Find My Wallets, Leaked Upcoming Apple Devices, & Brilliant Makes a Comeback
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Welcome everybody to another exciting episode of HomeKit Insider. You've got me, your host as always, Andrew O'Hara. And joining me this week, I'm pretty psyched. We've already been just chatting for a while and we needed to like kind of focus up and actually get into talking about the smart home stuff. It is Ryan Okimoto, but we're just going to call you Okie because that's what everyone calls you, right? Just Okie. And...

And Oki here is the, I've already forgotten the whole title, Senior Director of Customer Engagement at Brilliant? Is that close? That is correct, which is fancy talk for I wear about seven different hats and my boss didn't really know how to classify me.

So that's just vague enough that I can dabble into everything for us from customer success, project management and employment, sales, training and education, beta testing, webinar deliverer, kind of the Swiss army knife for us. So that's where customer engagement, or I should say, yeah, kind of lives in that sense. But it's fun. I'm going to know more about the company in that way.

For sure. I've spent so much time. I used to run a training department. I did digital marketing. I ran digital marketing departments. Worked on development side of things. So I feel like all of that kind of comes together. So it's a really fun spot to be at. That was kind of my niche before I started doing the whole reporting on tech stuff thing. Which clearly is just not nearly as fun. I mean, come on. Yeah.

I mean, it's pretty fun. It's pretty exciting. I mean, I have, not to brag, but like eight different magnetic wallets sitting on my desk right now. I mean, who else can say that? I certainly do not have eight different magnetic wallets. I'm still an old school classic leather wallet right here. I mean, just consider me an old fart in that sense. I still have my old wallet. Okay, but you have a tracker in it.

Do you have a tracker in it? No, no tracker. But here's where I'm a little bit weird and people think I'm crazy. I am a naked phone user. No case, no nothing. Yes. Thank you. Somebody else in that world. My friends think I'm a sociopath. Like, aren't you worried? I'm like, no, it's just steady handed.

I've done really well, except for one time. One time I was going through a drive-thru to get a coffee, and they asked, like, I needed to use Apple Pay. And this was before they started having the sticks to stick out the window. And so they had to, like, take my phone to tap it on the inside. They dropped it. They dropped it and cracked my screen, and I was like... Sons of bees. I don't even know what to say right now that you just dropped my phone.

What can you say in that situation to the... I know. I mean, you can be a giant dick about it and start huffing and puffing, but I was like, it's fine. It's really okay. I'll take care of it. I got my iced coffee. You got your iced coffee. There you go. Priorities. Priorities. Well, we have a lot of news to talk about. Well, not a lot. We have a good amount of news to get through this week, and then we're going to talk about Brilliant. Brilliant has always been...

One of my, like, pet products that I love so much and partially a little more niche, a little more of an install situation to do versus, like, plug-and-play products and partially, like, the higher price tag and everything. I never saw that many people with them. And then the company went through some turbulence, and now they've emerged. Things are going well, it seems. We have second-gen products out. So I am really, really excited to talk to you about all this. Yeah.

We will get to that second half of the episode. I'll be able to pull back the curtain a little bit for you, not entirely, but kind of give some of those details around what was going on and everything that's happening now. But I know I'm very excited with the way things have transitioned because I've been with the company six years. So saw maybe a couple missteps, saw the new direction, and we'll be able to talk all about it.

Awesome. Perfect. So everyone get excited for that. But first, let's talk about the news for the week. Starting off with just general iOS 26 or Apple operating systems 26, because there's a bunch of little things happening throughout. So first, there was like, this isn't specifically smart home related, but we've seen references now to a screen size for an upcoming iPhone, likely the 17 Air. Have you seen the dummies for these yet, Oki? I've not seen the dummies. So that's the first one outside of the phone. Look at that.

It is wild. Honestly, I love the minimalist feel and experience. Just a single camera, it keeps the... Like, that's going to fit inside my pocket. I mean, we're going caseless with this, right? Exactly. Oh, you can't not go caseless. You have to go caseless with that. I'm going to be so tempted by this phone, for sure. But I've always been a pro user, especially for the camera features alone. I've always gone pro. But this thing is just so cool. It's going to be really hard...

Not to kind of step down because this is going to be under like the 17 Pro and Pro Max. Now, with the screen size, can you hold it back up for that comparison real quick? Yes. Yes. Because that's a big – so it's still in size, about the same size there because over the years, they've always jumped bigger, smaller. What's more important? How do they want to have it finish and everything? I like –

I think for me personally, I like the bigger size. I know my wife would definitely want a smaller version of it because she's been more of a minimalist. She wants to still be able to fit it in her clutches and in her pocket. But I like what they're doing with that because I'm on a MacBook Air right now. As nice as it would be to have some of that extra processing power, most consumers like myself, I'm not using it to that level. So the fact that we can get something like this makes a lot of sense. Yeah.

I'm pretty stoked on this. Like, I have gotten so many comments on my videos of like, who's even asking for this, dude? And I'm like, everyone's going to want this one. Like, I personally think when this is out and people pick this up, everyone's like, holy crap. Like,

It's just insane. And I think people are going to be really drawn to it. I think this is going to be the big heavy marketing push for Apple. So I think this is going to be cool. And resolution that leaked here, and it was either iOS 26 or 18.6. That's also in beta testing. But...

One of those resolution leak that's kind of lining up with what we've seen. So this is slightly larger than the 16 pro, which for anyone who was watching the video, that's what I was holding up against. So 16 pro versus this guy. So slightly larger than that phone, but no, it's just so thin. It's, it's gonna, I think it's going to hit a sweet spot. And for those of them that are like, who would actually want this? Um,

I get caught in this myself. So I'm in San Francisco Bay Area and I get caught in this little tech bubble. And a lot of the friends I have are very techie. And then I'll travel for work or I'll go somewhere else and I'll be talking about something that I think is very normal and regular. And they're like, what? Huh? And I have to pull myself out of the bubble to realize not everybody is up to date on all of these things. Not everybody is following to that same level. It's like a

oh, they do still need to hit the masses. Like your audience, the people that are listening and watching this, of course, they are absolutely like involved in technology. They're on the latest and greatest. But I'm thinking more of like, hey, my parents, what are they doing? Or my non-tech savvy uncle. Like they still have iPhones and stuff. This is gonna, like it's gonna target them a lot more.

They're going to feel like they're getting the best iPhone, which is going to be like the second tier up. I guess a middle tier. It'll be right in the middle if you're counting like the 16E or if there is a 17E in the spring or whatever. But you'll have like a 16E, 17 that's going to look exactly the same. Then this radical new thin design and then two pro models on top of that. I think this is going to jump up that ASP a little bit to this middle tier phone level.

That's going to really appeal to people. I'm almost worried that there would be too much choice. Like which one is the right fit? I don't want them cannibalizing their own options, but it's almost, I kind of attribute to like the Costco effect. If I go and buy ketchup, give me one ketchup, maybe two. I just buy a bunch of it as opposed to going to the store and I'm like, and there's 17 different types. Like I don't want to see, you know, five, six different iPhones personally. I just, here's one, two, three or one, two. That's all I need and I'm good.

That's true. But maybe there'll be, now that there's going to be like five in the lineup, everyone will just go right to this one. It's going to be right in the middle. It's not too expensive and too extra, and it's not the cheapest one, and it's right in the middle. Are you Goldilocksing it for him right now?

Yeah, I think that's what it's going to be. It's a little golden. I mean, for them, I'm sure they're hoping it's the Goldilocks phone. True. Time will tell. I think it's a cool style and design that definitely caught my eye because I hadn't seen one physically like that yet. So I have a buddy that may or may not have some insights into that, so I'll have to reach out to him and be like, hey, do you have one of those? Let me take a peek.

Well, also in the source code, we saw a new reference to Apple Smart Home Display. I know people are getting tired of me talking about it because literally we've had nothing to really talk about. No hardware, no announcements, nothing official. But it's little pieces keep coming along, and this is giving us an insight into the display size of this thing. So a new image has been found in iOS 18.6, Apple logo 1088X.

at 2x for home so that the home is referencing a new display or a new product type here it's not ipad mac anything like that this is a new product type uh that 1088 at 2x we're looking at a screen resolution of 2176 pixels wide and for like comparison i do happen to have one of these two sitting on my desk that's basically like ipad mini size here so

Okay. So it's going to be roughly this. I was about to say that's a lot of numbers, and to someone who's not super into the resolution side, like, oh, okay, that's a good comparison for reference. I think that's a perfect size for this because it's not too big, not too small. You can see it. We don't have to go into all of the rumors and stuff again, but, hey, we're getting closer. Seeing more code references, that just means it's working. I get excited by it. Yeah. Yeah.

We also saw an actual new feature coming. This is something you can try now if you're in the beta train. HomePods are getting Crossfade support with iOS or HomePod software update 26. So it's not the full DJ mix thing that's going on on iPhone and iPad and stuff, but it is at least still Crossfade for Apple Music subscribers. I love Crossfade. I hate when the music completely stops.

and there's like a whole pause and then another one. Just that little crossfade is better than nothing. And I'm surprised it took Apple so long in general to add it on the phones, but now we're getting it on the home products too. No, it's really good to have that. Now, have they made it available to do an adjustable time, like 1, 3, 5, 7 seconds on that? I think so, yes. Okay, good. Yes, I think it's a slider you can get at from inside of the home app and adjust that duration of crossfade.

Gotcha. Because I know I personally am a Spotify user. Once upon a time, I got bundled into FreeHulu with ads. So I'm like, oh, now I'm stuck with this for Spotify. But I have some friends that are big Sonos users and they say the lossless or I think it's flack, the lossless capability on Apple Music is just far superior. So they're big into the whole Apple Music world. And I'm sure they're going to love to hear, oh, Crossfade's in? Fantastic. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm very happy they added this. I use Spotify for a little bit, and I do get jealous of the codes, the Spotify codes that you can put on things that'll spin up a playlist. I think those are cool. One of the brands I like is Tentree, and they do a shirt with a Spotify thing on the back to pull up a playlist. I don't know. I just think it's cool. I know you can do this in other ways. You could literally just do a QR code, and it's similar. But I just think the fact that...

Spotify made these specific ones that you can scan in Spotify. These are really cool

product tie-in, like brand tie-in for them. But yeah, I've been Apple Music basically since like the whole Apple One came out because then it doesn't make sense to keep paying for it outside of that. Yeah, it really wouldn't now. With the HomePods themselves, I've only loosely played around with them. I am just digging a little bit into my history. I used to work for Sonos for a while, so my house is littered with Sonos everywhere, so I haven't actually had a need to play around with the HomePods, and I was always waiting like, I'm

I wanted more from it. I wanted more from it before I actually made a leap, and I just have never made that leap into the HomePod world. I'm sure you've had probably great experiences with them, though.

I mean, I have a lot of Sonos. I'm all in on the Sonos soundbars. But yeah, we have a lot of HomePods around the house. I've talked about them so many times on the show, but I love having the HomePod minis as the speakers for an Apple TV and using them in the bedroom. So our bedroom is so minimalist because we have a projector that goes on the wall. So we have nothing in the room, no TV that takes up space. And then when we get into bed, we can turn on a giant TV.

100 inch screen that's not too bright and then we have HomePod minis right behind the headboard on either side so you still get like stereo audio or spatial audio and it's not too loud to worry about like waking up the kid or anything like I think it's such a great setup so I do like that. Now you're just rubbing it in with that type of experience. 100 inch screen in the bedroom you said? Oh I mean it's the projector. We have like one of the Samsung projectors and it goes on a giant wall across the room. It's fantastic. It's literally the entire wall. How did you get spousal approval for that?

Um, well, originally I don't think she wanted a TV in the bedroom because they do take up space and our bedroom is also not ideally. So it's really like long, like it's a long room and we can't really put the bed anywhere else because of like window placements. And it's so narrow that our king size bed couldn't go on either of the two other walls. Like one has a closet, the other one, it would block the entrance to the bathroom. So we really only had one wall that we could put the bed on.

and then you have like three feet maybe from the foot of the bed to the wall, if that. So there's no room to put like a TV there. So I was like, well, we could just project her, and it doesn't give any space. The downside was that no pictures can go on that wall. So that's a little bit of a downside. Gotcha. Didn't mean to derail that. I'm just like, well, I need that idea for my house. How do I get my wife to? There you go. That's how you pitch it.

It just looks so clean in there, right? And if the pictures are a deal breaker, you just need the dropdown, right? And then here's what you do. You get one that works with Apple's assistant there. So you can just say it's bedtime and it'll turn off the lights. It'll lower the screen, turn on your Apple TV. You got your HomePods back there for the control anyway. You're good to go. It's all the automation we need. Now, if only there was a piece of hardware that Apple was coming out with.

They were leaking images for. Well, those images, they actually reminded me a little bit of HomeLink. You must be familiar with HomeLink, yes? Yeah. Yeah. So the interface reminded me a little bit of that. So I personally hope it gets cleaned up a little bit because if I'm trying to get into every home that's like for me, yeah, I can navigate that. No problem. But I'm always back to that spousal approval. What can I get my wife to use? Like that's the biggest thing.

around the technology in the home because I'm lucky enough. I have like all the gadgets and gizmos in here, like lights, locks, doorbells, thermostats, speakers, shades, garage doors, plugs, security. I got all that stuff. But I have to get approval from my wife first before putting anything up, which is also why this is up right here, which works great as a background. But that was a wife's request. She was like, if you get to do the tech, I get to do the design. I was like, all right, fine.

I really like the backdrop too, so that looks good. If only it didn't have that ceiling fan in the mirror. That's the one thing that this isn't a fake background. This is an actual background right here. Nothing fake with that.

But it goes back to Brilliant, right? I mean, you guys are offering physical controls for smart products, which is like that has been Faith's requirement from day one. It's like I don't care what smart stuff we have as long as there are physical controls. So I don't want XYZ that can only be controlled with motion or something like that. There's got to be a physical way to be able to control it. We'll get to that. I don't want to jump too far. I know that's on the list of things.

Okay, let's keep plowing through the news. We have things to talk about. So a new GE Sync bulb. This is a clear bulb. This is their first retro filament A19 bulb. I think it looks really good. I don't know if you clicked through and saw the image of this, Oki, but it's got like a double helix twisted. I was about to say TNA double helix. Yeah, literally. It looks really, really cool for a filament bulb. It's also full color.

which is nice. So you can do like the whites and like those bar vibes that look great, but you can also do like ambience lighting and colors and everything like that, which is, it's becoming more common on the clear filament style, led smart bulbs, but still a little, little uncommon, but also a couple of things here, matter enabled, which is great works with Apple home. Uh, but it's also only like $18, which I thought was a really nice price for that. Uh, 60 watt, 800 lumens, uh,

18 bucks for a filament style bulb like this, like direct matter, like no hub needed. Like let's go.

I see that working well for the stylistic light fixtures in kitchens, like above islands, things like that. Because, you know, homes that have a lot of natural light, you're not going to have those lights on all the time. And to have something that still catches your eye with that shape, I think makes a lot of sense. I think it's a really cool light bulb, just from a stylistic standpoint, let alone the functionality side of it.

I'm like, great. And I was digging a little bit deeper with that. I'm like, GE, okay, that's powered by, I believe, Lutron on the software side. So it ties into all those systems. But that made a lot of sense. So I'm curious to see people start to get it and put it into their homes. I know, and these are available. It's going to make a lot of sense on those white levels.

These ones are available right now through Target is like their launch partner, which I thought was interesting. We had Nanoleaf was doing launches with Walmart and now GE Sync is going through Target for these. It's not even available on Amazon or the GE website yet. It's literally direct through Target.

I wonder if that's like an initial launch exclusive to try and build the hype and the customer engagement around that. I mean, you see that kind of commonly if they have a preferred partners like, hey, it's limited release for the first month or two, see how sales are, and then it's opened up to the masses. I feel like that's common, especially in the retail space. But Target's an interesting partner because they generally haven't focused a lot on smart home devices. It's not necessarily my destination if I'm looking for that. But

Whether they put it in their electronics section or maybe the Chip and Joanna Gaines style and design section because of how it looks, like that's a whole other story. I'm excited just to have like an affordable matter-connected smart bulb hitting retail, like full-on big box stores. Like those types of things I feel like are going to really help progress matter and like these newer standards into people's homes. So I'm pretty excited about that.

Well, it's interesting with – I like that idea because there's similar visions of what like a smart home is or is going to be. And in time, I'm a firm believer of the idea that we're not going to call it a smart home soon. We're just going to call it a home and the expectation of technologies is just going to start to be there. It's like if I was to go out and buy a new car, I wouldn't say, hey, check out my new smart car. You'd be like, why the hell is he calling it a smart car? That's dumb.

It's just your car. We expect it to be smart now. But the home with all these devices becoming more ubiquitous, that's where this is going and pushing. So it's good to see retailers starting to pick up on that. Like, yeah, this should just be a standard offering that we can have and make available for everybody. I agree. Now, this is not going to connect with you, with your Luddite leather bifold wallet that you've got there. I still saw it, and I still saw it, and it still intrigued me. Yeah.

I think it looks great on the back of a naked iPhone. But this is Nomad's new MagSafe wallet, and it took them how long now? We have had MagSafe wallets for years. Now, they did integrate Find My, which is why we're talking about it on the podcast. So that is a great step. To me, it's just a little simple in terms of feature set. I just wanted Nomad to do a little bit more.

but it looks really, really nice. So Horween leather comes in this rustic brown or black, decently thin there.

We're going to get about five months battery life on this. You can see the back, if it'll focus if you're watching on the camera, but it has the little Nomad logo in the middle. So what's nice is there's no logo on the outside of it, like outward facing. It's just the all brown. Then you have a Nomad logo on the back. There is a little button as well on the back, and it's actually highlighted so it's easy to see. You can press it to activate it, connect it to your phone. Literally pops up with pairing like any other Find My item adds to the Find My app, so it is trackable, all that stuff.

I did actually a whole video that came out just last week, when you're listening to this Monday or later, where I had a bunch of Find My Enabled wallets. So if you're curious, you can go check that out. But I had the Ridge, which is right here, has the AirTag, actually connects on the back. There's the ESR wallet that has like a kickstand and a little finger loop into it. The Apple wallet that kind of half works with the Find My app. Then we have the NavWallet.

from Bullstrap, which is most similar to the Nomad one. And then, of course, the Nomad one that just came out. So I love all these. I...

I had a good wall for a while. I had like the Nomad one was like the normal bifold one that I had, Oki. But I just love the idea of like being able to put it on the back of my phone and never having to worry about it and like just going as minimalistic as possible. And the find my stuff has become a necessity because I always worry about taking it out. And especially when you have it on the back of your phone, like that's even more so versus in your pants pocket. But yeah,

just worry about leaving it somewhere, anything like that. I don't know how you go around without having a finder in your wallet these days. Like I'd always misplace it before.

I'm still the old like tap the pockets on each side. Where do I have it? Have I placed it all? I have my three spots where I would leave something, so I generally don't have to worry about it that much. But in trying to get more minimalist, that makes a ton of sense and to have it on there. Now, here's a feature, and I don't think it does it. You can correct me if I'm wrong. I'm not sure any of them do it. So you snap that on. Great. Cool. It's excellent. It's sleek. It's perfect.

When you're charging it or your phone, you still have to take that off to put it on to charge your phone. Are there any that actually have the pass-through to be able to say, hey, I can leave that on 100% of the time so I can throw it on? It's not only, of course, charging the wallet itself, but also my iPhone. Do any of them actually have that feature? Because if not, make it, and there you go. You have a customer in me right away. I don't believe so. I think I heard rumors of something similar, but...

If I did hear it, I probably shouldn't talk about it. Or if I made it up, then I don't want to get anyone's hopes up. But I did think I hear about something a little bit similar to that. But yeah, that's a good point. I've actually, so I literally, I thought about, like I almost want to invent a little device because I get in my car and I have a car charger. I use the ESR car charger because it gets so freaking hot. I want one with active cooling. And there's only like two or three on the market that I know of that have ESR.

active cooling to bring down your phone temperatures while wirelessly charging and navigating. So I always have to take my phone off and put it on or take the wallet off and then put my phone onto that. So it's like, what do you do with this in the car? And I'm almost like, I need a little like clip for like my visor that has the reverse mag safe magnet that I need to put there. So like that way I know where it is. I get in the car and I snap it there. Like that needs to be a product of,

for when I get in the car. Inside, it's not a worry because we have a little valet there by our charger. I can just slide it off, stick it there. I can also find it

But when I'm in the car, it is nice to have some place to put it. It's a dedicated spot. So I'm like, I almost want a little thing to snap it right there so it has a spot to hold it and I don't forget about it. So do that too, someone. In my car, because I'll put in all the amount that attaches to the screen. Great. So now my phone's up beside my screen. But even for just the charging rate, put it down. And now I'm thinking, God, how spoiled have we gotten? I must have a cooling device to go on my phone as it wirelessly charges. Yeah.

Ugh, jeez. It has to be active cooler. I don't just want a fan. First world problems require first world solutions. That's where we're at at this point right now. Now I'm thinking about other things I could do to cool my phone for any of that wireless charging because, yeah, it does get nice and toasty and be nice to have something that's a bit more convenient in that sense. Yeah.

We could be on to something here. So for any of you listeners that, I guess, are very hardware engineering tech savvy in that sense, make something up. I've got a friend in China that can make one quick. Yeah, get in touch. Oki and I will send you our addresses for some beta testing. No problem. Yeah, without a doubt, we'd do that. Okay.

We've had a lot of good news, but there is some bad news in the smart home industry this week. Google TV division has been hit with some pretty massive layoffs. So the division lost about 25% of its 300-person workforce. On top of that, they are moving some of the people over to their YouTube TV division, which is always a little bit weird, right, that they've got...

two very separate divisions kind of working on stuff. Like Google TV is like the OS that runs on many televisions as well as set-top boxes and projectors.

The actual Google TV box that was just sitting off a frame, it was redesigned to compete with Apple TV. And apparently things are not going well. I mean, they upped the price on it, killed off the Chromecast brand in effort to really focus on the Google TV streamer and that whole vertical. And not great to hear 25% of the workforce gone. And they're also moving to a two-year cycle. This isn't brand new, but they are moving to a two-year cycle for the platform instead of a one-year cycle. So...

I don't know. I never like to hear those things, especially when another one of my favorite products is Apple TV. I'm like, I don't want to hear anything bad about the TV industry because I want more resources put there. And I know tvOS often gets overlooked. So I'm hoping Apple keeps really investing into that space and we're not seeing anything happen on Apple's side similar to the Google side.

No, I doubt we'd see anything on the Apple side. It's probably the opposite. I think Apple is probably going to continue to lean into that experience. I hope so. Yeah. I mean, one thing with Google, like their experiences can be really, really good. But what I've kind of seen in the smart home space, it doesn't always feel like they're fully committed to it.

it, which is kind of frustrating at times. I know specifically as it pertains to the CI and custom integrator world with Google Nest, it was there and they were partnering with a whole bunch of home builders and then they kind of took, I forget what it was, one of the integrations away and they said it was for security purposes or something like that to rework the software on the integrations. It was third-party integrations tying in. That's what it was. And

And then they lost a bunch of business and a whole bunch of home builders were mad. They're like, oh, no, we're going to bring it back now. So it almost feels like at times it hasn't been a full strategy of theirs just because they're so huge and they make so much money off their search and their ads. And this is, you know, one small sliver of their entire massive how many billions of dollars that they make. But it's kind of hard to hear that because I feel like they have such great ideas and there's such great talent over there to build these experiences.

And then for it to be like, nope, sorry, 25% of the workforce is gone and we're going to reassign all these other people. It sucks to hear that and see because I feel like that – what they offer can be really good. Yeah, and it'll – I mean Google strategy half the time seems to be like –

really announce something with fanfare and then quietly kill it not long after if it is not a runaway success. And honestly, Chromecast and everything has been around for a while and I guess it's a good thing that it has lasted as long as it has with the way that Google swings its axe. So...

I mean, probably because they have so many – like so many third parties are building off of Google TV. The projectors, the TVs, the other streaming boxes, like all of that are running off of that. So that would be a pretty big deal if they just like –

Ended it and just offered like a Chromecast streaming plugin thing. I mean, Chromecast has become such a standard for a lot of people and it's a very familiar technology to them that I'm sure they see all the usage by people of when they're Chromecasting, what they're Chromecasting to. And they're probably seeing a lot of, you know, consumer usage within that.

It's just a thing that makes the most sense for them because, I mean, I remember a time when I was trying to explain to people like, hey, you don't have to dock an iPod onto this player to play your music. You can do this thing wirelessly. And people had such a hard time grasping that concept. Now it makes sense, but...

I think probably Chromecast is that same world of they just have so many users that use it and something that's so familiar with them that they're not quite ready to swing that big Google axe on that yet. Big Google. Big Google axe on that yet because people are still using it. I mean, heck, I have devices that I'll still use that on, which kind of works with my old non-4K TV, but it still has Chromecast. I hang on to it. It still works. It's a great TV. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Also, we have some news out of Signify. So Signify is the parent company that owns Philips Hue brand. And they have announced that they're going to increase some prices. This is the part of the episode where we have bad news. And we'll bring it up at the end with the brilliant talk. You have a little bit of time. This goes through July 1st is when the prices start to go up. So if you are listening to this...

on Monday the 30th and you were like, man, I really want to buy some new hue stuff. Maybe you do it. Like if you see a good sale or something, maybe perhaps pick something up. I know prime day is also coming, but what's harder here is they have not announced what the price increases will be or, or what, like what,

What products will be affected? I think there are two new products that we just saw will be unimpacted. So we talked about last week the new V3 smart button and the Philips Hue wall washer. Both of these are already suspiciously more expensive than their EU counterparts. The wall washer is 10% higher than what it costs in the EU. It's at $220 here in the U.S. and it's equivalent at $200.

in the EU. And then the smart button V3 has jumped up to $33 in the U S whereas the V2 was at 25 bucks.

And I believe in the EU, the V3 button is also the same price as it was before. So we saw kind of price increases on both of these things already. So I'm sure they're left out of this, but everything else could have a price increase. And they say prices could change at any point based on how tariffs change. So it's not a lot of confidence in which way things are going to go based on trying to predict prices.

What is going on with the tariffs? So I mean, that's such an unpredictable world. Unfortunately, I mean, go impulse buy because this comes down to the 30th. You have a day. Go find whatever sweet deal you can to get it in there. But I'm surprised that I haven't seen more announcements from probably similar companies in that space, you know, in the same thing, because they're all going to be affected.

Yeah. We talked to Nanoleaf and they did a ton to try to plan for that. Like I talked to Jimmy Choo when he was on and they are literally lowering a lot of their prices because they were able to try to make changes and plan for this. And luckily it was like good for them, but they always had pretty high end products to begin with. And I think they're now branching out with some like lower cost items and some other different tech that they're doing. Yeah.

So, yeah, I'm not surprised that they had to increase, but I'm surprised more haven't. I know Lomi, have you seen the Lomi? I've not seen the Lomi ones. It is not a light. It is a composter, but it's like a smart composter, and I love it. I have the Lomi Gen 2, and you can put, like, anything in there, like any of your food scraps, and you can turn it into reusable, healthy, plant-ready compost. Huh.

in as little as 12 hours, but like the grow version of it, like for gardens, they recommend about 24 hours, but it literally only takes a day. And it's crazy what you put in and how gross it looks compared to what comes out. And I swear by it. I love it. I put it into our gardens and our gardens always do amazing. But they did announce that they have their new V3 model launching and they're increasing the prices of their filters and their little pods thing that go in there with the enzymes or bacteria. Yeah.

for the garden stuff. So even their stuff is going up. So I'm starting to see more emails of price increases from tech brands. I think it's starting to settle in and we're starting to see it happen more.

Yeah, it's just kind of the reality of where we are. And if they're able to kind of maximize any opportunity before the price increases, whether it be tariffs hit, hopefully there's no profiteering going on. Be like, hey, we're going to blame it on tariffs and just raise the price even if they weren't expected. Yeah. Because every CEO is wholesome and definitely is going to do the right thing and not try and maximize their profits for their shareholders. For sure. Story for another day. Yeah.

I know. And I'm a pessimist that says it's not going to go back down once it increases. It's just going to stay there. I'd like to believe that they, in their heart of hearts, want to get it into every single home because I, like you and probably most consumers, I'm always looking for a good deal. I'm already trying to populate a very short list of things that's going to turn long for Prime Day.

Where there's a deal to be had, I always want to try and get it. But, I mean, for Philips Hue, it's the name for these lights that's out there. They were the... I remember years... When did they first come out? Over...

Oh, man. 12, 15 years ago? Something like that? Yeah, that was one of my first videos I did on my personal YouTube channel. And I had a stupid number of views on that video. Like, it did crazy well. And it was very unprofessionally shot. But it really took off. I mean, I had one of my coworkers. He got it, and the bulb was like...

He said that for him specifically, the failure rate was a little bit high. But I mean, it's the first generation of the product. Now there's these things, they're colorful lights and there's an app. You can change the color. I'm like, this is utterly amazing. Like, why isn't this everywhere yet? Or how did it take so long to make this product? But even still today, I'm just like, why don't more people have this stuff? This is so much fun. Just be able to like I had a we had a party the other day and in the back had I have a LIFX bulb.

So I like Lifex just because it doesn't have a hub, which was really nice, but it still ties into everything that we do. But let's change the color, a little strobe light action, play to the music. I'm like, man, this just kept the party going a little bit longer. This was what it was all about. So to see more of that, I want to see more of it. But hopefully with the competition that's there, it might have them change their mind on the price races. But...

Yes. It almost feels like a little bit of a race to the bottom, which might be good for the consumers because the quality will reveal itself among the different brands. But just getting the devices out there, I think, is what's more important.

I agree. And I have a soft spot for these lighting companies. And I really like... LIFX has always done some really cool things. Nanoleaf has done cool things. I like that when they're doing something that is different. The GE Sync Ball, I have been very pessimistic about the Sync brand. For the longest time, they didn't support Apple Home. And they just did Google and Amazon. And I'm like, that's not... Everyone does that. How are you even... Other than the fact that you're putting the GE name on something and just throwing your weight around, you have no...

There's nothing unique about this and you're leaving out one of the biggest, even though Apple Home is not as big as Amazon and Google Home are, it is still a huge amount of iPhone users and stuff that are out there.

And it just really rubbed me the wrong way. I'm like, you guys are just being cheap because you don't want to pay the licensing fees to do it. And then they finally get on the matter train and now they have some really actually unique products. Like these new filament bulbs are cool and they're under cabinet lights that I use that are matter enabled are fantastic. I will recommend those to anybody that I see who is looking to like add some lights to their kitchen. Cause they're so, so good. But, um,

Yeah. Signify has some really cool stuff. I think their wall washer looks pretty slick. Yeah.

Yeah. No, if I was to put on that corporate hat thinking to your point of like, hey, why are you doing this and not with Apple stuff? I'm just like, I guarantee you there was a project manager somewhere that's just like, I need more time. And execs are like, we need revenue. Blah, blah, blah. And there's always that push and pull and give and take. And as a salesperson, I can say, oh, yeah, engineers can pull this off no problem by this date. And engineers are like, what are you talking about? There's so much more that goes into this. And I'm like, oh, okay.

I'm sure that conversation was had 10 times over in their circle, but at least they've gotten their act together now because UCLs are very fun to mess around with, especially because they're usually in the kitchen. And that's like, yeah, I have a little more fun with under cabinet lighting that's in there. For sure. And there haven't really been any super solid ones. Until the GE Sync ones, like Nanoleaf and I'm trying to think of all that, like Hue, none of them really had their own version of that. So this was a good...

a good one to try out. It's been more specific, like, oh, we'll just do some strip lighting underneath. That's not a true UCL. Yeah, exactly. That's what I had before and I took out for these under cabinet lights. Oh, good for you. So I'm like, for these specific ones. Yeah. They like dangled...

a little bit. They didn't, like, quite stay up all the way. And then they were very narrow. Like, it wasn't diffused at all. Like, I had problems with them. But they were functional. I mean, that's getting crafty around the house is really what it ends up being, so. Yeah. Yeah. And every other house I go to, I'm like, how are your cabinets? Like, it's so dark. Like, half the time your lighting is in the middle of your kitchen, and then you're standing at the counter. You block the light to, like, whatever you're doing. I'm like, how does every house not have...

Any UCLs installed. They're so necessary. Excuse me. Sorry, I forgot to mute on that cough. No, I have that exact same experience, but my home was built in 1951, so I don't have the right necessarily electrical placement, let alone is all of it to code, and the answer is no.

So I've looked into some options and I haven't found one that makes sense for me. I'm not sure I'll be able to actually pull off the UCLs. I might have to do some strip lighting and finagle some wiring from somewhere else. But I'm just like, I have that same struggle of like, hey, and I'm chopping garlic and let's make sure I don't cut my finger off while doing this.

Hey, I got real into messing around with the actual rope light strips and how you can literally run them and power them and extend them with spliced Ethernet cables and all those different adapters that you can get out there. I made...

I did our pantry and I did hue light strips hidden behind the wood facade that I built around. And then I had to, I literally took one hue light strip, ran it up, then I split it into two at first, one to go down like the left side. So I had two down the left, then it went across the top of the pantry and down to the other cabinets on the right hand side. And I split it again,

there. So I took one hue light strip and like one little controller and then ran essentially four, four foot light strips off of it just with some ethernet cable that I, that is impressive. Tinkered together. So you, you can, you can get away with the light strip and then if you can hide, you know, an ethernet cable, you can get it to the, where it needs to go. Like you, you can, you can get something done.

Yeah. No, the next level for me would be trying to hide one of those through here. They make these now that have those light strips included, but I got to figure out a way to just say, all right, I want a little bit there, a little bit here, just give it some accent. That'll be, you know, again, spousal approval, but that would take this backdrop. I love the wall. The wall looks great, folks. If you're watching the video, let Oki know how good that wall looks because it's pretty nice. It's literally just the acoustic panel vertical flat wall that you see everywhere. That's trendy. That's all that it is. Don't be that impressed.

but it looks cool. I like it. It does. Okay. It does.

we got to talk about Brilliant, their new second-gen control, all that stuff. Before we do, let me take a quick break. Thank our sponsor for the episode. He doesn't love them. We've talked about them so many times on the show, and there's a reason for that. It is Shopify. And fun fact, literally, I was briefing the whole account of the episode, and he was like, oh yeah, we Shopify too. Like, how many tech sites use Shopify? And he was even telling me more new things I didn't even know about it, which I love. Like, I've talked about so many Shopify things, and I keep learning new reasons why it's such a cool platform. But

Let's give you guys all the high-level overview just so you guys all remember why Shopify is great. So it's great for everyone, whether you are buying from a Shopify site or you are making a Shopify site. If you are selling things at all, you can just get up a Shopify site with no work. You don't have to know how to code. You can just get it up super easily. You can sell digital items, physical items, online.

whatever. And if you have a little, little retail store, like we're downtown, like this little cute little walkable area and there's all these little stores and they try to do online websites, but then you have to worry about like managing your inventory between the two or ship to store situate all these types of things. No Shopify does it for you. So you can literally have that shared inventory between your online and your physical stores just makes it easy.

Plus, you're worrying about products or technology, whatever. How much do you want to know about things like shipping and taxes and all of that kind of stuff? No. Again, Shopify handles all of this stuff for you. And then it can grow as you go. So if you start small, great. But if you are a bigger company...

Shopify can scale with you. And if you're doing really weird things, I bet Shopify has something that can help you get what you need done with a little bit of extra coding to make it happen. So that's why we see companies like Brilliant, 12 South, Nomad, Allbirds, Rothy's, Brooklinen, like all of these sites are using Shopify for a reason. Plus the site experience is fantastic and they have a really good converting checkout, which is exactly what you want to hear when you're selling things.

They make it easy to buy stuff. You can use Google Pay, Apple Pay, Shop Pay, which is really cool. Like you literally click into the checkout and then it's like, oh, I know who you are. And then you get like a two-factor authentication code on your phone and then like your Apple computer automatically fills in the code for you. And then you're just logged in. You can click one button to pay without having to do anything. Like they make it really easy to do.

Then your order is kicked over to the shop app where you can track it. You can leave a review. You can find other stores and products that make sense. They use AI to help find other stores that are based on what you buy, which is my favorite place to look for finding gifts for people around the holidays because it knows what I like, kind of cool, bougie, unique items. And it's like, hey, have you heard of this? I'm like, no, I haven't, but now I want everything that they sell. They also have all the... I didn't even know this, Ogie. They have like...

loyalty rewards in the shop app for people too. So like you can literally like get points and then buy things on Shopify sites with it. So like my wife has been doing that and she got all these great deals on the aviator nation, which is like her new favorite clothing line. So there's so many things. And I, I love seeing in the real world. I just said last week how I, I spotted my aunt, we were hanging out at the mall and she was like at a store and then she was looking those products up on the shop app.

and just buying them. I didn't even know you could do some of those things, but it's so cool to see these brands going through shop and ShopPay and Shopify and all of that stuff. So if you have a business, you want to turn your big idea into a successful business, do it with Shopify on your side. Sign up for a $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com slash homekit, all lowercase,

Go to shopify.com slash homekit, shopify.com slash homekit. I'm legally required to say it 15 times. It reminds me of that episode. I don't know if you ever watched 30 Rock, but... Not enough. It was such a good show. But there was like one random episode where they're like, why do you keep saying whatever carbon and porium? Because I'm contractually obligated to say...

this name five times and he just keeps saying it randomly throughout the episode. It was such a funny little callback. That's what I feel like as I wrap up that ad. That's a throwback to the old radio ads and the statistics shown. You need to hear it, I think it's like 14, 15 different times for you to actually remember what that phone number is or what the website is. Oh, it's shopify.com slash homekit. Slash homekit. Yeah.

But actually, I want to say, yeah, so I listen to a fair amount of podcasts. And usually when it cuts to an ad, like you can tell it's a separate recording and all this other stuff. But dude, that was really impressive. You seamlessly went into this uncut, like, oh, yeah, we're gonna take a break for an ad. And you just run right into the ad. I was still here the whole time. It wasn't like a separate recording that you're gonna drop in. Like that was that was impressive.

Thank you. I do think that I like more naturally engaging ads that aren't as...

like you said, they drop them in and then you're like, oh, I've heard this exact ad every single week. Mine aren't the same. I don't remember what I said. So we roll with it each time. Conan O'Brien needs a friend and they're always laughing. Like, I listen to that one all the time. You can tell. Like, oh, that's just an ad that's dropped in. But I still like how the host is talking about it. But dude, you rolled that off flawlessly. So good on you for doing that and Shopify got a keeper in this one. Yeah.

Love it. Okay. Let's talk about Brilliant. Yeah. Let's start a little bit. You talked about you worked at Sonos beforehand, but give me a little bit of your backstory. Why should people care about you and how you got to Brilliant and where things stand now? They shouldn't. I am just another person that's out here in the tech world that has worked for the companies that have been around it. No.

I've been in this space for about 15 years with Sonos back when they released the Play 3. So I think that was 2011. The fall of 2011 when they released that. Spent a bunch of time with them. Went over to the Wi-Fi startup Eero. They pulled me out of it. Yeah, I was with Eero for about two and a half, three years. From, I guess that's 2016 to 2018. Late 2018. Yeah.

around there. And then I knew some people over at Brilliant. I'd seen them at trade shows. I'm like, wow, that's a cool product. That's something like tech and gadgets and gizmos and things I can look, touch, see, feel. I'm like,

It's something I'd want to be a part of. And sure enough, had some conversations. There wasn't sort of the right time, and I was still very much building what we were doing at Eero. Then post-Amazon acquisition, I was with it for another three months, and it just, the big corporate world wasn't for me. So I still had those contacts, like, hey, let's try and build something else with another hardware startup. And sure enough, here I am still, six years later, after that initial conversation. But yeah.

That's kind of where I come into the fold for kind of technology and how I stumbled into Brilliant was really what it is. Saw it at a trade show and was like, that's cool. Had some good relationships and then it just made sense to come on over. That is really cool. I remember, so Eero, another of my favorite products. They are currently the routers that I'm using, even like they have the new outdoor one, which is great. But I remember meeting them back at DubDub. Like they had a party there.

across the street from the Moscone West Center in San Francisco. How long ago? Do you remember what year? No, I don't remember. I want to say 2016 or something because it literally just showed up in my Apple memories of when I took a selfie because they had the building across the street with massive WWDC up there on the wall. But it was not far from the Moscone West Center. I walked over there, and I had never heard of this company before.

They were launching routers and like their setup experience and their app and everything were like just crazy cool and new at the time. And yeah, I worked with them for a while until the Amazon acquisition. And now, you know, I still get PR stuff from them every once in a while. So they're still doing good things. They seem like they've been able to silo themselves a little bit at Amazon because I was very, very worried about having Amazon touching my internet and like,

You know, still always like that little bit of like paranoia going on about it, but I think they've done a good job. I can send you some tinfoil. We can just start making some hats if we want. Yeah.

We'd have matching hats with our matching Solo AirPods and our naked iPhones. Us combined together would work out well. Yeah, because the – I joined in 2016 over there. That was – they were still in the building. I'm not sure how familiar you are with the tech layout over there now, but Slack ended up buying that building. So they had to move. They were essentially right –

I'd say not even a block away on the same street from the new Salesforce tower that went up at the time. It's not new now, but we watched the Transbay Center being built. We watched Salesforce tower going up. I actually was walking by one morning when they were hoisting the last piece of glass up and they had the news crew for all of it. Like, this is what they're like...

All this money and all these years, and now we have a giant phallic building that's there. Hooray. Great. So I remember all that. But no, that was a great company. And again, it was all about simplicity. So I kind of gravitated towards how can we take technology and make it simple. Sonos did that for multi-room audio. Eero did that for Wi-Fi. I like to believe Brilliant's doing that for smart home control systems is the whole idea behind it. Yeah.

That's why I've stuck around to really grow this thing into what I hope it can be and get to be a household name. By no means are we a household name yet, but we snuck into your place and at least you have a good affinity for it.

That is true. I do have a very good affinity for it. So let's talk about what happened a little bit. What can you tell us about, you know, essentially from the outside, the company cash problems was more or less shuttering, but they were keeping things running. Servers were running. Nothing ever went dark while they were trying to figure out next steps. And then there was some purchasing going on and the company came back out and

We now have a second-gen product that we're going to talk about. There is a little bit of a pivot, in my understanding, of focusing more on direct-to-builders, installers. There is still a consumer side, but you guys have pulled off Amazon, so you can still buy through your Shopify site. But there is the direct-to-installers and everything that you guys are catering a lot to. What else can you tell me about that story, that saga? You went through it, which must have been...

you know, scary, a little bit of what's going on. So yeah. Yeah. So I mean, it's depending on how kind of you prepare as a person for life, it can be scarier or less scary. Thankfully, um, you know, I just kind of frugal person. We prepared for the worst case scenario. Like they always say you have three to six months of savings. Like,

Great. Wasn't worried about all that stuff. So was it a tumultuous time? Yes. But kind of pulling that curtain back, like I'd alluded to, the original owner was also the founder of the company. Really great guy. Really smart guy. I've been doing... I'm sorry? Was it Aaron? Yeah. Aaron Amey. Really smart guy. He's been doing Silicon Valley startups and companies since, I think, the late 80s, early 90s. I don't want to date him on age and everything like that. But it was...

From my seat, it felt like his baby, which is, of course, his right and what it was supposed to be. I think the problem there in light of he I felt like he wanted it to be all things to all people. And that's just from my vision that maybe that's true or not is another story. So, for example, you know, we were sold sold in retail.

Amazon, BestBuy.com, HomeDepot.com. We're also selling to professionals. So the CI integrated, we were selling to builders. We're also trying to sell directly to security or maybe we're looking into energy efficiency. And it just felt like we weren't really maniacally focused enough on what the product and our customers were telling us.

And really what that is, our customers were a bit more B2B2C as opposed to B2C because on the retail side, though it was great for the brand and the image of getting our name out there, oftentimes people weren't comfortable with electrical in their house. Like I was a big tech person before I came to Brilliant. I didn't know anything about electrical. And when I was installing it in my house, all of a sudden now I'm thinking like, oh, breaker panels. And what if I short this and I don't have power? Like I was a little bit worried.

let alone to have a home where maybe the electrical isn't up to code, like my home was not up to code. So I think retail was, you know, something we had to explore as a company. It just didn't end up being the right place, which is, you know, partially why things didn't quite turn out as expected. But there was clear value in the brand, clear value in the experience. You know, it was

the best thing that it could have done was kept all the servers running. So like you're involved in the news, you understood what was kind of happening behind the scenes. But if I was just an everyday person, I would have had no idea that anything was happening with Brilliant as a company because I could still set up a system, I could still control a system, I could still add all the integrations. To your point, the servers were still online and everything was still functioning. So that was key to the brand and the experience because a lot of the partners that were all

And once they heard like, hey, there was a new acquisition, new ownership group, they're like, oh my God, thank God. Because one, they obviously didn't want to double back to all those homes that they'd installed Brilliant in. But two, they were like, we were looking around to your point of trying to find someone that does what you do in your price point with your experience.

And it really didn't exist for the simplicity, the functionality, and everything that Brilliant was able to offer. So that's why there was a company or private equity group that came in, snatched up, and really just got us more focused on the core product and experience and focusing towards the professionals now.

So you can still get us directly on our website, which is powered by Shopify, which is great. But no more Amazon. I think our Amazon store is still up, but there's no product that's available. They just haven't taken it down. But a true commitment to the professionals.

of, hey, let's get you more margins. Let's work on programs that help you with builders. Let's really be that elevated experience that's not going to break the bank like some of those premium control systems that exist, which are always amazing systems, but also still a bit more than your standard Apple, Google, Amazon type experience that the tech savvy people like us, these listeners would be able to set up.

because it's kind of still this, I say, DIFM world or do it for me type of world where, hey, like I can definitely do this. I know how to do this, but is it worth my time? Is it worth my effort? And, you know, how is that going to play out? So that's where we're at now as a company. We are more focused towards the professionalization

professionals, we're gearing things towards them. Not to say you still can't get it, not to say you still can't add it in, which kind of leads into the second generation of product, which actually looks the same, installs the same, configures the same. So if you wanted to add it into your existing system, Andrew, no issues there. What you'll realize is that the experience, the tactile experience,

it's much snappier. Now it's designed for this kind of next generation of, you know, integrations of software, it's AI chips that are inside. So it's ready for matter, which we can talk about a little bit. Um, it's all those different pieces that are setting us up for success for the future have come into this. So, um,

Looks, it's the same. Configuration, it's the same. But now it's going to be more responsive like your iPhone is as opposed to your iteration where it's not necessarily lagged or slow, but it's not quite that next level of snappiness and responsiveness. So that's a lot that I threw at you right there. Pulling the back, I'm sure you got a couple of questions and happened to answer them.

Oh, I do. So the new product is really nice. So I've had it installed now for a couple weeks. And this is my old one that I'm holding up. And this is a perfect comparison for people watching the videos because we can see some of the differences. So first, like on the install side, look how much thinner it is.

The new one is. So if you're watching the video version, I was trying to block mine out, but it is a lot thinner, which is great for the install. Cause mine was a little tough originally because of how much space this took up in the actual wall panel. So I'm, I'm so excited that the back has slimmed down a bit from where it was. So that is better than before.

So we cheaply actually released that a little bit ago. See, I had that idea. Yeah, I know, I know. So our integrator was like, wait a second, this looks different. Like, wire's the exact same way, but now we have these lovely pigtails, and we include the little wire nuts at the end, as opposed to with the original version trying to finagle that wiring, which is not always easy to do inside of the back of the gang box. Yeah, just love, love, love, love the pigtails and how it's shallower, which makes it a lot easier for those guys. Yes.

We cheaply released that a little bit ago, but the Gen 2 is more on the beefiness on the hardware inside of here. Yes. So, okay. At some point, it got thinner, so that's already a big deal. I don't know when this also happened. You can fill me in. There is now a physical mute toggle on the back of this because that also isn't on mine.

So that's specific for the Gen 2 product. On the original one? That's not on the original. That's on the Gen 2 product, and that's specifically to meet the Amazon requirements for all their security purposes. So that is now part of what's built into it. So that's a really cool piece on the mute. For all those people that are a little bit worried about privacy, security, now it's a physical thing that you can just disable. We could always disable it in the software, but now it's, hey, here's a physical thing to put people's mind at ease even further.

Yeah, because that was always a problem with a lot of Amazon products because they would require to have...

It's in there, and it could never be fully disabled. So even though I wasn't using Amazon's Assistant, if it ever thought it heard the key phrase, I would still have a smart speaker spin up. And I'm like, I'm not talking to you. And it's like, you need to sign in. I'm like, no, I don't. I don't want to talk to you. Go away. So not that that happened with this one, but I do like that there's a physical switch to just...

Cut that off. We don't want to use it. That was actually a software update that we had because I know on flashback to 2018 or 19 when we brought in the Amazon integration into Brilliant, it was a – if you didn't log in, you just set up the product, you would say her name. I'm not going to say her for people that are taking it home and have her live.

Mine are always muted. But it would say you need to log in. And then we actually built in the feature to be able to go into our settings and disable the microphone to listen. So that way you can say her name and it's not going to like you need to log in or anything like that. Yeah. So there's been different layers to it over time. I actually liked how we brought in to where it actually automatically added the skill to her app.

So when you enabled it on Brilliant, it already doubled back to the app. I didn't have to go into the app and add our integration into it. I'm like, oh, okay, sweet. So again, little bits that make a more seamless experience over time through the software updates, which are great. Yeah. So,

So it also has a, aside from the processor, which is a big notable difference, like it is so much quicker to do stuff. It feels just lightning fast. Like it feels very responsive and smooth. So great improvement there. The screen resolution also, what, four times higher than what it was before? So, and here's what's actually crazy about it. The screen always had that capability, but it was actually the processors because we've been using similar processors since about 2019.

I think we made an update, I want to say maybe 2019. Don't hold me to that. 2020, somewhere around there. But because the process that we're using just weren't, I'd say, beefed up enough,

beefed up enough to be able to do everything that Brilliant was doing and handle all this extra stuff, we changed that. So with the new AI processors, now we've been able to get that full capability of the screen that's been in there all along. It's almost like a hidden feature in that sense. And now we're just tapping into that potential that it always had. So the 4x better resolution, it was already pretty darn good on some of those photos, but now your ugly, stupid photos that you upload look that much uglier and stupider, which is great.

Okay, well, I have a question about my ugly, stupid photos. Because my wife is a photographer. I take a good amount of pics in general. Why can't we do more photos? That is the one thing that I constantly run into of like, oh, you've reached your limit of I don't know. I don't even know how many it is. But they're not even all displayed. But even if they're just uploaded to my account, it seems so...

And I have to go through my, Oh, I don't want to delete these cause they actually look really, really good on my wall switches, but I want to upload new ones. Um, cause the kid was cute this month or something. And I have to like make tough decisions on which ones I delete and re upload and stuff. So like, what's the deal with the limit on photos? So I, I gave you two answers. The one is the, uh,

answer is the, I'm with you on this. I've been singing like, we need to have more photos on here. We need to make it a little bit easier to delete some of these so I can like mass delete as opposed to pick that one, then delete, pick that one, then delete. Uh, cause I'm, I'm the exact same way. I want to have to just, I don't have to delete the photos to add more in. Cause I hit that 50 limits super, super fast. Um, you know, and, and so I, I'm still preaching, I'm still begging, um,

There's things that are on our whiteboard of like, hey, what could we do with this screen? What are people like you requesting out there? Is there something that we can maybe invest in that would make sense to fill that need and that gap beyond just, hey, maybe we add a higher limit? So nothing is off the table right now. I can't pull back that far, but you get the idea. So that's one side of it. Then the stupid, boring corporate business side of it is like, okay, Andrew, we do that. We get more features. Would we sell more brilliant because of it?

We might not. And so for us, the engineering resources that we have to dedicate are going to be put more towards integrations, more towards those features that will truly, you know, hey, that's something that we missed that our clientele is asking for. That's going to drive revenue. So there's the business side of it that's like, okay, we're going to dedicate the engineering resources to integrations and features that will definitely give us more revenue. And then there's the selfish side that's like, but this is really cool and I want this. Like that's...

This site needs a little bit of love and a little bit of massaging. So I hear you on that front. But actually, if you went to our support site, support.brilliant.tech, there's a contact us. And you can actually put in your feature request. So if we see enough people doing that, whether they be the professionals or the end users, we'll start to build it. That's actually how we decided to do the garage door integration.

with Genie or the overhead door company and so many pros and people like this is great but I want to get my garage door this is great but I want to get my garage door we saw enough that and we're like hey we should we should build this integration sure enough we built it and we got more revenue from it which is fantastic so your voices can be heard or you just shout out in the comments here and like however you want to do it like the more feedback we have our socials find LinkedIn

I think we're going to do Facebook, Instagram. I'm not the social guy. I don't know if we do the TikToks. God, I'm old. Sorry. Yeah.

My apologies there. But no, like that's the candid feedback that we want to hear to make the product experience better. Because something that I am also asking for beyond that, that I see on great products like the Aura smart frames, those digital frames, like they can do videos up to like 30 seconds on there. I'm like, God, that'd be cool if we could upload like short 30 second videos now.

no idea. What if you take live photos and then turn those into a GIF or a short video and display a live photo? Oh, you're a GIF-er, not a GIF-er? I'm a GIF-er. I am. It's a soft G. I'm a hard G. I'm a GIF guy. Now, I gotta go with the creator. He made the word and what he wanted it to be. No one's following proper English, you know, uh,

I see the peanut butter JIF for GIF, and then if I see GIF, it's got to be GIF for me. But that's a great feature that's something we should look into. Maybe it's on our whiteboard right now. I'm not in that room to tell you what is or is not. But Aura frames are dope frames. I got them for my parents, my aunt and uncle, and my in-laws, and I'm always uploading photos, and you can upload 30-second videos.

Like, why not make it for us to do a 10-second video or something like that? That could be something that, hey, if we hear that request and now with the beefed-up processors, we would be able to support. So I'm definitely not going to say never, but I don't have a date of saying, yeah, this is the time and this is the release that it's going to happen. Okay. I like it. Everyone needs to go do that so I can have more photos and videos. Yeah, you and I both. I'm on beta testing here in my house, and I still don't have it up here.

Sorry, we're really sticking to this point. But I like to put up ones that are seasonal. I'll have a group of photos up that are seasonal. So I have a good set of winter photos that look so freaking good on those plates with the time and everything. And then I have to completely delete them every time because I can't store enough photos when I want to add more. So it's like, come on.

It can't be that much storage space for photos, and 50 is so small. I guarantee you, people aren't uploading, like me, high-resolution DSLR photos. They're probably going to be 12-megapixel iPhone shots. Hey, we were just talking about how great the iPhone photos were now. Come on now. Don't disparage those new iPhone Airs.

they're shooting on HIFE so their format size is going to be tiny it's fine you got the server space for it so keep banging that drum I'm going to keep banging that drum as well and stay tuned in that sense

Okay, let's talk about what I really want to talk about, which is, to wrap this up, because we have been talking for a while. So let's talk about the big topic here, which is matter and thread. I love this product so much, and I see so much potential in it.

but it seems like such an arduous route to have to do individual integrations with every single brand and company. And while that works and you have most, all of the big players integrated into that, I mean, even some of them are extra confusing because like Lutron, you have to go to do Lutron. You have to go through smart things. So you first have to have smart things and then add Lutron to smart things. Then go to your brilliant and add smart things, which adds your Lutron. Like Lutron,

Sure, professional installer route is going to get that stuff done for you, but it just seems like several steps to do it. And I know not even Lutron is in matter yet, which is part of the problem. But to me, this is a controller. This would be perfect to be able to see...

my Matter devices on there and to be able to control them. And you can't even do that directly through Apple Home. You can only do it with a Matter controller. So, you know, what's the story with Matter? Where are we on that kind of road? And even like similar technologies like Thread, you know, we have a second gen device here. I would have loved to see a Thread border router tech developed

built into there. What can you tell me with Matter? What's going on? Sure. I can tell you that in the original iteration, we were a part of the Matter board. We were involved. It was originally built into the roadmap. At this point, where it is right now,

It's on the roadmap, but it's kind of been on pause. I know we were actively hoping for a better update on their most recent push because I think it went to 1.4.2, I think. And we were hoping for a 2.something to have that full-on better experience. So we're actively monitoring the progress of Thread because I've messed around with it a little bit just in other devices. And kind of what I've seen in the industry is still that –

the experience you get on one device or platform is not the same across the platforms. And that kind of, I guess for lack of a better word, instability across experiences has kind of limited us to be able to deliver it in a reliable experience. And when we do those integrations and partnerships directly with those companies,

That's what delivers the rock solid experience that lets Brilliant shine as a control platform is the whole idea. So it's our software engineers working with the other company's software engineers, verifying the experience. Those companies have a vested interest in us because they know their products are getting experienced by our platform. Like Sonos is a perfect example. Very tight partnership with them because they see, oh, hey, you know, Sonos, if I open up my Sonos app, you know, I can't control Sonos remotely, which sucks. So if I've left the house, I don't know if it's still playing.

Well, Brilliant's on the homes of Wi-Fi. I can open the Brilliant app and control that. So because of these types of experience that enhance the partner products, at this point, it makes more sense for us to have those direct relationships with those companies. So I don't see that stopping at any point in time.

I think where Matter comes more into play is the kind of mass device operation and kind of I alluded to earlier, race to the bottom. All these devices of different quality are being brought into the market. And some of them are fantastic quality and others are one of the cheapest parts that we can buy to throw something together. And the reliability and the experience isn't there. So we are actively monitoring. We're always keeping our eye out. And when Matters kind of reached that more stable point,

then we're going to bring that into the fold. Because for us, we're still a growing company. We're not that household name. And if we were to bring an unreliable experience into the market, that's not going to help us sell more products and generate the buzz that we're looking for. So I think once we see that two-point something release with Matter and we start to test that a little bit deeper and we see the reliability across all those different products in the ecosystem, then we'll probably delve deeper into it.

Bless you. In addition to that, too, there's just basic end user experience programming coding the EasyBDON to say, hey, if I have a smart propane tank, what's that icon and imagery going to look like for us? So how do we make that user experience match those devices that now everything is connected? I use propane tank. What was the smart connected device you mentioned earlier? It was... Lomi? Lomi, yeah. The...

food, uh, composter, composter. Yeah. Like everything is becoming a connected device. So how would Lomi appear in brilliant? Does that make sense for it to appear in brilliant?

What are the updates I'm getting from that product or device? And if we start to break that, that get really nuanced across all those different things. So what's going to be that right user experience that gets you the information that you want without being overwhelming to all of these different things that all these different products can offer. So definitely we're still on the pulse of it. We're following it closely. I see a world where we definitely bring matter in. It's just, you know, I don't think that right time

it's the right time for us as a company to necessarily do that. It's easier. It's easier for homes that aren't in the Apple home space. Like once again, like, you know, Apple is put so much into privacy and security and that has been moved over to matter. And now with these third party integrations, having to go through connecting the systems, which can require cloud communications and all this kind of stuff, it's,

it's extra steps. It's cloud reliance. Um, and you have to buy products that work with brilliant, which is another box that you have to check off of, Oh, it needs to work with Apple home, but also with brilliant, um,

To get to that point versus buying something that works with matter and you know, what's going to work with Apple home. Like I have pick a level lock on the front door. That's matter and thread. I have a lot of Eve accessories, light switches and stuff. I don't have to have a Levitan one or,

trying to think of the other brands that you guys would directly support, but none of them are necessarily the ones that you do. So, so many of my products, you know, cannot be connected because I am so in on Apple home, uh,

And anything in the last few years is a lot of them has moved over to Matter. So, like, there are some, but then it ends up being such a piecemeal system with so many logins and connections that it ends up being so much more of a headache. And I just want this to work. And I know it's extra effort, but I really do believe, like...

If people have Matter stuff, which is a big if, but they have to also have a big if of do they have this product and it has to also work with Brilliant, but if they can just buy something that works with Matter, it would work with Brilliant. That seems such a more streamlined, easy-to-do setup. And then I can have my Ice Maker.

I can turn off my ice maker through this, through my brilliant switches. Like, because I have a Govia ice maker that works with matter. Connected ice maker. Like, everything is becoming connected now. It's insane. Yeah, which is super useful because I actually have it part of my goodnight scene. So I tell my home goodnight and it turns off all the lights, locks the doors, turns off the ceiling fans, closes the shades, and it's like,

and turns off the ice maker so you're not here in the middle of the night, like, ice crashing down as it's going through the thing. Yeah, it's not doing that. So, like, I love that it can do that, and then that turns on early as part of a scheduled scene, and then I still have, like, a good morning scene, but the ice maker's got to turn on early, so that way when you wake up, you can get that sweet, sweet iced coffee in your veins. I know, I know. But yeah, and then, like, there's two different things, too, because it's not just it does not matter, but

Thread has its own extra benefits. So there's, I do think the new version of Thread 1.4, which is different from Matter 1.4, right? But the new version of Thread that even Apple just added to the Apple TV fixes one of the biggest problems with Thread. So this could have been a little bit what you alluded to before of there was like those different experiences. 1.4 and Thread solves that problem

where you'd have multiple thread networks throughout your home. It has the credential sharing so that way if you are running like a Samsung smart home and you're running also an Apple home thing and like all these devices, they can all share the same thread network automatically and just have one thread network on your home that's way more robust.

But, you know, these things are perfect for border routers because they have constant power and would easily be able to extend your network without even having to try. So I feel like Thread, again, a natural benefit to the smart home

Even apart from matter, even though I know they're often combined together. I would look at it this way, though. So for all these devices to work, what's the consistent that every single home has that is generally very, very robust? And that's a Wi-Fi network.

So with the – like Eero's, they have that built in. All your mesh systems have that built in. That is kind of the backbone of the connected home space. So like whereas we don't have that, I don't necessarily put that on us to be the – like the key router and foundational piece to it. We're just the extension of those different things. I think the routers have the responsibility to do that. Not to say that the devices can't. Or that a regular thread router can't.

So a border router combines your thread network to your home network, which Brilliant could do. But they can just be a router that extends your thread network to make it more robust. So first off, I do have an Apple TV in the living room, which is where the front door is. But...

For those that don't, they put a brilliant switch in their entryway, which is a perfect spot for it. You walk in, it's got the time, the weather as you're leaving. You can see your photos. It's perfect. Guess what? It can also be that Thread router to bridge to your Thread lock because Thread for a lock is perfect. We just had Nuki on last week, and they're like, oh, we get so much better battery life with Thread. Yeah.

Because Wi-Fi for a lock is terrible. Honestly, the low battery is probably the best thing about Thread. Yeah. Like, especially in the smart lock world.

And we have a lot of shades are also now switching to thread because what are your other options? Wi-Fi with garbage battery life or Bluetooth Zigbee, something like that. Lutron has done an excellent job with their proprietary connection stuff, but then I have a lot of Eve ones. There are smart shades. There are smart wings or something. A bunch of different ones. None of those directly integrate into Brilliant, but their thread, no matter. Mm-hmm.

No, it's definitely something that for us as a product does make a lot of sense for. I can't reveal too much, of course, but because we're wired directly into the wall. But that being said, what we are actively talking about and how it makes sense, and this is jumping a little bit ahead with it, but we are going to be releasing a PoE version of our product. So now when it comes to Blink, yes, so just like those shades can be powered over PoE and still have all that connectivity capability, right?

is going to be having that same thing as well. So if you're not comfortable with the electrical, great, just thread an Ethernet cord to wherever you want to put it. So we have that. That's very cool. Yeah, but tying it into the network, I...

Just like Matter, I see a world where Thread makes a ton of sense. But I feel like the routers... Like, Brilliant's not going to work unless you have a great, robust Wi-Fi network anyway. And the routers are doing that piece. Now, to tie to some of those other devices, 100%. Yeah, if it's right there, like, I'll just turn and show you. I have my Brilliant control right there. And it could tie into the smart lock that I have right there as well. Like, hey, now I have my low energy, and it's great. And the batteries on that Yale-ish or two last that much longer. Like...

It makes perfect sense. So, again, these are the things that we have on the whiteboard. And then, again, stupid corporate hat. Well, if you put that in, you have to re-engineer the product and what does it mean to the factory line and producing it and the cost, blah, all that stuff that's associated with it. But from an end user and experience perspective, yes, I see a world where that makes a lot of sense to bring that into the fold. So TBD, again, on that side.

I can't give you all the answers there. I made it my life mission to personally market for Thread and Matter. I want to see it. And this is that product that is that controller that's everywhere in the house. And I just...

I see it as making so much sense. And it's one of those things that is the problem of like, oh, consumers aren't asking for it. It's because products don't have it. It's like, which one's going to make the jump first? And they don't know what they don't know yet or what they need. You have to tell them. Some of it though is a little bit, you know, you, me, this community, we're definitely very advanced in what that world is. But I kind of attribute it to like Wi-Fi 6 when Wi-Fi 6 first came out, which is,

Great in theory, but how many people actually got the benefit of it? Because you need to have the Wi-Fi 6 chip in your device. That was only the newest phones even today. The newest phones and computers only have those chips. Like my iPhone from, what, a year and a half, two years ago doesn't have that chip. So I get no benefit from Wi-Fi 6. So, again, we have to put these pieces in place and almost they're like,

Trojan horses within the product that's like, hey, it's there, it's prepped and it's ready. But once the masses start to adapt and more of these devices have it...

Great. Then we light it up. Now they're getting the benefit from this experience. So I see your point. It's just going to take time. You know, it's slow to adapt to get to the newest standards because if there's no need and the devices are still functioning fine, there's going to be less of a push to make that happen. But once we start to see those bigger companies, so not maybe the first movers, but the bigger companies that are the early adopters, that's when we're going to see a lot of traction to make the push forward to move this along. It's coming. It's definitely coming.

Perfect. I love it. I cannot wait. I'm still glad that we have new hardware, so that's still exciting. If anyone does want to add... Yeah, POE. We're showing it off. Cedia. If you're familiar with Cedia and that world, that's kind of the professional installer largest show in September. So we'll be making a more formal announcement, but we have pulled the curtain back a little bit there. So it'll be great to see all the things that are coming out for us.

Awesome. Man, thank you so much. We have been chatting for a while. I think we put a pin in this, and we're going to revisit. You're going to get that Matter integrations done, and we're going to come back, and we're going to talk about how great this all is. I love that. Perfect. You've been a great host. Thank you, Andrew.

Yes, thank you for hanging out. Everybody, if you want to pick up a brilliant wall panel, they come in like one, two, three, four. Do they do four? They do up to four switches. Yeah, perfect. There you go. The link is in the show notes. You can go pick them up on the brilliant website. Or if you're building a new house, just request that your installer puts them in right from the beginning and you're done. You don't got to worry about it. Even intercom feature, which you didn't talk about, but it's really cool. Talk room to room. So that's sweet. So anyway, check that out. You can have your motion turn on your Philips Hue lights if you want.

You can do all that stuff. There you go. Crazy stuff. See so many cool things, so many cool things and more still to come. And it works in Apple home natively. So you can control those switches through Apple home. So there is Apple home support, uh, for at least the switches. So check that out. If you guys have been on the fence about it, uh, links for everything else we talked about in the episode or down in the show notes. If you have any questions or any requests for brilliant, you can throw them up in the comment of the YouTube video. You can see it over at youtube.com slash home kit insider. Um,

Yeah, I'm not sure what's on store for next week's episode. I can't remember if I have a guest or not, so nothing to tease there. Oki, thank you again. Everybody else, we'll see you guys all next week.