Google TV Streamer Compare, Robovac Hacks, & iOS 18.1 Looms
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Welcome everybody to another exciting episode of HomeKit Insider. You've got me, your host as always, Andrew O'Hara, riding solo this week. I hope you are all having just an amazing start to your week. We are getting into the fall. Sports stuff is great. If you're watching the video, I'm trying to rep Cleveland as we're going deeper into the playoffs after that five rounds with the...

Detroit and all of that. It's been stressful. It is a time, folks. Not only that, it is like my son's birthday is this week. So that has been really fun celebrating him and all of his stuff that he has done. So it's been crazy. It's been a fun time. So I hope all of your weeks are

are also going equally as amazing. We have some interesting news to talk about. We're going to revisit the Google streaming device, Google TV streamer, that they've decided to name that for some reason. We're going to get to cursing robotic vacuums and more. So let's go ahead and let's start with that story of all of these, is the cursing robotic vacuums. Because at first I thought this was...

I just looked over it. But I just found it interesting enough that I wanted to talk about it today on the podcast. But here is what's going on.

Some people had robotic vacuum cleaners and they started talking. They started talking and throwing out expletives as they would just drive around their homes. And this is extremely concerning for a number of reasons because these specific vacuum cleaners happen to have cameras. So...

Digging deeper, it appeared that someone had gained access to the robotic vacuum cleaners were driving them around their home with access to the cameras and then using the onboard speakers to curse at the people who were in these homes.

The amount of privacy and other security concerns here is absolutely astronomical. So what is going on? What happened? How did this happen? All of that.

So from my understanding, there's no massive issue going on. If you own any of these robotic vacuum cleaners, they happen to be from Ecovacs. But I think what happened was that someone had reused passwords, something that we are all told not to do and yet not.

Many of us still do it for odds and ends. So someone's credentials had been compromised out there on the internet, and then someone got those. They learned one way or another that they had an Ecovacs vacuum, whether they were just trying all these on the list until someone was able to sign in, whatever. So then they were able to sign in to someone's Ecovacs account online.

through the app remotely, and then they were able to get in and start doing this stuff. And you're probably wondering, isn't there some sort of like authentication to prevent that? Well, apparently it does give some sort of like four digit pin code, but it's not verified server side. So you're able to, to get around this through the web. And apparently that's what they did. So

A couple things to be aware of. First, don't reuse passwords, especially for security-specific things. Don't use something that you use on social media or any of these websites that you're also using for a security camera that can drive around your house. That's number one. If you're using those passwords, go ahead and change them. I can pause if you'd like. Well, you can pause me while you go do that, then circle back because I don't want you to forget because that is important for anything.

Others, though, do require a little bit more of, like, control here for this. Like, for instance, I know Roborock, they actually require you when you're

turning on the cameras on the models that do have cameras. You have to actually go to the device themselves and hold some buttons down to enable this feature. So that way there's no possible way for someone remotely to turn this feature on. So if you do not want cameras, you can get robotic vacuum cleaners that don't have cameras that don't have the speakers and some that do have more secure ways of preventing those from being enabled.

Let's say you did enable them. Again, make sure your account is secure. That's the biggest thing because you can have all the security in the world. But if you're reusing a password,

someone can still get in. And that is the same thing, whether it's for a ring doorbell, whether it's for this robotic vacuum cleaner, whether it is for a thermostat, your bank account, all of those can apply. So just some basic password security here can prevent things like this from happening. It does sound like Ecovacs had some changes to make to beef up security because there are things like two-factor authentication and other methods to protect accounts that can be

be improved. And you go back to doing that. They say they have a new update coming out in November that is a more robust fix here. We'll prevent any of this from happening in the future. But these are kind of the things that we talk about when we worry about buying, I don't want to say third party, but buying other products that aren't native. And when you come to robotic vacuum cleaners, even the ones that are becoming native in Apple Home, they're

You still have the problem of like creating that account and the more robust features that are coming through that app. You couldn't use robotic vacuum cleaner, just an Apple home. Like you could turn it on and send it out, change the modes, but you're not going to see the map go room by room, any of those things. So there, there is needs for these third party apps. Just play it safe.

Ecovacs, Roborocks, Narwhal, Dreamy. I feel like a lot of these are fairly good companies that don't have a lot of security issues. When people are able to get passwords around it, who's knowing what they can do?

Next up, I want to talk a little bit about the betas. This is something that I'm, you know, very deep into. Like, I test all the betas as we go. I'm covering them on the Apple Insider YouTube channel. Plenty of stuff to talk about through the betas. And iOS 18.1 beta has been especially prolonged. It's been out for many, many, many weeks. I want to say months, but it's been out even before iOS 18 was released as Apple was testing Apple Intelligence.

And I know you guys know my pains that I'm going to go through because we've all experienced it, right? We've all dealt with this smart home where things are working great and then they're not.

And I wanted to come on this episode because I've noticed, for whatever reason, recently, my home has been spot on. Like, everything is so fast to respond. It's been great. It's been phenomenal. I set my good night scene and instantly I see my kitchen lights turn off, my living room lights turn off, the outside lights on our patio turn off, the porch.

porch lights turn off and closing all these shades, the door locking, everything feels like as soon as I say it, it happens. And I've been so thrilled whether that is part of iOS 18.1 that is helping improve these things, like whether it's like that command going out, I don't know. You know, maybe it's just a good hair day and the home wanted to start responding more rapidly for me. But...

Then I ran into a beta bug, which is completely my fault, right? This is what happens when you're running a beta on a daily driver and you're just hoping it's never anything to do with data loss. For me, so far, it doesn't seem like data loss, but it's been driving me absolutely bonkers for about a week now. But what I can't do is control my home with Apple's voice assistant.

Yeah, whenever I try to invoke Apple's voice assistant, whether it's through the button, through double-tapping the button, or saying her name, it fails. The new animation pops on screen, looks real pretty-like, and then it just goes away, like, really quick. And then I get a little pop-up that says...

The Siri information is being downloaded and Siri will be available once everything is downloaded, but that never gets downloaded. It's been, like I said, over a week now, still nothing, still no luck at all with this. I haven't been able to get anything to work. I have restarted. I have toggled Apple intelligence on or off.

All of that, nothing seems to work. It's driving me crazy. I just have not been able to use Siri at all for anything. I'm probably going to have HomePods going off now, so I apologize for saying that. But it's been something that's going on. So I wonder if anyone else's experience is. I've seen a few Reddit threads going on, but we're getting very close to the release of 18.1, which includes all of these Apple Intelligence features, including the revamped Apple Assistant. And it makes it a little bit easier to control your home.

My wife has this issue so frequently because she can never quite remember the name or the room of the accessories that she's doing because she feels like almost on the spot when she starts talking to the assistant and she'll fumble a little bit. So she'll be like, turn off the lights in the living room. I mean, the kitchen, turn them off in the kitchen.

and now Apple Assistant will be able to understand that. It'll understand that you changed your mind or had to rephrase yourself partway through, and I think that's going to make a big difference in controlling the smart home. I do it actually a lot of times with my sons. He has a starlight projector in there, and I have a weird name for it, and I can never quite remember the phrasing. And with Apple Intelligence, I've been able to do that much more naturally.

And I like it. It's a big upgrade. But I haven't been able to use it for the past week. I know other people experience this too. If anyone else has any suggestions, I'm hoping the next beta that will come out, whether we see one this week or next week, whatever, will solve those issues.

iOS 18.1 should be arriving very soon alongside like iPadOS 18.1, macOS Sequoia 15.1, all those major updates that deliver Apple intelligence. We look to see, so my guess, here's my prediction, if anyone cares, this is a little tangentially related to smart home, but I'm thinking we're going to get, you know, an Apple event the end of October. So like the 21st, 22nd, something like that.

We will probably either get one more beta, one more beta this week, and then the RC after the event or no more betas. And we'll just get the RC during the event. And then it'll be released about the week after that, like 28th, I think is where we're targeting and where German had predicted it would be. That's been my feeling. So that's what I'm going to go with. We're going to get one more beta this week or no more betas. Then we're going to get RC, the release candidate following Apple's event and

The reason for that is because Apple will usually include all the new juicy product details in that. So whether new Macs and new iPads, Apple has to build that in. They have to have like the new device identifiers, support for any changes on screen size and processors and all of this kind of stuff. Even just understanding the names, like when you ask like, hey, Apple, what device is this? And being able to respond back with which one it is.

Apple intelligence even helps with like understanding your devices. You can ask it how to do things and it can respond with step-by-step instructions on the, how to like send later and messages or to control your smart shades. So all of that is like baked in there. So they have to be able to update it with the device identifiers and all that additional information prior to release. Sometimes Apple takes an extra week to help build that information in before the release candidate comes out. But that RC is, is going to come out following the Apple event, almost guaranteed. Um,

Public release soon after that. So, hopefully all this stuff is resolved. Yes, I filed a bug report, as anyone should do whenever they spot a bug in any of Apple's software. It definitely helps improve things, makes it better for Apple engineers, gets more information, they can fix things, make iOS even better, which is what we all want. So, speaking of those things, I want to revisit a topic that we had on another episode about those ghost hubs, right?

where someone would remove a hub and then it was like, then re-add it and there was essentially two hubs

Apparently a lot more complex than it seemed. But before we get into that, I want to take a break. Thank our sponsor for this episode, ZocDoc. This is so funny, but there was recently a survey where they asked men what would they rather do instead of going to the doctor. And they said they would do things like clean their house, which is fine, file their taxes, change a tire, even get pulled over by a cop. Okay.

Okay, I'm not going to agree with most of those, but I will say that going to the doctor, I have put off more times than I would probably prefer to admit. And sometimes, pick a thing, pick a reason, whether it is not knowing...

What's going to happen? You're like, oh, I hope everything's fine medically. But at the same time, there's just the process of doing it. Okay, I have to call someone and make an appointment or I have to try to message them through my chart and you're never going to get a message back or you're going to randomly charge for messages now. There's so many things. I never know if they're going to take my insurance, which is another problem if I'm going to a specialty doctor, type 1 diabetic. I see all the specialty doctors for fun things.

and we had moved a few years ago, so I had to find all new doctors. It is extremely daunting, so pick any of those. So, yeah, I would rather do many things than go to the doctor. But at the same time,

you probably should go to the doctor. I go to the doctor when I need to, and one of the ways that I help myself do that is by using ZocDoc. My wife even uses this. She just had a problem that was going on with her. What'd she do? She pulled up ZocDoc, got an appointment, got in super quick. There is a ton of reasons to love and to use ZocDoc. It is free to use, free to use the app, free to use the website. You can find doctors that are in network. You can see reviews from patients who have visited those doctors.

It is so easy to use. You can get appointments very fast. You can do telehealth appointments. If you don't want to go in anywhere, you want to stay home and go to the doctor, that's cool. You might be able to do that depending on what you need to see a doctor for. So if you haven't already, give ZocDoc a try. And what better time? We're going into the fall. Everyone's going to be sick, especially if you've got little children running around. You're probably going to get sick. So ZocDoc is a free app and website where you can search and compare high-quality in-network doctors.com.

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So getting back to our ghost hubs, we had someone write in, say that this had happened to them. They had an Apple T or a home hub on their account. They removed it. Things were causing problems. They had to re-add it. And some people end up in these terrible situations where they have to re-add a bunch of cameras and devices, and it is a whole problem.

Well, there apparently is a, this is a more common than I had realized. There's actually an ongoing Reddit thread that is laying out this process of what is happening and, and even better, a solution. So thank you to Luke for sending this over because I think this is going to be extremely valuable for other people who have experienced this.

Those extra ghost hubs just sit there. You can't control them. You can't remove them and they cause all of these issues. So let's walk through. This is what Luke said, I believe worked for him in that Reddit thread. So first remove all residents from the home, except for the owner. This ensures that other users devices are not caching or catching these ghost hubs.

Change Apple ID passwords like the option to force log out of all devices that will ensure that everything, including your Apple Watches, are logged out of your Apple ID. Oh, man. I'm so glad this has not happened to me yet, and I sure hope it doesn't because that's already a step right there to sign out of every Apple device that I own. So finally, on last standing personal Apple device, so whatever you're using to do this, your iPhone, whatever, log out of your Apple ID.

Go to the home app on some personal Apple devices that should be logged out of your Apple ID. Confirm that the home app is showing you're not logged into the home. Let's see what's a, and then restart that device. Okay. When all personal Apple devices, max iPads, everything are showing logged out of the ghost hub. Go to the next step. Log back in with your Apple ID on one single device and

Go to the home app and see if the ghost home hub is gone. You may be done here, which is hopefully what I'm thinking is going to happen. If you want the rest of the steps, go read the Reddit form that I will link in the show notes. But seriously, that sounds like it. You're going to log out of all of your devices, force that log out on all devices, reset your password.

confirm that you are logged out and you don't have access to that home on all of those devices, your final device, go into your home, see if that ghost hub is removed and then sign back into everything.

It sounds like a pain in the butt, but it is better than having to remove all of your devices and start over, especially for a lot of you who listen and watch this podcast that have more than a handful of devices. It can be a lot. I mean, I'm pulling out my hair just the fact that I can't use Apple's Assistant to control things, let alone taking what would probably be a couple days to try to reset everything.

in my home. So if you guys try this, let me know. You can also let Luke and everyone else know over on Reddit if you want to respond to that and let them know your experience. And of course, file those radars with Apple, those bug reports to hopefully get this solved because this has been an ongoing thing for a while now. It should not be a thing going on for a while now. So hopefully it gets taken care of.

Next up in the news, this is very cool. So for anyone out there who is considering Hue products or maybe who has some Hue products but is looking for some more, the Hue app was recently updated with a new AR feature. So you're able to use the camera from within the Hue app and simulate Hue smart lights in your home. So if you're looking at like what's behind me, not the globe, that's the e-flare that we all know and love, but behind me,

But behind me, behind me, I like the Hue Sign, which is a straight vertical beam that goes up like four or five feet into the air. It has multiple colors on it. I use it for these gradients that are behind me, but they're absolutely lovely. They look fantastic in your living room, especially when you sync them with your TV. We like the updated Hue Sync Box.

Cool stuff. But now you're able to preview these kind of lights in your home before you buy them. So I think this is a fantastic idea. This is only coming to like Apple devices that have like, I think LIDAR. So it's going to work on like iPad pros as well as, um, pro iPhones. I don't, the regular iPhones don't have LIDAR on them. So I don't, I'm not sure if it will work on those, but I think it's super cool feature. I love being able to do this with like furniture. And now that you can do it with smart lights too.

especially on Hue products because they can be a little more expensive. I like the idea of seeing how they're going to change the space before you commit to buying anything. So I wanted to throw that out there. If you have been paying attention to the Apple Insider YouTube channel, recently we did a comparison on the new Google TV streamer. The name still bothers me. I can't get over it, so I'm just...

Pretend I'm fine with it. But the new Google TV streamer is out, and it is a very compelling comparison to the Apple TV. So I've spent a couple of weeks now testing this out in comparison to my Apple TV. And honestly, I like it quite a bit compared to some of the Chromecast. It is a much better.

nicer device like this is the most compelling google streaming device that i have tried but of course it's a little bit more expensive you're talking about 100 bucks here versus what 35 50 for some of the chromecast products that they had before so it it's more of an investment which puts it more in line with the various apple tvs that are out there and in my opinion i

which you guys know I'm a fan of the Apple side of things. In my opinion, I prefer the Apple TV. It's not an Apple versus Google thing. I just think the device, the approach is better. If that makes sense. Google still has a lot of ads and other information, which you can turn off a lot of it, but it just feels like a spammy device.

Whereas the Apple TV feels more personal, personalized, and robust. If that makes sense. There's a lot of little features in Apple TV that I really start to appreciate, not even counting the tie-ins with the Apple ecosystem. The other thing I noticed is the Google TV still feels like it's weak in terms of processing power.

Apple TV doesn't feel weak, and it's already two years old. So we're already expecting a newer Apple TV to be dropping soon. The newer Apple TV is likely going to have that boosted processor, probably like an A17 Pro or A18 series chip, maybe A18, because Apple's going to want to add Apple Intelligence in there. So I can see that.

being a thing but that's already on like a new soon to launch apple tv the current one is already powerful enough and it's more powerful than the google tv streamer this feels like it's already a little slow at points and it's brand new that's my biggest criticism of this device it's my biggest thing that drives me crazy about it i just want it to be a little bit more powerful

A couple other things. The remote is very solid. It is very comfortable, easy to use. No real qualms with this remote in comparison. I hate the dedicated buttons for like YouTube and Netflix at the bottom, which is not my thing. I kind of like the more personalization. So forcing these buttons on there, it always feels like just like a paid promotion. Like Netflix gave Google a bunch of money. So they'll put their name on the remote and get a shortcut to jump into Netflix.

I mean, that's likely what it is, and I don't like those things. So I do prefer the Siri remote. The other thing is this uses AA batteries or whatever batteries are in here. The batteries do come with it, but they are AAA. I did check. They're AAA. They come with it, but I just hate the fact that you have to use batteries and then throw them away and put new ones in.

versus just being rechargeable it's one of the elements that feels more premium they're very similarly priced in 99 versus 130 and you're getting a metal rechargeable usbc remote with the apple tv versus this all plastic one with netflix ads on the bottom and disposable batteries in the back someone did comment on the video like oh just buy rechargeable batteries and then put them in there

That way you could keep some others on the charger and just swap them out when it dies. Like, okay, but now me as a consumer, I'm responsible for buying rechargeable batteries, having them perpetually charged, like buy four of them, keep two always in the charger somewhere ready to go. And then the other two in the battery or in the remote and swap them. And no, no,

There's AAAs. I'm just going to buy some new AAAs. You know, we've got a bunch on hand. We've got a kid, so we've got AAAs going around. That's not a problem there. I just think it's wasteful. Of course, the battery in the Apple TV remote will also deteriorate over time as it is used more and more. But I have, like, old Siri remotes from ages ago that still work just fine and seem to go months on end without needing charged. Like, really old ones from...

probably five, six years ago at least, and it's not a problem. So I can't imagine the deterioration on this remote is going to be significant enough in the lifespan that you're going to have this product before you sell it or upgrade it or move it to a playroom or something and get something else. So those are my two biggest gripes is the processing power and the battery pack batteries on the remote.

Everything else is really lovely. The videos look great. They load pretty quickly. It was easy to use. Google Assistant was nice. I don't mind some of the AI stuff that they built into it. I do wish Apple put more of the AI stuff into Apple TV, and I'm very certain that they will. There's a lot of cool stuff there that Google is doing. I think it is a very respectable box, and if you were in the Google ecosystem, I think you could go either way.

They both support Matter and all of that. So you do have Matter and Thread going on there. But if you're an Apple user, you're probably going to want an Apple TV. It's $30 more for that basic version. Any of us in the smart home probably are going to upgrade to the more expensive one, which is an even bigger jump. But you're getting Ethernet and Thread built in. It's going to be a Matter hub.

If you can jump up, then do it. But if you're just talking for streamers, $100 versus $130, not even the smart home aspect of it, I'm still saying the Apple TV. It's a better device. I love all the new audio features. TVOS 18 has been great.

All that stuff is super stable. I just like it. It's a nicer experience to use, but that's just me. People can say I just like the Apple stuff. Some of it's true. Oh, other thing I did mention, like the first time we talked about this, is the button on the back of the box to make the remote beep. Game changer. Wonderful. I think Apple could do this better because I think Apple could just put in find my support and you could just hit a button on your phone.

or ask the assistant where the remote is and it would chime. But right now Apple has like that find my button, but it only gets you somewhat close. And sometimes like it's like gets me close to the couch, but I can't find it. Is it in the cushion? Is it in a blanket? Is it underneath the cushion? Is it inside the bottom part of the couch? Like did it fall through even deeper? Is it underneath the couch? It gets me to like the quadrant of the room, but nothing more.

The fact that Google just has a speaker on their remote helps a ton. So like that should be a thing. It doesn't need a button on the back of the box like Google did, but just putting a speaker to support find my more natively, I think would go a long way. So anyone who has these or has tried either of them,

Let me know which one you prefer and why. You guys can reach out to me at the usual places, you know, andrewatappleinsider.com, twitter.com, or twitter is andrew underscore osu, so you can check me out there too. The last thing I want to get into very briefly, I want to talk about the Thorbolt a little bit. So I've been testing out the Aqara SmartLock U300.

This guy, it's a lever lock, interior, outterior level or lever lock. So just like the regular latch, not a throat, not a deadbolt. And it's been interesting. So we put this on our bedroom and testing it out as an alternative to like those stupid twisty plastic ones to keep children out.

Also works for offices, bars, basements, anything like that. But it can also work for an outdoor shed, a garage. All of these are great places to be able to protect. Especially love the garage idea. Continue to just walk out to it, have the fingerprint reader there or home key on your Apple Watch. The Aqara one is super cool. But I've also been testing out the Thorbolt. And they took a different approach because where the Aqara one has that full kind of facade with a keypad and everything,

The Thorbolt one is a knob. Like the whole thing is a knob and you just rotate the smart lock itself. And that's how you get in. But it also has, it has things like the passcode on there you can put in. And I always wonder if this is confusing or not. I know Wes and I had talked about this before. When you have something like a deadbolt,

Like the August, people are confused by it. Even if they don't have to do anything, they're still confused by it. But to me, when you look at this, it makes a little bit more sense because there is no secondary device. It's just a knob. So if this didn't exist, how would you get in the room? So to me, in my mind, the only option is to rotate that whole sucker to get in or out of a room.

I prefer the U300. I prefer the lever lock. I think it looks a bit more traditional, more seamless. Like I like the matte black finish of it. I think it looks good. I don't know how I feel about the, just the, the handle of it. It still feels a little bit weird to me. The naming is also confusing and I've never understood this. And I mentioned to it to them before when they reached out with PR stuff, but the, the Thor bolt is,

is actually under the Sleek... Well, it's under the Air... I don't know which one the parent company is. Sleekpoint, maybe? So you're downloading the Sleekpoint app to control the Thorbolt. But Thorbolt is the same company that is also doing the Airversa air products. So the Airversa humidifier and purifier. Both of those I have, like, literally right off camera.

I love them both. Everything that Sleekpoint, I guess I was going to say Airversa, but I guess Sleekpoint does, is thread. So there's great stuff there. I have very good use of both of them. I have not had any connection issues with the Thorbolt since I've been using it. It works really, really well.

The only thing that I think it's missing would probably be home key. That just something that is nice to have instead of having to use a biometrics or a code or anything. So I would have preferred that there. I do think it's very quiet. The Thorble is, it's super quiet to be able to open and close the, the lever version from a car. Uh,

When I'm trying to go into like the room in the middle of the night, you have to push it down. And if it ever like slips up, because it is like, you know, spring water, right? It does make a bit of a thump as it goes back up. So for quiet sake, I think the Thorble is quieter when it engages and disengages as well as rotating it to get in and out. It's a little bit easier, a little bit quieter. That is of concern to you. Not everyone is trying to sneak in and out of rooms in the middle of the night, but that happens to be one of my use cases.

Other things, the Thorble is not IP rated, so it's not recommended for outdoor use. You can use it outdoor, but I would make sure you have some sort of overhang. If it's a garage, make sure you have a little bit of a recovery site. That doorknob is not specifically getting wet would probably be fine, but just something to mention. So both these guys are available. I'll have links in the show notes. They're very interesting, different use cases. I like them both a lot. I don't know which one I would recommend.

completely recommend. I think the U300 right now, but I'm still testing these out. I'll have more information later, but there's very few options for like interior locks like this. So I'm glad to see we're getting a few more of them. So thank you to, uh, to ZocZoc again for sponsoring this episode. If you guys have any questions, I want to hear more automation ideas on next episode. We're going to be talking about shortcuts and some cool things to do with those. So just keep sending those over. I have a few so far, send more, please send more.

Put it in the YouTube description if you're watching a video version of this over at youtube.com slash homekitinsider. Email them to me at andrew at appleinsider.com, Twitter, andrew underscore OSU. Otherwise, do what you guys do best. Get this episode of 510 Hundreds Art Rating on your podcast app of choice, and I'll see you guys in the next episode.