The Verge guide to holiday shopping
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Welcome with the verge cast the flagship podcast of using gift cards to buy other gift cards. I'm a friend, David pears, and I am seemingly, as always these days, on a walk home from dropping my kid off at daycare. Remember how a few weeks ago I told you that I was trying to, like, be a person who walks and go on idea walks, get the blood flowing and get out in the world IT.

Turns out there was a super phone, good plan, until I got to be cold. And now I have settled into the routine that I forget about every year, but always settled into again about this time, which is very only go outside when absolutely one hundred percent necessary. And right now, that is basically to walk the dog or take my kid to take care.

And so I am outside right now, and this is the last time I will be outside potentially until this time tomorrow. It's a life, but this is what happens to me every year when IT gets cold. So you i'll see you in April or something.

Anyway, we have an on some show coming up for today. We are going to spend the whole hour answering your questions to this, to the best variability about buying stuff. It's the season for buying stuff, right? It's deals.

It's present. Its weird gift exchanges with your code workers is just the time of year you have to buy a lot of stuff. And also you are trying to tell people what to buy you.

So we figure red we might be able to help and whether you have questions about which laptop to buy or which macbook to buy or which smart home gear you should get into or what i'd gaming console you're excited about, we took all the questions, some of the super broad, some of them like Hillary ously impossibly specific. And we're going to answer as many of them as we can on the shower day. We grab B A couple of our best reviewers and smart is spokes on the team, and we're gonna through as much of me as thank you to everybody is sending questions.

It's going to make this super fund. And I have no idea if I actually going to help anybody, but boy are we're going to try. All right, all of that is coming up in just a second.

First I got to get home. I got to get warm. I ve got to fix some cold meat.

I don't know if you can hear in my voice, but my kid got sick and my life got sick. Now i'm sick. It's great times all around. Then we're going to get to IT. This is the first case we will be right back.

Support for the verge cast comes from strike. Strike is a payment and billing platform supporting millions of businesses around the world, including companies like uber, bmw and door dash. Striping has help countless startups and establish companies like reached their growth, make progress on their missions and reach more customers globally. The platform offers a sweetest specialized features and tools to fash track growth like stripe billing, which makes IT easy to handle subscription bed charges, invoices and all reactions ring revenue management needs. You can learn how stripe helps companies of all sizes make progress at stripe dot com, that striped dot com, to learn more right, make progress.

Welcome back. We have a panel of stuff buying experts, which I believe is all of our titles here. Je two way, welcome back to the verge has well.

thank you. David IT has been this lovely to be here and sad we missed cooking now, thanksgiving turkey together this year. We spent a lot of .

time trying to figure out how to one up that episode and never figured that out. And so we never did the things getting episodes. Still one of my favorite we done.

If you haven't heard IT, i'll find IT dancy for here. Hi dan, hello. And in the studio with dann VISA.

hello. Hey.

what's we have a lot of things to get through. I've assembled all of you because you each have, I would say, both like good expertise, but also just like broad knowledge of cool stuff. And we need broad knowledge of cold stuff.

But so let just divan. We got a bunch of stuff to get to. I've set this up.

We're going to do some like general questions at to the beginning. And then we have a couple of categories in which we got a bunch of questions. We're going to go through those. And then we have my favorite question that we got through this whole process to do with the very end we're going to get into that. Let's start with a couple of just kind of grab baggy questions.

The first time we got is um i'm going to push her everyone's name here I am very started advance I believe it's from cobi in the verge cast email who says are there any good options if I want to swim and listen to music or there I even say listen to podcasts. Seems to me that they all require me to have M P three files, which I don't even know how to obtain in today's streaming world. Ideally, i'd like to keep my phone in the locker room and somehow stream music and part Cassier y, the apple wash, also our bone conduction headphones, the way to go.

Or is the quality horrible? Let's break that into two parts via want you to go first because we brought this up. Chris lott and I had a long chat about M.

P. Three players a couple of weeks ago on the shelf that made a lot of people feel a lot of feelings. But I wanted know, first, if you have a good answer to our friends question here.

my main answer is that there are a lot of trade off and there is nothing yet out there that's gonna kind of be everything that I think this person is looking for because blue tooth and water not really great. Friend, there is a reason why you're having a hard time finding things that aren't M P three best. And it's because bluetooth is not meant to send things through water.

It's just not i'm not a swimmer, and when I cavy out that I stick primarily to running because I should not be let on a bicycle, and I had to take swim gym in high school, and that should tell you everything, my swiming skills, but that beings, that I have a lot of front to swim. And the avoid ch, do you want the avoid ch to actually track your swim? Because if you wanted to track your swim and play a content, you're out of luck.

But if you just want you to be like a media player, there is something from h 2o audio called the inner val。 And it's it's a wild device. If you will get IT, it's like this little framework thing I and you slack snap IT onto your goggles and it's on the back of your head.

So you just have the apple watch on the back of your head and that attaches to either bone conduction or in your earbuds. And it's not streaming. You have to like uh download offline playlists and technically IT works though, you know I will say I have doubt about whether this thing will last long term just because you really want a waterproof wearable.

Most of the advanced ones are not particularly uh, strong at that. Like the apple watch is waterproof up to five A T M, which is what we consider swim. But that doesn't mean IT doesn't mean that if you're diving to the depth of your pool a lot, they're still a risk there. There's an inherent risk. So that's one option.

And the other one is a stuff like the ego that one technically allows you to stream, but it's just because IT has radio frequency transmit or on IT so that IT takes the blue tooth playing from a source like your phone, which is you wanted to be in your locker room. So this might not actually work out for you, but it's taking IT from a blue tooth source. And then there's like a frequency transmitter that converts the blue tooth into something else that does work in water. And that's a little Price here. So if you know.

it's the hockey st thing i've ever heard of my life.

yeah so these are like these, you know, swimmers got a rough runners and cyclists. We can just use a regular bluetooth headphones. And like blue tooth works fine in air, but water just adds a different layer of physics to the problem.

So that there is a reason why most of the players are finding R M P three based. And and also another reason why they are bone conduction based. Two, because you know, like the ear buds, if if the ear bud falls out, are you going to be able to dive to the bottom of the pool to pick you up?

So that's why, like most swimming headphones you see, they are gonna the type that goes around your goes around your head or you know has a little like extreme attached to them. You're not going to really get any true ear buddy for for underwater use. So you know things to think about.

And to the second part of your question, our bone conduction headphones good? No, they're fine. They're fine.

If if you like base, they're not great. And so like as a runner, there's a lot of reasons. And like there's time in place for using bone conduction headphones as a runner.

I really like them when I am in an area, and I worried that a truck is gonna n me over if i've got like noise cancelling hand phones on. But I really like base heavy music for running, just to like, drowned out my thoughts of, I want to quit. I want to quit.

I want to quit. So if that you bone conduction is not really gonna all that useful. And man, podcast is another problem because not every platform is going to support podcasts.

So like if you want to listen to podcast, but you're primarily on apple music and that's how you're downmove in your offline play, you you're gonna need to spotify. If you want to listen to audio books, audio books, you have to find something that supports audio books for those files are encoded in a specific way. So there's just no easy way to do IT.

You can do IT. There are people who do IT. Uh, it's just you might have to learn how to get those M P three files or find an option that lets you download offline players from your streaming service of choice.

It's tough, I will say i'm looking at the zigo website right now and IT both looks like the hackee st thing in history and also like IT might be kind of a magical thing like if this is good, as the reviews say, IT seems like kind of the perfect answer, but I am cared about bone connection head ones in part because I feel like, and I swear like the third day of the verge, you and I had a conversation about, like, when are bone conduction headphones gonna the thing? They seem like they sit like, remember when like after shocks without there being like but conduction hand phones of the future, they're still around.

They are still around. And I feel like they are perfectly suited for when you just want to hear sounds. And and that's all you don't care about audio quality.

You're just like in swim is actually a good example this you don't really want to plug your ears, but you want to be able to like kind of here music, which sounds like damming with faint praise. But I kind of mean that I don't know where are we with bone connection? Have funds is IT as das v says.

I know I think there are people who really swear by them and really like them, but I think that outside of swimming, the other use cases for bone conduction headphones are running and cycling, where you need spac awareness for safety reasons. And I honestly think that the advancements in ambient modes on true wireless ear buds have kind of made IT so that you can wear standard earbuds and use the airports active noise, not the noise cancer mode, but the new one, which is sleeping, my mind now, which kind of like automatically adjust the cancellation to give you awareness of noises. And the general ambient mode of airport is very good, where you can still hear your music with a good audio quality and still hear everything around you for safety reasons. So I think for most people, unless you're really specific and you want bone conduction for very specific reasons, I don't know that I would recommend bone conduction for most people looking to use them outside of like swimming, which is like obviously you don't want you can put their points in a pool and and you want to play IT up years anyways. Jane.

what do you do in your exercise? Are you a head phones while person?

I bought the beats ones that stick in your ear.

Beats fit through the purple ones.

Yes, the fit what I did by the purple ones, we both got the per ones. And then then my daughter lost them. So now I have boring gray ones, but I loved those.

I have the gray ones.

I bought boring grey ones because I got renewed because i'm like, i'm not spending this much money again, but I am not. There is the fitness girl here and the walk slowly around the block. Girl.

same. Alright, let's get to the next question. Oh, which is actually another headphones question. This is good. A this one came from the hot line, and it's from Daniel.

Hi, my name is Daniel. I become a bit obsessed with trying to keep clean minimalist bag um i'm a remote worker and I constantly have to take you know meetings from copy shops and i've been like mostly satisfied my set up where I have a pair of quiet comfort forty fives or doni XM five to do a decent enough job of letting people hear me. But occasionally they just stop working like there is a critical thresh hold of noise and a coffee shop.

The directional I just done do the job anymore. And so now my bag has like a back up solution because I couldn't take the aniele of not being able to do my job my occasionally and that it's clunky like I don't want to have two parts of headphone in my bag. But I also want to have like, good noise cancellation for what i'm blessing the music and I want to have a good microphone for what i'm doing my job. And I want a little help answering the question of what is the best way to do this.

Thank you for your time. Just use the wired apple .

had that's exactly what was because it's .

totally gone to save space in your bag. And you know that has done what? Five thousand videos at this point showing how good the quality is on them.

So I mean, that's what I do. I just always have a wired pair in my bag. Actually back. I made me buy pair for work reasons. So I I would just say those are super easy to stash and a lot cheaper than a lot of the other options out. I agree.

this was going to be my recommendation as well. The only cavy out is they are not going to do any noise counselling for you. So basically you just have to be willing to Carry around both. I love the inclined to have redundancy. I love redundancy on same person, but IT does mean that like you're likely going to have a set of over your headphones for your noise cancelled focus time and then when you need to have an equality, you to switch to the wired ones.

I think that's right. Every bone in my body wants to scold anyone who gets into allowed coffee shop and tries to take calls like it's just it's the worst for everyone involved when people do that, but it's the holidays and so i'm not going to school our friend animal for just trying to do his job while irritating every single other person this coffee shop by shouting into his, my.

you don't know what Daniel homelife is.

Daniel got to do what anio s got to do. I get that. I do think that we spent a lot of time talking about in testing various microphones in various coffee shops on the show. And what we have discovered is that you just can't beat the microphone on a big as boom ARM that comes, although we are down your mouth and you're just either going to have to get apples while headphones like we've been talking about or without the game had set. And there just is no good third option.

There's a reason pilot headsets look the way that they do yeah when they flying a helicopter.

I mean, if the the ray back meta mark glasses could actually pair with your laptop, I might have recommended that because the mike is right on your nose and like you can watch our video review, but I didn't make test IT is like on par slash almost slightly Better than the wired apple headphones, but they don't really pair easily with your laptop.

So that was like one of the things that you point IT out as being kind of a miss there and then just smart glasses in general, you know that that is the thing that they're saying, right? You can use these for calls. They're good at a for a coffee like just anytime you have any kind of ambient noise, you have to crank the volume on them so loud that that kind of defeats the purpose. And you, I ve never heard anyone besides the rebounds, told me that I sounds a good while wearing those. So like really .

that IT is just the closer the microphone is to your mouth, the Better is going to sound is like basically all you need to know about all of this up. And the problem with the nose can and headphones generally is that your ears are not that close to your mouth. It's a fun fact to about how the world works. And I think like if there is a thing, and you all should tell me if this exists, that is like a Normal pair of noise cancelling headphones on to which you can attach like one of those boom arms that is a microphone.

So those things to exist. I forget the name of IT right now, but you did just remind me of there's a device that you can literally stick to the outside cup of any pair of headphones and then IT has its own bluetooth connection or don go connection to your computer and it's basically a boom marm that goes across your mouth. Uh, IT is one of the jackie setups.

But basically it's like if you've got a pair headphones that you really love the sound or comfort or whatever features of and they just don't have a mike or don't have a great mike, IT allows you to retrofit to mike to IT. I think that you are still going run into the same, similar problem. So even with a boom ARM, you're dealing with bu tooth connections, you're dealing with other factors is just another thing for you to manage and deal with instead of just plugging in the wired headphone, which is always .

going to be the most roxy connection.

Ah just Carry you're yet to the coffee shop you're yet or you're sure just Carry that. That's totally no, I don't do that.

That might be worse. No, I think truthy the like if you just want to Carry one thing I think like joba has pretty good headsets. They all have the boom arms.

You're going to a look a little silly, but at least falls up. And as a decent set of headphones, that's probably the best I think they are called like the evolves or something, and they're actually pretty solid. They're expensive, but they they are the best kind of headphone looking headset working thing.

You you look like you are in a call center, but that's why they work because that's what they're .

designed for a hundred percent because you are in fact, in a OK. That's not time for questions. Please leave me alone with coffee shop and everything. I'll be fine. We're going take a quick break and then we're getting go back and we're going to answer some computer questions and then we're going to get into the really tough stuff, which is the smart 我 被 热带。

Hey, it's lee from decoder with new IP top. We spent a lot of time talking about some of the most important people in taking business about what they're putting resources to and why they think it's so critical for the future. That's why we're doing this special series, diving into some of the most unique ways companies are spending money today.

For instance, what does that mean to start buying and using A I at work? How much is that costing companies? What part are they buying? And most importantly, what are they doing with IT and of course, podcasts? Yes, the thing you're listening to right now, well, it's increasingly being produced directly by companies like venture capital firms, investment funds and a new crop of creators who one day want to be investors themselves.

And what is actually going on with these acquisitions this year, especially in the A I space, why are so many big players in deciding not to acquire and instead license can hire away co founders? The answer, IT turns out, is a lot more complicated than that seems. You'll hear all that and more this month of decoder with new liberal presented by strike. You can listen to decoder wherever you get your podcast.

I were back. We got a bunch questions from people that essentially just wanna know what computers they should buy. So let's help people buy computers. The first one we got is a voice melt, Benjamin later here. Now.

hey.

verge castes Benjamin, i'm got to a classic form over function. Dilma, i'm hoping you can solve for me. I'm looking to buy my partner in new laptop for the holidays, but he has her I on the fifteen and surface laptop five, specifically because of the old woman of chessy.

I don't feel good about getting her a laptop with last year's mid range spec, especially for a premium Price. Maybe I would feel different if the surface laptop six that actually come out this year, but i'm looking for recommendations for windows laptops with an all medal chasa and modern spects that I can steer her towards instead, should also be doing light tasks like web browsing and streaming. But I wanted to have enough muscle, will hold up for a long time.

She's also in grad school, so a great battery life would be a bonus. Is A M. D. To the efficiency chain for laptops. Any advice is appreciated before i'm sure I ultimately buy her the surface because you happy wife, happy life. Thanks dancy .

for help this person. What's your Benjamin by? I is not the surface laptop. I just want to put that out in front here will hold on.

I am going to given two recommendations. He should ignore both of them and just by the surface laptop, he specifically said this is the one his wife won that's a fair point and so he .

should just was, I know nothing about the laptops but by how what he wants yeah .

I mean there there's a lot of nice things. So about the surface ch top IT is aging as he mentioned. It's not really super new.

I think he came about twenty twenty two um but it's got a great screen, great keyboard and it's a surface design. So it's it's a really nice premium design as I think of all the things actually lights, if we were to buy something else. I've got two recommendations.

One of them a little bit less expensive. IT is the a suzan book. Fourteen x uh, this is a fourteen point five ving screen so it's a little bit smaller than the surface laptop.

P but it's an OLED display. So really awesome screen. It's got the latest thirteen th gen intel processor.

It's like comes to sixteen gigs RAM half a terabits storage and you can get a for like seven hundred fifty box, maybe even less of your h shopping around. So it's a very up to the current model. It's still metal.

It's not quite up to the bill quality of the surface laptop, but it's still it's not a plastic piece of jhn k. It's still uh, high quality laptop. The other option is a larger one.

And since they mentioned uh that they want a fifteen and surface laptop uh and they like the aluminum chasa, I would suggest taking a look at the L G gram sixteen. The things I like about the L G gram sixteen, you got that sixteen and screen, it's huge. It's a sixteen by ten asset ratio.

You get a lot of room on. There is a very thin and light design, which is the signature of the gram series. And IT has tremendous battery life, comes to the latest thirteen chen processors, sixteen x RAM, a terrible SSD best by sellings for about seventeen hundred box.

So it's on the more expensive. And here, but the surface laptop is not a cheat computer. So those who be my recommendations, but at the end of the day, go by your wife for face laptop five .

yeah I mean you said at yourself, happy wife, happy life yeah I don't know what you guys .

but when I first started ating um my now wife SHE like the first Christmas we were together SHE like literally gave me a list of like links and was like by me one of the for Christmas and I think this is a test to be like, okay, what cool thing can I buy that isn't on the list but shows that I read and I did that she's like wide and you just buy me a thing on SHE is like I literally sent you a link of the thing and the color that I want and so I learned very quickly SHE sends me a list of links.

I click on one of them and I click by and I give IT to her for Christmas and she's very happy. And IT has been a winning move ever since. And IT makes Christmas shopping the easiest thing in the world. And so I I have learned the hard way that when they tell you what they want, just just roll with IT. I think that's good advice .

you by your spouse with answers .

but also if you if you want her to call in and us to talk her out of the surface laptop five, because IT is an old computer with old spects. I'm also happy to do that. Uh right? One more computer question is an email from Nathan that says, hi friends, I have a twenty twenty intel macbook pro right now and IT is the base level, which means IT has some trouble when I use a cell powerpoint.

I'm looking in the starting graduate school in the fall and would like for a ma C2Be in my mai n dri ver, but I don't love the idea of spending a bunch of money on the super dup macbook pro. I also found myself meeting software that is only available on windows, which leads me to believe that maybe I should buy a powerful tower PC to keep at home and buy a lower end m two macbook air and remote access the windows computer when they need to do more processing. Does that make any sense? Or should I go for a more expensive macbook pro and nappa V I want to know what you think having used the newest fancy est best macbook? Ks.

ah yes, the I still can't believe that the macbook pro sixteen and that they sent me was seventy two hundred. That configuration was just absolutely absurd. So like the one thing that I would have a question for Nathan is, like, what is his work load? Like just because, you know, he mentioned using that he needs excel and powerpoint, but then also programs that are only available on windows. So like if you have programs that are only available of windows, maybe you do want the powerful power PC.

But having used the very very a suit up macbook and having an end to macbook air as my personal computer right now, um you know the macbook air is is good enough for most of you, like daily productivity types off twice as long as you don't do what I did and get gig gig of its memory. That was a dumb choice on my part. You need at least sixteen, so you have to picture that into the Price. So yeah like the the one thing i'm hung up on is like meeting programs that are only available on windows.

So I believe there is a solution to this problem, which is the windows APP, which is now a thing that exists as of just a couple of weeks ago. And I confess I have not used this at all personally, but the idea is you can now download windows as an APP and run what amounts to a virtual computer on your mac computer.

I do not believe that you should buy a computer and also another computer, and then use the one computer to access the other computer like, yeah, that way lies madness. There is the boot camp exists, parallels exists. There's like kind of strategies here, like what what do we do?

Well, first off, i'll start with saying I don't think you need a macbook pro. I think a macbook air, like we said, is entirely capable of running the workloads of excel and powerpoint, particularly compared to an intel macquart. Like the jump going from intel to an am serious processor is just enormous.

And you are going to have power despair so long as you quip IT with at least sixteen egs RAM. And I would recommend probably five, twelve, a terrible the storage for this next half of the recommendation. And h so I think go macbook air is my my first recommendation.

The second thing is by the macbook and then explore these options for running your windows apps on the macbook. Whether that is the windows up, whether that is parallels book cap, might be a little weird that actually like requires you to use a windows on ARM bill and its a little walkee on the ARM max. I think parallels is a little bit more straight forward of a solution.

But again, I personally have directly use that. But you should try IT out and see if that allows you to do the things that you need to do. And if that doesn't, then you might have to go.

You're out of setting up a tower PC. Or I don't know that you really need to go a tower PC. I think you can go pretty PC and that's that's always plugged in at home and you can just remote that up into IT and and go from there.

Nathan is not the only one of this problem. I know neighed man on the show many times talking about how h his lawyer wife has to deal with very weird windows base programs. And trying to use amount of work is a huge pain, is not the only one with this problem.

And so that means there are people who are trying to solve IT. And so I would be my recommendation you'll get a good backward air equipped IT well enough. You are still probably going to be spending close to two thousand dollars on this, but it's not three thousand. And see if you can get your windows applications to run and if not, then go to the next step.

And if it's the kind of thing that old, outdated software that just only runs on windows adds are that if you buy one of those like little two hundred dollar many pcs things, it'll work fine for the occasional times you need to use IT. So that that would be my recognition that if you do end by two computers.

I must know that is saying these are, quote, needing software, is only available on windows.

is triple like games good? Then you do need .

that big power tower or you should just buy gaming laptop, but I don't think that's what he was.

Get a console if you're going to if you really want to be a mac user and play triple ay games, the console is just going to be so much easier for you. Like there .

are so many PC gamers furiously sending you emails .

right now. I know like my is a game or was a game and they this problem too, I ve just like thrown up their hands in the air on like effort of A P S five and an x box that's just hit and you know for their purposes, like are you really gaming on the coat that you want them to be on your your P C, or do you want.

In their case, a giant sixty five vinh L G OLED to sit like two feet in front of because they move up their chair and two feet in front of so that all the racing games can go directly into their I balls. I know I just think just do the console and use the mac for work. Uh that if if we are talking triple ate games here.

i'm just saying macbook air mini PC steam deck and you are just living your best life like that's that's the way to do IT happy holiday is to everybody is a huge factory, right? Let's move on. Je, I have terrible use free.

It's time to talk about matter. So sorry, we have to do. This is one more time before the years over. We got a bunch of smart home questions I would take, all of which I can still into this voice. Male from Chris.

hi. This is Chris from los Angeles. Gotto ask, going into buying season, what's up with matter? What home tech am I allowed to buy? What home tech should I absolutely not buy? Is IT the year for matter? Thanks question.

I also wanted know the the question because i'm buying a house yeah my first house and i'm gonna straight into the smart home. So I need I need this for me too.

Ah we got a lot of versions of this question because I think this is the time of year to buy all this stuff right like they're fun stocking suffers, they're fun gifts to buy people. And every version of this question we got is essentially, I A moron for buying smart home stuff right now, as we have talked to him many times, were in middle of transition to matter. Matter is kind of here. It's also kind of not hear je talk state, give us a gift guide here. What do we doing?

Well, two points. The first would be friends don't buy friends matter devices for Christmas. Just don't put that pain on them. And the second would be weaker. You wait a couple years to move in to your new house.

No, my lease is up at the end of this month though.

So I know new life has been going through this same issue with his house. You know, this is a tRicky time, and I would like to say it's unique in the smart home to be in this awkward situation where you are between protocols and between devices and technologies. But no, this has been happening since I got in for my home a decade ago.

The my home is continually changing. It's never in a place where you're like, okay, it's here. This is right.

This is the way to do IT. I'm happy. So really, it's kind of like any tech, you know, I do always encourage people to buy.

And I think we do this a lot with our reviews. You know the best you can afford that fits your need. And that's still where IT sits with smart home. I think matter is going to help, but IT is not helping yet.

And right now, my number one recommendation about my matter devices would be only by matter devices that also work on other platforms, which is sort of break that down a little bit. So matter itself, as we see not platform, but IT, does support all the major platforms, and that's its biggest selling point. And that's the one thing that I feel is good about matter device.

If you want to buy a cheap smart switch now for your apple home set up, you can go and do that. You really didn't have the option before matter and that an area where matter has succeeded yeah where IT is not succeeded is in being able to pair to multiple smart home systems. So I have spent the last month caring my hair out, trying to pair my phillips u platform, my phillips bubs in my house, which I have had for over a decade because that one of those systems has been remember, for a long time.

And it's it's been something of A A complicated process. And basically there there are still problems with that interpret ability. So it's great if you want to buy a device and pay IT to once my own platform. But if you're one of the few, and i'm guessing there aren't a ton of people out here that want to use two, three or four smart home platforms, but i'm also guessing there if there are people that want to do that.

they are listening.

And that's where things go sideways fast. So I paid my hue bulbs, or or forty bulbs I have in my house, slowly collected over the years to apple home. Worked great through matter.

Pair them to elea work great. Next day left, they'd gone from apple ham. They weren't know anymore and they weren't working anymore, so they weren't responding, which anyone that uses at home we'll be familiar with, and then vice versa.

The same thing happened with the legs. So I start working. And so I have literally been doing my hair out, not being fun. So matter right now is still in its early stages.

I remember when we first went to the launch party launch event for IT, then the head of the csa, the organization behind IT, said, matter is a journey. It's going to take a long time. And if matter is a journey, I would say we're right about the stage where we have just opened at the gas station to fuel up.

So it's can be a really till we get where we need to be in terms of that solid interpret ability. So right now, number and take away if you are going to buy a device and you want IT to work with a specific smart home platform and IT works with matter, that's great. But also make sure you have a backup so that IT also works with amazon lex or over the cloud or apple home kit as a home kit device because there are still a lot of international ability problems.

Unfortunately, IT is not the salvation of the snow home that we were all hoping, but there's still potential. And the most important part about matter right now, I would say, is future proofing. So having a device that works would matter now is a good thing for the future of your smart home, but it's not going to solve your problems, most of your problems today, unfortunately.

So one of the things they promised us, or quite loudly said at the beginning of all of this was all your smart home devices that you currently have will work in matter going forward. So yeah, you don't have to go out buy new stuff that does not seem to be really happening. And you know phillips, you example I just just gave, I mean, IT does work with matter, but but not well.

So i've just reverted to using IT the way IT always worked, which IT worked brilliant IT has for many years, and what not broken in the smart home you should not try and fix because you always went into problems. So bad was combattants. Ly has been one of the sort of real let down here.

We really hopes that a lot of our current devices would get upgraded to support matter and either over wifi light or thread, which is the one of the main protocols that matter runs over. And IT seems like from talking to companies out there, the kind of load that matter requires for their products is just as much heavy that maybe expected. So they're not able to update these devices necessarily with somewhere.

And if they do, sometimes, that actually takes away function, which is one of the issues that i've had with some of its devices. So its smart lugs. They updated to matter and there was a potential that I was going take away the function for energy, monetary, which was one of their best features.

So they managed to get around map. But yeah, there's problems there. It's it's not as as people had hoped. So the I think you should probably wait.

No, no.

One of the things that I believe strongly about gift giving is that you should never give someone to do this. And I think one of the things that happens when you give somebody like a smart home gift in a lot of cases is like i've now signed you up to make some phone calls and rewire your entire house. But so here's what I wonder and i'm curious kind of for everybody's respective on this because we're all sort of dealing with smart home suffet various stages of of installation. What is a good and not to do this, the smart home gift you can give someone at this point time a plug.

but plug yeah you know individual components are actually tough to recommend because you don't know what platform unless you know you're this recipient very well, you might not know what platform they are using or prefer. So if you are going to do individual components, something like jen said that works on all of them is obviously the way to go. So smart plugs like from mars, they work on all the major platforms, very reliable.

We like them a lot. They're very expensive. He bulbs are very are are very liable work on all the platforms.

Few lights I have found, by the way, are almost always a hit gift because they like they set up very fast and they're like, they're fun so like in three minutes you're just changing the lights in your house like, yeah, I have found I I don't know that anyone have given them to as a gift has actually used them for very long.

but there are fun like but they haven't complained about them. So yeah, so that is things like that. I think that for a few years, everyone was given everyone speakers and smart splaying.

I think we're kind of past that point and not everyone wants a smart switcher. If they did want one, they probably have IT already. And so there that's a little tougher. I just think that like two kind of like which gene was saying, I think smart home products make a great gift for yourself and less of a great gift for someone else unless you know this person is already a smart home person and they've given you the list of things they want and their smart home things on there and you just go buy them on that. I think that like you are introducing a project to the uninitiated, my only heavy out there is if you are going to be the project maintainer, then maybe that's okay.

An example um my in laws, I gave them a google fh google home hub or next to whatever it's called these days, the smart display a few years ago I linked IT up to google photos and now they automatically get photos. The grandchildren on their kitchen counter, I installed IT set up on their wifi. They don't ever ever to touch IT IT just shows them pictures.

And then I saw that my father, my father's law, set IT to five second change between the images. So seeing by images, I was over there. So I set IT back to a minute. Everyone's happy, but like you have to be prepared for that. Otherwise you are kind of introducing a project to them and and maybe that's not the best gifting type of thing.

Photo friends are a good one. My mother and loves them.

That's what I think about the smart displays is being able to set up that feature. And there are ones that armed smart displays if people don't want the speakers and microphones as well, like skylight and aura. But in terms of, yes, my actual smart home devices, it's kind like, I mean, would you buy someone to a tap, a force for for Christmas?

You is like those types of i'd love a smart tap, the smart force in myself. But so it's my english, my english, it's just the slightly odd things. So here's a smart switch wire IT into your house. And as much as as you onna get out of IT, I think the one area that perhaps I would say, okay, this would be kind of cool is when you know they have a problem and there is a smart home device out there that will solve IT. For example, like a smart garage door out there or you know if your granddad or your neighbor is always leaving in their garage door opening, like, look, here's a smart garage door controller this, look how you can do this and every time you give someone a smart gift like that, you should have a little coup on next to this says, I will come in in stolen set IT.

that's kid yeah and then I will not maintain IT over time like this comes with seven days of services and then no more beyond that are calling you. And to last v if are you thinking about smart home, guess what are you what are you going to give a receive this year?

no. So I think i'm going to follow everyone's advice and do all the research ahead of time. A K A G.

I'm slightly into your dm sometime soon and then i'm going to make a list and then send that list to everyone and say only buy things on this list for me but i'm basically I wanted therm a dad is like number one of my list just you know lower my utility bills and then you know further down the line. I'm a get one of those total toilets in the day. So it's further further down the line.

That's a good gift. That's like a slave. Awkward thing to talk about potentially at the holidays. But if if you're that kind .

of family like get after IT, I bought one last year for the fans like the family gift or for like my wife and ideas and the I no.

you will change someone's life by interest using them to a total that is you .

I know smart home, but it's high tech so i'll take IT this. So too, we got to say, say one more break and then with a few more questions, we'll get that back back. And here we have travellers in the natural habitat at enjoying guaranteed four P M, checked at find hotels, resorts, book through m max travel and they do any see what's coming at them.

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Thanks to I max platinum. The lost day vacation brings yet another experience that's a powerful backing of american export. Apply, earn american. We're back, right? Je one more smart tom question before we get out of this matter chaos.

Uh this is an email from alex and this is like not specifically a Christmas holiday question, but this is actually think i've heard a bunch of people buy for the holiday. So I, what do you do? IT anyway, says last bring.

Google announced that IT will be getting rid of the next security products in support net twenty twenty four, and that next customers can get a free set of A D, T hardware replace IT. Problem is the A D T hardware doesn't seem very good to me and i'd rather have a Better alternative that can work with my remaining this product store, bell smoke detector c said, as well as apple home and google home. Um i'm left to hering what a good alternative is to national security.

That isn't A D T. Lots of options, but no clear good direction. This definitely falls under the do not buy someone a whole security system for their house unless you know what they are doing. But if you want to give this to you know, yourself or your partner or your family for the holidays seems like a reason with good gift. Can we help this person? This this sort of sun setting of nest thing has been going on for a while and does sort of seem like a lot of people may just be left in the lurch is there are a good way out of this?

Yeah, it's a tRicky one. This is such a shame. The next secure system actually was a pretty neat system. I was very sad when I went away what I did so well, and which I do have some alternatives for. So hopefully i'll have a good solution here.

But what I did so well was IT took home security, which is full of tiny, little White plastic things you have to stick around your house and digested at all into one tiny little sensor and a nice little central hub. So IT was a beautiful product in that respect. IT was overPriced and had a fan number of other floors, but you know, that core functionality was really good.

And then also the NFC tag, so you didn't have to worry about running in and like pressing the key ad thing, which still gives me nerves, sort of hides to two, because I do IT all the time when i'm tesney devices. I don't know the police is going to show, but anyway, so I had some great solutions there. And this is what I like about the smart home.

When IT takes a sort of legacy product and does makes IT smart, makes IT, oh, well, this is so much Better. IT was before. And there are a couple of solutions out there that will fill that the secure shape hole.

unfortunate. Not entirely precisely. There's a few sort of caveats. And you know choices you have to make you you are going to get some of the the benefits that I secure head.

But what I love about these two is that they both offer that, that all in one sensor product. So the two options that I really like, a allow secure and then the economy security system. So they both have these all in one senses.

And allow secure is probably going to be the best solution for our collar here because it's very well integrated with google. IT integrates with into the google home system really well. The cameras in such like the actual security system integration that IT gets a little tRicky when you integrate security systems into other systems because you want them to be secure.

So there's a lot of sort of caveat about making giving other platforms access to your security system. But in terms of using you like your google home APP and integrating with your cameras allow secure is probably going to be your best solution. And it's really relatively inexpensive.

It's like two hundred dollars to get started with the key bed and two senses. And these senses are awesome that all in one multisensory, they do eight different things, which is kind of impressive. So the contact senses, motion senses, ambient light sensors, temperature sensors.

They can also, at the system itself, can also listen for smoking CEO alarm. So you don't need, you know, all the other senses that most security systems come with and also their leak detectors. You can't use them as a leak detector and a contact sense at the same time.

But you can you you can choose you can choose what you want them to do, which is really need. And if you use allow cameras, you actually can get video verification, which is a pretty key part of any kind of security system these days if you sign up for professional monitoring. And that was something that measured didn't offer.

So that's where police will only come to your house if they could actually verify that something's wrong and not that you just forgot. You don't forgot to know how to disarm the system, pressing the buttons. So the other secure is a good one.

And then the ecb secure system, very similar. IT also has these senses, that contact and motion in one, but they don't do all the other stuff. But what they do, and this is something that we might be interested in, is they do think with your thermostat. And so if you leave your door open, IT will you can set IT to automatically turn your um heating or A C off when the doors left open. Just you're not you accidentally cooling the outdoors .

or say we're not healing outside here.

So that's a need sort of extra feature which I really like. I mess the kind of thing, you know, security systems are boring. They are kind of expensive.

You're paying monthly for them most of the time and specially if you have professional monitoring. So it's kind of call when they can do something else useful and helpful. And all of these, both on ro secure and e, could be, you can use as motion senses and content sensors in your smart home.

So when the door opens, the lights can turn on, that you can set motion automation and those types of her motivation setups, which you know are really useful in your house, as well as also protecting you potentially if someone comes and try breaking. So those are both good options. The other one would be a boat which has their bit more like traditional security system.

They have all the different senses, but they also work as A Z wave haps. So if you want to connect to abroad, a smart home with z wave devices, and all three of these do work with apple home. They all work with a google to some extent, and they will work with amazon ex assistant too.

So you have kind of broad support there on platforms. They all also have cameras with them. So IT doesn't call that does mention he already has some google cameras.

But if you wanted to add more cameras, you can use cameras from all three of these systems. And there the e could be cameras and other cameras are are really quite good. The avoid cameras I would maybe stick clear of.

So there's some three good options that and three good Price points too. They all, I think of the cheapest is actually as the abode, which starts one hundred and sixty dollars, and the A, D, T stuff, unfortunately, just really wasn't very impressive. I heard read a lot of people complaining about that when I came out, but we did actually report a couple months ago.

But IT looks like a dt is working on another system where they're more tightly integrated with the nest devices and have some slightly nicer looking hardware. So if you can wait, you might want to wait and see how that panned out. But othe wise, I would look into one of those three options that I mention. I think you probably find something there that you'd like.

I feel like or take away. So AR holiday season in twenty twenty seven is gonna like sick for the smart. It's going to be so good until then.

Just you know closer as some point at something and will try. No, that's super helpful. I'm actually going, I think go probably by one of those this holiday season.

Good sale. I guess that's part of the reason everybody by the stuff is just everything's on sale right now, right? Few more questions then we're going to get out of here. We ve got a couple of questions about gaming, specifically handheld gaming. This first one is a voice men from shan.

This is Shawn from ohio. Christmas is coming up, and I have a seven year old son at home that is really in the video games i've been noticing on tiktok. A lot of these handheld, almost gambol ask video game emulators.

I'm wondering if those are any good if emulator handheld gaming is very good. Um I ve heard of the steam deck and we own a switch, but I love to get him something that I can just slow up a bunching of games. Also, i'm a mac user, so I don't know if um that prohibits me or kind of detracts from being able to do anyways. Looking for a game device to buy for my son. Love to know you that thanks.

There are two correct tiers to this question. I would say one is the device called the retina pocket, which is one of those things that comes from amazon and ships with like a million beauty and games that you can play. Some of them don't work very well. Some of them are like pony and weird on a lot of these emulator devices, but it's also there are some very good games. So that's a good like all in one emulator kind of system.

How old is your son if their pony seven.

you know, whatever. I'm not here a little day. I'm not in charge. No, I think it's it's you can basically either do the like a system like the analog packet, which is not get an amazing piece of hardware, but requires you to kind of bring your own ames, which is the more legally upstanding thing, as we've talked to her on the show in the past, but also more expensive and more complicated uh or you can buy the things that you see all over amazon from companies like amer nc and retorted and others that are just the we downloaded every wrong we could find on the internet.

Put IT onto a device and worship to you, for those are very fun. They come with some weirdness. Some of the games don't work.

Some might be games you don't like very much. They require A A mexica management. But like they work, the retro pocket is very good.

It's the one people seem to like. So I would steer you that way if that's what you want. But if you want to, like, be a gaming post, the analog card is is the one. Then we have a question that is another one we've gotten a bunch of, which is a first song from hillery.

Hey, verge cap, this is Hillary. Um my husband and I expecting our second child in may and my husband wants to get a hand held in device to go with those long sleepless nights. I think it's a little bit silly too because he's not actually gonna have time to play IT. But pretending that he does, he is trying to choose between a steam deck and an intendo swetchine, which would you recommend for using while caring for an infant.

Think neither of them are very good, as nani, I would say.

So I think the way I like this question, this is less what can I do for the child, and more like, how do I occupy myself while my child sleeping on top of, yeah, I having just had an infant, I had terrible luck with this. I found that any time I put a screen up, sort of bind his head, he would wake up and I would go sideways. But I will say between lead to the switch is is the choice for me at least.

Yeah, same.

The games work super well offline. The thing is really simple and straightforward. You can put IT on a table and just suse the joy cons in your hands or you can hold IT or you can plug IT in. It'll end up being a thing your kids can use when they go out. Like I just think that I lean weight wards switch as the more sort of I have a kid on my lap and also want to play video games kind of device.

I totally agree. And I think that the chAllenge with the steam deck, while a phenomenal gaming device, is that you will spend a lot of time tinker with IT. And if you do have a limited out of time to play because you are also Carrying for you infant, the switch is the one that i'll be able to just pick up, start playing, put IT down when you need to. And like like David said, a IT is convertible to table top or TV playing very easily, insight like that. So I would recommend the switch as well.

the best device for one handed entertainment while you are caring for a child, because generally you are gna have one and is a kindle. Just the press the button and you can turn the page, the only one that you don't need two hands for.

Yeah, my gaming strategy is to get weirdly into this game called her down on my phone, which is just a game where you shoot a ball at things and try to knock them down and get as far down as you possibly can. Have I ever spent six, three hours playing that game while the child often tough meat? Yes, I absolutely have.

So I earthly, I would say like an apple arcade subscription is like the the Better, uh, infant care strategy than either these voices. But yeah, I I would lead an intended switch if that's we're going right. One more question and they're get there to here.

This is a much broader or question, so everybody's has to answer. We can go in a direction you want. It's a year up from Charles says I think niche small bh hardware products make great gifts, things like to panic play, IT handheld console, the dirty wave and made since tracking er or the paper shoot camera.

The problem I run into is finding these products in the first place, usually the marketing realized on word of mouth referrals, so they are hard to find if you're not deep into the specific community or how by these products are made for. Curious to know what your favorite ite small batch to spoke hardware is. I'm going to broaden this question very slightly, which is just to say we each helps to recommend one thing that is like thorough, non obvious something that you wouldn't find on, like a gift guide that is like here's the cool bose headphones and airports and this iphone and that laptop.

I've got one and I will Carry out that this might might appear on one of our gift guides because archive guys are very good. And I considered this a niche, small batch hardware. I'm not sure if Charles will agree, but I love the pint.

Sel IT is a very cool little tool. If you are into tinkering at all or if you want to like explore like a my personal experience, i've never thought ted anything before. I bought a pincio and now sodder n like that's like how IT goes.

And he was very easy to get into. Its very easy to use. It's very small lightning. It's inexpensive. It's a small company open source hardware that would be my recommended.

That's a good account. I'll give you that.

V what you get. One of the things I tested this year that is completely stupid, but that I kind of enjoyed the concept of with the now OK, you're not going to find this anywhere, but IT is like a stress track ker device thing. But IT has these little disks.

There's no display as one of these no displayed type track kers IT just IT just buzz whatever you are stressed and has these, like jm stone faces that you take in and out with a little magnet. And that thing was fun. I would not recommend IT to most people to be clear who actually care about their health tracking.

But for people who are just like, I want something that unique, I want something that's very stylish, I want something that's going to alert me when i'm really stressed out because i'm the type of person who cares and wants my tech to tell me to cool down. Then that one, it's weird and kind of fun and then thought of the other one that's really nitch and something that I bought for myself this year is the medi cube. Uh, a booster h and it's a little one that use up your face with so that your skin care uh goes into your skin more deeply.

Uh IT uses electoral o portion is all over tiktok. Uh, but if you're not in this skin care community, you going to know about this thing. So there you go.

The medi cube booster age is on sale for like fifty percent these days. So I would do IT helly. Beeban uses IT, so there you go.

I jen.

you got one. Well, i'm not sure IT quite fit with the neh small batch hardware, but maybe IT does. But home assistant, their home assistant, Green, if you wanna, you know, be a budget, which is their their new budget version of getting started with home assistant.

But as we started the smart home discussion with all the problems with matter and how you should buy a device that also watch with other platforms, home assistant would be your friend here, because IT can help you get any device into any platform and also will offer meta support going forward. That has meta support in beta right now, as everyone else does. Everyone is in beta right now.

So yeah, it's it's every time I write a review on the verge, one of the comments will be but you can already do this with her assistance. IT. IT is a great, powerful tool.

IT is one of those devices that if you give to a friend, you are going to then become their back up IT person. But you will know the right friend to give this to. And if you give IT to the right friend, they will be very, very grateful.

Ah the homa sistine people are a little like the linux people, but home assistant is much more of product that regular people can actually figure out.

And it's gotten that way a lot of this last year, but they've really put a lot into making this a lot a much easier proposition than then IT once was. I I agree.

mine, I have two. One is a gadget and one is not, but it's close enough. One is the one of our dimension, which is the animal pocket, which I think is like a little game boy thing for the modern age, is just one of the like best maid pieces of hardware out there is the kind of thing that like if you're in the gaming world, you know this you're like day pocket doesn't count in this game.

But if you're not, you've probably never heard of IT IT takes courage is a very fun thing if you want to, like, play retta games in a new way, IT IT rules. And they're also building a thing for the end sixty four that is not coming out this year but is probably coming out next year. And i'm confident i'm going to um do whatever IT takes by one whenever that happens.

So if you want to just like rap up a piece of paper that is all by you the end sixty four thing ah that works fine. The other one is um i've gotten back into a kick with notebooks as dam can I test I spend all of my time switching between to do this steps and recently I have given up on to do this step and i'm back to writing on paper like like our ancestors did. And the team from cortex, which makes very good podcast over really after they made a thing called the sidekick notepad that is this big wide notebook that is part like lists on the right and just sort of empty space to write on the left. And IT is on your desk and is a perfect like day planner thing. And I love you very much.

It's a great riston for your keyboard too. It's specifically designed to be the wife of your keyboard, which is very cool. yeah.

And it's sort of sits in front of IT and you can like grade on IT and go back to it's lovely and I have a joy very much. So that's my recommendation. alright.

Thank you all. We should get out here. I hope we have spent a lot of people's money.

And if you want to buy us nice things to tell us, sajan all of matter compatible gadgets and SHE will somehow figure out how to install them in her home, right? Thank you guys. Appreciated, as always.

Thank 喂， 哎。

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