HomeTech.fm - Episode 446 - Peacock and Chill

Episode Date: August 5, 2023

On this week's show: Google bails on Fuchsia updates for older products, Wyze has a new camera, Nice has new shades, AVPro has a new audio line after acquiring AudioControl, and Peacock has no money. All this, printer updates, a pick of the week and more! Don’t forget to RSVP for this year’s HomeTech Happy Hour! More info here: hometech.fm/happyhour

This is the Home Tech Podcast for Friday, August 4th. From Sarasota, Florida, I'm Seth Johnson. From Reynoldsburg, Ohio, I'm TJ Huddleston. And from Pickering, Ontario, I'm Gavin Kappel. And welcome to the Home Tech Podcast, a podcast all about home automation, home technology, all the good stuff, and for the first time in, what, two or three years, home tech happy hour. So yeah, we're,

we're bringing it back, baby. We've got information on the website that you should be able to go see and sign up in RSVP and let us know that you're coming so we can get the appropriate sized room, I guess somewhere. That's the only problem. We don't know where we're having yet.

We just know we're going to have it. And, you know, if somebody else is having a party, we're going to crash that, you know, if we can't get the place, we're just, we're just going to go right in there. I think that's what we're going to do. No, we should be able to have a place, um, someplace near the convention center. The idea behind all of these were like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Friday night, big night, everybody goes out to the big brand parties or whatever, but you got to have a place to like come by crash, grab a couple of drinks, people chat for just you know an hour or two and then take off and go

do all the crazy fun stuff um that all the uh giant vendors paying for you out there um yeah so that's what the home tech happy hour is just swing by say hi um grab a drink and then um then you know enjoy the rest of your night and uh where uh, where I think we're going to do it Friday. What was it? Friday, the September 8th. Yeah. Friday, September 8th, sometime after the show, I think the show closes at five 30. So let's just say six o'clock, everybody meet up somewhere. Um, and all the information will be on our website probably by the time you listen

to this. Cause, um, the last week's show hasn't come out yet, but we're recording this week's show. It's actually edited. I had some problems and I was out of town too. So I actually thought I did a pretty good job on the turnaround on this one. Um, but I don't know if I'd give myself the pat on the back for that one. I don't think, I don't think it counts unless you release it, Seth. I mean, the turnaround time doesn't really matter if it's not out there.

It's sitting right here in my downloads folder to be uploaded to Libsyn. So yeah, it's going to go one of these days. Probably tonight, probably tonight after after. And we teased it last week that we're going to have something. But now something will be on the website, home tech. FM slash happy hour. Um, guess who will be there. TJ will be there. Gavin will be there. I will be there.

We'll all be there. And you can come by, say hi, grab a drink, um, and have a good time. That's generally kind of, it's really laid back.

It's real easy to do. Like this is probably the easiest party you're going to go to at. There's no tickets. Just tell us you're coming RSVP so we know you know how many things to big a big of a room to get and i think sometimes we we buy a lot of drinks you know we're looking for sponsors so if there is uh if you do want to sponsor the the home tech happy hour we've there's information on how to do that on that page as well and uh yeah we have a little tab for a little while and people buy drinks on that so it's kind of nice well i

know of at least a dozen people going to see you like personally and you know there's probably many thousands that are actually going but at least a dozen that i know of and so if there's not a dozen people there i'm gonna be a little salty yeah so you better show up have a good time let's let's all hang out together i know like three or four including a couple people in this phone call so i wasn't even counting i wasn't even counting those three you know uh because that's a given you know we'll all be there uh first time we'll all be in the same physical location so that's going to be a good time seth and i have met on several occasions and we've done this podcast for a year or five i don't even know how long it's been at this point at this point but i i feel like i've known gavin forever

i've just never met him in person so i'm excited yeah it should be good well the the the cd thing is is coming up soon uh i guess as we're sitting here this is the uh the first of august that we're recording this on i mean one one month from now i'll be in denver so we're going the second through the ninth um because i've been working like crazy this year and i want to enjoy some time with the wife and so we're going on saturday the second and we'll go explore the the outskirts of of denver and go to all the national parks and all the kind of fun stuff and we'll start making our way back to denver in time for cedia so if if you get there early we'll be there the second through the ninth you know send me a message and let's meet up. Nice. Gavin's coming into, so I'll be there. Yeah. About a month away.

Um, I think I fly in on the, the Sunday before, uh, I have booth things to do. You got work. We can talk about exactly. We can talk about the booth later.

Um, that that's been a fun process. That's basically a project update. Yeah. It's been my, my my project for for quite some time now uh but yeah i i i think i i actually have to go watch them build the booth and or take it apart or create it up or something uh in a couple weeks so i'll be flying to utah for that yay um but yeah yeah so there's there's that and then um this yeah december no sorry september 3rd looks like i land there and then i'm there all week so it should be fun nice i'm excited you know cd is always a good time i've only been once myself but i always see the

press coverage every year this is basically basically our CES in a way. We're getting to see all the fun new integrator stuff that's coming out. You get to see all kinds of fun product demos and all that stuff that you usually don't get to see in person. Because the AV world is very extensive, but it's a small industry in the grand scheme of things and so go into these these conventions and trade shows and everything like that kind of gives you an idea of what's really going on and it's it's easy to just kind of get wrapped up in what you do and not really pay attention to anything else that's going on so it's a perfect opportunity to go out there and see what's available and maybe some stuff that hasn't come out yet.

Yeah, you get to see some some crazy demos like there's this one demo here that let's see luxury brands team up for exclusive home theater demo at 2023 Cedia. So Gavin, this this this one you got to check out. Like if there's these sometimes they set up these demo rooms and there's like, there's usually the, what's it called? The JBL one, Synthesis, I think. That one is like a tuned theater thing. They'll set that up. It'll be just a line of people trying to go in and watch it. Go in and check these theater demos out.

Like it's pretty wild what will go into these home theater setups here. But Trinov is doing one with a cindo in mad vr labs kaleidoscape barco say more screen excellence and of officina acoustica demo a bunch of stuff so it should be that one should be pretty wild and it's not too far from my booth uh i think they said this one was at booth uh 42 33 and And I think we're like at 43 something. So basically we're going to be like, as you walk in the door, if you were to just turn right and walk all the way down to the end, that's where our booth is.

And it'll be big and purple and you probably can't miss it. So that should be, that's how you find Blackwire. Just look for the big purple booth on the end. I'm making a list of all the booths I'm going to want to check out. You know, I have some favorite companies there. I'm going to check them out. I'm going to be in the Blackwire booth, of course,

bothering you. I'm just going to set up Home Assistant and every hour an update will pop up and we'll click it live. That'd be fun. Because you have an update right now behind you and it's bugging the heck out of me. It's been there for two weeks, Gavin. It's bugging the heck out of me. It's been there for two weeks, Gavin.

It's bugging the heck out of me. I was saving it for you. I just want to click it. Well, it's a good thing that Adam Justice didn't visit this demo booth or else we would probably be changing his home theater. Yeah. I mean, I think Adam is going to be there. He will be. He can slip into that and check it out if he wants.

But, you know, he's kind of, I think he's set up. Like, he's good to go. Maybe. That's what you think. The seats aren't in there yet. So he has time. That's true. That's true.

Well, if, if he, if he, he should probably finish the theater before September and then, uh, yeah, yeah. Then,

then he can go look at all the new stuff he can upgrade to, I guess. So that'd be cool. Oh man, that, that is is that is too funny so yeah there if you go to the c we'll put a link in the show notes but cdexpo.com gavin uh there there are like the the floor plan i generally go and look at that and uh and kind of see like where things are who's hanging what what what booths i want to go to um there's also i don't know let's see if there is a uh exhibit floor plan where's this thing there's a like a new exhibitor area or innovations area kind of off on the right and that one is always fun

um i can't remember what exactly they're calling that yeah yeah launch pad so there are a couple of like firewall is actually in there. So maybe we'll go check those guys out. But there's other, those are usually like where the little really cool things come in and set up shop. So it's kind of cool to see what they're up to. Eslo Innovation.

I think I've heard about them. That's old Vera. Oh, that's right. That's right. That's right. That's why I know the name. All right. Well, hopefully we will see everyone at Cedia this year in Denver, Colorado.

Lovely Denver, Colorado. And if you're there, don't forget to sign up and swing by for the Home Tech Happy Hour. You can RSVP for that on our website, hometech.fm slash happy hour. There is a form there that is generally fun to fill out. So I think, I think there's like a, uh, name and your email. So if anything major happens, we can contact you and tell you, Oh, don't go here, go there or whatever. And then how many are in your party that you're going to bring along with you.

And then, uh, you know, a little form area for like a joke or a message that you want to send to one of us guys. Cause you know, I can't really think of anything else to put on the form other than, you know, a little form area for like a joke or a message that you want to send to one of us guys. Because, you know, I can't really think of anything else to put on the form other than your name, the party, and like an email address. But if you have a good joke, send it along. TJ and Gavin and I will all read them and laugh. Out loud to everybody. So make sure you put something appropriate or really funny. It doesn't have to be appropriate at all. Don't make it anything personal. We loud to everybody. So make sure you put something appropriate or really funny. Yeah, it doesn't have to be appropriate at all.

Don't make it anything personal. We'll read it. Yeah, exactly. I just found the ubiquity booth on the city floor plan. Wait, they have a ubiquity booth? I'm just going to walk up to them and say, hey, what's up with printers? They'll be like, sir, we don't make printers. Yeah, they'll know what i'm talking about

i'm gonna wait for richard we're both gonna walk up i mean richard's problem solved now wait is this printer he's has a printer work problem now right yeah i don't know why you guys have problems with printers and i i keep buying printers man i can't believe ubiquity has a booth is that is that normal they've they've had them in the past yeah i've seen them at at the show in the past i mean even like plex had a booth a few years back so it's it's common for these vendors to show up oh ubiquity is very close to cc'd so we can go see that very expensive tv uh next to the broken firmware updates from ubiquity and hunter douglas oh nice they got two booths fancy doorbird i can't believe that's a company still

love you doorbird no i don't i don't see the uh the the booth that they're in we're in booth 4304 so whatever booth that they were having the awesome demo in i think it's in the same area if it's not just check out there and come check out Blackwire. We're at 4304, so that'd be fun. Purple booth. All right, we got a couple of home tech headlines this week, a couple of small news and mostly some business-related things

that have popped up. So what do you say we get started? Let's do it. So Google has abandoned plans to upgrade its assistant smart speakers to the Fuchsia operating system despite earlier efforts. The Fuchsia OS powered Google's Nest Hub smart displays and had plans for smart speakers like Nest Audio, but recent code change marked all speaker hardware as unsupported. The decision is unexplained, though hardware compatibility and reported layoffs within the future team

could be factors. So the Nest Hub series remains unaffected by this change. It'll continue to run on Fuchsia and receive updates, but it seems like the in-house team and operating system won't be going out

to other hardware devices in the future. So kind of interesting here. TJ, you and I were talking about this a little bit before the show, always kind of like a rumor that Google was going to abandon Android and switch over to this Fuchsia OS. And I guess maybe they've decided they're going to, I think for most, I mean, like the Chrome, the Chromium OS is like where the everything's headed like in google every every every time we hear about them doing something and canceling another project like

they're like oh yeah we're just we're all in on this chromium thing like we're going to that yeah and i i wasn't under the or i was under the impression that this hasn't rolled out to any devices or anything like that but supposedly it has rolled out to uh the nest hub gen 2 uh display um but from what i understand of it's basically just a combination of chrome os and android os um it's not surprising to see this not come to more google assistant devices i always thought that was kind of weird that that that was a rumor instead of just releasing new devices with this os on there um you kind of just always new devices with this OS on there. You kind of just always assume whenever a big update like this comes out,

like it's just not going to be compatible with the older stuff. And so I kept seeing rumors around that, you know, Google Assistant devices were all going to get updated to this. It's, you know, just a matter of time and all that kind of stuff. And that just sounded far-fetched to me, even with them releasing it to a couple of devices already. So this, I, you know,

this is not surprising to me at all. Next year, you'll be able to buy a new Google smart home speaker with few shows. I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean,

it's just like it kind of reading through the story here. It looks like 400 people were laid off the team. So about 16% of the teams, it's a pretty decent amount. So any efforts they had towards like backporting that operating system, I guess to older devices, probably not going to happen. I guess for the consumer,

like you and I, we're not going to notice a difference. Even if they did like a Chromium type OS underneath the hood or stay or move to Android or whatever like the the display and everything still kind of work the same yeah and that's one of those devices you're like you said you're not really going to notice it because you're just not interacting with it physically right and so as long as the speaker is still responding to you in like the same way and everything you're you're not going to notice i mean if you were to you know load a uh chromebook

or an android phone or something with this software you you probably would notice a difference but if i'm just talking to something i'm probably not interacting with it as much and so it's probably not going to make a big difference to me i i never got into the i never really got into google smart home stuff just because of situations like this like they were constantly changing constantly canceling and it wasn't very stable i found like just in terms of just stable in terms of not changing over time so much and this is one thing i don't like to change a lot because it's not just me interacting with it it's the family too and they get upset when one small thing changes so i like things

certain things to be stable yeah yeah that's always the risk you run with google it's got they've got some really cool stuff and some ideas but that like the stability of that company to to keep something long term yeah not there well keep it on our cdia uh talk here, Google will be at booth 2533. So we can walk up to them and ask them about this. They won't tell us anything, but we could ask them. Usually they bring in their Nest thermostats and Google Home things. All right, well, on to a new product here. The Wyze has released the Wyze Battery Cam Pro, priced at $93.99, which introduces continuous battery powered recording but with a couple limitations only lasts a day max has micro sd card would be required and it's better suit

they're really better suited for wired use if you're going to use this camera camera has 2k hdr video radar powered motion detection alerts for, and more. 150 lumen spotlight and an 80 decibel siren. Has a removal battery that you can pop out and charge. Compatibility with the Wyze solar panel as well. The camera doesn't support Wyze's free tier cam plus light. That's confusing. So it requires a $299 a month subscription. Despite the $94 price, it looks like Wyze, if you like line up the wise features with other products like ring and blink um those come in near a hundred dollars for their

their cameras that they offer with the same feature so still offering a discount still offering a discounted product um but it's wise and uh it's got continuous recording for a day if you want a wireless camera that you want to set up and record one day and one day only, they've got you covered for $100, $94, under $100. And I like wise. You know, they're a company. I find they keep innovating. They keep coming out with things. Recording for a day.

I could see a use case for this. Like, you know, you're on your job site. You just plug it up and you record their security. Some people record what goes on at the job site, you know, whether they're managers that aren't on site, they just want to make sure everyone's doing the what they're supposed to be doing, et cetera, et cetera. I see uses for this. And I think it's good.

The one thing about them, though, is over time, their prices have slowly started to creep upwards right like when they first came out it was just ridiculously bottom the barrel cheap and now they're starting to get into that range of you can consider competition right you can look at other cameras and you know like the price isn't the the thing now that's giving them the edge as much as it used to be but i still like what they're doing. They're coming out with constant devices. They have their floodlight cameras now, which actually look pretty cool, too.

So if you're in that ecosystem, they're giving you a lot of options. Yeah, I think I would rebuke the price thing there because I don't know what camera you're going to be able to buy that's battery powered for $99 that can do recording to a micro SD card. I know that there's the Eufy cameras, which are pretty popular. And I know a couple of them have micro SD card slots. But I feel like for $100, this is hard to touch compared to some of the other options. Yeah, I'm not, I guess I'm not trying to find, I'm not, I guess I'm not looking for that, that price point, but it makes sense. Like, like Gavin said, there are use cases for it. This isn't something I'd go out of my way to find and get here, I guess, but it does the camera I've just put up, it's hardwired. I could have done a wireless one, but I, you know, like another ring floodlight or even one of these wise floodlights. Like, I just, I like the hardwire.

Got to, got to power it over the cable. Yeah. I just don't want to deal with batteries myself. I mean, especially you're down in Florida, so you get sun, you know, pretty much every second of the day. But I'm in Ohio where it's not sunny for maybe two or three months out of the year, you know, just between all the clouds that are going by and snow and everything else. So like battery power to me is awful for a lot of these devices. So I personally wouldn't do it.

But I can see the appeal, especially if you're like a renter, or maybe you can't run wires to the place you want a camera or something like that. There's definitely a use case for it. But I agree. I'm the person that would just run an Ethernet cable and be done with it. It's just a temporary solution, right, that this camera would be used for. I had someone the other day ask me for something like this. They wanted a camera that they could set up basically at a site and just monitor something for the day. And this would have been, you

know, I would have recommended this then for a hundred bucks. Right. But, uh, it didn't exist back then, but the other camera that they did find was about $250 or something like that. Canadian dollars. Right. So it has, you know, there are people that have needs for it. You know, I know they have specific um hunting cameras i think there's cameras um hunters use to track deer or something like that trail cam like this wouldn't be this wouldn't replace that but it just goes to show there there's some things it's not a permanent solution though yeah i would personally get annoyed if i had to charge my device every like one month or something i mean because even with the continuous recording off

you're still gonna they say six month battery life but no this seems like a uh a far fetched idea if you're it's a dream actually using it yeah yeah six months and there's no movement and it doesn't have to process anything and then you never try to live view it or anything right right six months for that just kind of in a low low energy state six months there's no tree branches in the frame or anything like that you know cars never drive by you never even think about it yeah it does have some interesting specs uh ip65 rated outdoor temperature down to negative 20 to plus 50 so that's impressive yeah it's actually impressive. But the battery is not going to last very long at those those temperature differentials. So, yeah, interesting.

An interesting product. We'll give them that for especially for ninety four dollars. And I'm looking at the picture of this thing. It's ugly as all get out, but it's mostly battery like they have the battery leaned up next to it so then to explain why it looks the way it does it's because it's it's basically all battery all right let's move on here i've got an another new product nice from nice which is either trail mix at walgreens or it's a uh home automation company uh and it's in this case, it's the home automation company because that's what we talk about.

They are introducing and debuting a line of custom smart sunshades, which are expanding offerings in the home automation systems. The sunshades by Nice includes indoor and outdoor options with various mounting choices

and solutions for complex needs like skylights, angled windows, and motors can support up to windows up to 18 feet and offer quiet, durable, and reliable performance. According to the press release here, the sunshades can be integrated into the nice home automation system and management system and come with a variety of motor options.

Kind of a good product. TJ, I think you're probably, you're, you're a nice dealer, right? Like, I guess nice still kind of has, it's like a bunch of brands it's not just nice right it's like

uh elan i think is part of that group right yeah you got elan and nortec and and some others uh speaker craft and a couple others i believe um it's interesting to see this come out i don't think i would switch to this from my hunter d or my Lutron that I currently use. I think they're probably about the same price as the Hunter Douglas, maybe even getting closer to the Lutron ones. I haven't done a deep dive into it, but I kind of got a heads up that it was coming out. Good idea if you're already in the Nice or the Elan ecosystem, but I feel like this is a hard sell

otherwise i've heard that they're quieter than lutron shades but i feel like that's probably not true it's like because lutron shades are ultra quiet i mean we had we were joking around it's like well maybe we can add like quarters or something or some rocks inside of it so like it would just like roll around in there and make noise that it was coming down. Because yeah, Lutron's very quiet. Yeah, it's always good whenever you like you demo them to a client. They're like, are they going down? You're like, yeah, because you can tell because they're moving.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And the motors come in AC, DC and battery as well as wired in RF. So it looks like you have quite a bit of options when it comes to these. So that's kind of nice. Yeah, it's always good to see more people getting out of shades, though. I feel like for me, we already see a lot of cheaper shades or I guess more mass produced smart shades. I'm not really sure how to word that but i feel like smart shades and lighting are kind of one of those last frontiers

that needs to be crossed for professional to like diy automation you know we kind of we're starting to get there with the various hubs and the security cameras and all that good stuff but shades are one of those things that are still ridiculously expensive you can find some cheaper options like the ikea ones um there's a bunch of z-wave options like the the zebra blinds and stuff like that but i mean just to do like my den for example i have seven windows in my den and i was looking at getting those automated and just for ikea blinds, it's like $1,400. And like, that's a lot of money, but that's nowhere near as much as it could be with somebody like Lutron or Hunter Douglas or something like that. So $1,400 a window.

Yeah. I mean, so you're like, you're not even close at that point. So, I mean, it's interesting to see these companies come out with smart shades because I think it's one of those final frontiers and and not that nice as a a consumer facing brand by any means um but the more that these companies come out with shades the cheaper they'll become because it'll drive competition totally agree with what tj's saying like the diy space i've seen a lot of retrofit options you know where you can buy the motor slide into the pole and they open up and close. Um, but yeah, my Hunter Douglas just in my kitchen probably costs more than everything else in my house that I've done together. Right. Like, you know, and even for that, I really hated the

part where I was having a hard time just buying parts for it. Cause I had to go through a dealer, you know, I couldn't get certain things myself, even the hub for it. At that time, they told me I had to go through a dealer and the dealer had no clue what I was talking about. When I asked them about automation, they had no clue. And I ended up grabbing the hub off some guy that was trying to unload 10 of them on marketplace for 50 bucks. And it's been pretty good, but it's expensive and we need, I wish they came out with cheaper options. Ikea, you've mentioned Ikea. Ikea is the, right now, I think one of the cheaper ones, but they don't offer a lot of

customization. Like you can get sizes and I think there's a couple colors, but it's not something I put in my kitchen either. Right. So it's good to see more options coming i think the one that has the most options is still the serena shades by lutron i mean you can really get in and they have a they have a number of the common fabrics and everything that that get that get commercially used um and there's probably a few more out there now um because

serena's been out for a while but it's kind of nice because you get it integrates with the lutron ecosystem and you can control it with just about anything so and it's lutron so it'll just work forever yeah and my hunter douglas like one time i extended it too far and it fell off right yeah it happens right i was adjusting it went too far the thing fell off but when it fell off i was i finally saw the end of the roll i'm like this is just a shade that is pretty much like duct tape to this moving motor yep and i paid so much for that and i'm like technically if i got that motor i could just get my hands on some shade and then build my own if i wanted to right like that's

it's very simple but i think they're just like they mark it up high and i don't know i guess it's the shade i don't know if it's the shade that that's the high cost or is it the technology that's the high cost i'm not sure it's none of it i can tell you that um what is the most high cost is messing it up. It fell right off. Well, no, because then somebody, like there's labor involved in putting that together, but it's like you said, it's a roller tube with a motor inside of it. That's got some fabric taped to it and it rolls up and down.

Yay. That's really not hard to do. Yeah. But there, you have to cut the fabric to length. You have to make sure the measurements are right. You have to measure window in three or four different places to make sure that it's square and plumb all the way down like there's there's all sorts of things that go into this and then like you're saying like with the hunter douglas like they they get they get a custom-made shade for that right it's not it's not like one from ikea where oh you want a shade it's uh it would come in two sizes and you know, that's on you, not on us. Uh, but if,

I think like with the Hunter Douglas, like if somebody messed up a measurement or if it didn't fall exactly how far down that they said it was going to fall, like there's a problem. And that's, that's where I think a lot of the markup comes into is like the mess ups and that kind of thing. Cause really it's, it's the labor and everything on these products is, is where most of the effort goes in like it's they're not exactly easy to install a lot of i i did the install myself for the hunter douglas uh i i don't know why the i guess i now see why the lady didn't want to but i was like listen i could put these up you know

i'll just come pick them up from you you know maybe i should have paid for the install yeah and i think there's only like a handful of companies that actually make the fabric for these shades as well like i don't think it's like a and they all pretty much from what i know of a lot of the automatic shade companies get their fabric from the same companies and so that you you don't have like a huge selection yeah like mermay is one of them colise is another um if you there there are actually build houses that are sometimes local to you where you can go in and and select a fabric and just build a custom custom shade with a with a motor if you need to so like those those still exist and um i use those extensively you. You know, we just had,

we just had the Mermay book and use the e-screen, which I think is what Lutron calls their economy shade thing. And it's like, if you just needed a black shade or a blackout shade, you would use that, that kind of thing. So like if you knew the fabrics, and I did at one time, like 10 years ago, you could match the Lutron, what they renamed it to to what these fabrics were that they bought them from. So it's a,

it's an interesting industry and kind of one that just kind of sits off to the side and not anybody, like you said, it's still a frontier, not anybody's, there's no major player in it right now, other than I guess the fabric companies, because there's only two or three of them. They're the ones making all the money. All right, let's move on here. I got some business news. We've got AV Pro Global acquiring Audio Control this week.

Kind of a big news. They're going to rebrand the, I guess, Audio Control division as Audio Control Pro and expand the reach into residential and commercial audio-video distribution markets. AV Pro's existing brands, including AV Pro Edge and Meridio, complement the acquisition because those are basically HDMI and only video, and Audio Control is mostly audio. So Audio Control product line has power amplifiers, AV processors, receivers, and more.

So this is really actually pretty good for AV Pro. I got a little heads up for this towards the end of last week. And while I was on vacation and got a little text message from someone telling me like, Hey, AV Pro is going to buy audio control and it's closing on Monday. So it should be a fun week. But yeah, this is kind of interesting. These are two big brands and at least in the high-end pro market. And it's not always good to see consolidation,

but I don't think that, I think these brands are like in sync with each other. Like these are two really good cultured companies that like just demand excellence out of their products. So I'm actually happy about this one this this i think this is actually pretty good gavin what do you have to say about these two high-end companies you probably never even heard of never even heard of them so i'm just gonna pass the mic over to tj that assumes that i've heard of them as well so i can't really

say anything on this one wait you haven't heard of av pro or audio control i've heard of audio control i i don't have any experience with, so. Yeah. Yeah. They, they make some high end receivers, multi-channel amplifiers and that kind of thing.

Kind of, kind of along in the Anthem lineup and that kind of thing. Like if you, you kind of see them kind of playing in the same market. So it'll be interesting to see what they do. They do with these guys. I agree. I concur.

I concur. Why didn't you concur? All right. Well, we also have some streaming news because we haven't had streaming news in a while, but we all know that they're not doing great. In quarter two, 2023, Peacock, NBC Universal Streaming Service, gained 2 million subscribers, totaling 24 million, but faced $651 million in losses.

This follows a pattern of losses with an expected $3 billion loss this year. Peacock's revenue grew by 85%, driving ads in its premium tier, and the platform increased ad-supported pricing from up to $5.99 a month and premium plus to $11.99 a month. And despite the losses, the parent company Comcast exceeded Wall Street expectations. How does this work? How does this work? Can somebody just give me hundreds of millions of dollars to piss away? I mean, is that possible?

You know, I barely even got a mortgage a little while ago. So people are just blowing up 650 million dollars on streaming services that nobody actually wants 43 billion dollars on social net social media networks this is ridiculous and like i feel like sony is like the only intelligent company out of like this whole streaming business because sony just keeps leasing their stuff to like all the streaming services sony i mean they have, what is it like the, they had some kind of PlayStation TV service. I think they shut it down or something. Oh yeah.

They shut it down pretty early. Yeah. It's really odd to say, but yes, Sony has been the smartest one in this whole thing. They took their catalog. They said, we have a catalog. We have everything. We have Spider-Man.

That's it. I mean, Spider-Man. Yeah. Well, I mean, they do. Sony Pictures does exist. 30 different versions of Spider-Man. That's it. I mean. Spider-Man, yeah. Well, I mean, they do. Sunny Pictures does exist. 30 different versions of Spider-Man. Which one do you want? But they basically have taken that and, like you said,

rented it out or leased it out or whatever you call it to the streaming services where they can run the programming on their networks. And they don't lose money. They don't have, like, hardware and stuff to keep up with and server costs. And they just sell the, the, the product like they have always done.

And they, yeah, they keep making money. They're doing really well off of all the streaming debacle that's going on. Well, the problem is, I mean, like the,

I don't think this, this, uh, this tactic. So technology companies usually have this tactic where they'll, they'll make something free or inexpensive for, you know know six months or a year or whatever it is just to get a lot of you know people and then they'll put advertisements and all that kind of stuff to actually make money because the investors call and they say hey we want our investment back do

something about it um but streaming services are a little more tricky just because like, unless you're getting a lot of content from other people, then your content has to be original or it has to be stuff that you've bought. And if everybody has their own streaming service, why are they going to give you access to their catalog? And so you're basically stuck in the, in the whole Netflix thing where you just have to keep on creating new content or there's no reason to have your streaming service. Yeah.

And so I don't use Peacock myself. Maybe they have a couple original stuff that they've made, but I don't know about Peacock. And that's a problem because you need a lot of viewers in order to make your money back on this stuff. And that's obviously not working for peacock i don't know anybody personally that has peacock so subscription yeah nobody ever talks about it you peacock and chill i mean nobody says that i was i was watching a show the other day it was on peacock and when you know my friends asked me where can i watch it i said peacock they were like what i said peacacock. They were like, what? I said Peacock Plus. And they were like, oh.

What is that? No, they had no clue. They have no clue. What is on Peacock? I have no idea. Don't they get the Star Trek now in Canada? They just got the Star Trek? I mean, it's NBC.

So they have, I'm sure, all the NBC shows that they have just been replaying constantly um yeah I guess I guess they have some recent movies like Renfield uh that's in there but I don't I don't know I can't think of anything that's like I'd need to go out of my way to see on this thing and what a weird name for an app I'm mixing it up with Paramount see I'm getting so confused now good luck to all these billions of dollars being lost and uh in streaming services i really i really do enjoy like the uh the streaming services just because uh you know it's easy to subscribe to one watch what you want to watch unsubscribe for the next month i guess that's not the best business model and that's why they all kind of are having problems

right now but again it's it's like tj said just like you've got to produce and compelling content or buy it from somewhere and there's not many platforms not many companies that have done that like i've had hbo in the past but i turn that off when like they don't come up with anything compelling to watch netflix i think kind of sticks around because it always eventually has stuff that comes through and then apple apple tv does have good shows and some of the good shows are starting to come back now but i i am uh like i i don't know if i would pay for that outside of the apple subscription thing that i already have that like bundles it all in um but good for them like if they're making money off of it who knows if they are they probably are it's apple no i'm pretty sure that you know um for that amount of money lost they probably had it on the books that

they were expecting to lose some a significant amount this year i wouldn't be like i don't think they just lost this by accident and that's probably why uh you said comcast had record profits or whatever um they probably expected this and they're hoping to probably make it up next year or over the next five years you, and they'll probably add ads and raise prices and do what they have to do to get it back. whatever movie channels you wanted for this price. But the base package, you always got 200 channels, and so you always knew that you were going to get Discovery and Disney and all this other stuff that existed. But the problem with streaming is that you have to go and sign up for all these individual services by yourself and willingly.

And so unless you know that this stuff exists, you're never going to accidentally stumble across it or anything like that. You might go to the App Store for your Roku or your Apple TV and you might see Peacock on there, but you're not going to be like, oh, well, let's just check that out and see what that's about. Like you have to have a reason to go click on it. And I think that's what a lot of these companies are missing with the streaming services is that there's nothing compelling that makes me want to sign up for this unless i hear somebody else talking about a show that they

watched on it yeah like gavin gavin telling his friends to go check out peacock quest or whatever and that's a perfect example and they didn't even want to check it out at that point they're just like nope that's too much effort yep well uh it looks like they're yeah i mean this may be all like at this point like i think when you get to talk to these billions of dollars, it's all funny money anyway. Like, they're just, they're just doing it for the stock and to de-game some taxes. Because I'm like reading this article and it's like, well, they're not too worried about it because Comcast is going to receive $9 million for its Hulu, like it's selling off Hulu to Disney. And they're going to get nine billion dollars so yeah a three billion dollar loss is gonna really hit that nine billion dollars and they're not gonna have to pay as much taxes on it or they'll have to hide some more

money somewhere so yeah like what do they care if they lose money on this stuff again it's all funny money at this point like they're just gaming the system somewhere and you know what do they care if they lose money on it because it's a tax write-off for something else they're just gaming the system somewhere. And you know, what do they care if they lose money on it? Because it's a tax write-off for something else they're doing somewhere else in this business. Especially Comcast where they're making all that money on that sweet 10 G network they just launched. Oh man. Somebody's going to sue them.

Somebody should sue them. All right. Well, all the links and topics we discussed tonight, it can be found over our show notes at home tech. Dot FM slash four, four, six. All right. You got a funny picture of the week. and topics we discussed tonight, it can be found over our show notes at hometech.fm slash 446. All right, you got a funny picture of the week.

I ran across this as Gavin was talking about printing things. And this guy made basically the light plate switch from hell. If you're feeling around in the dark for it. I really don't know how to describe this thing. It is just like they have printed extra light switches on the light switch plate.

So like if you go and we're feeling switches on the light switch plate so like if you go and we're filling around on the wall you you would have to like find your way through this maze of light switches just to actually find the one that actually does switch it's got a kind of an evil thing to do you should bring some of these to the cd at gavin we can swap them out in random places like airports and stuff like those fake uh sticker outlet things that they put in airports sometimes you know? You gotta like plug into the outlet and you can't because it's a wall. What would have made this better is if they kind of offset it a bit

and then made all the switches actually functional. So you flip one and then you have to find the actual one to flip. Just remix it. Oh, there's four remixes. Let's see if somebody did that, Gavin. I don't see anybody that did that but that's perfect opportunity for you to get your tinker cab on oh yeah what would be what would be really really good with this like if they did move that would be awesome but i think they also should offset the uh the screw hole so this thing always will be crooked no matter what you do like it always has to be mounted crooked i think that

wow you're evil that's that i think that's evil too far that's evil we'll offset those screw holes and send richard one you know uh and then and i i posted this and then gavin you found a frankenstein light switch kind of in the same same vein of this thing and this is like this is actually cool this is if you had one of those toggle switches um and not one of these evil plates that that exist you put this on and it gives you the old the throw switch from from the frankenstein movies where you walk in the room and you just throw your throw your lights on and it it will click in and i i guess make a nice little sound as it turns your lights on it's kind of cool and the best part about that one is they have like two gang and three gang versions of it if you scroll over oh my gosh i

didn't see that like the single gang looks cool but when you start looking at the two and three gang it's even more interesting somebody needs to make one of those six gang things for this oh my gosh could you imagine just keep going out with it. Just flip the lever. All of them. That's too good. Yeah, well, beautiful. I love it. I love this one's actually really good. I could see this one being used somewhere. If you have any comments, feedback, picks of the week, or great ideas for show, give

us a shout. 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. I don't have any updates. I've been on vacation and building a booth, which I guess I can talk about. That's a project in and of itself.

But Gavin, you've got fresh air. What's that about? Yeah. So this week I picked up one of the IKEA air purifiers that you can integrate them a home assistant. They have, I think it runs Zigbee works great in terms of the integration and everything. And for the first time, since I guess the forest fire starts, my home's air quality index has dropped to a good level. So this is a good thing, right?

Like, and not just in my office here where I have the air purifier, but we opened up the windows and like throughout the house, it's now air quality is dropped. It's gotten much better. So it's good to see. I don't know if the fires have probably gone down. They're not as bad as they used to be, but, um, for a while, it took a while. Like when those kicked in, the air quality index just spiked and it was bad for a number of months and it took a while to clear up. So it was worth the investment on the air purifier. I can instantly feel, you feel a difference, you know, like it's weird to say, but you

know, like when the air quality was bad, you actually felt it. And now that it's good again and you know, it's actually, I feel it again. So I have it kind of automated so that when I'm in my office, you know, like if the windows are closed, I'm in my office and the air quality is at a certain level, it kicks in. Right. And then when I leave my office after a certain amount of time, it will actually turn off itself again. Right. So it's nice when you have things automated like that so you don't have to think about it. Cool.

I'm just going through articles i had to do a google search for is canada still on fire and uh yeah it looks like it looks like it is that's last week it was so hot we felt like we were on fire but you know it cooled off this week a bit we got a lot of rain too so that's helping in our area um but i know there's still a lot of forest fires going on yeah it looks like there's still like a large amount of haze hanging over you know being pushed down and hanging over south of toronto mostly in like pennsylvania virginia west virginia and kentucky michigan's pretty pretty well covered too so looks like it's out there and there's a there's a bunch out west in the united states and canada both so that's oh wow and if you scroll up canada

has a lot the whole country's on fire yeah like alberta ss ss saskatchewan however you say that it'll start snowing next month so hopefully uh no more wildfires then no that'd be nice we got a lot of land it's all burned now uh it's just making room to grow back yeah good so it's it's a natural process uh tj you got down here tj's rack what's going on with your rack man well so when you when you buy a house you got all the electronics that you you have to put in the house in order to make it yours and especially if it's your first house there's a a lot of stuff that you haven't been able to install in your previous places. So you kind of go overboard. And so one of the things I went overboard on is a 19U rack, I think, mounted next to my electrical panel, hanging above my dryer. And, you know, I told the wife that it was going to happen whenever I was

doing it. And then I got it up and she was like like does it really have to be that big and i was like yeah it's got to hold all my electronics and so i've been kind of just throwing stuff in the rack for the moment like just it's literally just been thrown on the bottom i got the rack installed and then i just there's been other projects going on you know you buy a house and you got to dig up the backyard to put drainage in and install a medicine cabinet and whatever else you have going on so the electronics aren't you know priority as long as they're working and so today i decided to go ahead and make that a priority and i started getting all the stuff organized in there i've got the the unified dream machine special edition with the poe i've got a unify 16 port poe switch and all my various other electronics like the flume water detector my eco wit hub my home

assistant micro pc and some other things and i've realized that i don't have any room for my battery backup and my plex server bigger rack bigger rack so bigger rack well i can't i can't really do a bigger rack because i like to be able to use the dryer small racks and so we'll just have to figure something out maybe the plex server will go in the office or something like that but just get a clothesline i mean that's just hanging up from the clothesline yeah outside yeah but it's starting to get there you know it's it's not all the way completed i've got a couple keystones uh keystone uh things coming tomorrow like a fiber one and some binding posts for my speakers and some other goodies that'll that'll be installed so once i actually get it wrapped up i'll send pictures over.

And that way, nobody can criticize me for my sloppy work so far. There you go. It takes me back to memories of, was it last year when I was building out my rack, I think it was? You know, and I was going through this whole thing. And my first decision is I just wanted to go with a big rack because I know I'd fill it, right? And I have like, what is it, 38U or 42U rack, and I filled up the whole front fill now, and I'm already starting on the back. I've added a few things. When Seth pointed out to me that I could mount things on the back and I never thought of it, I was like, great, I could buy more things. So, you know, I've been buying USB rack mounted USB switches, stuff like that for the back. And you can never have enough rack space. So get another rack.

Yeah, I think I'll probably end up doing something. The problem with the current setup is that I'm pretty sure the wall that the rack is mounted on is made out of wet cardboard. And so, like, it's not the strongest wall in the world. And I feel like if I put my current Plex server on there, it would all just fall and probably rip the wall out. Because the Plex server, I mean, it's like a 4U case with eight hard drives in it. So it weighs quite a bit by itself. And especially if I had a battery backup, which I

definitely would not plug anything or would not plug my my Plex server into like just regular outlet, it would definitely be battery backed up. But by the time I had the battery backup and the Plex server, the wall would would fall off my house and I would have to rebuild it. So I'll approach that at some point. I'm not really missing Plex at the moment. I've got probably the most streaming services I've had in quite a while. And so I'm fine there. And not worrying about Unraid and Plex has been kind of nice, to be honest. No excitement in your life.

I know. Yeah. All my stuff's just working. It's kind of crazy. Even my printer, Gavin. That's not what we're here for. We enjoy things breaking down, you know? and it's kind of crazy even my even my printer gavin that's not what we're here for we we we enjoy things breaking down you know that one switch that won't turn on for whatever reason

that's what makes our day it's like yes i fixed it he's he's got enough unify in there if he buys a printer he'll have problems my printer works great hard wires his printer though so you know it's actually been it's been wi-fi for the past three months g Gavin. Oh, I hate you. It's only a matter of time. I just talk nice to my printer and I didn't buy another printer in front of it. I bought it a baby printer. It's a photo printer. It sits right next to it. It's like a little child.

Oh, well, that's why yours doesn't work. I think it's being replaced. With something newer and smaller and younger. That's right. I see how it is. I give you years of service. It prints color. Wow. That's funny. That's right. I see how it is. I give you years of service. It prints color. Wow.

That's funny. That's funny. Well, it's, it, it, it, look, your, your rack looks like my, what I rack that I have in my, uh, forbidden closet of mystery. As I tell my daughter, you can't go in there. Um, don't look at it. Yeah. Don't, don't go in there.

It's a forbidden closet of mystery. And she keeps trying't go in there it's a forbidden closet of mystery and she keeps trying to go in there the that's when I hooked up that camera

this last weekend I have a punch down block for it I was going to punch everything down and I didn't do it I just

I just put an end on it and plugged it in like drug it around the front of the rack like an animal yeah like an animal so so one day I'll get back to that but right now there's a big white cable that just kind of drapes over the front of the rack like an animal yeah like an animal so so one day i'll

get back to that but right now there's a big white cable that just kind of drapes over the front of the printer and it goes to the poe switch so um that that'll be how it how it is for a little while until i get annoyed and have to go in there but yeah my my my rack is just an absolute mess because of a few projects that i've um done and not cleaned up at all. And the bigger problem is, is I've worked on the rack in here a lot more in the garage with all the server stuff in it. And I kind of want to move the stuff that's in there over here and relocate

my ONT to where it's closer to this rack. So I can put a battery backup on it and have fiber, you know, right up to the rack where there's no like cat five or cat six, I guess um running between things and um it's just a lot of work that that involves digging and you know digging up the old fiber line that was in the somebody else put in the yard and figuring out where they put it so that that project may take a while i i should probably just clean the rack up

it's a mess that's a problem for future seth yeah future seth will deal with it or your daughter if That project may take a while. I should probably just clean the rack up. It's a mess. That's a problem for future Seth. Yeah, future Seth will deal with it. Or your daughter if she inherits it. It's a forbidden closet. She's not allowed to go in there. Never.

Never. All she knows is she can, she asked me for one or two pieces of white paper and I have to go pull them out of the printer in there. That's all she really knows exists in there. And then, yeah, I've been working on a booth. I think we talked about it a little go pull them out of the printer in there. That's all she really knows exists in there. Um, and then, yeah, I've been working on a booth. I think we talked about it a little bit at the beginning of the show. Um, uh, these, these CD booths are fun. We're doing a big one.

And I've got like a tower and we were going to do a big giant video wall, which would have been awesome to do. Unfortunately, like the timing didn't quite work out for us and the having it delivered and everything wasn't going to really jive with what I expected it to have. It's cutting it too close. What if something happens and then we have no video wall? So I actually have kind of, we were already doing some pixel LED work anyway,

like for some of the linear lighting to make like effect lighting around the booth. So I was like, wait a minute, I'll just do a big pixel LED wall and put it where, temporarily put it where the video wall was going to go and cover it with fabric so it kind of diffuses it and make a nice

little artwork out of it. So hopefully, that's what everybody will see at the show, is a nice big giant thing that I can put color and fun stuff on. I don't know. I don't know how it's going to work out. We'll have to see, uh, when everything gets assembled and the fabric goes over the top and that kind of thing. Uh, let's just see what it looks like, but I'm hoping it'll look nice. Uh, but no video all this year. Hopefully next year we'll get the video all. Is this the, uh, the booth that you've shared the mock-up of, or is that a future booth?

Yeah, we did that booth, yeah. There's a big, there's like a 16-foot tower on it. So like on that 16-foot tower, we're going to do like a 100 and, I want to say 50-inch video wall that we have specced out for there. I don't remember exactly what the diagonal of it was. But let's just say it's a big video wall.

And unfortunately just didn't line up for this year or at this show. So hopefully we'll be able to do it in another one. There's a lot that goes into that. A lot of like labor and knowing things and coordination and like the install of it's not exactly like it's a permanent video wall and we're taking it like on the road. Uh, that's, you know, probably not what it was designed for. So yeah, it's kind of, uh, it's kind of one of those things is like, well, if we do this, we're going to make sure we do it, do it right. And it kind of wanted to wait. So we're going to order it, put it in our office, play around with it, see what it does, and're gonna order it put it in our office play around

with it see what it does and then uh put it in the booth next year i think well the the mock-ups you've shared are really nice looking and it'll be a little better than the folding table that you had a infocom so a little more professional you know i did i did measure this thing and figure out that the video well the video in the in the pixel led wall like the matrix i guess will fit within a 10-foot booth so if i ever do a 10-foot booth again i could just take that entire backdrop that i that i have for this 16-foot tower thing and just put it up as the backdrop for you know whatever's behind us i don't think it'd be look look as good but you know it's an option it'll fit't think it'd be look, look as good, but you know, it's an option. It'll fit barely, but it'll fit. That's all that matters. It should be, it should be fun. There is a rack in

the booth too, which is, you know, another part of my, my problems. I have to fill this rack full of equipment that we have. And it's like, so annoying. There's a lot that goes into a booth that turns out it's just not fun work. So I exhausted just hearing about it so it's been my month my life for the last month and uh probably the next month so yay uh come to cd uh and see this stupid booth that i've been working on it has nothing to do with phone technology except what's in it so uh and and yeah i'll be hanging out there probably most of the time. So, uh, I think it's probably going to wrap up this week. Anybody got anything else? All right.

Well, uh, we do want to give a big thank you to everyone who supports the show, but especially those who are able to support the show financially through our Patreon page. If you don't know about the patron page, head on over to home tech.fm slash support to learn how you can support home tech for as little as a dollar a month. Any pledge over five bucks a month gets you a big shout out here on the show but every single pledge gets you an invite to our private slack chat the hub where you and other supporters of the show can go in there and talk every day about i don't know all sorts of stuff that what were you guys talking about earlier um wi-fi names like boring or fun wi-fi names what What do you guys go with? I, my personal, mine is just Wi-Fi.

Like I, I have the boring one. Now when I'm on the road, it's, it's, it's more colorful. Like my, my travel routers have a different Wi-Fi name that would probably, will probably be illegal and in certain States in the near future. But what about you guys? What do you guys use for your, is it, is it a funny name? Is it creative or do you guys use a, um, a boring one like me? I'm boring. I just went with home net, you know, that's all that's home net, home net guests. That's it. You know, my neighbors are more exciting.

Yeah. Until we moved into the house, was just the the company name connect you um but then uh which made it super easy because then i would make like my test networks the same wi-fi so my devices automatically connect and then i would switch over to the the real wi-fi name for the client um but now since we moved in i've renamed it um just something a little nicer you know so yeah i i i had the same, well, the second, the main SSID on the travel router is the same as the home router. So like, yeah, I just plugged that in.

Everybody's device is connected. I don't have to go around telling everybody how to connect or, oh, you're supposed to be connected to this wifi, that kind of thing. But yeah, there's also a funny one that I broadcast. It's political in nature. Just leave it at that. You're going to jail in Florida, right?

You never know. You never know. But anyway, go into the hub. Tell us what your fun Wi-Fi SSID is. Not your password, unless you want to share your password. That could be fun, too. Everybody knows it's going to be 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0. Because that's what everybody uses for their password.

Anyway, if you want to help out the show but can't support financially totally understand just appreciate a five-star review on itunes or positive rating in the podcast app of your choice that's going to wrap up another week of home technology news here everybody have a great weekend and we will see you next week bye take care oh yeah home tech happy hour don't forget go sign up yeah come out see you there