HomeTech.fm - Episode 529 - Gavin Needs a Pergola

Episode Date: May 23, 2025

On this week's show: Getting ready for Home Assistant Community Day, Amazon still claims Alexa Plus is real, Aqara launches a voice assistant device, WiiM’s new kit, a few “interesting” outdoor lighting options from Nanoleaf and Govee, Lock Talk is back with lasers! Plus, a pick of the week, project updates, and so much more!

This is the Home Tech Podcast for Friday, May 23rd. From Sarasota, Florida, I'm Seth Johnson. From Warren, Ohio, I'm TJ Huddleston. And from Pickering, Ontario, I'm Gavin Campbell. And welcome to the Home Tech Podcast, a podcast all about home automation, home technology, and the federal prison system that TJ seems to be stuck in or wherever you're doing, wherever you're working. I don't know. I knew it was going to happen.

I'm up in Warren, Ohio this week. I got here Sunday night. Warren, Ohio is close to Youngstown. Honestly, I just take the GPS. I'm just like, take me there GPS and takes me there. It's close-ish to Youngstown, Ohio. And you remember that bad train accident like a year ago in Ohio and East Palestine?

Oh yeah, I'm not too far from there. So that's probably not the best. Like 45 minutes away from there. So I'm up in North Eastern Ohio doing a baseball job. So baseball job. Yeah, baseball cameras. It looked like a prison when you posted everybody thought it was a prison Yeah, well, and then you didn't answer the question. You're like, hey, are you in a prison and you didn't answer the question?

So we just assumed I didn't know how to answer it because it's like well, you know, I kind of yeah, I guess No, I sent a picture. So there's a I think it's called a batter's eye, which is basically like a like an overlook called a batter's eye, which is basically like a like an overlook or like a big blockage in the distance. That way the batter can can see the ball as it's being thrown down the field kind of thing. And this one has like a 20 foot platform behind it. And they wanted me to install a camera 30 foot off of the ground. And I was like, I don't have a ladder tall enough for that. And like there's a platform, but I'm not gonna lean my ladder against the platform.

Oh yeah, yeah, do some OSHA stuff, man. That'd be great. That's sketchy. Yeah. Yeah. And they're like, well, we have a boom lift for you. And I was like, well, I've never used one. So if you have somebody that knows how to use it, like I'll totally learn how to use it, but I'm not gonna learn how to use it here.

And they said, well, you can just go ahead and install it over here instead. And I said, that sounds better. I can't believe you're not Lyft certified. I mean, actually I am. I went and got Lyft certified and they taught you how to like use scissor lift and a bunch of other stuff. I just, you know, it's one of those things.

I need somebody else with me that knows how to use the machine. What if I get stuck up there or something? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You gotta get, somebody's gotta get you down. Yeah.

I mean, that's the thing, right? And especially I've never used one. What if I break something? Am I gonna get blamed for that? I'm gonna get blamed. We came up with a compromise that works. So it doesn't look like a prison though. Does and I have the there's some death stairs going up to it. For some reason, when they built this platform, they built this giant metal platform. It's got wood for like the flooring or whatever, but everything else is made out of metal. But the stairs, they did not set into like concrete or anything. And so like one side of the stairs just wobbles as you walk up.

It's not attached to anything. Definitely an OSHA violation. We're not going to talk about that though. It was a little sketchy. I posted that video as well. Yeah. Well, that was nice. Because it was that from your, what are they, the glasses? Yeah, my Ray- nice. Was that from your, what, the glasses?

Yeah, my Ray-Ban Metas. Yeah, those are pretty cool. I mean, you can take videos like that of you walking down some sketchy stairs. Hold on for dear life. You don't have to hold on to your phone and walk down at the same time, so that's nice. Oh yeah, I was definitely holding on with both hands like the entire time I was walking up and down. Because they're basically just vertical steps. They're a little bit of an angle,

but they're basically vertical steps. If you ever been to Pittsburgh and walked up some of those mountains, these hills, whatever they call them over there, it's similar, just straight up. Well, I've been looking at facts about Niles, Ohio and it's not very interesting. No, you have to go to Warren for the excitement Yeah, Warren's all the interesting stuff. So the only the only thing I know about Warren, Ohio is that William McKinley is from there and

The fact that the supposedly supposed creator of the hot dog is from there as well. There we go. There you go So well, they also have a two-story McDonald's. So hey, that's the bet. Oh I have to go there just to see this McDonald's. I actually posted a video on our back channel about this McDonald's. The guy was very enthusiastic about it. Multi-story has an elevator, a fountain and a grand piano dedicated to Ray Kroc. Like that's a McDonald's. You know, I saw this, I passed by this on the way to dinner and I was like, that

looks like a fancy McDonald's, but I didn't know it contained all of that stuff. They probably even treat you nice when you go in there. Like, our McDonald's would get attitude with her. I mean, I don't know, I wouldn't push that. No, no, no. That's probably not true. It is a McDonald's after all. It's McDonald's.

Yeah. Well, I'm still in Niles' website. I'm looking around, here's the menu of things they have. They have a calendar, news, entertainment, museum news entertainment museum dining shopping they have a lot of shopping there evidently there is an aquarium there so there is an aquarium inside the ball so we're sleeping it's in the mall what's great is that the the field is next to a mall and then our hotel is next to the mall as well so yesterday for dinner ish we went to the the mall and they do have an aquarium there, but it's

literally like a storefront. Yes, that's what it looks like. It has like maybe two dozen fish. So I don't know if I'd call it an aquarium, but I guess it is an aquarium by tech. Does the city revolve around the mall? I feel like it does, Gavin. I don't know. There's only 20,000 people in Niles.

And from what I've seen, there's not much going on here. So there wasn't many people at the mall yesterday when I went though. That's not a lot of people. It'd make it awkward on Twitter when you know everybody you're swiping. Yeah. That's a, I mean, that may be the, the, the perk or something. It's like a letter of any situation. Yeah.

But yeah, I'm working at the, I'm working at the Mahoning Valley scrappers baseball field by the time I'm recording this podcast, I'm already done with the job. I finished it today, actually. And I'll be driving back home tomorrow morning. It's a three hour drive back home. So I was like, I'm just gonna stay at the hotel for an extra night, might as well.

Yeah. Hey, there's a cutoff that you don't wanna drive anywhere after a long day of work or whatever. So yeah, it's just like Storm and Hero as well. So she's like, I wanna to try back in the lane. Work fan, no cruise control. Well, when you get home, you could have some packages waiting in your DJ.

I do, I have three packages actually. My neighbor called me up and he was like, hey, you have these packages outside your door. You want me to do something with them? And I was like, yeah, I could've just put them in the trunk of the car. He's like, but how are you gonna open the trunk of your car? And I was like, oh, just, are you gonna do it right now? And he's like, yeah, I guess. And I said, I of the car. He's like, but how are you gonna open the trunk of your car? I was like, I'll just are you gonna do it right now? And he's like, yeah, I guess I open the trunk

He's like, how did you do that? And it's because I pay a subscription for a cellular remote start that lets me open my trunk But I think I have a package from you Seth I had think I have one from in a belly and then I have a package from aqua flower So very nice three pack I can't wait to you get the packages because I may have sent you some fun stuff. Yeah. Yeah, I get you I mean I had some extra light bulbs. I wasn't gonna use anymore. I don't have that lamp so I figured I'd send along but

Yeah for your home assistant meetup, that's coming up soon, right? That actually like by the time this show comes out, it may have may not already happened. Oh, yeah. It probably already happened at that point, right? Yeah. Yeah. We have it. We have it this Saturday. It's the 24th from 1 to 4 p.m. in Columbus, Ohio. So by the time you hear this podcast, it's definitely already happened. There's no doubt in my mind. But we'll talk about what happens next week's show,

because that one will release after it. Well, we'll put a link to it in the show notes. I tell you what, if I'm able to get this out, you listener, you have one piece of homework, go to the link in RSVP for this thing so that TJ has the highest attended Home Assistant Community Day in history. Do that. No, don't do that unless you are going to the events.

God. That's like an event planner's worst nightmare. Just like, oh yeah, I'm going to go to that first one. No, no, no. All right, so I'm looking at all the other ones. And what's that one that Paulus and the gang are going to? It has like 200 people going to it? Brooklyn.

Yeah, come on. It's in like some, oh, that one. Well, when you have celebrities like that, go and everyone wants to go, right? Come on, we need to juice the numbers for ours. For ours. For ours. Put them to shame, put them to shame.

Yeah, everybody else has so many. Shenzhen, Shenzhen has 90 plus registered. Yeah, see, Ohio, you can do better. You can do better. If you're listening to the show going over and the RCP, make sure you teach. You know, as you're coming, we have 16. Well, yeah, we're up to, I think in the Toronto one, we're up to 22 people right now. But you know, I can, I can, I can feel the place. I'll just go out.

There's a lot of homeless people around there that would love to get, you know, a drink and stuff like, and just grab them off the street, pull them in. Like I love Homeless System. Yeah. I went to home. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, ours is gonna have giveaways

and celebrity meetups with TJ. Yeah, there you go. That's right. And Eric from Innavelli might be there. Ooh. Oh, seriously? Justin from Apollo. Yeah.

See, see. Justin from Apollo Automation might be there. Look at seriously? Justin from Apollo. Yeah, Justin from Apollo automation might be there. Look at you. Yeah, I'm pulling all the swings. TJ went all out for this. And I'm telling you. Only you had some more time. Oh my God, think of what I could accomplish. I'm trying to find the link that lets me see all of them

because there used to be a list of them. But yeah, it looks like the Bay Area Meetup has quite a few people at it. All right. So the Utrecht, which I'm sure I'm saying that wrong because I'm American, which is a city in Netherlands. I think that's the one that Frank has gone to. They have 220 people registered. We could do better than that. Come on.

We can do way better than that. Yeah, 49 are going to the Oakland, California Bay Area. So that's probably the most, I think. Well, no, I guess Brooklyn had more, right? No, I think Frank's was the biggest last time I checked. What was Ohio? What's Knoxville doing? Okay, we're doing better than Knoxville.

That's cool. Oh, good. I'm gonna ping the organizers of the small events that don't have many people, but are within an hour driving distance and just tell them to come join us. Houston has what has 25 going. All right.

So we got to do better than Houston. That's Texas. It's going to be hot there. Gross. Probably, probably not any, probably all they'll have is what? Shiner Bach beer, which is okay. No freedom. No.

I mean, well, it kind of, 60 people are going to Brooklyn. Wow, okay, we can do better than Brooklyn. That says 60 people. 60 people. I'm gonna cancel mine and go to Brooklyn. Everybody shows up. Oh, somebody just registered. We're at 23 now, Toronto. Woohoo.

Oh, man. So I think one of the live listeners, I guess, is on it. I think Roland or somebody was, who's up in Canada from the homeless system podcast is Roland. Roland. Oh, Roland. That's what he hasn't registered yet. Yeah.

He says, I was talking to him earlier. I think he's got like his kid's birthday party or something like the day after. So he's like, Oh, no, I'm going to drag him out. You got to go. You got, you have to go. You do the home assistant podcast, right? You know, gotta go. You have to go. You do the Home Assistant podcast. Right? You know, like this is your time to shine.

You should have been hosting this. You know, he's letting me down. 41 in Redmond, Washington. Wow. Oh, that's Redmond. It's all GitHub. GitHub basically is meeting up. They're like, oh, they're gonna do something there.

They're all cool. It's all cool. What's Vancouver doing? Wait, this isn't Vancouver, Canada. This is Vancouver, Washington. There's only two going there. So you, we got to get these smaller ones and say, come join us. Yeah. Virtually.

All right. Oh, here's Boston. How many are in Boston? Boston's got six going. So we're doing better than Boston. We need to be doing better than Houston. Uh, we doing better than London. Let's take a look. And no, we're not 50 in London. We could do better than Boston. We need to be doing better than Houston. Uh, we doing better than London. Let's take a look and no, we're not 50 in London.

We could do better than that. I think 50 in London and the Toronto is what up to 22. So we've got to do better than the Toronto for sure. No, you can't be Toronto. They're going to the Ferkin, the Ferkin pub. Yep. The Ferkin on Young. And, and he just posted an update.

He says, feel, bring, feel free to bring your questions about automations you're stuck on. Gary, you want to swap or your phones to showcase your dashboard. Oh, they're taking, they're taking. Oh, okay, I'll bring my phone to show my dashboard. And I may have a giveaway if I get your package in time. So, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know. Let's talk about that. That's an adventure in customs and very, very expensive postage. So, we'll see what you get. I'm't know. I don't know. Let's talk about that. That's an adventure in customs and very, very expensive postage. So let's see what you get. I'm not sure. More than likely I'll have to pay to receive it. I don't know why that always happens up here. When they, oh yeah.

When they said what's in the box, I'm like, um, I don't really remember now. It's just a bunch of stuff. Gavin's definitely getting searched. Yeah, this is going to be good. This is going bunch of stuff. Gavin's definitely getting searched. Yeah, this isn't gonna be good. This is going out by record. Uh, just put a weed killer in there. I need some par three. No, I also had to make a box

because I didn't have a box. The day before I was supposed to send all this, for whatever reason, I threw all the boxes I had in my house away because it was a trash day, you know, you're supposed to do that. And I was like, yeah, garage is clean. And then I'm like, oh no, I gotta ship stuff. So I only had one. That's what happens to me that and I was like, yeah garage is clean and then like oh no, I gotta ship stuff

I only had one very large box. So if you get this box, it looks like it came from I don't know Shinzen It was it's from me. It's very it's very taped up and very Cobbled together with other pieces of other boxes. Well, our postal service is supposed to go on strike on Friday So I'm hoping it's gonna get delivered by FedEx or UPS or something like that. No, no, no, probably. Well, I don't know. Like what do they do? Cause I send it by post office, like by the American post office. Oh, are they going to hand it off to Canada post?

I'm not getting that for another six months then. Oh, all right. Friday at midnight, they're going on strike. Well, it's nice to have something. I thought I said it in plenty of time. It said seven to 10 days of delivery, which I mean, I said it like mid last week, so you should have plenty of time. But, you know, if they're giving up for their strike and they don't want to deliver it,

they're not going to deliver it. So hopefully it gets there. I don't know. It would be nice surprise in three or three or six months though, Gavin. You're like, what is this? Oh yeah, I remember that. Yeah, I'm just gonna have IOUs, giving away IOUs. Well, what better reason to attend Columbus,

Ohio's Home Assistant Meetup, because TJ will have all the giveaways, all the giveaways for the 50 or 60 people that are supposed to show up. Maybe 80 people, 120. 120 homes for all of you. Home tech, you know what to do. All right, sweepy. Lacing the show notes.

That's right. You know, what's great. What's great is that the show won't come out before then anyway, so it's okay. Now he's going to make it come out before. Yeah. Sounds accepted. Yeah. He won't though.

You still got last week's show. All right, well, we have a bunch of new products in HomeTech headlines this week. So what do you say we jump in? Let's do it. All right. Amazon claims that it's constantly inviting new customers to Alexa Plus. If you aren't cool enough to have it, you're still not cool. You suck. I'm guessing we all, we were never,

no one's ever gonna see this. Who are they inviting? I don't know. It's probably still people just with the shows though. Like I don't think they've moved on past the show at this point. I think we've only seen maybe one video of this in the wild or something.

Is there any more videos? Which is staggering if they're always inviting people. Somebody should have it at this point, right? They're all under NDA. No, you're paying for it. Supposedly somebody in the Verge comments got an invite yesterday. That was two days ago. So that sounds like a bot or an Amazon Alexa person.

Yeah, the Verge wrote the story story responding to questions about availability of Alexa plus AI assistant clarifying the product is indeed accessible to some users. The only the cool ones are not you. Despite skepticism from another road it Reuters article, which struggled to find firsthand accounts of Alexa plus users because who knows who maybe maybe there's just maybe the person in the comments DJ is just part of Amazon PR, you know? Who knows? 100%.

That's what they do. That's what they do these days. Like, no, no, no, let's get out. Somebody got invited for early access, don't know who it is. No one can figure out who it is. There's very few and far between videos of any of your interactions with this.

And yeah, it's 20, I guess it's 20 bucks a month too. So maybe, maybe that's why, like nobody wants to admit paying 20 bucks a month for something that's makes it easier to start a timer. I don't know. Well, it's included in Amazon Prime though, isn't it? Yeah, so they should focus on people that have Prime accounts at least.

You would think, yeah, you would think there's enough people, I don't know. Like me? Like nobody has Amazon Prime though, so. Shoot me an invite, feel free to. No, they know how bad you'll talk about it. The funny part is I know they're already listening. Now they're not conveniently

listening when I'm asking for an invite. Exactly. It does say here in the article that they're focusing on certain Echo Show devices. You're making your current devices feel sad and that's why they're taking you off the list, I guess. All right, well, let's move on here. We got another voice control story, this time from Akara, who?

Akara, yeah. Akara has announced a new VoiceMate H1 and it offers users a discrete and efficient way to control smart home devices. So Akara jumps into the voice control game here with this little device. It's designed to be worn as a pendant allowing users to issue voice commands without needing to use their smartphones or other devices. Each one utilizes advanced recognition, voice recognition, technology to ensure accurate command execution even in noisy environments. So with a

little pendant that you walk around and you say, computer, make me a hot tea Earl Grey, right? Star Trek. This is close to yeah, this is close to Star Trek. Yeah. Because I think you actually have to touch it or something to trigger it, right? Like there's no wake word. Yeah. Well, so it's connected to the hub via Bluetooth. So I'm 100% betting that you have to push a button or something. You have to activate it. So push a button. Yeah. And that's why it says, why does it take so long to respond? Because it takes one to two seconds to respond because it has to connect to your Bluetooth. Yeah, that's all right.

Good old BT. The H2 will be better. I mean, at least it's a nice looking device. I don't really see the use case for this, but I guess if you just wanted like an offline, just, you know just not always listening microphone, this is kind of nice. Not really my use case though. I don't want to carry something around with me.

Yeah. And touch it. You don't carry it around, you stick it on your lapel, right? And you go, doodle-oop. Akara, lower the temperature. It's time for breakfast. What's the sound it makes? Doodle-oop. I can see the use case for this though.

It's kind of large. I don't know. I think it's about the same size as the little Star Trek things they always wore. And if you if they made people wear these on on their shoulder or whatever right here lapel Then I think this could take off They have a picture of it attached to like a fridge. It looks like I'm not really sure it looks like yes I got a magnet in it or something. Why you gonna attach it to your fridge, but why not? I did sure I just see this thing easily getting lost. I put in a Why not? I did sure.

I just see this thing easily getting lost. I'd put a tracker on the back of it. The coolest thing about this is the motion based scene control in my opinion, because this is a car has done this a couple of times, mainly with, I think they call it the magic cube or something. The cube, yeah. Is it just a cube where you just like flip it upside down

and rotate it and all this other stuff. And it does different automations depending on how you move it. And so they've incorporated this into that. I think that's kind of cool. Yeah. Cause you can, you can push the button on it or whatever you can, you can pick it up and tap it on the table twice and have something happen. You can, you can actually turn it like clockwise, clockwise. Yeah.

Rotate it. Uh, you can slide it or bash it, pop it. Yes. Whatever it is. Yeah. There's all sorts of stuff you can do here. Yeah. So it seems pretty cool that you can slide it forward too. Takes a CR2450 replaceable battery.

I don't see a price on it either, but I can't imagine being more than like 30 bucks. The second FAQ, like you said, was why is there a slight delay in voice activation sometimes? And it says, yeah, it can take up to one to two seconds. So maybe not the world's fastest computer, Star Trek computer, but yeah, it's a step in the right direction, right guys? I think it is. I mean, yeah, it seems like one of the few offline options

if you wanted voice control without like all the overly listening stuff. Yeah, yeah. You don't really have a lot of options in the DIY space. So that is kind of appealing. Six months on the battery. One year under normal uses. And after activating sensor mode,

the battery can reach six months. So sensor mode, must use more battery. I don't know, I like it. I think this is a great idea. They should have more little Star Trek doodads like this. Somebody, I bet you Apple will come out with something like this and it'll be all the rage. AirTag 2, that's what it is. Yeah, it does look like an oversized AirTag. It says these are 9.99, that can't be right. Is that just a trial

version? Yeah, it looks like they're just doing like an intro price because it looks like the normal price was like, the only one I found was euros. It was 39 euros. Oh, so 40, 50 dollars somewhere in there. They had a trial price of 10 euros. So yeah, we'll see we'll see what happens All right. Well, I like it. Good idea. Good on Acora. Let's more stuff like this Yeah, I'll wait for you age to of course because the age to will be awesome This this photo of this person looks like she's about to eat it though. Yeah. Oh yeah, don't eat these. It's probably poison. Oh yeah. She's like, they probably just Photoshop like a chip,

like a Pringles or something out of her hand. It's like salt and vinegar. All right. Well, let's move on here. Got some new products from Weem. Got a new smart speaker. Let's see, they got three new products out, including its first smart speaker, the Sound, which resembles the Apple HomePod. The Sound features a 1.8-inch high-res touchscreen for navigation and playback, and a 4-inch woofer, dual-balance mode radiator tweeters, and has over 100 watts of power when

paired in stereo. Optimizes sound using built-in microphone and uses customization with a 10 band EQ for 24 preset sound profiles. I don't know kind of an interesting little device if you're in the market for one of these systems here. They've also got a sub pro which is a subwoofer 250 watts base. And what else do they get in here? Oh, I guess the third one is another Wiem amp ultra. It's a refined streaming amp, the most refined or streaming amplifier yet. Let's see has 100 watts of power, dual antennas for streaming over 60 Bluetooth 5.3, and even less than the high res music at 24 bit. But I think the one that catches my eye is that silly little,

I don't know, circular speaker with a touchscreen. It's amazing they put a touchscreen on it because Apple wouldn't do that. Apple says, no, you can use this glob of light on top to control your device. Can never find the buttons on. Yeah, I personally don't understand the purpose of this tiny little touchscreen. Are you gonna touch it? I could show you what's playing on it.

Yeah, yeah, it's album covers. Yeah, cover art. Yeah, well yeah, that makes sense, but like what is the touchscreen for? You're gonna be able to swipe albums or something like that? That seems awful. Yeah, you could, you could. I mean, you know, what's it, Unifi has the one little knob thing on the front of theirs, right? So it had all sorts of useful information, like the cover art and what's playing. I do have a conspiracy about Ween. Do you guys want to hear it? Oh, let's hear it.

Oh, let's hear it. So they've been releasing more and more products without AirPlay in there. And I really don't understand that because some of their early products had AirPlay in them. And so I feel like they got in trouble for putting AirPlay on them without being like officially certified or a license for AirPlay because they've

they released a couple new products that do not happen at this point. If you've got everything else using it's very, yeah, they literally have everything else you can do Alexa, you can do Google, you can do Chromecast. I mean, it's got literally everything. And I don't even see mention of like AirPlay coming soon or something like that. Correct. It's just no AirPlay for you. Yeah.

So that's kind of weird because they're always have all had AirPlay. This doesn't. And they've released a couple other amps that don't have it as well. So I think maybe, maybe Wiem is getting big. They've, they've broken into the market and they've got some attention, good and bad. Interesting. But I wouldn't buy them without AirPlay. Like to me, I have to have my AirPlay.

I use it too much and if they don't have AirPlay. But I like what they're coming out with though. I mean, this speaker calibrates itself. It could be used as part of a 5.1 surround sound setup, things like that. Like getting attractive. Yeah. No, it's a nice looking product. And you know, at the end of the day, I just want my speakers to work as speakers.

I don't have to have all the extra stuff built into it. And that's kind of where Sonos is falling a little bit behind. There's just too much built into it at this point. They have the Alexa. They have all the Google Cast stuff that you'd want. No AirPlay. Tidal? Yeah.

I wonder if they're gonna wait for the old matter casting system to get kicked in, right? It's supposed to be like basically Airplay, but everybody uses it. The Wiem Amp Pro and the Wiem Ultra does not have Airplay, but the Wiem Amp and the Wiem Pro Plus do. So it's just, it's a weird admission of certain products.

Especially the ones that say they're pro, right? Right. Hmm. But that's my conspiracy. I got in trouble say they're pro, right? Right. Hmm. But that's my conspiracy. I got in trouble. I can't do AirPlay anymore. Well, stick to that. We'll put it in the show notes.

We're holding you to it. So there's a post on the old Reddit that someone was upset that they remove support for one of the devices they bought. It said, due to user experience and compatibility issues, the future, with future AirPlay devices, we must remove AirPlay cast feature from the current product.

We recommend using the Bluetooth output feature available in our current products as an alternative. Additionally, we were exploring other network-based approaches. That would piss me off. Yeah. If I bought it and it had AirPlay and they removed it. Wait, wait, wait, wait.

So it says, WEM devices still functions AirPlay receivers, allowing you to transmit audio from your Apple devices to your iPhone, blah, blah, blah, blah, to the device. But it's not going to work as an AirPlay cast, so it's not going to be a source of the AirPlay audio. It's not good. Is that all the products or?

Yes, all the products can be an AirPlay receiver, but not an AirPlay source. Why is it never mentioned then? I don't know. Maybe they're that much in trouble. Yeah. I imagine they don't want to pay the licensing and certification fee and then Apple is like, hey, you can't do this. Honestly, I didn't even know that AirPlay casting was a thing, right?

I thought only the phones did that. Maybe Home Assistant does. I don't know. I've always casted from my phone, right? Is that what AirPlay is? Kind of. Just wireless. It's just sending audio over or video.

Yeah, but it comes from your phone, right? You start your phone. It's not like Chromecast where it's literally telling the device, Hey, play this URL and giving it like all the authentication. I know what you mean. It's not, it's not, it's sending the actual data over, but not, it's not telling the receiver where to go get the data, you know? Right.

Yeah. Right. Whereas this little device that they must've had as an AirPlay cast device, I've never heard that before. I didn't know that was a feature. It's interesting that Beam has that. Maybe I'm not big in the AirPlay world. All I know when I AirPlay,

I want to put a picture on my TV, I just AirPlay it up to the TV, right? Or I want to listen to music. I don't even know where I would listen to music. But we using AirPlay because I don't have any AirPlay speakers, but I've used it mostly with the Apple TV and it just streams what's on your phone or whatever and brings it over. I didn't know that you could do this casting feature. This is interesting. Anyway, I'll have to look into it. I guess it is a thing though, because there's some stuff here on Apple's website about AirPlay

Casting. But, Weme probably, or you're right, TJ. I think Weme got in trouble for using this. Maybe they were only supposed to use AirPlay, and they were like, decided to use AirPlay Casting, and then they got banned, so they can't talk about it anymore. No AirPlay for you. It's a good, that's a great conspiracy idea. I like it. I have asked somebody from Weme via Reddit actually.

Oh yeah, they're going to tell you. They never got back to me. No. The lawyer is like, deleted. Not even going to go there. Yeah. All right. Well, talking about something else Weme came out with, they've got a new Weeam

Voice Remote 2. It's a Bluetooth remote designed to enhance your audio experience with intuitive control and smart functionality. It's an aluminum body remote, offers hands-free voice commands without the need for an extra Alexa device thanks to push-to-talk button. That's right, you can push a button and then talk to Alexa through your remote. Features four programmable preset buttons for instant access to your favorite content.

Supports multi-direction Bluetooth connectivity, allowing you to control from anywhere in the room. Remote is exclusively compatible with Wiem devices like the Wiem Pro Plus, the Wiem Amp, the Wiem Amp Pro and the Wiem Ultra. It's equipped with USB-C rechargeable battery, 39 US dollars. It's equipped with USB-C rechargeable battery, $39. It's kind of cool if you need a remote for your audio. Does it support AirPlay?

No. Well, it looks like an Apple remote, so yeah. Yeah, I mean, maybe this is why they're in trouble because it looks like a dumbed down version of the Apple TV remote. It's very similar, kind of shocking. It's kind of nice looking. This is what I want my Apple TV remote to look like though.. Kind of shocking. It's kind of nice looking. This is what I want my Apple TV remote to look like though.

Looks like it works with more than the ones that they call out. It'll work with the Wim Mini too. Not enough buttons. Oh, this is fine. It's got an input button. That's the biggest thing for me. 10, 11, 12, and I think there's 12,

maybe 13 buttons on this one. So what is that? $39 divided by 13, $3. $3 a button. Need to go over to our price per button database and update that real fast. We haven't updated that in forever. I know. People are probably really upset with us if they ever go to the price per button database. Where is this thing? I don't even remember where I... Oh, it's a Google Sheet. That's right. The last thing we had in there was the Switchbot universal remote at $59. So this is going to be the Weme Smart Remote.

What is this thing called? Voice remote, $39 and 13 buttons. And here we go Gavin, that is going to be $4.17 Canadian. Are you sure you got that right? Are you adjusted for our tariffs and all the other? As far as I know, this is, uh, this is updated live. Like Google gets this correct all the time. I don't know.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think it's been adjusted for, for all that. So if you're, if you're in the, uh, using the pound and great Britain, they're two pounds and what is it? 24 pence.

I don't even know what that is. Yeah. Two, 24 pounds. what is it, 24 pence? I don't even know what that is. Yeah, and two 24 pounds. Yeah, there we go, pounds. And then, yeah, yeah, $3 even here in America because why math? We don't wanna do it, so. All right, cool stuff.

Good job, Wiem, coming out with some interesting stuff I'm probably never gonna buy. Let's move on here. We've got some stuff, some garden lights, which I might buy. Nanoleaf has introduced two innovative smarts, lighting solutions, a rope light, and the new solar garden lights.

Rope lights, a flexible five meter LED strip featuring a 420 LEDs and 70 addressable color zones can be bent into any shape and mounted on the walls. Customized using the Nanoleaf app to create a smooth gradients and animations. Let's see, it's priced at $69, nice, and it's available directly from Nanoleaf. Solar garden lights are designed for outdoor use, weather resistant, and resemble tulips. They say tulips, I'm going to say they resemble like those cattail things you see at the swamp. Anyway, they're like sticks with lights on the end.

There you go. They're powered by solar panels and can be placed throughout your garden or your balcony. And despite not being app compatible, they include daylight sensors and a remote control for color changes. We're referring to technology. Yeah.

So scene applications and timer settings. A set of two light clusters costs $49. I don't know. I'm not going to get those. They seem interesting though. They could have a fun application. I don't think I'd install them in my yard though. Yeah, I had something similar like this at the end of my driveway until recently.

I've just replaced them with permanent lights. I like the idea of these, but the fact that it's not app controllable and you have to use a physical remote to turn them on and off or use a solar sensor is a no-go for me. It's a weird product for a company who focuses on connected lighting products. It's a very weird launch. These would get stolen so fast in my neighborhood. There's solar powered. They can walk down the street with them. Exactly. At least I'd see where they're going.

But I mean, yeah, they look cool. The rope light looks cool because it can actually mirror the colors on your PC monitor too. So that's kind of cool. But yeah, I probably wouldn't be buying any of these. This is weird. I didn't realize they were, I thought they were just a bunch of little sticks. No, it's like one stake and it has,

what, eight little lights that come off and kind of, it looks like they float around in the wind. I feel like this is another product that somebody saw being made from AliExpress and they're like that we should do this, because we actually had lights similar to this that we bought. I've seen many versions that have basically just a different top on it, throughout my neighborhood and stuff like that.

So this is totally an AliExpress thing that somebody was like, we should do that too. Interesting. Oh, here's the remote. All right, hold on. Twelve buttons on this one. But I don't know, does this count? I guess it does. I've got the database open. You may as well add them in.

12 buttons, $49. I think we're going to do all right on this one. These are the ones that I had. They were just white though. I got these off a Facebook ad, which I would not recommend anybody ever doing. But I was like, these look, these look kind of cool. I'll go ahead and get these.

Very similar. I mean, they're round little balls, not little snakes, but same concept. Same concept though. It's got a little solar panel underneath it. It's got like eight lights all together. They're just like attached by like a flexible thing to like one stick. That's it. Do they bounce around like they do in the video here?

You know, the ones I had not really. The problem I had with mine they're probably a lot cheaper the way you're gonna get from Nanoleaf let's be honest but the problem is that like they had some kind of like some tape or something that like kept them all together and then as they sat in the Sun even in Ohio it would like fall So then just like split down the middle and then they would just flop. They wouldn't survive here. Well, I guess with the 12 buttons

and the $10 additional price, $4.17 per button. And if you're in a cabin, $5.79 per button. Wow, we are getting into Starbucks coffee territory there. I know, right? Might as well just get the wind remote at that point. Exactly. Oh well, right? Might as well just get the wind remote at that point. Exactly. Oh well, they look interesting. I think they could be a nice little accent piece,

but yeah, I don't know how well this would survive. IP65 weatherproof, it says. I wonder what kind of remote this uses. So you're not gonna buy these again, TJ, are you? No. No, okay. I've got real garden lights now. Oh, well, if you want a real garden light, govee's coming out with a new outdoor lamp post in the US starting May and May 16

So I guess it's already out four days ago price at $429 what oh my god, it stands 97.6 inches tall that probably translates some kind of meters and It's it's got 360 degree lighting. It covers a 32 foot radius. It has 54 RGBAC LEDs and can deliver up to 2000 lumens of brightness into six independently controlled zones.

I can just imagine this thing sitting out in the light. Like, it looks like a UFO. This is ugly too, right? This is something that you would get at like a dollar store kind of thing. There must be a lamp shade on this. Or is this meant for like your backyard and just- It's outdoors, yeah.

Just illuminating your backyard. It's meant for the forest where nobody can see it. Cause I wouldn't want anybody to come to my house and see this. But $429? I saw somebody setting this up on YouTube and it was unboxing. It is very ugly. And they were setting up inside for some odd reason.

And he has eight foot ceilings and he, he, he assembled it like laying down. Right. And I'm like, it's eight foot, eight foot lamp. You're not going to be able to pick it up. Like, like have you ever used it? It's a triangle, right? Like you can't pick up an eight foot thing in an eight foot room. So of course he bumped a ceiling a few times, realized he's not going to able to set it up and took a piece out of it to make it shorter.

But is this like hardwired? Like you just like how does this work? Yeah, I believe it's hardwired. All right. It's gotta be hardwired to something. I don't like where lighting is going. This is not good. It's very ugly. I'm just throwing things at the wall now hoping something sticks. Yeah, it has a... I can see the power supply. How long is the cable here? I don't know, it's got an extension cable or two. 36 watts, 24 volts.

So, I mean, you could get wire... If you can get that power out there, you could... It's probably fine. I can't imagine an electrician's face if he brought this out. You know, I want you to hardwire this today. Put this in. You want this? Are you sure?

Yeah. Yeah. I'm not sure who this is for, but it exists, I guess. Well, I mean, they had to cancel their space heater. Ugh. This is what they can't, this is what they're like, we can do this at least. The best product they've ever made.

All right, well, let's move on here. Well, I don't know if this is, I guess it's kind of home control news, but it's control news, right? So Elgato is expanding its stream deck ecosystem blah blah blah button button buttons. Hey, they got a POE version This this sounds really cool. I I really want it's a $79 stream deck network dock accessory It gives you POE and set this ship in August I think that's the biggest news because I'm a fan of these little stream deck things,

but man, I do not fan of USB plugging into things. And if I can just get it POE and get it set up that way, that would be amazing. So I'm very excited about that. Buttons, buttons, buttons, blah, blah, blah. They have brand new buttons that are like, TJ, they've got your keyboard buttons built into them now. Yes, that's what I'm excited about. Yeah now. Yes, that's what I'm excited about. Yeah, whatever. PoE is what I'm excited about.

I want PoE mechanical switches. This is an interesting development from them. We've never seen anything like this from them. I want to see these little screens in everything though. We've seen this pop up in various keyboards and different things that come out of the DIY space. But I don't think anything that's been officially sanctioned. And I'm just imagining, you know, remember...

What is that? Why do you have the siren out, Seth? That's the only thing I can control on the thing with my home assistant. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I have one on my desk I don't use. Maybe I won't use the little screens and keyboard switches. I've got it for other things like little sound effects and stuff that. I have a Stream Deck 2 signal.

Burn your house down Seth. Anyway, I like it. I used it a lot more when I did meetings with Zoom because you could like switch things around. Of course, the Microsoft stuff, I haven't even looked at it, but because I don't want to. I don't think Teams has greater integration with this. Maybe they do, but it does. Well, with Zoom, it works fine. And maybe what I should do is put a leave meeting button right next to the share screen button like Microsoft does that'd be great.

That'd be so smart. Have it ran. Yeah. That's what they do with their interface. It's like leave the meeting or share your screen. What do you want to do? The buttons are literally right next to each other. And if you press the wrong one, guess what?

You're out of the meeting. So don't press the wrong one. Don't press the wrong one. Yes. Yeah. I think you just did this because you want to be part of the meeting. Yeah. My stream deck, I use it mainly just to toggle the mic on and off when I'm podcasting. Like that's, you know, easy. I've got that button

there too. I don't know. I actually don't know if it works. Let's see if I keep talking. Help it muted. It's better podcasting. Amazing. Yeah, try to use it on my Mac, but it doesn't really work well with the Mac or at least I think we were using it over like Zoom before and I couldn't get it. Maybe it does now though. Maybe things change over time because I had the same problem. Software does get updated. Yeah, software updates. PoE comes out on this thing,

the Stream Deck seven, whatever it is, $79 for a PoE network accessory dock, but I'll take it. That's fun. Yeah. Let's move on to some lock talk here. Nice. Yeah, Quickset Halo has some smart locks. Wi-Fi enabled smart locks that will integrate with the DoorBird

app and help enhance your home security by combining access control with live video communication. And integration allows homeowners to unlock their Quickset lock, Halo lock, directly from the DoorBird app during a video call, which is just probably the way it should work, I guess. I mean, if you want to see who's at your door and you want to unlock it at the same time, you can do that, I guess, with these two things.

So, uh, nice collaboration between halo, uh, quick set halo and door bird door, door bird, uh, to get this going. Um, I haven't, I haven't looked at door door bird in years to see what they're up to these days. Do they still have the weird looking locks? Or, I mean, video doorbells? I'm sure they still have 720p video as well. I haven't looked at them in quite a while either because last I knew they were falling

quite behind. But maybe this is good news. Their hero image on their website is one of the big giant panel things that you would see. But they still look the same. Video call boxes, it's exactly what I would expect. The app is awful. Well, now you're in the app, you can unlock your doors right there in the app.

Bam. Yeah. All right. We'll move it on here. We've got a story from The Verge over there. This is Jennifer Patentouille, I guess. She has been using Y-charge remotes in her house to wirelessly power door locks and things with lasers from a distance. This sounds like crazy.

So I think we talked about this, the Alfred DB2S Smart Lock, it's got lasers that charge it. And she says here, it remained fully charged a year without any manual intervention. The setup costs around $1,250. Perfect.

Involves installing, yeah. Installing is, how much is a lock really even, TJ? Come on. Yeah, exactly. It involves installing a Y-charged transmitter Yeah, installing is a, how much is a lock really even TJ? Come on. Yeah, exactly. It involves installing a Y-Charge transmitter in the ceiling to beam power onto the receiver on the lock. And while the additional cost and installation complexity are high,

the convenience of never dealing with dead batteries is pretty compelling. If this was like a technology that was built into your house, right? Like when you moved in and you just had to go around and buy these like Y-Charge batteries to go into your devices and they just got charged. I think that'd be great. Like I can get behind that.

Yeah, I can get behind this too. Yeah, that's all really really makes sense, right? It's, they needed a custom module, I guess, for the lock they were working with. So I don't think it's really built into that lock, but it also looks like it needs line of sight to the devices. Yeah. Line of sight.

For it to do this type. We've talked about this technology before. I think it was either at CES. We saw news about this one year. It's been a couple of years since. So it's really cool to see it coming out. But yeah, if you can have a bunch of wireless sensors around your house and they just get charged like this

or some other way, that would be really cool. I would probably invest in that. Yeah. If somebody, yeah, I don't like the line of sight thing, but if you think about it, like all the shades in a room, if you had one transmitter that could line of sight see all the shades from the ceiling, right? I'm sure that's possible in most houses.

And it could keep everything charged, that'd be great. Just hardwire at that point, right? I mean, like, I don't understand why you're gonna like hardwire this in the ceiling and you still have to deal with batteries because like batteries obviously go bad after a while. Lasers, TJ, lasers. Yeah, I mean, I guess if you're a...

Lasers, lasers. Pew, pew. Yeah, I mean, I guess if you're a... Lasers. Pew pew. I don't know. You could hardwire a door for about the same cost. You just never have to worry about batteries or anything ever again, so. But that's just one door. Think about all the doors, TJ.

Yeah, all the doors. How many doors do you have in one corridor? I know you're just trying to make work for yourself, you know, trying to keep yourself employed, but those of us that can't afford your services, you know, this would really, because we can afford this $1,250 charger. Yeah, right.

That works with one device. Yeah. I feel like this is a good idea if it was built into your house, kind of like what Seth was saying, like if you moved into a house and this was already there, that makes sense. In a retrofit situation,

I don't see how this makes any sense. Yeah, this is one of those things that screams like, it needs to be a standard. It needs to like, it needs to be built into like what, smoke detectors in the room or something, right? So like it can charge from the smoke detector. But that's the thing, TJ, is like in a new house,

everything should be hardwired anyway. The walls are all- Right, exactly. Like why would you put this in a new house in a should be hardwired anyway. You know, walls are all. Right. Like, why would you put this in a retrofit situation would make more sense because, you know, you don't have wires running everywhere and it's hard to get wires to certain places, but, um, yeah, I still like the technology. And I think they'll iterate on it. And eventually they'll get to a point one day where you don't need line of

sight and things will keep charged. Right. And then we could throw up all these sensors all over the place and not have to worry about battery. Well, yeah, I was gonna say, take, just take the batteries out of the equation though, right? Just give me a wireless power with like a little capacitor or something. So it gives me enough juice for a little bit.

And then the frigging laser beams, just keep it powered up all the time. Except for that device. Let that thing die. I think we should just ban smoke detectors. We don't need them. Yeah. All right, well, I like it. I agree with everything you said.

It'd be nice to not change batteries anymore. All right, all the links to topics we discussed tonight can be found over on the show notes at hometech.fm slash 529. Nothing in the mailbag this week, but we do have a pick of the week. And people were posting about this Martwings pergola thing in our Slack chat. And there's a little promo video on it.

This thing actually looks pretty cool. I don't know how much it costs. I don't really want one that bad. $8,500. Oh man, why did you have to go that high? I really wanted one so bad. Oh, I saw this thing and I was like, want, want. You see our backyard area where I put this

is like, it's a really weird location because you get constantly hit with the sun. I mean, in the morning you have some shade, but then come afternoon, even into the evening where the sun. I mean, in the morning you have some shade, but then come afternoon, even into the evening where the sun sets, it goes between the house and hits that spot. This would have been so perfect for that spot and it's matter compatible. I already have the power there. So I mean, oh, but at that price, I got to really do some convincing.

Yeah, it's got matter. I mean, this is very cheap compared to some of the other professional options. I would say, yeah, that's the price. Isn't that bad to me? Oh, I thought, I felt somebody in town that installs something similar, but in the professional space and you're talking like 20, $30,000 easily. Oh yeah. Yeah.

I I'm if it was like two, $3,000, you know, I could accidentally buy something like that. But when we're getting into the $8,000. I don't think you can get a regular pergola for two or $3,000 though. Yeah, I know. It's just my dream. My dream. You want to crush them right now? Yeah, you just crushed my dreams.

And that, that even worse, that's $8,000 in the US probably. That's even, oh. Oh yeah. Oh, so it's $20,000 Canadian. I don't know what, I don't know what TJ's looking at, but if I max out the options on this thing. Oh, there are options? Oh my god.

Oh yeah. Oh my god, where's the option? So if I max out the options, it's $16,000. What are the options? Oh man, I did freestanding and 10 by 13. What did you do? There's some shades you can add onto them, but they also toss you in a 15 channel remote control,

which has four buttons on it. The most expensive remote control ever. No, it's free. It's free. It says from 4,800. I'm guessing if you get the little small one and then you do wall mounted so you don't have four legs It just has two. I understand. What is the shade that it's including for windproof shade? Oh, is that like it rolls down on the side? Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense So you could do I guess one or two of them

No, you can do all three you can do all three and close it up like a little box Well, I hope so for eight thousand dollars more it gives you all three. Yeah, so can do all three, you can do all three and close it up like a little box. I hope so for $8,000 more it gives you all three. Yeah. So this this can go from anywhere from $8,000, like you're saying to $16,000. Hey, a cabinet could always be worse. Max it out. Is it a 10 by 10 or 10 by 13? It looks like Yeah, I've been looking at getting a pergola or something from my backyard and they're very expensive just for even like the pre-built one. So, well, this one's cool because we kind of, it's got shades that roll down on the side, but also like the pergola part on the top,

like opens and closes. Like the ceiling or the roof like opens and shuts. Like what are those blinds called? Like plantation shutters or something? I don't know. It's like that. And there's a marketing video which we'll put in the show notes, which I thought was hilarious only because some guy shows up with a branded t-shirt in the marketing video And it's supposed to be a summer marketing video and clearly they're like you idiot. Why did you show up with this?

Here's the sweater tie this sweater around your neck and you look like an idiot now with a t-shirt and a sweater It's just really funny to me. Like it's being part of like some of those productions It's just like somebody showed up with a T-shirt that has a big giant logo on it. He's like, come on, guy, come on. I'm at $13,000 US dollars. Can I cut back on some meals? I want one so bad.

It doesn't look that bad. It looks pretty nice. I've seen one of these, they build these here in the Florida. I have a kid's party we went to the other day or last year or something. Yeah, it was last year about this time. It was like an into school party with all the kids and they had a bar and they had like one of these.

It wasn't this, but it was like one made commercially, right? With it had like misters and heaters built into it so they could, you know, be outside watching the game, drinking at the bar and open up. If you wanted sun, you could open it up. If you wanted to close it off, you could close off. It's really nice, really nice setup. So if you, Gavin, time to start saving. This would be so perfect for my backyard.

Oh, really. Just get it, just get it. Your wife will be like, oh wow, that's nice, Gavin. She will never ask. She'll never ask. It's easier to ask for forgiveness. Yeah, you got a lot of forgiveness on this.

You know, I'm going to ask them if they could send a bouquet of flowers along with it. Yeah. Why they'll be like, here's your free remote. I looking at it at they have a night, they have lights on it too. They have like linear lights all the way around on the, on the top of it at night. So that's kind of nice. They did a good job putting this together in a little package. Maybe I could buy it in pieces.

So I'll buy one leg. Can I buy one leg please? Yeah. Buy one leg at a time. Yeah. I'll take like three slats this month. Next month, maybe two. She's got a pile of like random metal parts stacked up in the corner of the garage.

She's like, what is all this? One day, I'll finish the collection. But it's matter compatible, pretty cool. We talked about these guys before, right? For what? Maybe the roller shades? Yes. Or is it the roller shades? Okay. I thought maybe they had

the little blind things that roll up and down, but somebody else. No, they have it as well too.. Okay, wonder how it handles in the cold Do you have to bring parts in the cold? It's like outdoor shade motors I would I wouldn't suspect you have to you probably have to break because they have batteries in it You may have to bring it in. No, no, they're hard. Why is hardwired? It's 24 volt power supply Looks like it looks up to it. Oh man, why'd you guys show me that? I think it'd be fine, Gavin.

Just buy it, just buy it. Stop trying to complicate your life. Just get it and then enjoy your Mai Tai out there. Okay, let's move on. Next story, let's move on. Well, too depressing. It's like either this or CES, I don't know. Maybe we can get them to send you a sample.

Yeah, okay. know. Maybe we can get them to send you a sample. Yeah. Okay. Man, you're just a little cheaper. Oh, man. All right, let's move. All the links and topics we discussed, they can be found on our show notes at home tech.fm slash by Gavin or pergola 529. Close. If you have any feedback, questions, comments, picks a week or great ideas for sure, or want to support Gavin, uh, head on over to home tech. That is him. Uh, you, you, you can, you can go to the, the patron page.

You can do that. You can, you can, you can send us some money there and maybe we'll send it to Gavin. Gavin's looking for a sugar daddy. All right. All right. I figured out screw the giveaways at the home assistant meetup. I'm having a sale at the home assistant meetup.

Oh, I don't think you're going to get that much. I didn't send anything worth a value. Every dollar counts, you know, those screws, bolts, whatever. I did include Velcro. Oh, cool. So you guys have some Velcro you can use. Anyway, if you have any great ideas for sure, great ideas to help Gavin, you know, get a perla, email address is feedback at home tech.fm.

You can visit home tech.fm slash feedback and fill out the online form. All right, project today, it's project today. I shipped two boxes. That was about as much as I could do. Good job. I think I talked about it already. I'm proud of you. I honestly was surprised you did it.

Yeah, me too, I'm shocked. Canadian postage is expensive. I think it was like 50 or 60 bucks, which sucks because like the stuff I put in there is not worth that much. So I hope it arrives before the strike kicks in. You know, or, or. Oh, yeah.

I hope so. I sent it like a fa a faster, I probably have tracking on it somewhere. I, if I go look for the receipt in the car or something, probably have tracking that I could look up and tell you where it is maybe. Oh, this is one of them. This is to Reynoldsburg, Ohio though. So, oh, that's me. Yeah, well, it's around, probably on my desk somewhere.

I don't know. I shipped a box or two. I shipped two boxes, technically. I made a box. I made a box for you, Gavin. TJ, I just shipped the shrimp box to you. So, perfect. You're gonna get some weird box.

Be prepared. Well, my neighbor picked it up today. So I'm sure he'll appreciate it. Uh, yeah. Oh, hopefully it's there. It probably got lost in the mail though. Yeah. I had three boxes.

I think one of them is yours. Oh, okay. I'll find out tomorrow when I go home. Uh, Gavin, looks like you did something. DJ, we already talked about your project, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say Gavin's the only one.

I, I had, uh, I've been trapped on the fa- for the past week, so. Hey, I haven't really, uh, it's been a rough week. Well, actually this weekend was a spring opening weekend, you know, so we had a long weekend this weekend. So it was the weekend I chose to open up the pool, you know, when you open up the pool, you got to put all the pool tech back in, you know, so my pool temperature sensor, you know,

I had to put the level sensor back in and, you know, reprogram the switch. So it's all up and running now. We have a nice clean pool. And just enjoying the outside without a pergola. One day I'll get one, but yeah, I was standing. We're going to put the pergola level on the Patreon page. If anybody wants to buy him a $8,000 pergola.

Don't tell them the cost. Just say pergola, yes the patron page. If anybody wants to buy him a $8,000 pergola. Don't tell them the cost. Just say pergola, yes or no. And they put their credit card in. There's a pergola. It's fine. Yeah. It's like I came for $5 and all of a sudden it's $8,500. The amount of gas you will get with that.

You know, like I will help you out with any project you want, you know? But I don't run wiring. Oh. You know, so yeah. But I was standing there this weekend, you know, and my robotic vacuum hit my foot while I was watching my robotic vacuum vacuum the pool and wondering if the rain would let up so I could send the robotic lawnmower out to do it. And I'm thinking, hey, I'm living in the future.

You know, I'm living in the future. This is Jetsons type of stuff. You know, we had all robots doing our stuff and it's only getting better from now. And just enjoying it, having the robots do our work for us, for now, because based on Terminator, we'll be doing their work for them. But all right now, I know Seth is waiting for this part. Last week we talked about Unified's AI,

what was it, the AI horn? AI horn, yep, yep. And we were very confused about what's the AI in this, right? Well, I met a guy this weekend. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, we we weren't confused TJ and I We said it's got AI you were the one that was asking the question. What was the AI? I would talk so this week I met a guy and he explained some of the AI to me what he could and it was very Interesting and you know, it's pretty cool So it's got AI in the horn and that projects to it. Are you gonna tell us about it? Oh

Yeah, pay the Patriot price No, basically basically so the way he was explaining it to me is he says it will pair with a camera and I think I believe the AI will analyze the video footage of the camera and determine what it is that the person or whateverkey. Like you put your right foot on, put your right foot out, or please step away from the vehicles or stuff like that, right? Like it will do a lot of analysis like that and put up announcements, you know, catered announcements. So it almost, I guess the thing is it's going to make the impression that someone's actually watching you and, you know, talking to you over this instead of some prerecorded message, because

it's something custom will come out. Right. Like it's not going to be like, please step away from the vehicle. Right. So that's where I believe the AI is there. You probably pair it to a camera and then it just analyzes that video and does its thing. I know not to, you still get one.

I just click notify me when available. Buy it. We want to know how this AI works for you. Even I have one now. I'm just going to, I'm going to hook it up in the garage. I'm not, I'm not outside. It'll be right behind me. Right next to this light. Please get back to work.

Get back to work. Yeah. So yeah, that was the excitement. I mean, this guy was really cool. I met, he was all into the Unify. He showed me a lot of cool things. He had some unique things. Yeah. So yeah, that was the excitement. I mean, this guy was really cool. And I met, he was all into the Unifi. He showed me a lot of cool things. Uh, he had some huge Unifi setups that he was managing, like 60 plus cameras.

Um, all on Unifi protect. It was, it was pretty cool stuff, but, uh, yeah, I had to ask him about the horn. Like he had the scoop. It was bugging me. I drove an hour. I had to get an answer. Yeah. I forget they ask him about the horn. Like he had the scoop. It was bugging me. I drove an hour. I had to get an answer. Yeah. I forget they have the AI horn happens to be under special devices.

I forget they had this super link thing here, which the, which has the, it's the thing that goes to all the little all in one sensors and yeah. Yeah. I forget they have that. They're, they're probably come out with more stuff. Oh, he says they have a lot of cool stuff coming out with that. Uh, I can't say anything about that, but. Yeah.

I mean, you can see that they, they have a full lineup that they, and they already announced it, pre-announced that they were going to put more stuff in. Yeah, there's more stuff coming. Yeah. I've, they're definitely expanding as a company, which is kind of nice. Yeah. All right. AI Horn, come to Papa.

One day, one day. We need to get this. It says it comes out, what does it say? Never. I think it's this month. May 2025. This month, right? Yeah, this month.

Yeah. Yeah. So, it's only a week left, ubiquity. So hopefully within the next couple of days we'll get it. I know I have a client who's been trying to get those new G6 cameras for that dock project I was telling you guys about. Oh, you have a hard time? Yeah, well, I mean, I was like,

you just have to go to your website in the morning and then see if they're there and then buy them when they come out or you're not gonna get them. And he keeps going every morning. He's like, they're just not for sale. I'm like, nope, they're not for sale yet. So, although ubiquity has been better about keeping stuff in stock. Yeah, these still say available.

I'll put a subscription notification on that too, but generally I found that the email notification is well behind when the website gets updated. You have to catch it. Yeah, you have to join the Discord channel for proper Ubiquity notifications. Ooh. Tell you like stock levels and everything. They're on it. You still have a Reddit thing that would do that, But yeah, there was a reddit website about that community

Yeah, they would like there's some backwards way you could get push notifications from it and that was the kovat days Yeah, yeah, you get in there and I bought a switch. Yay That's how I got all my like my g3 instant cameras I ran across one of the I should have put it in the package because I don't use them. Yeah, sorry. I have a G4 too. Don't use them.

So, man, send me a second package. Second care package. Get it here before the weekend. All right, so is that it for everybody? All right, well, AI horn mystery solved. I'm gonna get one. It's gonna happen. One of these days. Do it. I'm gonna get one. It's gonna happen. Do it. One of these days.

I will have some projects next week because I did order some stuff to come in because my light bulbs started breaking. So I finally ordered some stuff from work and we'll see how well it works. They look nice. That's gonna wrap up this week. We do wanna give a big thank you to everyone

who supports the show, but especially those who are able to financially support the show through our Patreon page. If you want, if you don't know about the Patreon page and you want to help Gavin get that pergola head on over to the Patreon page at home tech.fm slash support there now you can support home tech for as little as $8,000 as little, it could go to $16,000. I'm not saying it's it.

I mean, just, you know, like, here's a trick. Just sign up for the $8,000 plan and cancel after two months. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, that's it. Don't tell people to do that. Forget about it for six months. Yeah, yeah.

Any pledge over, here, get this, any pledge over five bucks, any pledge over five bucks, you should be a big shout out if you're on the show. I guarantee you, the 8,000 a month pledge will get you a big shout out on every show. I'll come hand the 8,000 a month pledge will get you a big shout out on every show. I'll come hand I'll give you a handshake in person. I thought you're gonna say something else. It's a family friendly talk. That's okay I just didn't know where it was going.

It's probably charges. Well every every five dollar and up pledge gets you a big shout out on the show, but every single pledge, doesn't matter the level, we're agnostic to that, gets you a private Slack chat invite to our hub channel, where you and other supporters of the show can gather in there and probably see pictures of Gavin's pergola. I would imagine that would be nice. We definitely saw pictures of TJ's prison cell. So yeah, it was fun. That was air. That was air.

Anyway, if you want to help with the show but can't support Finance League, totally understand. We just appreciate a five-star review on iTunes or positive rating in the podcast app of your choice to help other extremely rich people that can spare $8,000 a month to find the show. There you go. Gavin's going to get that pergola. It's gonna happen. That's gonna wrap up the show this week. Everybody have a great weekend. We will see you next week. Till next time.

Take care. Why is pergolas now popping up in my Facebook feed? What? That was pretty quick. Got that Alexa Plus. That was pretty quick. Got that Alexa plus. She's in there. She's listening.

She's, she's going to buy you a pergola. You get a pergola and get some of these Gobi lights out there on it. It comes with lights. I mean, but yeah, but not Gobi lights.