Evolution of the Smart Kitchen, Sonos Kills Streaming Box, & Testing Vacuums in the Home App
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Welcome, everybody, to another exciting episode of HomeKit Insider. You've got me, your host, as always, Andrew O'Hara, joining me this week. Pretty excited. We've talked for a little while now, but this is Akshita from Ohm. She is the co-founder and CEO. Why don't you tell us a little bit about Ohm? We've talked about it on the podcast before, but give us a headline before we get into the news, and we'll circle back to Smart Kitchen Tech.

Yeah. Well, Andrew, thank you so much for having me. I love the podcast and all the news that you dive into. So it's a pleasure to be here. At OWN, we build smart technology for a safer home, starting with your most used cooking appliance, which is your stove. We've built the only retrofit smart knob that can transform any gas or electric cooktop or range into a smart appliance by just replacing the knob. Our knob works like a regular knob, but it has a

a lot of custom technology built in that allows us to automatically turn off the burner if you leave it on by accident, remotely control it, set cooking timers, and even talk to it through voice. Yeah, I love it. It's really cool, but we'll come back to it because we can just keep going on that for the whole podcast, but we have to cover the news first. So again, thank you for joining. Let's go into the news, starting with Home Assistant. This is

mostly just a formality at this point, but if you are a home assistant user, congratulations. It is now officially Matter certified. So it's officially a Matter certified controller. Great. It's been working in Matter for a while, so it isn't anything crazy. It's nice to have it done. Moving into the Apple stuff, because there has been an insane amount of

Stuff in flux. It's hard to keep track, especially doing a weekly podcast. But starting with Apple looks like to be forcing everyone to the new home architecture.

This was introduced, I think a year or so ago, maybe iOS 17, but basically a new home architecture and would speed things up and was generally beneficial, but you had to make sure all of your devices were upgraded and then you had to literally migrate to this new architecture. Now code found in iOS 18 kind of shows that Apple is saying your old home architecture is no longer being supported. You have to migrate to the newer one, which,

could because some of these new things coming out that we're going to talk about. So it seems like it makes sense. Does this seem like it's like, is this too burdensome for people? Or is this thing that mostly shouldn't be a problem for most? Yeah, you know, we have to go through and I've had experience with, you know, upgrades. And the reality is that they are necessary, right? I mean, I think with every upgrade, whether it's an over the air upgrade,

update for a smart device or even, you know, the iOS platform, it's ultimately in the long term a really good move for stability, right? And what they're really trying to do is create a more secure, stable environment. And yes, of course, there are going to be short term frustrations with everyone who needs to upgrade. And a lot of us tend not to just because it's easier not to. But I do think that in the long run, it is the best move. And with every

update as well. I feel like it's gotten a little bit more seamless. And I've even seen, you know, with this update that consumers have commented that it was relatively painless. And so I'm on board with it.

Yeah, for me, when I did this upgrade, everything feels super quick. It's honestly one of those magical moments now when I stand in the kitchen and I tell my smart assistant good night and almost instantly the lights turn off, shades close, TV's off, ice maker turns off, everything all at once. And it's so quick. So I do think it's worth it. But I ran into the maybe you have similar experiences being someone who's more on the techie side.

I have other people's homes that I'll also have access to, like my parents, and I could control a few of their smart home things. They had not updated their Apple TV, so I couldn't upgrade my home framework because a home that I was added to did not. So I had to leave their home in the home app so that I could upgrade my own home when that happened. So that might be a weird...

loophole for people to kind of make sure they take care of before this happens. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, again, I think those are the frustrations that everyone is going to go through. But at the same time, when you think about it from the tech side, with each version of software, that is a version of software that the company, in this case, Apple, has to keep managing.

And so you can imagine if they're not forcing people eventually to upgrade that they have to support now all of these versions going back how long, right? And of course, new bugs come up and that from a business standpoint, I can understand becomes a huge headache. And like you just mentioned with everything that your home can now do just because of one command, that's really due to these new software versions that are allowing for it.

Agreed. Well, so that is, I would say, a good thing, if painful for a few. The bad news here, and I know Wes talked about this a lot on the Apple Insider podcast, but it's true. Apple's next generation smart assistant has officially been delayed, dropped on a late Friday afternoon, as Apple typically does, like literally after Wes and I just record. And we argued, no, it's not delayed. Yes, it is delayed. Apple just slips it in there.

kind of like a la air power cancellation, throws out late on a Friday afternoon. And it's true. So they say coming year, which I don't even know. Do you think that means like this year, like 2025? Or do you think they're punting into next year for this?

I think they're leaving it vague on purpose to give themselves time to make sure. I mean, and again, at the end of the day, if you look at it from the technical side, it seems like all of their internal home testing programs that they're running seem to suggest that they're making improvements and they're really trying to make sure that this is seamless. And so I, of course, with you would hope that it's this year, but I think that's intentionally vague.

Yeah, it seems so shocking to me that we had debates like we talked about on the podcast that, oh, it's coming in 18-4. That's the target. And now it has become so out of whack that it can't even be determined if it's this year or next year. We were supposed to get this in a month, and now it's maybe next year. Yeah.

It's tough. But I think what is even more difficult to kind of discern now is what is going to happen with their smart home hub. And we do have a little bit of an answer or a possible key to an answer.

It is being delayed. It is now post WWDC, according to Ming-Chi Kuo. And Kuo says the reason is to continue with the design consistency with iOS 19, which is supposed to have a visual overhaul. So that way everything would look seamless between the smart home hub and iOS 19, tvOS 19, all that stuff.

but I also think maybe that gives some time to figure out some of the smart assistant stuff going on. Cause I don't know how you launch this without a very capable version of its assistant. Well,

Well, and I would hope and I would guess that that is a big reason for the delays too, right? I think this kind of dedicated home hub that can streamline automation and home key control is awesome. And I mean, if you look at the smart home ecosystem in general, there's one too many devices, one too many apps, nothing talks to each other, nothing works with each other. And so I think this is a really big step towards streamlining all of that. And it seems like

whether we as consumers are frustrated with it or not, that Apple is taking its time to really get it right. And I can appreciate that side of it. But of course, as an eager consumer who has HomeKit and all of these devices that integrate with it, that you kind of want to be able to use all of that functionality sooner than later.

Yeah, agreed. And I want to know, this gets into what we're going to talk about later. I want to know, you know, based on just the available information, how we could see OMEN integrate into that, how you could see your stove showing into that with app intents, with voice assistant control or widgets, any of those things. So we'll come back. I don't know. I think that also makes sense not to like linger on this, but it does make sense for like from a design standpoint of if Apple really is going with a design overhaul in 19, I

Because it would be weird, right, to come out with icons that don't match, so it's kind of like spoiling the surprise of 19, or they'd have to have old icons and immediately change them when Home OS 19 or 2 is announced at dub dub. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I guess the whole timeline on all this stuff has been so murky and riddled with questions.

Continuing to talk about the news, we have Roomba. Roomba is launching a series of new vacuums. They have quite a few of them. So their flagship of the new bunch will be the Roomba Plus 505 Combo Robot Plus Auto Wash Dock. That's the full name. If you want to scold it, you can use the full name.

That's the only one that's going to support matter amongst all of these. The 10 Max, the one that came out last year, also supports matter. So there'll be two Roombas that do this. This kind of flagship model dual spinning mops. Right mop extends to clean edges. Can also raise mop 10 millimeters for carpets. It has an updated dock that'll, you know, wash and dry the mop pads.

refill the water tank, empties the bin, all that kind of stuff. It does have heated drying in there, which is something that the Combo 10 Max does not have. But they still consider the 10 Max the flagship because it has stronger cleaning power, higher suction on that one, though they're not getting into specifics. I don't know how much you have been paying attention, actually, to the robotic vacuum space, but all of these features seems like things that I have been covering a

for years now that are just now on a Roomba. Yeah. So it's interesting when I did see the launch of these eight different or these eight new models, and we can get into where that coincides with iRobot as a company, because I know you and I both talked about that. I have had a...

a RoboVac for quite some time and it's had all of these features. And so it's great that these models that have all of this functionality, but it kind of feels like they're playing a little bit of catch up with what's already out there. And it's interesting to see

these incremental improvements rather than a completely new flagship product. And the reason I say that is to what I said when I started is it seems like our robot is on shaky ground, right? So Amazon dropped the deal to acquire them, I think like over a little bit over a year ago because of some EU regulatory concerns. And they are kind of doubting their ability to continue. Their stock tanked and

From what I understand, this launch of this new line, they hope that these new products can boost their revenue, can improve their margins. But I think they're also uncertain that because of consumer demand of competition, right, to what we just talked about, that there are a lot of other, you know, opportunities.

automatic vacuums, whatever you call them, a lot of other Roomba models that exist. And then, of course, you have all of the policy changes around tariffs, right, which are making, you know, just building product and manufacturing product, which I can also relate to very, very expensive. And so I think there's a whole host of problems. I think iRobot is trying to

navigate right now and hopefully for them that this new launch helps them to find a better path forward.

I mean, they're fixing a few of the big things. Like, I do think they're bringing in, like, heated drying has been around for a couple years. Roborock has had the arms that stick out to clean edges for a couple years. They seem like they were so far behind for the company that literally invented these devices. And still, just this week, my grandma is using the word Roomba like we use the word Kleenex. Like, she wants to get a robotic vacuum, and she's like, which Roomba should I get?

She doesn't mean Roomba. She just means robotic vacuum cleaner. Yeah, exactly. So they have that brand recognition, and yet their bots were so far behind with features. I don't know. Maybe they just rested too much on their core strength, but I haven't used them in years. I don't even know. They claimed they were the best, but I hadn't used them in such a long time. This is an interesting...

sequence of events because we've seen this multiple times in the tech industry, right? Where you have a first to market player, the Nest thermostat was one, right? We had never had a smart thermostat before. And then you see, okay, they're the first to market, awesome. They've got that competitive edge.

But then you know that you're going to have competition, right? You know that people are going to come out with something similar. And the downside of that first to market advantage is that you have to stay ahead of the curve. And so, for example, with...

You know, with Nest and the acquisition by Google, they rested a little bit. And then you had SimpliSafe, Ring, like all of these other home security devices just come in and they kind of passed them, right? And then they had to play catch up. And so it seems like a little bit of the same thing

the same story there where iRobot was like the leader and then, you know, just maybe took its foot off the gas. I don't know what happened. But then now you have just so many other similar kinds of products on the market. Yeah. My parents had a very early iRobot Roomba. And I remember having to sequester off the rooms with the little, they looked like canteens or

claymores or something. I don't know, but they had like lasers or something. You'd put them on the edges of rooms as boundaries and they would go up to it and detect it and then turn around. And they completely stopped using it because it was like, it was fine, but they, they never put up the barriers and it just kind of went away. And eventually now they have, I think they have the one,

I don't remember. I think it's the Eufy one, one of the high-end Eufy ones that they like a lot. It's been working well for them. I've got the Roborock ones. Which ones do you use right now? I have the Roborock. That's the only one I have. That's the only one I've ever had. I was, to be honest, a little bit late to the game because I'm very much like cleaning is like a space for me to just like disconnect, listen to music. So I was a little late, but I do have the Roborock.

And a lot of this functionality of being able to mop and dry and vacuum at the same time was there, but I think they've come out with new models even since then.

Yeah, well, we can talk about that because I did a whole deep dive on using robotic vacuum cleaners with the home app in iOS 14. This is not 14, iOS 18.4. But this is a little past that at this point. This is something that we have talked about on the podcast for so long, something that I've been wanting to be able to actually properly demo for ages. And it is finally here or about to be here.

Go read the piece or watch the video because I have deep dives and all this for everyone listening. Go look at those if you want to learn more. But let's go through the high stuff here. Very easy to set up. So I got access through an early access program on Ecovacs, but Roborock also has one coming out very soon.

You can spur up the matter pairing code, add it to the home app like you would any other accessory, and add it to the room, give it a name, that kind of stuff. Controls for the Ecovacs model, you see like the play button to just start cleaning. You can also change the mode. So for the X8 Pro Omni, there was only vacuum and vacuum and mop.

The Roborock should have a dedicated mop mode as well. The reason being, if you look in the Ecovacs app, there is no mop. It is only vacuum, vacuum and mop. Like those are the only two options. So that's why you only see those in the home app. You can choose your room, which is the big thing here.

These are part of the Matter 1.4 update. These are service area clusters, and that was added in 1.4 to go with the original announcement in 1.2, but those will pull over from the Ecovacs app or your manufacturer app. So you set up all the rooms, you do your navigation, your mapping. Those rooms will show in the home app. Then you just select them and run it out. You can also use your voice and just say, hey, can you vacuum and mop the kitchen, dining room, and living room? And that will happen automatically.

It is really that easy. And my son, he is just so generous. You know, that two and a half year old. He gave me two great times to test this out this week.

Going to town.

So I took him into the other room and told Apple Assistant to vacuum the kitchen. And it did it perfectly. So cool. Second time, he...

We're practicing, you know, the whole potty training situation. So he's in, you know, those like the corner lower cupboards that are like round that have like a lazy Susan situation. He was in there going through all of our bowls. And all of a sudden he's like, oh, no. I'm like, what is it, buddy? As I'm unloading the dishwasher and he turns around and just...

shoots an arc through the air so he was peeing into the cupboard then into the air and then right into the dishwasher so I'm like buddy potty and he's like potty I'm like go to the potty and then he just turns and runs so he went to the right place so as I am trying to clean him up

I like closed the dishwasher and immediately I got the liquid off the floor and I'm like, clean. Can you mop vacuum and mop the kitchen? And it went and did that. So another great time to test that out while I was getting the rest of things together. I could just do with my voice. It was so much easier than having to get out an app. Yeah. Choose rooms and all that stuff.

There are still things that could be added here, but this is very cool. I mean, is this something that you are hoping to do with your model, depending on which one it is? Oh, yeah. I mean, I don't have kids yet, but I can certainly...

empathize with the convenience and the efficiency, right? That just being able to speak and have everything just integrated where you don't then have to worry about taking out an app or fiddling with things when you have as a parent, a million and one other things to do. So yeah, I'm sure we'll need that at some point. I mean, I can think my dog is now 11 years old, but when she was like six months, I could have used that many, many times over.

So I can definitely understand. Even the pet hair, I just walk down the hallway and be like, whoa, there's tumbleweeds. Can you vacuum the hallway? And it goes and does it. Yep, absolutely. Easy. I'm so excited for this. The really cool news here is for anyone who is beta testing 18.4, Ecovacs has told me that their update comes out for the X8 Pro Omni on March 1st.

20th. So just a few days and a matter update will be available for anyone who is testing 18.4 Roborock is continuing to do theirs there. I know their new flagships like the Saros 10 and 10 are will support matter probably first, but they've been talking about this magic certification all the way back to like the S7 series. So I'm guessing there's going to be quite a few Roborocks that eventually gain that certification, which would be just great. Agreed.

They also have... I like the automations because you can set it up... You could do some of this in, like, the manufacturer apps, but it's just nicer to have it in the home app with, like, one automation. My, like, leaving...

Automation when the last person leaves the house like turning off the lights stuff also now vacuums amazing so handy. Yeah, you know, I think the The whether it's nighttime, you know morning you leave the house Any of those are like key events throughout the day, right? Where things can get done while you're sleeping or while you're not there And so I think those are huge for everything to be, you know Talking to each other and to know proactively what's happening in the house and I think

Ultimately, with Matter coming in and making sure that all of these devices can talk to each other, I think the smart home is moving in a direction of your home being proactive for you, of knowing things that need to be done before you have to say them, which I think is awesome. Absolutely.

Can't believe it's taking us this long and this is really the first thing that's come by way of matter to the home app Like we we had like other it's added Kind of accessories, but really this is the first like new product core category that's been actually added to apple home So this is this is huge. I'm very excited about it. If everyone can't tell Last piece of news that I am not excited for not excited

Chris Welch over at The Verge, who knows everything Sonos, has seemingly confirmed that their streaming box has been canceled. It's been canceled. Sad. Very sad. I don't know what you use to stream if you're one of those people who use their TV interface, which I hope not.

No. No. So, okay. So let me clarify. Okay, there we go. I use a TV that uses its interface. And then I also, okay, I have three. I use the TV interface. I have an Apple TV. And I have a Fire TV. How do you go between them and keep it straight? It's very annoying. I need to at some point consolidate to one. But I'm kind of all over the place. I haven't quite figured out which one makes the most sense for me. Okay.

There should still be a new Apple TV this year, so here's what you do. You continue using the TV interface for some reason, and then you get rid of that fire stick, and you put your old Apple TV there, and you pick up the new Apple TV and put it on your main television. That should be your plan. Got it. Yes.

Well, I was very excited about this. I was so, so gung-ho for this because it was supposed to offer some things that were a little bit different. It was going to basically act as an HDMI switch at the same time as a whole streaming box. They apparently were going to have Netflix on board to actually have a unified watch list that Apple doesn't even have on the Apple TV. And it would allow you to have...

different setups for Sonos audio so you don't have to have a soundbar. You could pick up two like Aero 100s or Aero 300s and set them up as front left and right speakers and just go that way and have no soundbar. And like you could have all these different options for speaker setups

I was very optimistic at how this was going to perform. It was supposed to have a little bit of a higher price tag, which to me just meant it was going to push Apple to innovate on the Apple TV even more as my favorite box. So I was all about this and I was pretty crushed. I was more sad about this than Apple assistance next gen being delayed.

personally. Yeah, I mean, it's, I think it would have been an interesting alternative, right, to Apple TV, to the Fire Stick, especially if it had, like you said, these integrated deeper controls with, you know, your speakers. And I see that in a sense

that it raises questions around whether Sonos has big hardware ambitions to begin with, right? And I think, because, you know, it's one thing, I think, to create an app or to create, you know, just a streaming service that can be, you know, broadcasted on an existing box. But I mean, when you're talking about a whole other piece of hardware that has, you know,

supply chain, manufacturing, and then also integrated software and firmware. That's a huge effort. And I was excited that there would be finally another company that was coming out with one and seemingly with more functionality. But, you know, maybe that's not the direction I want to go.

They did, you know, replace CEOs after the whole app debacle and everything. And you'll probably have a little bit of insight into this as a CEO of a hardware company. But, like, I don't even know where specifically Sonos goes from here without exploring new hardware. You already have a lot of speakers. You have a smaller one. You have a bigger one. You have a small and big sub. You have small, medium, large sound bars. You have a tiny portable speaker and a big portable speaker. What do you...

I mean, just iterate on those and make slightly better sounding new ones of those each time. That feels like in a rut. And I know that they have to, you know, keep doing something, keep innovating because that's what I always loved about them. I mean, they came into headphone space and I love their headphones so much. And they did a lot of little details that felt very Apple to me. And I know they have to earn that trust back after the whole app situation. But and I know hardware is hard.

But I just feel like this really would have helped cement them into that content space and tie all their stuff together. Yeah. Well, and then also, you know, expand their reach, right? Because I think, you know,

For the most part, people already have chosen what speaker system they want. And so this would have given them an alternative for consumers who maybe don't have Sonos speakers to kind of get on their platform. And so it is a good question of where do you go from here and not just...

incremental change again with some new speaker it's yeah we'll have to see where they go and I mean as you mentioned I get the app issues they had a huge debacle with their app being super faulty and it seems like they made progress to fix that and they've made changes internally but it's a you know all of these things take time and all of these things you know have business and financial consequences too so

Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Well, we got to talk about the smart kitchen. Let's take a break really quick. I'm going to run through our two ad sponsors for this episode. Starting off with, I love when this happens, when you have an ad that you always connect with so well. And I've been checking on my trees every time I go out and see the chickens. It is time for fast growing trees. It is time for everyone to start planting their stuff. We're going into spring.

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I see it all the time, all the time. It's so crazy. Okay, let's talk about Ohm. Tell me a little bit about the actual product itself. Talk about how the company came to be, all of that, and then you'll get some more questions. Yeah, so how the company came to be was a bit of an accident. So I actually went to school for neuroscience. I thought I was going to go to med school. And then I took a few gap years, and in that time, my mom accidentally left the stove on one too many times and started a kitchen fire.

And believe it or not, the number one cause of house fires is people doing exactly that – unattended, distracted cooking. So you forget that something's on the stove, you accidentally turn a knob on, your pet accidentally turns a knob on, and that's a leading cause of house fires – over a billion dollars in property damage every year.

When this happened, I think I just wanted to do anything but go to med school. So I was like, oh, you know, I really want to find a solution for my parents. My parents are getting older. I'd never really talked to them about safety at home as they're aging at home. And as you probably know, Andrew, I mean, aging in place, assistive technologies are becoming a huge priority when it comes to smart devices and home modifications.

And so I looked at what was available and I didn't find anything in the kitchen space that really solved for the need that I had in the most intuitive and affordable way. And so what I thought was if we have retrofit devices pretty much everywhere else in the house, doorbells, door locks, thermostats, what if we could create a retrofit device that could work with your existing

stove top or range, especially because your appliances last a really long time. And that could give you that peace of mind and that automation and those safety features without needing to buy a new appliance.

And so that's how the company started a lot of trials and tribulations, ups and downs since that time. But what we've ended up with is, you know, this smart knob that basically has two components. So we have the knob bottom that attaches to your shaft. So what you do is you pull your knob off, you put our knob on, you tighten it down onto the shaft.

And this has a motor in it. So we have a custom motor built specifically for this application that can automatically turn the burner off if you leave it on for too long, or it can adjust the temperature without you having to physically do it yourself.

Our knob top is what has all the electronics. So we have a board, we connect to Wi-Fi, and then this connects to your app. So you can remotely monitor your stove from anywhere. We have that automatic shutoff that's set on time, and you can adjust that based on your cooking activity.

And then, yeah, you can set cooking timers, you can control it through voice, really with the ultimate goal of bringing true intelligence to the kitchen to prevent a very, very serious, outstanding safety issue in the home that hasn't really been addressed yet.

in a way that is adoptable by the mass market. And so, I mean, especially now timing-wise, not only aging in place and older adults and the implications of cooking hazards for them, but recently in the last, I think like six or eight months, two of the largest appliance manufacturers have recalled over a million and a half ranges because of accidental knob turn on.

And so the regulations are updating to ensure that products like this and solutions like ours are a standard in Stove so that we no longer have this as a problem. Yeah, very cool. And especially the upgrades you've made from the original model to the new one.

massive difference. The original one was very big. And like for ours, I have like the knobs in the back. It stuck out so much. Yeah. The new ones are barely larger than I feel like your typical stove knob. Yeah. So that was such a good jump. I mean, as you can imagine, a product like this never existed. And so, and you've seen, you know, with first generations of most smart devices, they're typically your way of

Does this thing actually work? Does it function the way it needs to? You can engineer forever and never get a product to market. And for us, the Gen 1 Smart Knob was really a way to prove that this thing works. And then we knew, just as you said, that compatibility, size, aesthetics, all of those were

hindering our ability to really scale. And so we took about a year and a half to redesign and rebuild with custom components so that we could really get the form factor we wanted, and then came out with the Gen 2 SmartNub in the fall that is, yeah, much smaller, easier to install, looks a lot better, and there's still more that we can do. So, you know, it all takes time, but we're excited to be where we are today.

It reminded me so much of August. Because the first August was massive. And it literally worked the same way. You just took off the inside part. There's a little shaft that came out. You put the August on there and had a motor that twisted. And now we've got this. First one was a bit bigger, but you just replaced the inside part. And it turns. Now we have a smaller, much more sleeker form factor. Exactly. Yeah. I love it. Exactly. And especially, I am...

I love cooking on gas ranges. Of course, I have an electric stove and I hate it. Um, but we, like a lot of our family homes, like my parents and our lake house, they all have the gas ranges and I love them, but they may always makes you nervous of whether, did they get bumped on? Did you know that it was on? Um,

All those concerns with that or how long they were left on or even just when you're cooking is one of my favorites is like you're like cooking soup or something. So like you have a massive stock pot. So you have your temperature all the way up and then you're in the middle of chopping things or, you know, opening some eggs, cracking eggs. And all of a sudden it's like boiling over and you're like, frick, frick, frick. And now it's like something you can actually just do with your voice to have that adjusted down for you without having to try to get back. I love the idea of this thing.

Unfortunately, when I know people, when I talked about it before and here, my stuff wasn't compatible. So how are you, what's your plan kind of going forward with that? Because so mine, the problem was there's like two bumps. Like at the beginning, it's like a bump when it turns on. And then at the end, when you get to the max, there's a bump there as well. So there's like two bumps. And I guess that...

is what was stopping it. How are you going to continue to expand that kind of compatibility to more devices like that? Yeah. So those bumps are detents, right? Those little notches that our motor just can't get through. It's not designed right now to do that. I think, you know, to set maybe the baseline here, retrofits are hard to get right, right? I mean, you talk about, look at the August lock, even the, you know, Nest thermostat, your

doorbells because designs and for us stove designs vary widely in certain ranges like yours have those notches or physical constraints that can make that universal fit very tricky. The purpose for us of

you know, leveraging the retrofit market was to prove that one, you can take quote, you know, dumb appliances and make them smart to, to bring that threshold down for a consumer to get this kind of technology into their home. Right. And then also connect them digitally right to your app. You don't need to,

to have them replace a new appliance. But then, you know, now we're at a point where we've brought this product from zero to one. We are compatible with as many ranges and stovetops and brands and models that we can possibly get to on our own. And the next step to how we expand that compatibility is to work directly with the appliance manufacturers.

Right. Like if I had the exact specs of your stove and I knew where those notches were and I knew what the shaft looks like, I can customize this specifically for your stove, which makes not just, you know, the compatibility better, but then the entire experience for you.

Right. Like if I know what all your settings are, we can pre-program that. You just select from a list of, hey, I have a, you know, this model and brand and then we can pre-program everything. And so we are at a point as a business where we are actually having those conversations with the OEMs because they need a technology like this to

make sure that the safety issues that exist are no longer safety concerns. It is top of mind for all of them. And then also to cater that experience and cater the form factor to specific brands, which as a small company, we're just never going to be able to do ourselves. And I think it's time for us to be working and collaborating with these bigger brands so that we can really

scale this product to the next level. Well, how do you look at this with all these emerging technologies that are coming out on the connectivity side? You guys are working on the hardware and making it backwards compatible, all of that. How do you approach, like right now you're on Wi-Fi, which is pretty power intensive. How have you looked at doing a thread version, which I know is going to be

hard on you know if you're looking at an older demographic for the living of the aging in place folks they're not necessarily going to have a thread border router going on but for me who has that like yeah i feel like that would be a nice option instead of wi-fi to help prolong battery life or even talking about matter we have appliances now in matter could it be theoretically possible to get a matter certification on just a knob even though it's like a stove i

Yeah, it's a great point. So I'll tackle Matter first. I think what Matter ultimately offers is a way to unify all these communication protocols and allow them to talk to one another, which reduces reliance on the Cloud and it's super secure.

Matter, but it's still early for the appliance industry. So yes, I think Matter version 1.3 supported cooktops. So they added cooktops, but it hasn't yet been widely adopted throughout all smart appliances, but it has opened the doors for smart ovens and stoves. And so I do see Matter integration for us being very useful in the future, especially given all of the other systems that it can work with.

So, but it is an effort. And I think now that we are trying to work directly with the appliance manufacturers, there's a little bit of catch up in terms of the industry standard of what is being integrated into appliances. And so that is a constant talk. I mean, we are having these conversations now about that software stack and where we see the opportunity for the knob, both as an integrated solution and as a retrofit, which brings me to Thread.

So Thread, yes, is a communication protocol that is designed specifically for low power, reliable and secure smart home devices. So it's ideal for battery operated devices, which our smart knob is right now. And the other thing too that I really like about Thread is that there's no single point of failure. So if one device goes offline, the others are still going to work. So whereas right now, if your Wi-Fi goes out, everything goes out.

The challenge though is, you know, most smart appliances still rely on Wi-Fi right now. And so as a retrofit, I think Thread, even though it is a big effort, could be really useful for us. But when we look at the integrated long-term solution, which ultimately we want to get to, right, because at some point everyone's going to change out their appliance in the next 20 years.

And so we want to make sure that this technology gets built in, but then appliances usually have a constant power source, right? They're always plugged in. So then at that point, Thread doesn't have as much of a benefit because the low power necessity for a hardwired device isn't really there.

There's always pros and cons with upgrading your software systems. And for us, what I'm really trying to make sure is that whoever we work with next, that we're aligned with where the technology needs to go and what that implicates for our software stack. Because we have built our entire software ecosystem from the ground up, our firmware system. And so...

if we make changes, we really wanna make sure we're doing it for the benefit of our future customers and where we're going next. - That's a lot. - Sorry, I should have let you. - No, it's all a good thing. And it makes me very optimistic 'cause I love the technology on this and I like that it is a retrofit solution. But of course it gives me positive, like okay, similar to the coin, if anyone remembers the coin or Stratos, like those smart credit cards,

Where they came out like, oh, we're going to make your cards smart and all that stuff. And they did it as it was in the middle of the process of everyone switching to the chips and contactless. And eventually those all just disappeared because there was no point in them. So yeah, with the technology like this, great. It's going to help us retrofit all those stoves. But eventually you do have to replace it. And then if there's no more, if everyone already has a smart stove, then what is the point of a product like this? So going that built-in route.

completely make sense but I also hope that it's still able to work across uh you know it doesn't get too into one brand I guess like I have to specifically have a Bosch or a kitchen made stove or something to experience this because we had other products like that get bought up by uh grill companies like there's so many cool smart thermostats and then true

I can remember the iDevices, they sold off theirs to, it was the iDevices, iGrill. iGrill, yeah, to Weber, I think. Yeah, they sold to Weber, which has nice, great integrations now with that. I think you can still buy and use it with other ones. Yeah. But I do hope that something like this sticks around and gains or retains that compatibility with multiple devices.

you know, options that are out there. And I would, I would love to see this being like an easy way to start adding stoves into Apple home, the room matter. Like you said, this is very early. No one's really. Okay. All right. So are you guys part of, are you guys a CSA member organization or have you looked into it at all?

MS. We're not a part of the organization, but yeah, I am – I personally am looking at it, especially because we're already on the technical committee for UL for some of the regulatory standards that exist for the appliances themselves.

from a hardware perspective. And so now it is interesting and I would like to be a part of the conversation for the broader context of what this means for the smart home. Because at the end of the day, all of these appliances will have to integrate in some way digitally for consumers to make the most of their appliance experience. And so not a member yet, but maybe soon.

Nice. So tell me on the specific, like the Apple side of things, what are you guys doing with Apple assistant? Is that one of the voice assistants that you guys directly support? Do you have, this is kind of still coming, but do you guys have integrations into shortcuts app intents with, you know, the voice assistant kind of deep reaching ties into the app? Um, what about like widgets for standby mode? Can I have, you know, put my iPhone into a MagSafe charger in the kitchen and

have a timer on the left and my stovetop on the right and you know quick easy support like that what kind of things do you guys support and how do you envision that could work with as with Apple's you know rumored smart display hub thing so

So that all sounds amazing and I would love to do it all yesterday. Right now we are not, we don't work with HomeKit. I mean you need like specific chips and you need like a specific software set to be able to work in that ecosystem. For us, just getting the product to market and we are, we do work with Alexa and so you can have, we know how to make voice control happen.

The next step as we look at Gen 3, and because there's a lot of architecture that has to change even on the electronic side to allow for these kind of integrations. I do think that as HomeKit gains more adoption and as we look to expand our reach that it is an important integration to have. But again, to what I said earlier,

A lot of that really, for me, as I evaluate the paths forward of with the appliance manufacturers who we're going to work with, who are ultimately going to give us that scale, is what are they doing? And look, if it makes sense for us

to integrate and to offer that compatibility to then move them forward, I'm all for it, right? Because, I mean, the purpose of startups is to kind of change the status quo and to kind of move things forward maybe a little bit faster than they would otherwise. But I do think that a lot of it

for me is around what is going to make the most sense for us and our partners going forward. So, I mean, there are plenty of functions like you just mentioned of your appliances working together and timers and everything that you can do just so seamlessly that can make your kitchen experience

less stressful and much more efficient. But it does have to be a part of a broader ecosystem. And so that's where we're trying to figure out, you know, what makes the most sense. And like I kind of joked when I started, I would love to do it all, but it all takes time. It all takes

you know, effort and not just releasing something that works. It's does it, you know, provide the best experience for the end customer, especially depending on the functionality you have.

True. So I know we're not in the Apple Home HomeKit space yet, but something like Siri Shortcuts doesn't require any of those things. So, I mean, that's something you should be able to do because I see it with a lot of smart home products. Pawport, the little doggy doors, they have Amazon's assistant, they have Google Home, and then they have Siri Shortcuts to allow that integration. Sure. And by adding it into there, because what I could see that would be really...

to me, to integrate shortcuts is pretty easy. It's a fairly simple integration to tie those in. But then you can take shortcuts and tie them into smart home automations. So my leaving home scene could run that shortcut that turns off my stove. That should be an easy thing. And I've pressed a lot of

Big companies on why they don't even support shortcuts. Because I understand, like, a smart knob is not specifically, you know, an Apple Home thing yet. They don't even have support for the appliances, even if you did. So that is far away. But adding...

Siri shortcut support should be a much it's talking to me. I said the word, I did it. No, every time I say some of these words, I have to like maybe quiet down a little bit. No, you're right. You're absolutely right. I think Siri control would be a natural fit, right? You know, you can say, hey, Siri, you know, turn off burner one or whatever. And you're right. It doesn't have any hardware implications. There's no different chips we need to use. And I think that is a stepping stone to kind of breaking into Siri

the HomeKit market. And to be fair, we have had quite a few customers, especially recently, ask us about HomeKit integration, about Siri controls. And so, yeah, that I agree is a much easier effort than something more extensive. So, yeah, we can certainly look into that. So what I'm hearing is that everyone who listens to this episode should get on their computers and write an email. I know.

Okay, what about widgets? Because widgets, again, they're not tied to any smart home platform, and I'm not talking about like an actual home one. Widgets just for your home screen, because if they're on your home screen, they can easily be added into standby mode, which makes them a perfect kitchen companion.

And yeah, and to be honest with you, I never even thought about widgets. And that's actually, I mean, and I use them for other apps. And so I think that's, and especially something that you kind of just want to be able to quickly access and not have to go through, you know, several screens and flows to get to what you want. I hadn't thought about that, but it's a, it's an easy thing for us to do. Yeah, I think that, because then there's your groundwork. I'm just saying. For sure.

Here's what you get. You get widgets done. And then when Apple does eventually launches hub, I think it's a lot of the, a lot of our assumption that a lot of this device is going to be basically running versions of widgets from a standby mode. So if you already have, you know, widgets and some of that groundwork done, you could have immediate integration into Apple smart home hub.

When it launches, which would be fantastic to see. That'd be such a great use case for the kitchen. Yeah, I agree. And I love being proactive and kind of setting, like you said, setting the groundwork, right? For that when it does come out that we're already kind of ahead and not playing catch up. So no, it's a good point. I hadn't thought about it.

There we go. Well, anything you want to leave us with? This was, this was awesome. I, we get, I love cooking and kitchen tech. Like I have so much kitchen tech. You make me a smart coffee maker and I'm going to buy in 30 seconds. Just, just going to happen. Yeah, no, I mean, yeah, it's, it's been a pleasure to be on. Um, and yeah,

know i i'm the reason i'm always excited to talk about anything cooking but but generally even you know the news this week of how the smart home is evolving and um beyond just convenience and you know we're taking into account you know safety and security and you know solving real world problems and i think that's becoming a bigger focus and when you do talk about the kitchen it is really one of the last frontiers for smart home innovation um and so i'm excited to hopefully see

the appliance industry adopt matter and embrace more proactive safety features. And we're already a part of the conversation, but hope we're a bigger part of it.

I know. I don't mean to, like, stroke your ego, but it was such a great spot to pinpoint because we are just now getting these big appliances that are finally moving to matter. And you can't have a retrofit solution for your fridge to be able to add matter to control temperature. You can't have a retrofit solution for a dishwasher. And the number one thing that's going to be dangerous is your stovetop or your oven. So this just, it was that perfect spot to...

come up with something here that adds convenience, adds safety. We're still early and I'm very excited to see what stuff you add. I'm excited to get widget support and for there to be a version that will work with my stove. I've already put it out there, so I don't have a choice now. But no, me too. Now you're committed. Yeah, it makes all the sense. And I think it's the way the industry is moving forward and we want to be ahead of that.

Awesome. Thank you again. Anyone, if you want to learn more, I will put links for OM down in the show notes so you guys can check it out. You want to go over pricing a little bit too, just really quick there. What are these costs, especially if people have to get

four or one? How does that kind of break down? Yeah, so we do sell them in packs. So you can buy one, you can buy four or five or six. One, we sell for $129. And then every time you add one, you get a bit of a discount. So four is $399. And as we scale production and as we

you know, work with, you know, industry partners is really trying to bring that price down to make it accessible to the mass market. I mean, you know, it can get expensive and we understand that. And, you know, we are trying to work

in the places where we know can bring costs down for us, which means we can bring costs down for our end customer. And then hopefully, eventually, like we've already discussed, this just comes in built-in with every stove you buy and it doesn't really cost you anything much extra because when you think about an integrated solution, you're taking out a lot of, I mean, you're stripping this down really to the core functionality and then putting it in the range. And so eventually we'll get there too.

Yeah. Honestly, I don't think the price is crazy. Like it does get expensive when you're swapping out four burners on something. But if you compare it to something like a door lock, which is a similar motor that is, you know, opening, closing your throw, $100 to $150 for a simple retrofit door lock is also not crazy. So I think for what it is, I don't think it's a bad price. It does get expensive. But for safety or convenience, some of these things, it's hard to argue with. I'm happy doing like...

my one burner, like my main burner, my front left one, you know, that's my favorite one. Yeah, exactly. So I think that's an easy way to do it. Everyone's got their favorite burner. Yeah. That's everyone does. But awesome. Yes. I'll put that in the show notes. Uh, actually to thank you so much for joining. This has been great. Thank you for talking through the news and everything with me as well. Uh, you were very prepared and I was very impressed. That was awesome. I loved it.

Thank you, everybody, for listening. Go watch the video version of this. You can actually see the actual OM itself if you don't look at the website. You can go to youtube.com slash homekitinsider. Otherwise, it gives a 5, 10, 100-star rating on your podcast player of choice. We'll see you guys in the next episode. ♪