HomeTech.fm - Episode 443 - Once You Go Matter, You Never Go Back

Episode Date: July 14, 2023

On this week's show: Latch lays off lots of people, Jony Ive makes a record player, a review of Matter device installs, Blue Iris goes down, and a new printer is on its way to Gavin's house. Will he ever learn?

This is the Home Tech Podcast for July 14th. From Sarasota, Florida, I'm Seth Johnson. From Naperville, Illinois, I'm TJ Huddleston. And from Pickering, Ontario, I'm Gavin Kemp. And welcome to the Home Tech Podcast, the podcast all about home automation, home technology, home theater installs that somebody is doing in a different state now that they're coming from a hotel. So we have any problems with audio tonight. It's,

it's always TJ Swell anyway, but it's especially his father percent, 100% tonight. Yeah. That's right. I always take the blame for it. My audio isn't the best sometimes. And especially when you have hotel wifi and everything else, uh, hopefully it's not too bad, but I did bring my actual mic set up. So, you know, the people that listen and gave me flack for not having a good microphone. I did bring the whole setup this time. So I sound good. Thank you.

Yeah, this is at this point. I think this is the traveling home tech podcast. So I feel like it is because we will. I will be on the road next. Like I probably have to like figure out scheduling. Like I've got some times where I've got to be in Tampa next Tuesday. So I mean, we typically sit down and record. I don't know.

Maybe back by the end of the day, but we'll see. So I'm not going to have a podcast from Tampa. So there's a trade show thing, not trade show, like a vendor or rep show or something that's going on up there. I was going to say something like distributor or something like that yeah like the one of the reps that does you know a bunch of brands here they it's like a rep firm they go out and we still have those in this industry it's really strange like they will go out and they will represent a bunch of like speakers or audio systems or sony tvs or something like that for the manufacturer

and um yeah i think we're probably one of the last industries to have rep firms doing that kind of speakers or audio systems or Sony TVs or something like that for the manufacturer. And yeah, I think we're probably one of the last industries to have rep firms doing that kind of work, but here we are. There's, there's a lot of them out there. Got to get those numbers up somehow. Rep firms probably do that.

Yeah, I guess so. It's an extra salespeople that you don't have to hire that do your work for you. There you go. All right. Guys, it is,

it's officially prime day today too july 11th july 12th is also a prime day um i still have all my money so i have failed this assignment from buying anything from uh jeff bezos and company um how are you guys holding out? Okay, I'm kind of glad that the wife doesn't listen to this podcast because I could be honest with you guys. This week has been rough. I spent way too much money. You know, Prime Day, and the sad part, it's only the first day of Prime Day, so I'm afraid for tomorrow, you know, because I'm starting to get the other family, they're sending me their lists and stuff like that. But, you know, it wasn cause I'm starting to get the other family, they're sending me their lists and stuff like that. So, um, but you know, it wasn't all tech I bought. I stocked up on a lot of essentials. So things like batteries, um, I bought a whole bunch of dog food, you know, because that's all

I'll be able to eat after spending all my money on everything else. But, um, you know, all those little things that go on sale during prime day, you the prices are pretty good um in terms of tech though i grabbed a eve matter smart plug i needed another yo link temp sensor another aquara air quality sensor you know um all those things are on sale great time to buy them they were good discounts so i just grabbed one here and there um what i did notice is some huge sales on robot vacuum so i know by the time this gets edited and published, Prime Day is over. But hopefully you got in on the robot vacuum deals there. I'm so tempted and I'm scared because there's still one day. So who knows if I'll spend money tomorrow on one? I don't know at this point. But yeah, it's been a dangerous Prime Day this

week. You had me worried because I just bought a robot vacuum, but mine's only 3% off right now. So I don't think I missed out on $5 too much. It's not even a deal. It's a slap in the face. The only thing I bought for Prime Day is I bought a three-pack of the Eros Pro 6Es. I sell them to a lot of people.

So it's always good when you can find them on sale. But they also is stacked with $100 Amazon gift card. And so I thought that was pretty good deal. I'll use that to buy, you know, future customer products or something else. But I was kind of disappointed I couldn't buy more than one set. So yeah, I haven't found anything that interests me enough to actually buy it. They really want push um apple watches on me for some reason like i guess that's i mean they're 30 off which seems like a pretty good deal but i'm sure there's gonna be a new apple watch coming out soon i always have the fear of like buying an apple watch or something and there's a new one coming there's always a new one there's always a new one. There's always a new one. Yeah, that's what you got to think of it.

I already have one, though. And I don't really want a robot vacuum. I mean, I kind of do, but at the prices they're at, they're still more than I want to pay. Yeah, just don't fight it. Yeah, you just buy what works for you at the time for a good deal. Exactly, yeah. Yeah, robot vacuums really weren't on. I mean, I guess the bigger ones are on sale by a few hundred bucks,

but I'm not going to get in. I could get another one and have them fight each other in the backyard or something that would be fun but you just have the robot vacuum follow the lawnmower and pick up all its clippings great idea i'm sure that'll work great yeah i don't know i haven't really seen anything that's just like something I, that was a great deal enough where it's something I have to have. And maybe, maybe I'm saying this early because like Gavin mentioned, it's day one. Day two could bring some more shenanigans and then, you know,

we'll have more stuff to buy, I guess. Some of the TV deals are like insane. And I just, I guess that's just because TV prices are really low, but their TVs down 50 inch TVs for like 200 bucks. They're not great TVs, but it's still a 50 inch TV for $200, right? So yeah, I had a client earlier. They tell me that the frame TVs, if you're looking for a Samsung frame TV, they are significantly cheaper on Amazon today.

Oh yeah. Wow. I was just looking looking you can get a 55 inch for 500 off right now so 65 inch you can get for a couple hundred dollars off i mean for 200 bucks i would that would be great for an outdoor tv like you don't have to worry about it for that price you know throw it outdoors you know temporarily buy a case for it too they have the hard cases for it yeah perfect well that's what a lot of people are doing now is they'll just buy a cheap tv and throw

it out there and it works great as long as you're not in an environment where you're having like full sun on the tv because if you are then a normal tv is gonna be awful outside but if you're not like it's covered patio or something that's got a lot of shade, you're not going to notice much difference most of the time. Yeah, they generally work here in Florida year round. Like you don't have to take them down or anything. A lot of times I always recommend people cover them, especially keep like the dew off of them in the morning and that kind of thing, because it gets very dewy here sometimes. And then like if you're on the water, though, like if you're anywhere near the salt water.

Oh, yeah. It just destroys everything anyway. You have to get, well, you have to get an outdoor cover TV type thing with all the stuff because it's just, like you can do the cheap TV swap out and it's always a dance or a gamble that you play. Like it's going to work, but who knows for how long? And it's always going to fail.

When is it going to fail? The weekend that you want to use it for your party? So like you always on those, I always recommended just biting the bullet and, and buying the new TV and most people went with it and some people didn't for a while. And then they're like, yeah, I'm done with this. Just get the outdoor TV, put it up. Yeah. We have a, a restaurant I installed. I think it was like three 65 inch, just like cheap Samsung, you know, from Costco TVs, I think about four or five years ago. And they stay up year round and they're covered, but it's not like a big covered area. And they still

work great. So it really is a gamble though. Yeah, it always is like, cause you never know something's some little electronic device in there gets too hot or gets some moisture on it and it goes like it's just that's the way of the world i suppose but yeah oh govi smart lighting also in sale for for home i i saw a bunch of that stuff 43 off 30 off 40 off so yeah govi we talked about them last show, those permanent outdoor lights we were talking about there instead of $199, $139 for I think the 100-foot version. So if you were looking for that stuff, it would have been a great time to buy it. And too bad you missed out on it by listening to the show a couple of days after Amazon Prime ended. It's pretty good stuff out

there. All right. We have a bunch of prime deals to look through, but not too many home tech headlines, but we do have a couple. So what do you guys say we get started? Let's do it. All right. Latch, we talked about these guys not too long ago. They make access control hardware and software, has announced a strategic growth initiative aimed at creating a scalable foundation and for future expansion, which basically means they're just going to lay a bunch of people off. 59% of their workforce is going to be laid off by November 1st. That is crazy.

Recently, these guys were in the news. We talked about them not too long ago because the CEO, they named Jamie Siminoff, who is formerly of the CEO of Ring, their CEO of Latch earlier in the year when his company he had made kind of on the side, Honest Day's work, I guess, was acquired by Latch. And then they're like, oh, Jamie Siminoff is our new CEO. And everybody's fired. So, man, it really sucks for people who work there.

I guess it's both in the United States and in Taiwan. Um, it's kind of crazy when this stuff happens, it's weird, but, uh, this is what they're going to do moving forward. Uh, they're kind of, it looks like they're just like clear the decks and starting over. Um, no fun, no fun when people get laid off for seemingly no reason. No, no, I, I, I don't want to say they had to pay somebody's salary, but there's a new hire and he's expensive, I'm sure. Yeah, 59% is a lot of people. I wonder how many people it actually is, though.

I mean, it seems like a large portion of the company, but it also doesn't seem like that big of a company. So, I mean, you know, are we talking like, you know, dozens of people or hundreds of people? I can't find any information about that. Yeah, I remember when we last talked about this company, it was hard finding out any information about them. But, you know, 59 percent, that's a large chunk of the company. And I feel bad for the people left behind because now your work's just doubled overnight. Right. Like somebody's got to do the work they were doing, too. So it's going to be a tough time for them.

And hopefully, you know, they pull through. Yeah. Usually you see these things happen like later on, right? There's usually like acquisitions made and it makes sense like for efficiency reasons, not to have two accounting departments doing different accounting things. So usually you see like the marketing people combine or some of them laid off or the accounting, that kind of thing. Salespeople like, um, like recently SnapAV kind of like went wholesale slaughter on a bunch of old control for salespeople. Like, but it's just like that, that was inevitably going to happen. Um, because the SnapAV is kind

of like a parent company. They probably had their own sales structure in place when they acquired another national sales organization. And it's just easy to kind of like have one of the top guys instead of two, right? It just kind of makes more sense. I'm trying to see, Latch isn't a publicly traded company. I'm kind of curious if they report how many employees they have. Anyway, I'm not finding it right offhand,

but it would be a good question to figure out what 59% is. Actually, I'm seeing something here, 440. So 59% is quite a bit, 200 or 300 people. As of December 2021, there was 440, it says. So who knows if they've expanded in that amount of time. But it would be interesting to know how many people that is and where all they're located. We'll have to see what happens with this company moving forward now that they have a new CEO and see what he ends up doing with Latch. Anyway, speaking of expensive people, Johnny Ive, the former Apple designer that did all the fancy Apple products with Steve Jobs there,

has partnered with audio company Linn to create a 50th anniversary edition of the iconic Sondeck LP-12 turntable. This company, Loveform, worked on the project pro bono due to their admiration for Lin. And while they couldn't make significant changes to the turntables designed to maintain sound quality, they did implement a few small improvements and general evolutions. Sounds like a Johnny Ive thing, right? Such as rounded corners. Hmm, imagine that, right?

And aluminum power buttons. I could have guessed those two things would have been done. Like, anyway. Special edition Sundack LP12-50 retains the classic look, but has a pretty hefty price tag, $60,000, and only 250 units will be produced. So if you want one of these, you gotta pony up and get in line.

Hopefully you can get one of those if you really, really, really want one. I don't know. I do know from the last turntable that we talked about, at least they remembered to put the dust cover on. Because I think that was Gavin. I think that was your biggest complaint about that one that was working for what, Sonos?

It was like a Sonos one? Yeah, they didn't have a dust cover on it. They were smart enough to include it on this one. So I think this one's right up your alley, man. That one costs a little more, so it makes sense they would include the dust cover on it this one they they were smart enough to include it on this one so i think this one's right up your alley man that one costs a little more so it makes sense they would include the dust cover i know that's a 59 000 dust cover right there but you know the part that really upsets me about this is the dust cover doesn't have any rounded edges i mean it seems like a miss there too you know like johnny ive didn't work on the dust cover you can only do so much man i mean i know yeah i think he just did the interior part you know what though i'm looking at this and i'm like even

if i was rich i don't think i'd really want this thing this thing looks i've had a few turntables in my time right and this thing looks like something i grew up with i i feel like i could design something a little better looking than this. You know, I don't know. I don't know. For $60,000? All about the nostalgia, though, Gavin. You've got to pay for the nostalgia. Listen, I have two techniques behind me right now.

And those have been like, those are like 30 years old, right? And they work great. Man, I just want to go on record by saying that Gavin has in front of him right now two turntables and a microphone. Actually, the two turntables and the mixer are behind me and the microphone's in front. You still got them. In the room, I do have two turntables, a mixer, a couple microphones, yes. And those turntables are 30 years old and they work beautifully.

And I don't know how much better a turntable can make a scratching record sound too, right? I don't know how much better a turntable like you know can make a scratchy record sound too right like i don't know that's a that's a hefty price tag but i think the price tag is around the fact that who it's made by how many they're making you know it's a limited edition but i really wish i expected something to look a little better than this to be honest it's let down for me all right so i mean what what would you rather have gavin would you rather have four of these record players or one of these c-steed uh tvs that pop out of the ground oh the tv i'd rather have because the tv at least no surprise no when the tv pops out of the ground and unfolds you know after you sat there and waited 20 minutes for that to occur right at least you know what you spent your money on you know like this turntable i'd lift up the dust cover i put the record on then put the needle on it would probably skip a few times

you know and i paid sixty thousand dollars for something that i could do on a thousand dollar turntable so you got to take it all in you know look at these nice soft round edges and these nice aluminum buttons yeah what's funny is i'm looking on uh like ebay and and all the other places for a a classic lp12 and they actually go for like two to three thousand dollars it looks like um some of them so some of them actually been refurbished. So, and then there's some Etsy links here where they will sell you the, like the bottom part of it, I guess, uh, like the woodwork for $500. And it looks like they've been able to round off the edges there too. Um, so I mean, all in all, and you could buy this for what? 1850 put this nice new, uh,

custom wood plinth, uh, walnut finger joint together with the rounded edges with solid maple and from Ed's ear for, you know, maybe $2,500, $3,500, depending on what you paid on eBay for this thing. Does it come with a dust cover? Oh, you know what? It does. It does. Yes, yes.

It does have a dust cover. It looks like the parts are fairly available for this i mean maybe it's harder maybe i don't know what i'm talking about but i'm i'm seeing parts and pieces like the feet and like different knobs the um the the actuator parts and that kind of thing around it like belts and that stuff so it looks like you can still get parts for it so that may be the way to go instead of instead of getting a johnny it looks like you can still get parts for it. So that may be the way to go. Instead of getting a Johnny Ivers and you can just get this one. Yeah, I'm pretty sure there's a lot of tech in this though. That's pretty

cool. If you really broke it open and looked into it, I'm pretty sure they have a lot of processing and stuff. It converts it to digital too, right? No. Or is it analog out? You can actually record it to CDs directly. So

for $60,000 they include a guy who goes down to the analog out. You can actually record it to CDs directly. For $60,000 they include a guy who goes down to the store and buys the CD for you when you put a record on it. You got to order those on Amazon. You can't buy CDs at the store anymore. You know what? I'm going to add this to my watch list for next year's Prime Day. We'll see.

For some reason I don't think it's gonna be on there but it might yeah this is one of those collectors thing for somebody to all go over to yeah it's kind of like having their house how much i show off to people i guess uh i'll check the amazon returns and see there you go government auction sites here soon too yeah, maybe, maybe they'll get seized and auctioned off and government auction. Too good. Well, uh, free, free work from Johnny Ive and a $60,000 turntable, 250 being made. If you, uh, if you want to grab one, we'll, we'll put a link in the show notes. Um,

if you just want to spend $60,000 for no reason, you can sponsor the show here. HomeTech.fm slash support just right there in patreon 60 just enter in whatever amount you want sixty thousand is perfectly fine we'll take that one so uh let's move on here uh to our fun segment who matters this week and it this was kind of a surprise switchbot uh has released firmware for the switchbot lock making it compatible with apple home kit and other matter matter capable platforms yay switchbot congratulations you matter this week the update facilitated through the switchbot hub 2 exposes the lock to apple home kit for the first time and should also also be compatible with platforms like alexa google home and samsung

smart things through the Matter compatibility. So you're going to need to be on SwitchBot app version 7.3, Hub firmware version 1.0 to dash 01808. Just forget about it. I'm going to put a link to the show notes in this thing. This is probably more confusing than anything I've ever seen. You can get the Matter update if you want to do it. Just press the button, I guess, and it's probably really easy to do speaking of uh really easy to do matter updates gavin uh has a

few stories for us is it is it really easy to do this seems like it'd pretty easy to do right gavin matter i don't know if i would say it's easy but you know so uh i picked, last week I talked about, I picked up the Aquara P2 contact sensors, and those were my first matter over thread devices. That's what I was waiting on, right? And I was like, all right, I'm starting from scratch with this whole matter thing, you know, thread matter. Let me start from scratch and, you know, as a regular person, just see what, you know, what's going to be involved in getting this thing working.

So first thing I did was, you know, I pulled out my Alexa or my Amazon devices, right? And I remember, you know, I have a new one. So I'm like, I remember reading something about Matter and it, so I was like, all right, let me try and add it. And, you know, going through the process on my phone, it lets me add it, but then it fails. And it's just a weird failure message, et cetera, et cetera. And then after when I looked into it, I'm like, well, no, this is actually a Matter controller and not a border router. I'm like, great.

That's going to confuse users. You know, like they just see Matter like the same way I got confused. You have to actually be a border router for it to be able to add. So I don't have any Matter related products in that ecosystem. So I'm like, okay, great. I have a new Apple TV. So let me go and try and add it to HomeKit now. Right.

So, you know, I go through the song and dance again and try and add it to the HomeKit and it was failing. I could never get it to add for some reason. So I'm like, I don't know what it is. Maybe it's range because my HomeKit, my Apple TV is down in the family room. I was upstairs. Maybe it's just range, but I gave up. I didn't even want to fight with that anymore.

I was like, you know, new protocol, same issues. You know, like I just got fed up. So then I said, all right, this is the opportunity to set up the new Sky Connect and Home Assistant. Right? Finally, I've had that thing sitting there for a long time. So I threw the Sky Connect in the system, passed it through. I flashed it with just the matter of firmware. So it's not doing any Zigbee. I'm keeping my Zigbee on their own device. Instructions aren't the best. Like it's not straightforward. Like I had to guess at a lot of stuff. And then finally,

when it worked, I felt like it was all luck. I can't explain how I got it working. I felt like it was just luck. I don't care at this point. It worked. So I added the devices. Yeah, they got added. And they were working. I was like, oh, awesome. This stuff works.

Great. Look, open, close, open, close, open, close, unavailable. I was like, oh, no, must be a glitch. It's back. Open, close,'s back open close open close open close unavailable like every minute it was dropping off unavailable so i gave up that day and i just left them there and i came back the next day and i saw all the unavailables it was dropping off every minute and then i saw in a reddit forum reddit still good for something somebody said turn off the otbr firewall in the settings and once i did that on home assistant you know they all stayed online so i was like awesome like they work now i don't know

what the otbr firewall does i don't care it's gone right it's now everything works i'm happy so i've had them on you know and they work i mean open close. That's what they do. They do it. They work fast. I don't see any speed differences compared to my Zoos, my ZigBee, my Z-Wave. Everything just looks normal. But today now, we have storms rolling through. I had a power blip. My house lost power for like two seconds. Everything came back. I was like, awesome. Everything came back except my matter devices.

They don't work in the rain. That wasn't part of the spec. Don't get them wet. Come on. Well, they're indoors, right? Like I know, but I'm just like, really? So I rebooted everything. I'm like, is it my Apple TV? Let me reboot that. Let me log in, log out. Let me reboot home assistant. Let me restart every service. I went through everything and I'm like, they're just unavailable and they're not working. So I kind of like reached out on Twitter and I was like, anyone have anything to try? And our friend Jimmy over there on Twitter, Automated House, you know, for those that

follow, he says, you know, do a battery pull, right? So I said, why would I have to battery pull a battery device after a power outage? But, you know, I didn't question it. I just said, let me do it. Pulled the battery, put the battery back in. Bam, I kicked back in, right? I thanked him for his thing. And then, you know, others have come out saying, yeah, we've seen this before too, after a power outage, our devices every now and then we have to battery pull, know matter devices i'm like i hope they sort this out before matter becomes if i had 70 of these devices and i had to battery pull after a power outage oh like i guess matt in the end i'm just gonna say give matter some time i still consider it beta you

know they gotta iron out all the kinks you know those that are like, I want to build my home around Matter, just give it some time. That's all I have to say. It needs some time to work out. Don't do that. That's what Gavin has to say. But in the end, it feels like the whole thread Matter thing is just new protocols with the same issues. Range issues, dropping off issues. I really hate

their onboarding process. So when you onboard, yeah, you scan a QR code, right? But I mean, I only have two devices at this point and I've already mixed up the QR codes. I don't know which one belongs to which device, you know? So I just scan a random one and hope that's it, right? So I'm like, I don't want to manage QR codes. But then when you add it, you can read the number on the side of the device and enter the number inside. But the number is printed in a light gray. I can barely read it. I'm like, great.

If I ever have to re-add these things, I'd have to do that. And then even when adding it, it's like, okay, we're adding your device. This could take minutes. And it literally does. It's like, okay, we're adding your device. This could take minutes. And it literally does. It's like, what are you doing? I'm sitting there watching this thing add for like three minutes. And I'm like, what is it that you guys, are you having a conversation or something? Seriously, just add it to my matter.

How hard can this be? I know these are first world problems. I know it's matter. It's just I'm sitting there and I was actually watching. I got through commercials faster than this thing added. Oh, wow. Yeah, it should be pretty instant. Yeah.

I don't know why it takes so long. And that's a normal thing. But they're back online. They're working. My matter experience was not the greatest for initial setup. And I just think if, you know, regular people are just going to be just as confused, like this isn't simplifying anything at this point, but I think as more border routers infiltrate people's houses, you know, whether it's through Eero or through

the Amazon devices or the Apple devices, you know, I think it will probably get better and easier for them. Um, it was kind of cool that yes, I could add it to HomeKit and I could add it to Home Assistant. But the way I do things today is I add it to Home Assistant, then I just expose it all to HomeKit and everything anyway. So that really is no advantage to me anyway, right? Right. So yeah, that's my experience. My first Matter Over Thread device. I, you know, you know, true Gavin fashion, you you know when you have one bad printer you're going to order another one um i had one bad matter device i ordered another

matter device you know so i have another one coming in and i'm gonna you know for punishment yeah i'm gonna go through the whole you know process again with a plug um and see how that is and i think it's gonna be a much better experience now that i have um you know the infrastructure there so to you know to say um we'll see how that goes but i really hope you know that i don't have to actually reset them after a power blip you know that would drive me nuts well it's not not like it can get any worse gavin so i mean you already went through the worst of it. Everything else is just easy from now on. Smooth sailing. Smooth sailing.

That's what I'm hoping. Yeah. Technology always gets easier. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Until there's an update, you know.

So I'm playing around with the matter. I just wanted to see what it was all, you know, like from. And again, I went in with I have nothing set up for matter. Let me start from scratch, you know, and see, you know, like, um, from, and again, I went in with a, I have nothing set up for matter. Let me start from scratch, you know, and see, you know, at the inventory, what I had in my house and what was compatible, et cetera, et cetera. And here I am. So in terms of the sensor though, it's a great sensor, open close, it does what it's supposed to do. Right. Um, it's pretty big though i find it's a big sensor it's pretty hefty um but it really doesn't matter you know because you'll be sitting on top of a door or something like that so you're good but hopefully like i said hopefully you don't have to after a power blip you don't have to reset

70 of them when you have them throughout your house yeah i think on the on the show last week i bought some uh fp2 sensors while while we were recording um and i got those installed um and getting them set up with the the aquare app was was relatively easy you know you scan a little code it sets it up um but getting them added to home assistant was painful and i honestly like if you didn't send me the links and stuff like that i probably wouldn't have been able to figure it out. And it's weird, though, because like I was reading other articles online and they were telling you how to add it on and people were having kind of the same issues and stuff like that. But it auto adds itself to Apple HomeKit.

And so I had to go into Apple HomeKit, delete it, and then Home Assistant found it immediately. So like that was super aggravating because like I didn't go in and add it to home kit it just manually found it or automatically found it and added it in um but i i did not know that because i don't use home kit you know it's not even set up on my phone or anything like that so setting that up was really weird and i only found that information in a home assistant forum in a post and it just happened it's one of those things you read it you're like i can't believe that and then you try it you're like oh it worked right like after fighting with it forever too yeah and you know those fp2s they're not matter devices though they're uh i don't even know what the class are they home kit devices yeah they're home kit

devices because when you bring them into home assistance through the home kit controller so yeah hopefully that kind of gets worked out. I know they released an update this week. So if you have them, check for an update. 1.1.9.003959, something like that. They've improved the detection of multiple people in a room and I was just testing it out before the show and it's actually really cool when you see,

it sees two people in a room and it sees you moving around. It can detect one person's in the chair and one person's on the couch and the stuff you could do with that. So they're really good sensors, but they just, they're working out the bugs. Yeah. Yeah, well, and it's supposed to be used for,

you know, with their hub too. So what we're doing is a little different than probably what they're originally meant to do. So they're definitely not testing what you're doing, TJ, like with their own equipment. It's like, well, again, it's one of those that we were talking about this before the show. It's like, well, it works on my end. Like, good for you. But those ones are HomeKit devices, so they should at least work at HomeKit.

And I think they did mention Home Assistant. You know, it's, where was any of that documented on how to get into Home Assistant? It's not an easy thing. No, it's not. Well worth it, though. They're nice. That's kind of the thing, well, kind of the reverse issue that I had with the lock. It was like, basically needed to be set up and deployed through their own app, which makes sense. And then once it was done that way and the firmware was upgraded, then I could add it over into the HomeKit section fairly easily. But just going straight to the HomeKit app

and scanning the QR code like you would expect to do didn't really work at all. And I guess it makes sense, but I still had to scan the QR code. I just had to initiate that in the app first for whatever reason so uh yeah speaking of matter like i've had this little eve device that we talked about on on my my daughter's door so we can tell when she's supposed to be going to sleep and uh it says

it has a nice little button here it says upgrade to matter should i press it uh do you have a matter border controller in your house at all yeah newer apple tv i don't know i don't really don't care it gives me three green check marks it says i'm good to go. So should I hit it? Should I hit the button? And while you're at it, check for a home assistant update too, you know. Oh, while upgrading, a matter setup code will be generated. I get to keep this code somewhere and it will completely replace my HomeKit setup code, which is actually on the device or probably in a thing that I threw away. So that's good, I guess. I don don't know way to confuse the average user if re-adding rose the rose's door via matter uh after the firmware upgrade does not succeed please reset it so all the

instructions are right here in the evab you guys could have just used these you know the app gave you three green check marks making you feel all good And now it's giving you one big yellow warning. Four warnings actually on here. Yeah. Three greens, four yellows. Go ahead. Do it. What could really happen?

It says it's going to take a while after the update before all the features of the door appear in the EVAP. And then once you've upgraded your devices, you can't migrate them back to HomeKit. Oh, why? Why can't I do that because it's a matter device now once you go matter there's no going back well i think i just want to keep them in home kit though i uh i know there's something we should be saying instead once you go matter you can't go back it's a show title sorry i had to had to put it in there yeah i don't know like i i i've been really happy with it in HomeKit though. But once it's in Matter, it will be Matter

and I can put it back into HomeKit using the QR code, right? You can put it back in the Home app, but it will be a Matter device in the Home app, not a HomeKit device. This is where it gets confusing. You know what I mean? But I don't know what, I don't know what it's, it's a door sensor.

Like I really don't know. All right, here we go. Start upgrade. Oh, I got to scan know. All right, here we go. Start upgrade. Oh, I got to scan the HomeKit code on it. Oh. Which I don't have, so. Not doing that. All right, well, crud.

Well, I guess it's not going to be upgraded to matter this week, but maybe I'll figure out how to do it. Her door just closed, so clearly she just went to bed. Can't run in there and take a picture of the door either, so. All right, I'll have to get to it next week and let's see what happens. Maybe it'll upgrade to Matter. It'll be a Matter, my first Matter device living on the network. And I figured if it doesn't work, then I'll just get another one of those sensors because they're pretty good and stick it on the door where the

old one was. And that one's a Wi-Fi one, right? It's Matter over Wi-Fi? Thread. Oh, is it Thread? Oh, yes. Those are Thread. Yeah. Because I ordered the one that comes with Matter installed and one right it's a it's matter over wi-fi thread oh is it thread oh yes those are thread yeah because i ordered the one that comes with matter installed and that's matter over thread too yep in eve door is all it says eve systems eve door thread okay maybe i can update it just do it do it open thread version 2017 07 16 i don't know what that means. It sounds like it's old. 2017 was a long time ago, guys. I don't want firmware from 2017. Come on.

I'm like a hack. Yeah, exactly. Through my one-thread device on the door. All right. Well, all the links, topics we discussed tonight can be found on our show notes over at hometech.fm slash 443. We have a pick of the week, but first we have a follow-up from some feedback about, I remember this, driveway cameras failing alerts when cars drive by. So I guess what was happening

was cars were driving by, it was basically setting off too many alerts, right? Yes, because I guess lights were reflecting in things or something like that. And Blue Iris was picking them up. And, you know, it's one of those issues that finally bugged me enough to actually make me want to. I can't remember who asked about this. I just remember we had someone asking about this. And I actually fixed it. And how I did it is to go into the camera settings. I adjusted the contrast.

And when I bumped up the contrast, it stopped picking up those reflections from the cars driving by. And now I don't get, you know, it doesn't trigger my light to come on every time a car drives by, but it still picks up everything else like movement and people in there. And I have it set up. So when the alarms, you know, on at night, if it's a person in the driveway, it actually wakes me up by, you know, going through my do not disturb. It will actually bing my phone and I'll get that alert. Um, whereas animals and that type of stuff won't wake me up. But for whoever asked about that, um, I just wanted to follow up with this. Um, my contrast is set between right now I have it at 25%. Um, and that seems to be the sweet spot. Like i went to 50 and i was

reducing it until it started triggering again and then you know i increased it to find the sweet spot and i was 25 so give that a shot and hopefully that you know solves your issue a good a good suggestion uh and of course it may be different for every camera and every all the cameras videos are always different like so it's really hard that's why i'm amazed like camera manufacturers could even ship some of these features in the past because blue iris gives you access to all these like tiny little settings that you can adjust and tweak and to no end and then like if you go over to a regular camera camera system it's like yeah it works but you know it picks up this thing half the time like but i'm just amazed that those camera systems even work at all because of all the settings that Blue Iris exposes to you.

It's like, yeah, you can really tweak those things. And did you get hit by the Blue Iris bug thing that happened? The people were upset about this, where basically their license server crashed and then everything went down. Yeah, there's Clippy. There's Clippy. He's driving around in the background.

It was like a skunk. Yeah, I thought it was a skunk. That's why. You robot owner. Yeah, so Blue Iris, this week, they're having, you know, whenever you think you're having a bad week, someone else will top you, and they're having a bad week. It looks like their main server died, their web server, and they didn having a bad week. It looks like their, um, their main

server died, um, their web server, and they didn't have much of a backup of it. Um, so they lost everything. They were rebuilding it. Um, they didn't lose the license keys and stuff. Apparently that's other servers. They had backups of that stuff. But when all that happened, the server, that blue Iris software, um, reaches out to, to verify out to to verify its license, that one's down. And a lot of people's Blue Iris has started switching over to evaluation. No good. And they were upset on the forums. And rightfully so.

Not that the server was down, but by the fact that, hey, we're self-hosting this software because we don't want cloud dependency yeah but this software is dependent on a cloud connection for it to function right and i guess they're gonna really have to rethink that and see how they can make people happy because i i totally get it like that's why i'm i'm self-hosting this i don't you know i don't want it on the cloud but if this can't call home it's not gonna work so i didn't get hit by it though it's one of those uh it's one of those bugs that you really just it's almost like you can't test for it or you can't figure out like i i deal with licensing my job uh and it's one of those things like okay you got to have licensing it's got to be like fairly robust because people will steal your stuff and you got to kind of put like a little roadblock up in front

of it doesn't stop them they're still going to steal your stuff okay but at the same time like you have to have it it has to work you know check in verify that the licensing is correct because if it didn't then it would just be like oh i installed this and then it you know they they figure out how to reverse engineer it from there and then it never checks in again so i get it i understand but it's one of those bugs it's really kind of like there's always an edge case to it i guess and i have hit those edge cases a couple of times and uh and had the same thing happen to me and some of our installers and dealers and that kind of thing. Some of the things I was able to fix,

you know, with software updates and that kind of thing. So that's good. But man, it really is. I have sympathy here because it's happened to me and I feel sorry for them, but it does suck when that happens.

And people were posting in the forums, you know, they weren't pushing piracy, but because of the situation, some of them had some critical systems that they couldn't be down. And they actually posted links on, or, you know, information on how to reset it. So they were like, if you delete these registry keys, it will reset the evaluation mode. So you can keep this running, you know, for a long period of time, you know, it basically leaves it in an evaluation mode that never expires. Right. So, you know, they're going to, they're going to have to work through how to, you know, fix this great solution. Yeah. It's one of those things like with, with,

with piracy, it's like, yeah, people are going to do it it i've kind of come to terms with it over the years it's just like it's going to be a small percentage um anybody who who is supportive of the software is going to pay for it and that's really you're working for them you're not working for the people that are um not not doing things correctly even though they're probably on the forums posting how bad they are that this went to eval mode and they have the permanent eval mode running. So, yeah, the people that pirate it were probably never going to purchase it in the first place. Exactly. And but they're giving you valuable testing information, if anything, you know. So, yeah, you know, utilize them for that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm glad they got it back up and going.

I had a massive migraine last Friday, and I hit deploy on something and walked away from it. You should never deploy anything on Friday. Let me add that. But I had a massive migraine, and I clearly was not thinking. And there was a typo, and that typo caused a lot of things to break until I noticed sometime Saturday afternoon.

I said, oh, there sure are a lot of errors on this one function. Let me check that. Oh, there's a letter, literally one letter off on a variable name. And because I was typing and must have slept on the key or something and hit it. And yeah, it basically took out the entire,

not the entire thing. Most of it was working. Just things that people didn't see wasn't working. And then, you know, yeah, it was causing a few thousand errors a second. But probably should have come back and checked that, but I was tired and I went to bed. We've all been there.

So don't deploy on Fridays. The lesson servers are going to crash is the other lesson and there's only so much you can do about piracy this is the third lesson so there we go we've solved all problems here on no more problems now no more problems yeah exactly just take our advice well if you have any feedback problems questions comments pics of the week great ideas for show or even problems you want us to solve. Our email address is feedback at hometech.fm or you can visit hometech.fm slash feedback and fill out the online form.

All right, project updates. Who slipped this in here? This wasn't supposed to go here. A robot lawnmower shelter? Oh, come on. You're not giving your robot any shelter. Well, there is one that we were talking about these. Like I was looking on the Amazon Prime Day to see if those were on sale because they

they they were still there like that hundred sixty dollar mark, I guess. And there's still that price. They're not any cheaper. But the manufacturer for my robot lawnmower actually makes one specifically for my little robot, my little clip. So I might get that one later at some point in time. Why don't you just like build a ramp to your driveway and just have Clippy park in the garage?

The garage door doesn't open anymore because it's an office, but Clippy can't come in. No, we don't let robots in the house. I'm sorry. Nothing says I love you to your robot like buying him a little shelter. You know, spend that money, Seth. You know, like. Come on on seth you know what i i i felt bad last night there was a rainstorm coming

in i i i probably i i was looking at rushed out there and put his coat on top of him well clippy clippy's been having problems uh near the edge of the yard and he's been like trying to get away his thing is he's not very good at it so he like he'll fall over the seawall into the Creek. And I say he falls into the Creek. There's no water there. It's just kind of like a ditch and it's overgrown. Um, thanks County for not maintaining that. But the, the, the he'll fall in and he will, I I'll catch him in there upside down sometimes I'll have to go and pull him out. So it was, it was getting dark outside and I'm like, where's Clippy? What's he doing? And I, I looked down at my phone. There was an alert that he had fallen over. He was upside down somewhere.

I was like, oh. So I have to go around the house looking for him. I finally got outside. I found him. And I was like, man, it's about to pour. But Clippy, you're going back to work. Because I can't mow the lawn in the rain. And really, he shouldn't either.

He shouldn't have to. He's going to get sick. Yeah. He's not going to get a cold or anything. So I let him go. He was mowing around and having a good time mowing the front yard. And then it started to pour. And for whatever reason, his little rain sensor wasn't tripping off.

He's just like, I'm going to keep mowing. And I was like, man, you're a trooper. I'll tell you what. And I put him into go-home mode. And what he did was, what he does is he stops working. And he just drives straight in the direction he was going. And then he finds the edge where the wire is and starts following it around. And so he followed it around in the rain around the front of the yard,

all the way up to the front door. And there's one little section that is kind of like of my yard that's covered by the roof of my house. It's kind of like an overhang type thing. And it wasn't raining there. So I got him up I got him up to that part and I hit cancel, don't go home. And I stopped him right there and he got to, he got to wait out the rainstorm, um, without, uh, without, without, uh, catching a cold or whatever. And then as soon as it was over, I put him back to work after it dried out. So he worked, he worked for the rest of his hours

and then went to sleep. That's, that's's that's our clippy story for the week you're still out by the shelter for him my wife says you you babysit that thing more than it actually mows the lawn i'm like well i i gotta keep him working like if he doesn't if he doesn't mow the lawn i have to yeah it sounds like a child set this seems like it seems like a lot of effort. It kind of is, actually. We could see him in the background. He's right there. Yeah, it looks like a little skunk out there. Yeah, a little baby skunk.

Yeah, it's a black and white camera. It's got like an orange stripe on it. And that definitely looks white at night. So you can see him roaming around the yard. The infrared camera kicked in for the backyard. I have it up on the TV screen behind me. So we're enjoying Clippy. We're watching Clippy work while we don't have to.

Well, speaking of working, TJ, you've been working. We've been seeing pictures, at least in the back channel, where you're sending us pictures, updates. What's going on, man? You're in a different city? You're doing work? Let's turn vacation. Been doing a couple things.

No vacation here. I did try to do a vacation today but um i got i got rained on instead so uh yeah we're i'm in naperville uh helping adam justice with his theater um we are moving along uh you know there's progress things are happening um we'll get some speakers hopefully cut in tomorrow maybe we'll get the projector and screen installed on thursday we we might have some video here soon so we have until friday to kind of make everything work and get everything in place and it's happening it's slowly but it's happening you have till friday you've got you've got it's it's it's the first day this did the first day full day of work that you had uh no yesterday was the first full day yesterday

i worked on you know i got a couple speakers installed in the basement oh yeah um it's got some stuff in the rack i got all the network jacks terminated and all that kind of stuff so you know things things are happening okay so there's, there's more going on than just the, uh, than just the, uh, what's it called? The, the, the theater, like there's another room and. Oh yeah. Yeah. There's, there's several different parts to it there. He's going to do Sonos in the basement. So that way he can listen to the theater all over, or, you know, if they're watching a TV at the, at the bar TV or whatever. So there's a couple, a couple of parts of the project that um we'll we'll be finishing up here soon okay so it was like at first you're like yeah we got two speakers installed and it's like

i've had two days worth of work you might be a little behind tj all right so i didn't even install the theater speakers we just got two of them cut in but we got them all measured out uh we got the templates up and everything like that so So they were, uh, the painters were supposed to start today and, I think they just started a couple hours ago. So after our work, maybe Adam would just lock the doors to keep them in and stay there. You can just cut the speakers in tomorrow too. Thanks.

So what's, what's the, what's the rest of the week look like? You're planning on speakers. You got screen, you got a projector. Yup. Yeah.

All that's got to get done. So plugging it all in and making it work. There we go. There we go. And we got our, we got our friend Richard joining us tomorrow. So we'll have to do a, uh, we'll probably do a special podcast episode with him at some point this week. So I'm excited to see Richard and we can all hang out together and, uh, I need, I need some help on this theater. So it's perfect timing. Awesome. Well, hopefully you guys are able to knock it out this week and at least get it you know i know that they're still kind of doing construction in that but uh maybe you can get it up and going and at least see a picture by the

end of the week that would be nice you know one picture just by the end of the week i want to see a picture of you guys sitting on the chairs watching a movie you know with popcorn that's definitely not happening yeah the chairs are not there he said that he did not have them delivered no the chair the chairs are there but there's no carpet yet so you can't you can't do anything about that and i'm i'm not helping moving these chairs so i definitely need to leave before anybody discusses chairs so don't bring them up gavin posting it to the hub now what about the chairs you didn't bring your white gloves for delivery. I did not. Oh, well, then you can't move the chairs. That wasn't that wasn't included.

Sorry. Oh, man. Yeah, the chairs. Definitely. You don't you don't get those delivered into the carpets down because then you have the people that move the chairs and their experience moving chairs. Put them in. Yeah, because now you have to hire a moving company because they're heavy. They're really are so heavy and they're so obnoxious. They giant too he says they'll fit so we'll see measure twice cut once

oh man oh good luck uh well i can't wait to see more pictures uh pop up between uh between you guys over the next week over the next couple days so not to see there and then gavin don't say week you're you're cursing me with the whole week thing don't say that you got all week you got till friday so work working late well gavin uh what have you been up to you're not installing theaters you're not you're not harassing a a lawnmower robot what have you been up to besides buying things yeah well speaking of buying things, you know, I was looking to get into the 3D printer game. A glutton for punishment. No kidding.

You know, another printer. You think matter is frustrating. I know. I know. And like I said, I'm happy the wife doesn't listen to this show because she doesn't realize this stuff. So I had a price point I wanted to spend on the 3D printer. You know, I was looking at some Ender printers. I was looking at like used ones where, you know, trying to find somebody that put it

together and get all the upgrades and spent money. And now they're trying to, you know, move on to another printer and get rid of it. But then TJ and our friend James over there on Mastodon kind of convinced me to spend twice the amount of money and get something better. You really had to twitch your arm, I bet. Cry once, cry once, Gavin. Yeah, it made sense what they were saying. You don't want to spend your time tweaking it. You want to print.

You want to have fun. You don't want to maintain it. And that makes sense. So on the weekend, I'm going to go meet up with this guy. He a prusa i'm gonna take off his hands a good price and he seems to be a printer enthusiast so he's gonna show me the ins and outs and oh nice you know and and give me like a little tutorial about printing and it's already set up it's already working you know um so he'll he'll show me all that stuff. So I feel good about this buy, you know, a little bit more than I wanted to spend,

but I'm already looking at like sites like printables.com and I'm getting excited about all the little projects people are posting. I'm like, I'm going to print 10 of those and five of those, but then I'm probably going to realize that it's going to take five hours to print one of them. So that printer is going to be going for a long time that's why you need multiple printers see when you buy one 3d printer it opens up a gateway because you're able to print things but then you realize how long it actually takes to print things and so you need another printer

so you can print while that one's printing and then you'll you'll eventually run out of time so you'll need to buy a third printer um and if you thought your wi-fi issues are are fun gavin wait till you get a 3d printer i'm excited and i'm gonna enjoy this moment while i can um and probably next podcast i'll be frustrated and we'll talk about it then it's it's a fun hobby honestly i've had a couple of 3d printers i've had a prussia i've had a flash forge and i've had one of a couple of the enders and it's definitely a Prussia, I've had a flash forge and I've had one of the, a couple of the enders and it's definitely a fun hobby and it's very rewarding to be able to like print your own stuff. Yeah.

And I even like designed a couple of things, you know, rudimentary things like an access point mountain and speaker mountain, some other stuff. And it's just, it's so cool just to watch that light come to life in front of you. Yeah. So I, I think it's fun and it's definitely a worthwhile hobby. I feel excited. I want, I want one of those. Yes. So I think it's fun and it's definitely a worthwhile hobby. I feel excited. I want, I want one of those resin printers.

Have you seen those where it's like actually printing with like the liquid or whatever, but you can print like more finer things. You can print like some jewelry and figurines and stuff like that. Those seem really cool to me, but you have to have like a properly ventilated spot because it puts out a lot of fumes and smells up the area. But yeah.

Step one, buy a 3d printer. Step two, print a new 3d printer and step three, return the old 3d printer. You can actually do that with a pressure. Yeah. They all seem like they're just a bunch of parts that somebody's put together and everything

like you could just print a frame and buy all the parts individually and put it together yourself in a way but i know there's more to the software and stuff but it's cool i'm looking forward to getting it yeah people do that with i think it's there i know there's a couple but i think one of the more popular ones is i think it's called vorax or vorax uh but it's like a basically a do-it-yourself printer build where you you print some of the parts and you buy some of these parts off third-party website and you put it all together and the advantage is you get like a really large you know print uh print surface area and stuff like that so there's a lot of stuff you can do with it but the the pressures are good because they're rock solid. Um, and they just, they're one of those things that just work. It's kind of like the, the Lutron of 3d printer

world where it's just, you buy it and you just keep using it. I think my main, my main decision making feature was the self-leveling bed. So, you know, like when, when I heard other people fighting, you know, they have to level it before every print, et cetera, et cetera. This one has it built in. I'm like, that's one thing I just don't want to fight with, you know? So if it's built in and I was like, it's worth, that's worth the upgrade there. Self-leveling doesn't mean that you'll never have to level the bed, just so you know. Don't ruin my excitement. Like, seriously, let me find out for myself here.

You think self-leveling would mean you would never have to touch it? It is not true. It helps, but you're still still gonna have to learn the art of leveling a bed and that can be frustrating but thanks it just means self-leveling means you get to do it yourself yeah learn it yourself that sounds fun i gavin you're enough of a tinker i think you'll probably enjoy printing things off and little small projects and things to kind of help egg on your home automation habits. Because I can totally see you building a little mount or something for one of your Unify access points

and that kind of thing. So I know there's a lot of like marketplace in our marketplaces but like little places you could just go download stuff and just print it right is that what you guys are talking about first yeah printables.com was one of the sites yeah i've already bookmarked a number of things you know that i want to print right off the bat you know like my first thing is probably like my first test print will probably be a little baby yoda figurine super important that you know Super important. As you're supposed to. That's required, I think, by law.

You have to do that. I'll sit right next to the machine to watch over all the picture prints. After that, I saw all these little things like headphone holders and this and that. Those are stuff I usually buy off Amazon. I'm like, oh, I can print them all. That's awesome.

I'm excited for you um for your expensive habit oh here's a monoprice mini delta 3d printer for 60 dollars should i get this one no you'll spend more time babying that than it will actually print we'll help you spend a lot more money on a good one set Seth. $60, though. Look, if you get a nice one, you can just print Clippy a home. Might have to do it in sections, but. I'm not going to do that. Well, obviously. Let's just be clear about it.

I'm not going to do that. I just wanted to be on record in case I come down there and Clippy decides to try to take me out and be like, no, no, no. I was defending you. You saw how slow he is back there. Of course, now it's dark and you can't see him coming he just sneaks up on you so yeah but you've seen horror movies like the the person trying to get away is running and jason's

walking the whole time and he still gets them right like yeah you're gonna get chopped down seth yeah you trip on my uh my my pot filled the the lawn where he's been digging holes with his wheels when he gets stuck so yeah you'll trip on one of those holes and that's where he buries your parts you know you you think he's just getting stuck he's actually digging the hole for you yeah exactly you're gonna you're gonna you're gonna lose your shins like yeah oh man all right well i won't get this 60 dollar printer or 60 dollar mono price printer yeah not if you like yourself if you don't like yourself you should do it but it seems like something you could set up in the background you know like look at that i have a 3d printer and just never use it well well i i actually am gavin i think i think i'm excited

for you because it's it's you're going to come up with unique things that nobody thought of to do at your place with that thing. So that'll be fun. Oh, yeah. And Gavin, not only were you on two, not one, but two Home Tech podcasts that week. Whoops. Had a delay in editing one of them. You're also on another podcast, Home Gadget Geeks.

You're a guest over there. And I like that podcast. It's fun to listen to. Yeah. I don't just listen to the ones you're on. Actually, he does pretty good interviews and has interesting people. No, I found Jim is great at interviewing. He can make like, he's just good at getting you to talk.

And I guess it's at getting you to talk, you know, and I guess that, you know, it's easy for me to talk with some people, it's hard, you know, to talk and he'll bring out the topics, you know, and you just get you going. But no, we were, I was on Home Gadget Geeks. It's almost like a quarterly thing. You know, I appear on a show and we talked pretty much all home automation, right? So we went a lot into a home assistant you know and we we got more in detail than we did on this show about you know um soil moisture sensors how how is that possible stuff like that five five weeks five weeks we dedicated to soil monitoring oh we went a little deeper into it so we talked about a large range of um topics i actually uh

automated my watering this week now now that it's it's set up automatically um because i wasn't trusting it and now i feel comfortable with it so now what happens is that around like in about 15 minutes for example it's going to evaluate all my zones determining which one doesn't have enough moisture and then schedule them for the morning right Right. So it's like a water as needed type of situation now. So it's saving me water and stuff. So I'm liking it. I was wondering why you weren't doing that because when you were talking on the show and saying how you manually like, well, when I noticed one of them was low, I just manually schedule it. And I'm like, that doesn't sound like something Gavin does for very long. And sure enough, it was temporary yeah just

well and i guess right now what what's going to have to happen now is like you're going to have to make sure that it's not just like all those sensors are correct and it's not like giving you false readings and just watering one area because it's always says it's 25 needs to be 35 you know that kind of thing so well i did discover this, like one of my sensors, um, the, the, the measurement just looked off. And when I went out in the yard to check it out, one of my, um, nozzles were actually stuck and it was watering the, the road. So, you know, that was a good sign, you know, so you know, I adjusted it, fixed it, and now it's properly watering in that zone. So, you know, having the sensors out there helped me find a problem with the irrigation, which is good too. So that's kind of why I didn't automate it at first. At first, I just set it up to notify me,

um, just so I can see. And now that I'm more comfortable with it, um, I set it up to automatically schedule it and it will notify me anyway. So it will let me know what zones it's scheduled for the morning. Um, and I keep an eye on that, but it's good to know because you could see after it's done watering, you know, I'm working on giving it a 20% increase. So I know exactly how much time it has to water to get me from say 30 to 50%. Right. And I've been doing that for each zone and it's been pretty complicated, but it's like my grass is green. That's all that matters the grass is looking good i found i found a white paper at some point i don't know why it was in my

my slumber or like sleepwalking you know when you're like surfing the internet and you just like sleepwalking virtually like i found a white paper on how to it may have been on a mastodon somebody posted it was uh it was like a a study like an actual study from a university and all the math and stuff behind the algorithm that would tell you how to water your lawn using the what you're what you're doing exactly what you're doing i was like man i need to share this with gavin and now i gotta go find it because i don't know what i did with it. No, share it with me. I'm definitely, I've become like a lawn watering nerd.

Yeah, my irrigation, the guy that did my irrigation system, I actually was talking to him this weekend when he was looking at it. He was like, what are those things? I explained it all to him. He's old school. He like sticks his finger in the ground. He's like, this needs water here. Swirls it around his mouth.

Yeah. You know, he kicks a few blades of grass. He like oh those are looking dry you know like you know yeah yeah you know but he was like you know he was like wow this is way beyond me but when i told him how i found the broken head he was like oh i see real value in this like even as an old school person he was like that could solve us you you know, with his clients. For example, he has a bunch of clients and if he had this sensor information from his clients, he could say,

hey, something's wrong with this zone at this client and contact the person and go in advance, you know, stuff like that, you know, but he's old school. He would never go into technology like that, you know, but I could see somebody utilizing stuff like this.

Yeah, tell him don't, don't. Just don't do it don't do it you'll be broke before long just buy a 3d printer yeah buy a 3d printer it's way better of a hobby yeah yeah like as soon enough like his clients will be like squishing and stepping on the little red blinky light things that they see at night it's like what is this and they step on it and it's a bug no no it was that was your that was your sensor and now i gotta come out and repair it it's gonna cost you a lot of money so one thing i did with the sensors is i actually moved some of them to like the edges of the lawn um and i was watching the readings and they pretty much read the same you know like i was sticking them right in the middle so i said you know let me try moving them to the edge across where the fence is right and they were reading the same so i'm like oh great that gets them out of the lawn so accidentally stepping on them is you know no longer

a thing um so you know if someone else out there has these echo wit sensors try and move them to the edge of the lawn you know where it still gets water um but you know it will probably measure the same amount or you could just relatively measure it. You'll know. Yeah, cool. Data and feedback. And then now you've implemented the automation. That's awesome.

So I was wondering when that was coming. It's like, when's the automation happening? Gavin's going to... Eventually. Eventually. Got to ease into it. Exactly. Exactly.

Don't just jump all in and get like every ground. No, wait. That's what he did. He got every single sensor he could possibly find. That was one of my goals this year was to do that, was to, you know, measure the moisture of my lawn and get the waterings. Because the ratio is nice, but it doesn't take into account a lot of things. It's basically like, oh, it rained today, but it doesn't know how much it rained.

It guesstimates it. But some of my lawn is covered under trees. It doesn't get the same amount of water as the, you know, and some of it gets more sun than others. So this, I get a lot more detailed, specific to me information. And I just found I've been getting better results in using less water because the rat shield just ran the system no matter what. Right. This one's just running the sections that just need the water. Well, mine right now is basically turned off every day because it thinks it's raining. Like it's going to rain in Florida.

You know, it's the same here. It's like 95 degrees with 150% humidity and the heat index is 130. And it's like, it's going to rain. Like it's going to happen. But sometimes it doesn't. Like today, I don't think it rained here. It rained everywhere else. And then these showers randomly just pop up all the time. It's going to happen, but sometimes it doesn't. Today, I don't think it rained here. It rained everywhere else.

And then these showers randomly just pop up all the time. So it's been off. It won't water the lawn because it doesn't think that it needs to because it's Florida in the summer. And sometimes it's right, sometimes it's wrong. But getting that better data locally is better. So it's awesome. Cool, man. Well, maybe if anybody else out there

has put together a robotic yard sprinkler system, let us know because Gavin AI is growing green grass in Canada. And I'm curious if anybody else has implemented it. Gavin GPT? What are we going to call this thing? Gavin.io. I can buy the domain.

All right. Well, that's going to wrap up thing? Gavin, Gavin.io. I can buy the domain. All right. Well, that's going to wrap up this week. We do want to give a big thank you to everyone who supports the show, but especially those are able to financially support the show through our Patreon page. If you don't know about the Patreon page and you have $60,000, just laying around your pocket,

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