The Chaser Report - The Door 2.0 | Welcome To The Future

Episode Date: February 28, 2023

Welcome To The Future is now it's own podcast! Subscribe on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.Charles unveils a new update to the ancient technology of doors. Yup, doors. Those geniuses at Silicone Valley have done it again. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gadigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report. I'm Charles Firth, and today we have Domneyed, who's here for another edition of the segment we call Welcome to the Future, Future, Future, Future, Future. Now available as its own podcast feed, by the way. So if you like these episodes, you really not interested in anything else, we have to say, They go and subscribe to that, or better still subscribe to it as well,

just so that we have the illusion of more listeners. Listen to this episode twice. Yes. If we should recommend it to people. We're trying to spin it off, basically to appeal to non-Australians out there. Yes, that's right. And as you know, this podcast was founded many years ago on the idea that the world is replete with not enough Bluetooth gadgets. Yes, it's true.

There's just not enough innovation in the... crap Bluetooth gadget space. Right. Well, there can't be too much, basically. And each time I have reviewed a Bluetooth gadget over the years, I've had high hopes, but they've always turned out to be a bit shit. They have, almost consistently. Yes.

But this time, I'm very pleased with what I've found today because I actually think I've found a gadget that, just to kick off this whole new Welcome to the Future podcast, I think I've found a gadget that actually is both. both incredibly innovative and new and something that the world needs and won't turn out to be a completely shit piece of shit. So in the past, we've reviewed Bluetooth fridges, water bottles, socks, I think, at one point. What else do we have?

We had, remember the, the 2023 CES, they had that thing where it monitored your urine. Oh, the Bluetooth urine detector, yeah. And then the funny thing about that is, I just actually, a bit of an update on that. If anyone was thinking of buying it, apparently, some states have raised the possibility that it's against the law to monitor, like to put one of those devices in a, you know, public toilet or something, because it can tell you when you're pregnant. Oh. And there are now, because abortion is now banned in America in some states, it's an invasion of privacy to track whether somebody's pregnant. Right, whereas before it was the abortion ban, it was just a perfectly chill thing to do. Yeah, yeah.

Just to check if other people were pregnant. Yeah, completely cool. That's right. Anyway, what is one area of the world, Dom, where you go, there just isn't enough innovation in this space? Oh, I mean, I think cars come to mind. No one's doing anything interesting in cars. What do you mean? We've got Tesla, you know, cup.

Not that works. Oh, I see, yeah, yeah, I see, yeah. No, no, this is far more low-tech, like something where, you know, for centuries. In fact, for millennia, this device has just worked without any tech improvement, without even electronics. Are you saying someone's built a better mousetrap using Bluetooth? What is it? The door. The door.

Right. Now, this is not, I'm not talking about like smart locks and, you know, those little ring detectors where you're, you. You've got the video camera on your thing. This is a whole door. An entire door, a Bluetooth door. The door market has now been disrupted, and it's by a company called Masonite. Oh. If you're wanting to buy shares in them, their stock ticker is door.

I mean, traditionally, Masonite's been used to make doors and other things, but it's not really a brand that's traditionally been associated with high quality, is it? Well, I mean, the Masonite door is probably not real, well, mate. There's not jump a head here. It's like going, oh, I've got a new, great new building products company called Fibro. Masonite, they've got a new slogan. Oh, yeah. They've pivoted entirely to smart doors.

To smart doors, right. And their slogan is now, and it's a trademark slogan, Doors that Do More, T.M. Doors that do more. Yep, that's right. And they announced about a year ago at CES in 2022, they announced the year, Masonite M-power smart door. Right. And the whole idea is it brings together a series of technologies

that have been done haphazardly and put it all into the one door. I'm so baffled because other than a smart lock, which has been around for a while, that leads you remotely unlock the door. Like, no one's been going, I wish the actual piece of wood attached to the smart lock was far more innovative.

What else could a smart door even do? It's a lump of wood. Well, it's a, just to read from the press release here, it is a powered, networked, connected, Bluetooth-connected, smart door that has a ring video doorbell, right? So you can actually, you can see who's at the door without having to open the door, which is a huge effort. A Yale home smart lock. You'll note that Masonite hasn't actually made any of the technology that goes into this door. As with the ring doorbell thing, this has existed for a while, yeah. It has LED lighting on it embedded into the door wall.

Now, that I haven't seen before. Yeah. Probably for a very good reason because it sounds really stupid. And it's got battery backup and more built right in. So what would I use LED lights for on my door? Unless it was Mardi Gar and I wanted a bit of a festive rainbow display. Look, I think it's to light up the person who's standing there trying to work out how to operate your door. So the point is that that was announced a year ago.

It got a lot of press at the time. But it turned out that they had real troubles delivering it. So it got to about October in 2022, like a few months ago. And it still actually hadn't been delivered. This is despite the fact that it had actually won four industry awards before actually being released. So residential tech today's innovation awards, the best of Cedar Expo Awards, tech home brilliance award for award most of it's just stuff that existed already and the hbs dealer or like the golden hammer product and purpose award for innovation right so and i look

far better for me to say that those awards were bought or anything like that at c s this year like about a month ago they announced that it would actually be delivered this year so that's huge well for the tech door revolution so it's a so it's a so A smart door designed by people so dumb that I've been able to figure out how to deliver it. It will be available. This is what they announced about a month ago. It will be available later this year in the Home Depot. So there you go.

That's the sort of state of play, right? Right. But in researching this just recently, I decided to go to their website. So Masonite Smart Doors. It's called Masonite.com. And it's gone. Oh. It's got 403 error forbidden.

right so it's too smart so it doesn't so I think however if you then go to the app they have an app to open this door have you downloaded the app despite not having a most smart I'm impressed by your and there is

there's reviews for the app so clearly some people have managed to acquire a beta test door and it gets universally one star reviews because as A. Armid says on his review, the door would not connect, and Mason, I know where to help. So what happens is you install the door in your home, you download the app,

you then can't get the app to connect to your door, and then that's it. That's like you can't get into your house. Right. And Mason and now their website's broken. Well, clearly they put their website behind a smart door. I just checked it out. It's still got, yeah, 403 forbidden. Yeah, yeah.

How amazing. Yeah. So it's a little bit, it's a little bit of a problem. If you do have a Masonite smart door, please. But you don't because they managed to deliver. Please do contact us podcast at chaser.com. You and tell us about your experience. But the other thing that other people have pointed out, like some of the more like Gizmodo

and the Verge pointed out in reviewing this smart door is that there is no way to change the battery on your smart door yourself. So every time you, you're both. Basically, you install this door and you rely on Masonite to still be a functioning company to keep your door power. So every time it gets a really low battery, you've got to get a Masonite service person to come in. A technician comes out to fit a new battery. To fit a new battery or, yeah, to change the battery on your smart door. And the company no longer exists. And the company doesn't seem to exist anymore.

But I don't think it's going to be a huge problem because from the sounds of things, not many were delivered anyway. So, um, I mean, you just, all you need is a some sort of a smart axe to get in. That's right. Just chop all the way through the door. The Chaser Report, news a few days after it happens. So that's the first review of the day. Siding stuff. What a great way to start this new podcast.

Yeah, look, and it turned out that that product was crapper than I'd expected, right? But so, but then I thought, well, why don't we just go something that will definitely not be crap? Yes, okay. Sounds good. And so there's this new product that's out, just got announced about a week ago. It's called NutraGina SkinStacks. So you must be aware of NutraGina. Yeah, we're a very well-known company. They're a very big brand.

Surely their thing won't be a complete scam. Yes. So what this is is you download an app. It's the Skinstacks app. Do you want to download it now, Dom? Yeah, the Nutrogenas Skinstacks app. It just sounds, I have skin. and the skin needs to be stacked.

Well. Nutragena, okay. So it's a brand I know, which for this segment, frankly, is surprising. Yeah, yeah. So what it is is the app takes a photo of your skin or takes a video of your skin. It's like a 3D rendering of your skin. And then it creates this sort of AI generated diagnosis of what's wrong with you and what's wrong with your skin. And which an intrusionate products they can sell you at high cost, presumably, to fix it up?

Well, no. What gummies you need to supplement your diet for your skin? Yeah, so you answer a whole lot of questions. You then have this consultation with the app, which is like an AI, and it then will custom print a set of gummies based on the supplements that you need for your specific skin. Right. And so the gummies are only uniquely for your benefit. Charles, this has reminded me something I've heard of before. I'm just going to look something up about another business I remember hearing off.

There's something not similar to this that I want to look back on. Can you just tell me what's next? Anyway, so then what happens is, so you then, you then, so after you've done the consultation, you then, and you can say what flavor you want them to be, like it's quite innovative. And then what happens in is that information gets sent to Neutrogena's factory in the UK. It's a facility in the UK. And then they 3D print your gummy beers to your custom-made gummies. And then they take seven to then days to ship them back to you.

And for 28-day supply of skin stack gummies, you pay 50 US dollars. Right? And then that's the best way to get your supplements into you. It's funny, Charles, because when you started talking Neutrogena, I started thinking, well, moisturizers, cleansers, cosmetic products. The part where the best possible skin care is obtained by gummy bears is a thing that I'm a little bit lost on. I know that kids are given vitamin gummy bears in order to try and, you know,

get them to have vitamins. where's a bit where grown-ups need gummy bears for skin health? What I think happened, this is my guess, is somebody at Neutri-Dna bought one of these 3D food printers. Gummy bear printers? Yeah, because I've looked them up online. You can buy them off Alibaba for about $6,000 US. There's one called the Natural Machines Foudini, right?

Fudini, wow. And they bought one, and they've gone, oh, fucking shit, what are we fucking going to do with this 3D printer? And then they've gone, I know, we'll pretend that you need to take your supplement. Like, I think they've reversed engineered the product. I see, but we're honest going to be. Because, Charles, the business that reminds me,

I've had to look this up to make sure. Is there was a company not long ago that had a system whereby you did a urine test and they shipped you out little urine sample jar and you ship back the urine sample jar. And then they sent you. a very expensive regimen of vitamins that you took. Yes.

And that actually sounds less ridiculous than an app taking a photo of your skin and diagnosing what they're saying. Well, actually, the funny thing about the photo of the skin is it then follows, the little AI follows up with a whole lot of questions that basically make the photo thing irrelevant. Right, okay. Do you think your skin is dry or wet, you know, oily or whatever? This is Neutrogena skin stacks and this is next level skin care.

All you need is a selfie and their AI based on dermatologist's input will tell you what your skin needs. And then you enter other info like for me, dark circles because oh my God, CES kept me up, your routine, how humid it is where you live, and then voila, it gives you a suggestion of what type of skin stack you should use. You can even choose a flavor. These personalized skincare vitamins are then 3D printed by nourished and sat straight to your door. So the funny thing about the company that did the urine samples and was collecting everyone's urine, is that its name was the Trump Network, and it was owned by Donald Trump.

Yes, Donald Trump had a business collecting wee-wee-wee-wee, just like on the bed. From Russian prostitutes. Yeah, that's right. And so the Trump Network eventually shut down because it was incredibly expensive and it didn't work at all. So it was essentially for... Unlike this, which is, of course, not. in any way fraudulent and will definitely last for years and years.

I think we'll all be eating Neutrogena skin stacks for years to come. If there's anything like the Trump Network, it will actually be a multi-level marketing company where they try and suck. Because you're trying to sell the Nutrient Genie going best to me, aren't you, Charles? You've bought in. Yeah, I, yeah, definitely. Actually, I've got a pack of 27 of them that I'm trying to offload at the moment. The Trump Network cost $140 U.S. dollars per month.

I think we're in the wrong business, Dom. Gummy bears diagnosed by Apple. That certainly may be never want to buy any nutrigenous skin products again. So the reviews basically say that it's a bit gimmicky, and that actually if you drill down, there's actually only five combinations. So it doesn't make any sense that they would have to be custom printed. Well, you could just have a multi-bottom. couldn't you?

Yeah, yeah. If you wanted to. Yeah, well, actually, that's what they said. They said, if you just went to a drugstore and bought some nutritional supplements, it would be much quicker, much cheaper. But would they come as gummy bears? The answer surely is, yes, isn't everything available as gummy bears? Can't you get THC going bears these days?

There's the killer app. Yeah. Yeah, no. The Neatrogena app says that I really need marijuana companies. And then finally, just a quick one. hypercolour. Remember hypercolour? Of course in the early 90s.

I reckon hypercolour is on its way back, but this time in the extremely expensive form of Apple. Really? Yeah, so Apple's just been granted. This happened this week, a patent over a colour-changing

band. So the idea is, so it's not really hyper-colour. It's actually an electronic. An Apple watch band or something. It's an ample watch band, and it will sink with your face. So I noticed on your Apple watch you've got a sort of pride-colored rainbow yeah I love the rainbow my daughter loves the rainbow what will happen is the band will change color to suit your uh thing but Charles

that's that's a brilliant idea it's not quite the same as hypercolor though if it were hypercolor it would only cycle between two gross looking colors yes and then break halfway between the two so you're stuck with a t-shirt that looks part green saying part gray and that's why hypercolors stopped being sold in about 1993 I thought it was also because it It only highlighted the places where you sweat, where your sweat lands. That sounds right. That sounds right. Although, as adolescents, we were very attractive tales.

We weren't sweaty and pimply at all. So there you go. That's the first episode of Welcome to the Future as a standalone podcast. And look, if you want to, should we set up, we should set up a website and put these products on the website. We should. We should have an archive of everything that gets to be in the future. So we haven't done that yet. but next week

check out what should be called Welcome to the Future it should be called WTF shouldn't it probably should yeah so we'll set that up and in the meantime if you have any craptacular

products you'd like to send our way podcast at chaser.com.com. You send us your recommendations for future products to review on Welcome to the Future. Our gear is from road and we're part of the iconoclast network. See ya.