're on trains now. Now, satellite internet sounds interesting.

I know there's a lot of places, especially in America, where you don't have access to any good internet. You might already use satellite internet, but it's got a ping of like 1,000 milliseconds, and it's got a data cap of like 20 gigs or 50 gigs, where that's the most you can download, which you'll go through and like easily a day. So there's not a lot of good options for rural America. And they probably will never have good options outside of satellite internet,

just because it costs so much to add a cell tower or run physical lines or anything. So this is definitely a much needed thing it's just a matter of you know kind of like what gavin said how much stuff can we put up there and it's going to ruin our view of everything well just just so you know uh starlink right now as of february 2023 has 35 more than 3500 um satellites in lower third orbit in total they're trying to get 12,000 up there with a possible extension to 42,000 satellites. Wow. That's their goal. And so 3,000 just kind of seems like a test run for Amazon if that's what they're trying to do.

But, I mean, you see what they've been able to do with Starlink and that program. I mean, there's RV products that that are developed there's yacht and boat products developed for it so it's you know even with just a few thousand of these up there a company could get into one of those niche markets and do really well for itself so it'd be interesting internet for everybody but it's gonna be run by two companies that's right well what what isn't run by one or two companies? This fits right in with everything else. Yeah.

Yeah. And, you know, even getting cell towers put up, I think most cell towers are backed by a fiber line to the site or maybe some kind of like microwave site. I don't know. Like they still have to have internet to those cell tower sites. And typically that's typically it's fiber that goes in and gets whipped up inside there. So I don't know. It's interesting. Hopefully, I personally like the in-ground stuff.

And the satellite stuff is nice to have as backup in case Russia invades your country or something like that. All right. Well, all the links and topics we discussed tonight, all two of them can be found on our show notes or at hometech.fm slash 427 nothing in the mailbag this week but today lg has announced three revolutionary products first one's an automated smart shade with

integrated mood lighting the second is a widescreen projection system with built-in ultra short throw projector and the third is a breakthrough immersive sound system three things an automated shade a revolutionary short throw projector a breakthrough soundbar a shade a projector a soundbar are you getting it are you getting seeing this is me channeling steve job no these aren't three separate devices this is one device and they're calling the iphone oh no it's rest they're calling it the rest the crowd goes wild yeah um so yeah uh lg kind of put this little concept thing up and i looked at it and said that's kind of weird okay and i scrolled down and saw what they're doing i'm like oh this is really cool it's a shade it's got a built-in short third projector so when it's down you can project something on it like a tv or a nice little projection view of something.

Covers your window. It's got a soundbar built into it, so you can watch TV on your shade, your useless window shade. This would have been perfect in the theater you did, TJ. Oh, perfect. You'll watch three games at the same time. Yeah, exactly.

And it's got a little mood lighting in there, so, you know, and it's kind of like an immersive lighting thing where it can adapt to what's on the TV screen or on the projection screen and kind of like push that screen around and there's also like a little device that they kind of it's got like an assistant device it looks like a speaker device with a weird touch screen on it that that is in most of these pictures that they have um but i don't know i think most people see this they see the projector and they get the idea i'm like oh this is, this is really cool. I think this is really smart. What do you guys think?

This thing is sweet. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to share it with everybody just because I would see this in somebody's house, right? And there's a lot of, you know, stuff that gets like talked about or, or demoed and it never shows up or it just, it doesn't look like a real product and this this isn't actually out but it looks like it would already be sold in stores or online or something like that um my only thing i think is funny is that like in one of the pictures they have like a like an image of mount everest or some mountain being closed in the window and it's like a nice beautiful day outside and the trees are green and everything like that so i'm not really sure why it could have been rainy or something i'm

not really sure why you need to block your sunny day with a uh picture of mount everest but i'm here for it it looks like a pretty cool object yeah i think it's pretty cool gavin uh would you put one of these in your house would you replace some some shades with this um probably not but i think this would be great in dorm rooms or in um places where people you know they're short of space right because then you can have the tv you know um as well as the sound bar and everything in one and it's your shade right so i think it's a great idea if it ever came like if they ever really made this um i think they could sell stuff. Dorm rooms would be perfect. Anybody that lives in a small space where they don't have a wall to mount a TV or something like that, it would be perfect for.

On top of that, when you turn on the TV, it blacks out the room for you automatically. That's awesome. Yeah, and we keep saying it's a shade. It doesn't have to be. There's a couple pictures where it's just clearly not hung over a window. You could put this just on the wall off to the side and have an extra screen and sound bar set up over there. we keep saying it's a shade. Like it doesn't have to be, there's a couple of pictures where it's just clearly not hung over a window. Like you could, you could put this just on the wall off to the side and have an extra screen and soundbar set up over there and,

and just use it like that. If you want it, like it's got a little mood lighting on there. So you can kind of like, it's just a really overall, like it makes sense. It's one of those products that you look at and you're like, Oh,

this could actually exist. And I would, I would consider buying one. I've got this window behind me. That's just, I can't figure out what to do. I'm thinking about just covering it with a giant TV, but like, just blacking out the window, but this would be better. Right. This would be actually more fun to do. Cause it, it's kind of like an all-in-one integrated thing. Um, it,

it's got all the bases covered. I think it would work well over a fireplace too, because it's so far up that the heat from the fireplace won't really affect it. You know, like, so it'd be great above a fireplace. Oh,

your rest is too high. Your rest. Well, it's still a, just a concept that LG and some kind of, it's a design, a design company or something inside in something in Korea came up with. But it's just a bunch of mock-ups and 3D renderings of this thing.

And I don't know. I think it has some legs to it. I really would like to see LG or someone make this. It'd be really cool. Bring it out, LG. I'm waiting. Yeah. Do it.

Do it. It'll probably be like $8,000. Oh, I'm sure. Eh, I didn't really need it. Yeah, it's not going to be $300. I can tell you that. Why they even bother? Oh, jeez.

All right, well, if you have any feedback, questions, comments, picks of the week, or great ideas for a show, or a product that involves a shade, give us a shout. Our email address is feedback at hometech.fm, or you can go to hometech.fm slash feedback and fill out the online form. Guys, any project updates this week? I have absolutely none.

I spent all weekend working on cars, which I hate. I hate cars. I do not. I hate cars. What are you doing to your car? I mean, just like vacuuming it out or something? Are you doing some like actual work?

No, actual work. Like one of them, well, I'm pretty sure my car is now towed. Like my daily driver, it was a free car. And anybody who's ever gotten a free car really understands how much a free car actually costs you over time. And I've put way too much money into it. And I backed out of my driveway the other day and it just starts sputtering and dies. I'm like, hmm, that's not good so grab the ob ob what obd are we obd2 old dirty bastard diagnostic yeah diagnostic yeah um i grabbed that out like shoved it in the little thing

hooked on my phone looked at it uh misfires on multiple cylinders and i'm like that's probably where that smoke was coming from so i'm guessing um a blown head gasket and i am not i am not putting one like even if it was just a spark plug like a single spark plug that was a problem i'm not putting that much money into this car like i'm done with it i'm over it so the volkswagen rabbit is gone so it's the one you put like a new radio in and stuff too yeah yeah yeah way too much money into a free car that um i should have just like realized sunk cost on this thing long ago and um just i'm i'm at the limit done so too many major things have already gone bad in it including the air compressor like this could be parted out it's all got brand new parts on it uh except for the engine evidently

but yeah whatever uh and then i was like well i got a backup car over here because we have a two-seater car that we can't use because we have a kid so i was like let me just crank that up and go and i cranked it up and drove you know downtown and then i got back into it and it didn't crank so evidently the alternator is bad on that one so yeah yeah it's been a expensive weekend so far that's what i I've been up to. TJ, you've got a warehouse full of stuff, though, man. What's going on? Yeah, I've got so much stuff going on. I think there's like a dozen TVs and 20 speakers and all kinds of stuff.

We're gearing up for that big conference room job. We've got four huddle rooms, three conference rooms, a bunch of distributed audio, a bunch of shades going on. So I will be preoccupied for the next three or four weeks doing that job. So we start tomorrow doing the pre wiring and stuff like that. Next week's the actual gear installation. The week after that, you know, shades installation and then making everything work together. So that is what all my time is filled up with and currently my warehouse because I can barely walk in the warehouse.

There's so much stuff. It looks pretty good, man. It looks awesome. Yeah, and I only had one thing arrive broken. So, I mean, that's pretty impressive when you get three different pallets shipped in or four different pallets shipped in. You know, it looked like somebody took a forklift fork

to the back of an LG TV. So that was very nice of them. you would think after like all these years of flat screen tvs they'd figure out how to stop running forklifts into them but you know i don't think that's a concern of them the concern of theirs so forklift certified that's all that matters it's it's kind of it's kind of like how the trucking company asks me every time or tells me every single time that they're going to give me a half hour notice. And then they call me and they're like, hey, I'm here. Where are your people at? And I'm like, oh, we're not doing that half hour notice, are we?

So trucking companies, get your shit together, please. Yeah, that was that was always a problem. Always a problem. Gosh, so annoying. Or they just don't show up and you're like, where are they? And they're like ah they're on their way and uh you know it's it's sick already six o'clock and you're gonna wait around to like seven for this guy to show up and of course the tvs are packed in the back he's got

to like spend time moving stuff around oh you guys don't have a forklift i don't have a gate can you help me get this down like ah come on that's the worst too yep yep it's like i told your company you needed a lift gate exactly i didn't tell me i paid extra for it it's on the invoice right there it says lift gate required nope they didn't listen ah anyway um gavin uh any big uh home assistant updates for you no we we spent the last week trying to shovel out of our house. We got snow dumped on us. What? Yeah, we got a nice dumping of snow. And it wasn't that it was a lot of snow. It was heavy. So all of our trees were bent over pretty much touching the ground. And you spent hours just

shoveling yourself out to go inside. You have a little cocoa. You look back out the window and the plow comes by and pushed it all right back into your driveway so then you go back out it happened to me three times because i'm on the road i'm on the corner um so they come around the corner and i get everything from down the street coming into my driveway so yeah it took me three times but now it's clear and then the next day it all started melting again. So that kind of pissed me off, you know, if I just waited a day. If you could just stay inside for one more day, you'd be fine. I know, I know.

Be that neighbor. But, no, other than that, you know, just messing with my dashboard still. You know, I've been having actually some fun with these dashboards, cleaning them up, you know, cleaning up the code, making more things animate um you know i've been having actually some fun with these dashboards cleaning them up you know cleaning up the code making more things animate you know it's it's coming together nicely making your bits jiggle a lot more i'm sure oh yeah i got a lot of jiggling icons now you know i i even have it when the camera comes on it like it's like an old tube tv coming on so it opens up like that right i'm like it's kind of cool like the hbo static wow

yeah i haven't gotten that far but it's just the effect you know so i've been messing with that added to the list yeah i'll work on that that's very cool very cool well i mean it's like a3 here man it's really hot so i'm just rubbing it i don't want to know my second shirt for the day we unfortunately um yeah i can always tell when it's it's bad weather up north because like the I don't want to know. My second shirt for the day. Unfortunately, yeah, I can always tell when it's bad weather up north because the south winds get really strong here. And the other day it was like 20 mile an hour, just pretty steady winds all day. But this time of year, through a little bit of summer, we'll get this thing called red tide, which is not fun.

And it's basically like uh some kind of algae or something that grows out in the ocean and um it will if you have respiratory problems you basically can't breathe and it stinks like crazy kills all the fish that stinks even worse uh and yeah it smells out there right now So paradise in Florida, not such paradise with the red tide. Fallen iguanas and nasty smelling algae. I mean, at least you didn't have to shovel it. No, but I mean, if you could shovel it, it'd be nice because they would shovel it somewhere else. But man, it's, I mean, you can smell it miles away from the beach.

It's pretty bad. And I know that even down south where they had the hurricane, I guess, it's been even worse because it's like all the runoff from all of the chemicals and stuff that leached out into the ocean for that hurricane made everything that much worse. So, yeah. Yeah. Algae. Who knew? Florida. Because we could have come to expect it's something that would happen in Florida.

Florida. Not even once. Not even once. Yeah. All right, guys. Well, I think that's going to wrap up another week here of Home Tech. We 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 our Patreon page. If you don't know about the Patreon page, head on over to hometech.fm to learn how you can support Home Tech for as little as $1 a month. Any pledge over $5 a month gets you a big shout out on the show but every pledge gets you an invite to our private slack chat the hub where you and other supporters of the show can gather every day to talk about what we're talking about this last week there's been a lot of conversation in there recently i was talking i was asking about a doc for a mac right so i got a lot of suggestions for

docs for you knows and various brands. My neighbor just bought the new iMac and she was all excited. And then she realized it came with USB-C and she can plug in her old drives. So now she wants to buy a new dock and how much money that's going to cost. And yeah, she's learning nicely that, you know, you don't just buy the computer. You got to buy all the accessories. Everything's dongle riffing now. So yeah.

And I've got questions in here to Richard. Don't ever ask, don't ever ask if you have another podcast and, uh, you'd be like, Hey, what should I ask this interview question? Like,

um, I will, I will ask a question, but it's, it's not, it's not going to be favorable to the guest. So hopefully Richard did not ask the question that I asked him to ask his guest on his show. But I guess, TJ, you were saying that one's out, right?

The Insteon one? Yeah. So it actually just launched I think today or maybe yesterday. But yeah, Richard Gunther had an interview with Richard, I can't think of his last name at the moment, from Insteon. And I've listened to about half of it. I need to listen to it again. I was kind of working during the middle of it. But a lot of good conversation on there about Insteon, what they ran into when they got the company, and kind of what they're working through now.

I know one of the things they brought up is the fact that they are going to have to launch a new app at some point. The old app is going to continue to work, but they're going to need to create a new one in order to kind of get around the limitations of not having access to the old code base, as far as I'm aware. So that is going to happen in the future. Yeah, that's probably not good. Yeah, and, you know, after a certain point, you know, Google and Apple, they want you to update things and make them compliant. And if you can't do it, then you can't make it work on the new operating system. Or if they introduce a new phone and suddenly it just stops working on that new phone that everybody has. Yeah, that's not a good thing.

iPhone 15 will be out this year, guys. Yeah, they may want to get on that pretty quickly. I don't know how long it's going to take to rewrite an app, but I know it's not something that happens overnight. Good luck to them. If you want to help out, but can't support the show financially, totally understand. We just appreciate a five

star review on iTunes or positive rating in the podcast app of your choice. That wraps up another week here on Humtech. From everyone here, have a great weekend. Catch you later. Take care. week here on hum tech from everyone here have a great weekend catch you later take care