HomeKit Dehumidifiers, Roomba 705 Max, Aqara G5 Pro Review, & Much More
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Welcome everybody to another exciting episode of HomeKit Insider. You've got me, your host as always, Andrew O'Hara, joining me this week once again. It is Dan Turk from the Max Borges Agency. How you doing, man? I'm good. This is guest host time number three, I believe. I know. That makes me a regular at this point, right? That's regular status? It must make you a regular. Oh.

I think so. All right. Well, thanks for having me back. I'm excited to be here. It's a good time in my life right now. I'm a huge hockey fan and my Toronto Maple Leafs are up 3-0 as of this recording. Hopefully by the time this goes live, we've swept the series. So if you see me smiling a little bit extra today, a little extra positivity, that's why.

Hey, Blue Jackets have been doing well, but I also watched the draft and I was less excited with the Browns' performance for football. Something about trading down? I'm not such a football guy, but there was something going on last night that I saw a bunch of the guys talking about. Oh, it's fine. We'll get another pick in a year. Oh my gosh, I can't. Well, welcome to the HomeKit Insider Podcast, sponsored by Apple Sports App. Yeah.

That's right. That's right. So how's life at Max Borges? For anyone who isn't familiar with Dan, he's a flimflam man. He's over there as a PR rep for many smart home companies, which is always handy. So we're always able to catch up and talk about, you know, random tech gear. So it always makes a good podcast guest to have you on, man.

Life is interesting. I don't want to talk about the big T, tariff, too much, although we probably will. But the last few weeks have been pretty volatile, and it's been an interesting time just trying to navigate all of that. We're big on hardware brands at Max Borges Agency, so the impact is real. Let's just put it that way.

Yeah, we're seeing it across the board with stuff, so it's going to be interesting. Well, I guess that we can get into it, starting off with something that's actually affordable. Aqara has a few launches this week. So they have their M100, which is a sub-$30 Matterhub, and it also offers their new advanced bridging that we talked about on a previous episode. It has built-in Zigbee and Thread.

it's literally a USB a stick like it's literally a tiny little looks like a flash drive and it pivots and you can just plug this thing in and boom you've got a matter hub and a thread border router you do all those advanced bridging things we can use different automations and pool in even accessories that are new supported by Apple home yet can be added to this hub and then bridged over to Apple home and for less than 30 bucks

Pretty solid. I still don't understand why it's USB-A, though. Like, why is that a thing? Yeah, I... Well...

I don't know exactly. I'm just assuming maybe they have some leftover hardware or something that they have to use. Who knows? But I know you talked about the advanced bridging, but I love that already so much. It's so cool. I'm so happy they're leading the charge on that because that's exactly what the whole Matter world needs is to stop having the conversations about, oh, but you can't do this with Matter. Well, all of a sudden, here's how you can actually make that happen. And I really hope other brands understand

ones that I work with, ones that I don't work with, ones that I use personally. I hope they start following a car as late because that's just great. Yeah, they've done such a good job with this and it's pretty cool. That was a big undertaking and the fact that they're bringing in like the accessories that aren't supported by Homey, it's like, oh, I don't have to worry about, you know, Apple supporting water heaters,

because I can at least pull it in with a car. If I should happen to get a matter enabled hot water heater before Apple adds that as a feature. So that's just really handy. Yes. Two other releases too. There's the Y 100 camera starter kit. So this is, this is nothing like wholly new, but it's this new kind of like budget package to get you started to come up with the car camera. Um, the,

2K resolution, hub G3, so also a Matterhub in there, motion sensor, contact sensor, and vibration sensor. So you get a bunch of different sensors as well as a camera, so you can create your own security system. You can literally have it create a HomeKit security system

Determine an alarm. You got a camera for monitoring with HomeKit Secure Video. All that stuff. Really nice. Then there's the W100 temperature sensor. I'm most excited about this one. Zigbee 3.0 or Matter Over Thread can also display metrics for a second ACARA sensor in your home. So you can actually have...

maybe like a thermostat or something in a room, you could display those things on this because it has a little screen there. Then there's three buttons down the side, which I really like because they're programmable buttons. You can have them do whatever you want them to do. So you could mount this up on the wall. It can sit down on a table or you can magnetically mount it to the wall. Then there's three buttons. There's an up arrow and a down arrow and then just a blank one in the middle. But they could do anything that you want. The reason they have arrows is because they say you can use this with the Aqara thermostat, which I don't even think

is in the US yet, but then you could like literally see like the temperature and then adjust the thermostat without having to go to your thermostat, which I thought is really smart. But yeah. With any HomeKit enabled thermostat. True. If you just wanted to program it that way. Use it for your Ecobee, use it for the latest Nest thermostat, I think is also right matter compatible. So you can, you can use it for that. So it's, yeah, that's a really versatile feature set for that product for sure.

Yeah, and I mean, Matter of a Thread is great. And then you've got a CR2450 battery that's going to give you two years of battery life on it. This just seems pretty cool. Like that seems a really easy little thing to add to your home to get some extra smarts going. So I like that one a lot. That's my favorite of all their new products. Yeah, that's all fantastic. And then, sorry, again, back to the advanced bridging. All of those products kind of...

Work right in line with the advanced bridging, right? All those sensors, they become occupancy sensors essentially to trigger other automations, occupancy based off of motion, occupancy based off of contact of vibration, off of temperature and humidity and all that. And even other versions of sensors as well. So this is all great and leads into that greater

kind of theme of here's what you could do with our products in our own ecosystem, but here's what you could do with our products in any other ecosystem because we're making them so just adaptable. I know. I love my favorite thing is like how you can use the hand motions and gestures. Like you can just give your camera an okay signal and it could like disarm your alarm system. Like,

And that can be like a home kit alert. Like literally you can just use that gesture. That'll be a trigger inside of home occupancy sensor, like you said. And you can use that to trigger any scene you want or automation that you have created. Run a shortcut. Like the number of things you can do is endless. It's just so smart.

Then we've got ZemiSmart. ZemiSmart has some new switches out. These look pretty slick. They're all very dark. So if you like that dark aesthetic, it's like a charcoal gray slate gray situation going on. But it's a single gang box, like physical box, where you can have one, two, three, or four buttons on it. And I don't think I've ever seen four.

four individual controls, four wall switches or whatever on a single box like that. They're just hard to find in the HomeKit space. So that's pretty sweet. Neutral wire is required, Zigbee 3.0. They cover the full size of the gang box, so there's no wall plate required. And they have a small little LED at the bottom so that you can see where they are in the darkness of night. But they only run $32 to $42 on the high end for the four...

for Switch version? Well, yes. Okay, some positives here. First of all, I just installed four Zenith Smart, like, downlights and we're renovating, which is why, by the way, I'm in my child's room talking to you right now. My office is not really usable. So, yeah,

They're great, but they only ship direct to consumer here in the U.S., and so they're not storing product here. And so big T tariffs, $42 for the four-gang product, but you're paying another $42, if not more, in taxes or tariffs to try to get that over. So it's an $80 product, $80-plus product to get that over to the U.S., and that to me is –

Yeah, it's pretty egregious right now. Not to their own doing, but the product itself, wow, like just so beautiful. The design, I'm sure you'll have the link down in the description here, but it's a great, they're really competing with some of the more luxurious light switches out there. Like Lutron has some of those like beautiful slate gray material. I don't think Lutron does plateless though, but

So that's really cool to see how this is like, it's, it's like following the, uh, the bezel list trend, I guess that we had exactly. Yeah. It's just edge to edge button. Exactly. It looks really nice. Yeah. It's really, really pretty. Oh man. They're cool. If I had any more spots to put switches, cause I have, first off, like the ones in Harrison rooms are ripped apart. Um, cause I'm trying, I'm trying to grapple with the, always the frustration of you have one wall switch that controls a fan with lights on.

and a fan. So it's like, how do I make it smart? Because if I just put a switch on there, it's always, it's going to turn on, you know, both. So I'm like, I could just do what we did in our master bedroom, which is use hue bulbs in the fixture and then put a, um, whatever those call from Lutron, the little round, the Pico thing. No, no,

Aura is the Lutron aura that goes over top of a standard toggle and then allows you to control your hue lights. So you tap it to turn the hue lights on and off or twist it to adjust the brightness. So I could leave. So that way the fan could always be on.

you could use the regular switch on the wall with the Lutron Aura to adjust the hue lights and then just pull the strings anytime you want the fan on. So that may be the way to go, but I was just trying to think of something else. I've just got like exposed wires sitting there, you know, trying to decide. Yeah.

how to proceed because we just painted his room. I like how you did that in your bedroom though, because that's like the perfect mixture of I know what this smart setup does in my own bedroom. But if I put this in like a main room where other guests are or other family are, they don't know how to operate these things. That gets really complicated really quickly. So yeah, that's, it's a good thing for a personal bedroom versus a main space in the house.

Well, I will say the number of times that I'm not going to say, you know, which of my spouses, but one of them likes to go right into our bedroom and throw her hand right up the wall to hit that switch and send the little, it'll like, it's like tightened down with a little screw and she will just so forcefully throw her hand up into the air to turn on the lights that sends that little

or a, or whatever flying into their room. And then she'll come out. She's like, yeah, I threw it off the wall again. And I don't know where it is. I'm like, got it. Go in, like look under the bed, dig through the sheets, trying to find where this little thing flew. Um,

Just because you have to, I don't know if you have this problem, but we've talked about it on the show in general of like, oh, well, I've got these switches here. You know, I've got an Eve switch on our porch lights. I've got an aura thing in our bedroom. We've got brilliant switches and other ones. So it's like every single room has a different type of light switch that you need to remember how to control, right?

And you have muscle memory that's going to paddle, flip, like whatever it is. And it can be confusing. So you got to like stick with one. But obviously, I'm always testing different things and half of them I'm switching them out. So you learn your muscle memory and then it changes on you. That's not funny either.

No, not fun. Not fun for you. Not fun for your multiple spouses, which reminds me of when I ask S-I-R-I to call my wife and it responds, which one? Because God forbid my Apple contacts list should be organized in a good way. That's always, that's always fun.

I don't want to go on a tangent because we have a lot of new announcements to talk about and a review here at the end. But also recently, like I am on the beta train. So like I always just attribute it to that. But recently I will say like, you know, Apple Assistant, turn on the lights in the living room. And it's like, cool, which room? And then it gives me a list of all of my rooms. And so there...

The two problems, though, first off, I told you. I explicitly said what room. And then two, I can't scroll on the list. It shows me the top four things. So it's like bedroom, bedroom, bathroom, basement. And I go to scroll, and then it dismisses the interface back to your home screen or wherever you were before you invoked Apple Assistant. I'm like...

Why are you giving me a list? And then you don't even let me control the list. Why are you the way you are? Yeah, why are you the way? How do you not understand? And they'll be like, open the living room shades. What room? That room. Turn on the bedroom lights. What room? Dude, if you can't do that simple basic command, like I'm going to murder you. Yeah, it makes me really sad about the prospects of Apple intelligence and where that's all going right now. Because if they can't figure out the most basics of the smart home,

You know, we got to... Okay, sorry, again, not to exceed the tangent, but just again, it's very funny. Yesterday, there was a story running around on the news that Sam Altman said, every time people try to be respectful or like kind and have manners to chat GPT, it costs the company like tens of millions of dollars in server time and like all that, server costs. So...

Don't feel like you have to be polite to your AI assistants. Feel free to tell them, why are you the way you are? That's hilarious. That's hilarious. Okay, one last tangent. I think you also just mentioned this. Sam Allman uses the same crib that we use.

Yeah. Yeah. He tweeted out about the cradle wise. Yeah. He tweeted about it recently. That's a former, uh, Max gorgeous client. And we were really excited to see that. Uh, it was, it's crazy. It's, that's a crib that lasts for what? Like two years or something. Yeah. And it's literally zero to two years. Yeah. So one of the, uh, the leading AI minds in the world uses the same crib as Andrew and his many spouses. Yeah.

I really liked that crib. It was really cool. The only problem that I ever had with it was that it, like, recorded the temperature in the room, but it also just got hot because of electronics. So, like, the temperature was always, like, five, six degrees above what it ever actually was in the room. But they continued to update it, and eventually, like, they were one of the, like, hey, we recalibrated and redid the temperature sensor, and then it was, like, good to go. And now I still have...

What's that brand of one? Owl, which I really like in there, but it's against the wall, and the temperature sensor always thinks it's very cold in there. It's like, you should check on your child. I'm like, no, it's much warmer in there. But that's a problem with all these...

like telling the temperature in a room between the cradle-wise, the owl one, and then a traditional baby monitor with a camera also got hot because the infrared camera was reporting errant temperatures. It's like, it is shockingly hard to use any of these actual baby products to get a temperature in a room.

Thermostats have that issue also. It's actually a big part of the engineering problem because they're typically near a place where they're gathering so much heat against the wall that it gives you a false reading on the temperature. And that's why all these smart thermostat companies have been – it's one of the reasons they've been coming up with these satellite sensors for around the house because the initial sensor on the thermostat itself is actually pretty false-read-y when you look into it.

Oh, I had no idea. That makes sense, though. Check me on that, everyone. But I'm pretty sure that's a truth. Okay, now that we've gone down three different tangents, we were talking about Roku devices and several new products this past week.

There's the new streaming stick plus, which has 4k playback and is $39.99. There's the streaming stick, which is $29.99. Um, and they claim that these are the most compact on the market and they're going to be available starting on May 6th. They're up for pre-order now. Um,

They replaced the Roku Express and Express 4K Plus. Names, man. What are we doing with names? But they also came out with new cameras, too. There's the Roku Battery Camera and Roku Battery Camera Plus.

And these come with six months and roughly a couple years worth of battery life on each of them respectively. Though they also offer an optional solar panel. They have 1080p streaming, color night mode. They're kind of like a weird boxy design. They're very square, boxy looking things to me. They don't have Apple Home, but I always find it very interesting that Roku decided, hey, we need to make smart home things.

And, uh, especially for a company that specifically sells and, you know, data and shows a lot of ads. I don't necessarily want to jump into bed with them on smart home tech. Was it an acquisition or just a partnership? Was it wise? I thought it was a, I thought it was a partnership. Yeah. They were making all their hardware. Well, I mean, that makes sense. I feel like we've talked about this before, but maybe not. Um,

Roku, a data company, Y is a company that has been caught with their pants down as far as data, privacy, and safety several times. That's a nice marriage, I guess. And hopefully they're coming together and saying, hey, we've got to fix this and not be that way. But yeah, it's interesting to see the...

the juxtaposition of Roku's entertainment division and their smart home division and how it's coming together. It's actually a bit Apple-esque, right? Apple considers Apple TV hardware, not Apple TV+, but part of the home, right? Whenever they're announcing new HomePod or TV things, they show that little half a house without the wall in their keynotes, and they're all kind of part of the same

which hopefully becomes less of a hobby moving forward. Yeah. It's interesting for sure. You actually, you didn't mention one of my favorite parts of this Roku announcement, but maybe I'm just extra nerdy and focused on tariff business stuff right now. They're releasing their like Roku software that they put on smart TVs and

I think maybe Hisense had some of this a while ago. A lot of those TVs use, like Samsung has their own thing, but a lot of them use like the Google TV or what was Android TV OS or whatever for their smarts. Roku has their own and they're putting it now on projectors.

And I thought that was pretty cool because it's almost, we're talking a lot about this at the agency and within all the brands we work with. Software right now is kind of tariff proof when you think about it. And so the more these companies can focus on a software as a profit

strategy the better they you know have it in the next several months of volatility when all this stuff is still a little bit unclear so yeah all this hardware very cool from roku but i'm most excited that they're opening up their their software to projectors as well i'm a big projector fan i do like projectors i need a good screen but i love watching like baseball games like outside in the yard on a big projector so i have i don't even know which one i have it's

I don't know. It's either one of the X Jimmy ones or it's one of the Nebula ones from Anchor. But it is really nice to be able to throw projector stuff up. And that's what we have in our room. We have a Samsung one in our room. And I'm like, this is so much better than TV. Like a hundred some inches, like massive wall thing. And it's not like too bright, which is perfect for the bedroom. Yeah, great. They're awesome. And they're definitely something you can take around the house or outside or whatnot. So yeah, awesome little entertainment devices for sure.

Yeah. Well, you know what? Something you can't take around your house. A new tree. That was, that was my great segue. It was a fantastic segue. Fantastic segue as always. Yep. As flawless execution.

But if you have not heard already, you've got to check out Fast Growing Trees. I don't know if you guys knew this, but Fast Growing Trees is the biggest online nursery in the U.S. with thousands of different plants and over 2 million happy customers. They have all the plants your yard needs, like fruit trees, privacy trees, flowering trees, shrubs.

and so much more. Whatever plants you're interested in, fast-growing trees has you covered. Find the perfect fit for your climate and space. And that is the key part right there, is that you can go onto their website, use your zip code, your location, put in your zone, whatever. It'll tell you what zone you are in, if you don't already know it. And then it can filter out all the plants and bushes and shrubs by where you are and what makes sense. So you're not going to put money into something that doesn't make sense for your climate, that you're not going to be successful at growing. And man...

I am so excited because all my stuff is blooming right now. And this is our first years with the cherry trees. The cherry trees look crazy. They're so pretty. They're covered in blooms, which makes sense because cherry trees produce obviously a lot of cherries. They're smaller than apples and they're just all over the place. So I'm so hyped to get fruit from them this year. But then we have the apple trees that are also blossoming. And I know I've talked about it a million times on the show, but that five in one apple tree is,

It's even cooler when it's flowering because each of the trees like that is they're all grafted onto one. So it's one tree with five varieties of apples producing on it. They all have like their own slightly different flowers. So there's like some like reddish ones, some white ones, some pink ones all on one tree. And it is just the coolest thing. The coolest thing. So I am so hyped for all that. We also ordered our blueberry bushes.

There's so many different varieties. It's just cool to look at all the different types of blueberries or raspberries, whatever. We have a pink lemonade blueberry bush that we're going to get again. They're like lighter raspberry or blueberries. They're so cool. So yeah, definitely go and check them out. They have other things besides fruit too. They have normal shrubs and boxwoods and other trees, shrubbery, all the stuff you need to landscape, make your house look amazing.

Amazing. Go check them out. Everything arrives right to your house, healthy, ready to go. My stuff has been doing amazing since we planted it.

Five trees so far from them, as well as bushes that we have ordered. And we have ordered those things, not just because they are a sponsor. And this spring, they have all of the best deals for your yard, up to half off on select plants and other deals. And listeners to our show get 15% off their purchase when using code HOMEKIT at checkout. That's an additional 15% off at FastGreenTrees.com using code HOMEKIT at checkout. FastGreenTrees.com, code HOMEKIT. Now's the perfect time to plant. Use HOMEKIT to save today.

Offers valid for a limited time. Terms and conditions apply. We also have Shopify. Dan, I'm sure you are very familiar with Shopify because like everyone in the tech space uses Shopify to build their sites.

It's so easy to use, so easy to implement. Whether you are a large-scale company that's looking just to improve your site, you want to have the AI abilities and the world's best converting shopping cart. Or you're a small company, you're just getting started, and you want that single platform that you don't have to worry about. You don't have to know how to add shipping costs and taxes and duties and tariffs. All of it is just...

done for you so that you don't have to think about it. It's also just plug and play on the website that you don't have to know how to design a website. You can just do it. And you can do fancy things like ship to store and manage your inventory between a physical space and an online space. There are so many different benefits to Shopify from a consumer point of view.

There's all that trust that comes along with using Shopify. Because you go to that Shopify site, you're like, I don't know if I should buy this stuff or not. Is this site safe? Should I trust it? And you click your cart button. You're like, I recognize this cart. This is Shopify. You may not know it's Shopify, but in your head, you know what you're staring at and you know...

this checkout process and it feels secure you can use Apple Pay Google Pay Shop Pay which literally I click on it and as soon as I do I get like a confirmation text like a one time password I put it in and it's like done I'm like oh that was so easy to do I might as well buy everything that I've put in this cart before even thinking about it

And boom, there you go. Plus then everything can be tracked through the shop app. It can also be tracked through Apple Wallet because many of the sites there integrate into that, which you never really even see sites using that Apple Wallet tracking. So amazing up and down from Shopify. Turn your big business idea into a successful business, I guess. Do that by using Shopify. So sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com slash homekit. Go to shopify.com slash homekit.

Shopify.com slash home kit. I have to say it at least three times. And then the Shopify bag appears on my desk in front of me is what happens. It's Shopify genie right now. That's it. It's amazing. Great reads as always, Andrew. And, and you know, if you haven't started into all the listeners out there, if you haven't started thinking about mother's day, which is what two, three weeks away, uh,

You know, both of those ads are kind of relevant. You got beautiful trees and plants that you can buy for your mother or your spouse or whatnot. And then let's say that spouse of yours is running her own little business. You know, get them on Shopify. Make life easier for them. Great, great Mother's Day gifts right there using the HomeKit codes. I'm such a sucker.

Shopify is so easy and I actually really love when websites use it, but I'm such a sucker for planting stuff in the yard, like the fruits and veggies and everything like that. It's so handy, especially with the amount of fruit that Faith and Harrison eat. Like you buy a basket of strawberries at the store and it's gone in like a single day. I'm constantly adding it to our shopping list. We're on three kids now and it's just so many strawberries. Does the third one eat less? Yeah.

Or is it the same amount? It's the same amount. It's just... Same amount. Dang it. I was hoping the more you had, the less they ate and they'd be cheaper, but... Well, I mean, sometimes there's no food left for them because the two older get it first. Well, that's fair. Yeah, they're slower and smaller. They're figuring it out, though. Yeah. Okay.

Well, you're on number three, but Roomba just this year is on number nine. They have announced their latest robot vacuum. Was that a good segue to? iRobot is having so many children. So many robot babies. So many children.

It really does kind of shock me a little bit because I have such a sweet spot for iRobot. Like, they started that category. I have my grandmother, every time she asks me about her robot, my Roomba isn't working. Like, it's...

iRobot and Roomba are just synonymous with robotic vacuum cleaners. And they have been just riding the struggle bus for a few years now. Aside from that failed Amazon acquisition, a lot of their products never really evolved the way that we're seeing companies like Ecovacs and Roborock and Narwhal and Dreamy and Eufy and all these other ones that are just taking the ball and running with it. And

Yes, many of those other companies have launched quite a few vacuums, but nine seems like a lot for this year and it's April.

I'm not surprised, man. This category, they release products like... I don't even know what a good analogy is. The analogy would be like robot vacuum companies. They release products like robot vacuum companies. That's the analogy. But 9, yeah, it's April. 9 is quite a bit. I think for Roomba, for iRobot specifically, they've had a lot of catching up to do because they had like a two or three year period there where...

they were dedicating all of their financial might or whatever they had left to that acquisition attempt by Amazon. And those processes are not easy. Amazon and other brands that are trying to make these types of acquisitions, there's a lot of due diligence that happens on the backside. And companies will...

they'll stop and reroute all of their, you know, any budget they had for R&D or for engineering. They'll stop and reroute it towards the acquisition to make sure that they're getting everything there. And this one, you know, it didn't go the way iRobot wanted necessarily. So they're catching up and they're starting to put out those products. But it's nice to see them because like you said, they're the Band-Aid, they're the Kleenex. It would be tough to see Roomba as a brand household name.

kind of go the way of the Dodo. So hoping to see more of this from them for sure. I know. And this one, they did bring back a much requested feature that we did not see on some of their other new ones. So specifically, it's the

Roomba Max 705, I think is what this model is. And they brought back their dual opposing rubber brushes on the bottom. So two sets of brushes that are rolling in like opposite directions to like untangle any pet hair. And because they're like your, your rubber brushes, they do a very good job of pulling it up off of carpet. And they're even textured. They have been like,

goaded in the industry for a while in terms of like really good at getting pet hair. And they didn't include them on some of their other top of the line vacuums that had come out. And this is not their top of the line model, but it is still a very solid model. So price points $8.99. It is matter certified. So it's going to go in the home app.

It has the same design in LiDAR as the rest of the new lineup that looks kind of familiar with what we're seeing from Ecovacs, Roborock, and the other big players. It has their auto-empty dock and a 13,000 Pascal suction rating, which is, I believe, the highest they have on any of their models, which doesn't seem that high when we're getting 20 and 22 from a lot of the others on the market. Like I said, they're catching up.

Yeah. Well, I can't remember even the brand that said this to me, but it came from a brand, so who knows how accurate it was because I couldn't test it. But they said in their testing –

they didn't shoot for just the highest suction rating because in all of the, everything they showed the amount of like additional cleaning that you got above a certain like suction level was so small. It wasn't worth it. Like they could keep this suction level down and greatly expand like their battery life and size because they weren't trying just to reach a mark. And

And I'm like, that makes sense. I'm so proud of my team's messaging and how it's resonated with you, because that is something my team probably said to you about Ecovacs. We are, we're at about 18,000 PA right now with some of our newest flagships, but we introduced this thing called BLAST, which is an acronym that I'm not going to remember right now. Sorry, brand. But essentially it's better airflow. That's the name of the game. The suction power itself, it's,

You're a big baseball fan, right? When you talk to baseball players, they say that every mile per hour pitch after 90 is a huge, significant change for them. But anything up to 90, when you're talking like 80 to 90, it's not so different once you're at that level.

But every mile per hour afterwards is huge. So it's kind of like the reverse with the PA, with the suction power. After around 13, 14, I don't know the exact number, it's not like it's picking up that much more debris. It's more of like, oh, we have the highest suction power on the market type claim. But when you talk about airflow, you're talking about...

better lungs, better flow of that debris. And Ecovacs actually, we just released our X9 Pro Omni, D-Bot X9 Pro Omni with 18,000 or so suction power and that blast technology. And the video tests I've actually seen in real life as well, the videos of the side-by-side comparison of a higher suction power versus the D-Bot with the blast technology in it, it's night and day. It can

completely empties a can of sand or a bottle of sand, whereas the suction power alone is not even getting close to half of the sand particles. So it's, yeah, the...

The airflow itself is what really matters. And I think you're going to see more companies catching on to that. But another thing, since you brought up some of the competitive stuff as well, this is obviously just a robot vacuum, no mops. And I think maybe that's why some of the other models we've seen from iRobot this year didn't include the dual vacuum.

opposing brushes, which I know from everyone I talked to, they wish every robot vacuum had that because it really, it truly is. I think Jen mentioned it, Jen Tuohy, our friend, uh, mentioned it in the, in her article on the verge as well. It really is the best when it comes to anti-tangle pet hair and whatnot.

I think maybe they didn't include it because they put new dual spinning mops on those other models that they've never had before. Roomba used to either not have the mop at all or have like a single mop pad that like retracted or something. And maybe they are conflicting design choices. So I'm curious if they come out with a version of this with the dual mops.

the dual spinners, what kind of mop they use on it as well. Because yeah, I think the dual, the pad itself, like the circular pads, conflict with the design of the dual brush.

I could see that because they do take up a bit more space there on the bottom. And it's a tough trade off because especially with pets, like I, I want the mop. Like it's pretty crazy. You know how much in the springtime, how much dogs are tracking in from the yard, even when it's not rainy, uh,

that day, it's raining today. Uh, and there's probably gonna be a bunch of mud coming to the house and you, you're probably not even seeing it like on ground, you know, hardwood floors type thing. Like you, you don't even really see it. And then you, you mop and then you see how dirty the water is. And you're like, wow, that's real gross. And, uh,

I don't know, especially salt in the winter. It just kicks onto the floor and you end up with like literally like white marks all over the floor. It ruins the floors also depending on the material. Yes, I remember that from growing up in Canada. We had to do some major damage control from the salt. Yeah, so it's like especially with pets, like I want the mop, but I also want the rollers. So I feel like they need to have a 10th come out.

For a slightly higher price tag that adds on the mops. Well, the year is still young, Andrew. We've got, what, eight months to go? I think they could shoot for 18 models if they really want to. For sure. They got 18 more in them, I'm sure. We're only a quarter into the year. I think we're good for another 27. It's a little R&D constipation, for lack of a better term. Everyone just had a bunch of products greenlit all at once, like eight months ago, and they're so hyped about it.

Okay, let's talk a little bit about AC units and heat stuff like that. I thought this was really interesting because you talked to me about that Hisense, which is a Max Borges customer or client. I did not realize that they had a

They have a wall-mounted one, so you can walk us through that. But what I was most interested in is they have a portable AC unit, and both of these all work with Matter. So we have an Apple Home-compatible portable AC unit, and we're just getting to the hot weather. It was like 80 degrees here in the house yesterday, and then we had to turn on the AC, and I'm like,

We never have to turn on the AC this early in the season. Like I can usually get by with windows and fans, but it got to 80 degrees here and it was very uncomfortable. But this is really interesting. So tell us a little about the Hisense stuff here and how this works with Matter.

Yeah. So we released this back at CES and now it's finally available, which is really exciting. Perfect timing, right? With, for a lot of the country with going into spring and summer now, like you mentioned, they've got a smart window air conditioner that is matter compatible and it's ultra slim. So this isn't like those boxy, you know, hideous looking AC units of old. This is, it's something that actually looks pretty nice in your space, but

But the one that I'm most excited about that you kind of just talked about too is their tower. It's a smart tower, portable air conditioner with a heat pump. So you can actually do both, you know, cool and heat as well. It's really a great design and something you could bring around the house. It's not just for, you know, a New York City apartment. It's something for us, you know, in our home.

little suburbs as well. But they're both Matter compatible, so you could start tapping into the Matter ecosystem. You could start tapping into Apple for these Hisense products as well. And they also, I did a little digging on the CSA website. They've got a dehumidifier that is Matter compatible as well, which I know you're excited about. But I don't have a ton of the details here, but let's definitely look into that and do a little more talking next time we meet up about that too. Yeah, for sure.

I just find this really interesting. My mother-in-law... So, first off, there's what we have...

Back ages ago, I had put in a HomeKit compatible window unit because there's room that they want to be able to maintain. And we put in a HomeKit one. It was from like GE, but it was very chunky. It looked like your standard window, big boxy one. I don't even know if they make them anymore, but there was almost no HomeKit AC units like that that were available.

So I'm like, oh my gosh, there's a new window one that looks so much nicer and sleeker. And then they also use a... She hauls it up from the basement every year. The portable tower AC unit and has it in the living room and venting out the window. I'm like, this looks so much nicer than that aging behemoth too. And I love that they're fully matter compatible, which is really neat. We...

It's another one of those categories that has not gotten a lot of smart love because people, they force you to use the manufacturer apps for some reason. And...

There hasn't been much there. So yeah, I was just really excited to see, and I missed these completely at CES. So this was like a surprise to me and I'm like, Oh, now they're available. It's even better. Yeah. Nice surprise mid year. Uh, yeah, it's, it's great. It's great to see big brands like Hisense, uh, get on board the matter train, uh, because once they start doing it, it's, it's a lot easier for other brands to jump in as well. So it should be a, it should be a fun ride the rest of 2025. I'm excited.

Well, you touched on dehumidifiers. We actually had a listener question. So Aaron wrote in over on Instagram of all the places that I give you folks to reach out to me. I'm like, hey, email me. Also Twitter and also Blue Sky. Also comments, email, whatever I didn't say.

Instagram was not on my list because I never use it, but I actually did see Aaron's notification. So I was able to actually respond to Aaron. So you can, you can message me on Instagram or, or threads. They do exist. I just don't check them. So if I don't answer you right away, that is why. Aaron messaged you what, like 15 years ago, you were just checking it now.

Yes, exactly. Aaron is no longer concerned with dehumidifier. Aaron's actually from Hawaii, or as my mother-in-law says, Huwui. And...

He says, you know, Hawaii is always incredibly hot and humid. What about HomeKit dehumidifiers? So Dan and I were looking for these. So apparently Hisense has a matter-enabled one. Whether it's out or coming out, something we'll have to see. And I couldn't find much else. I saw that Xiaomi has a smart dehumidifier that works with Siri shortcuts. So that's a maybe.

That's a possibility because you could build that into your automations and routines. How does your mother-in-law pronounce Xiaomi? That's what I want to know. You know, that's a very good question. I'm going to have to ask her and then we'll put it on the next episode. I mean, I can't get over the little ones like Warsh. Like both my mom and Faith's mom say Warsh with an R in there. It's Warsh.

I don't know why warsh, like that R. You mean warsh your clothes? Wash. Wash. Anyway, as I was doing my research, I saw that Jason Snell over at Six Colors, he had a whole thing where like a couple years ago, he had a room that really needed dehumidified and went down this whole project of trying to do it with HomeKit. And it never really worked because he had to make –

He had sensors and he wanted to run these automations, but they didn't work with the different types of sensors and all this stuff. It was a very interesting read, but clearly shows that this is a hole in the HomeKit space and maybe Matter is the way that we're going to get solutions here because obviously things are already moving. We already have one from Hisense coming along. So there is movement in this space. I also saw there was a DeLonghi one somewhere.

That I think it's available, but they don't even properly advertise that it's HomeKit. Like I'll put the link in the show notes, but like Dan, when I went to this, it doesn't even say HomeKit anywhere on the page, like in the specs and the connectivity, nothing. But there's a FAQ and it's like, what's the difference between this model and this model?

As if that's a question that everyone is asking when they land on this product page. And it's like, clearly this one is Apple Home certified and this one's not. I'm like, why isn't that listed anywhere else on the page? Why are you the way you are? I think that should be the title of this episode. HomeKit Insider, why are you the way that you are? I don't even know.

It's always annoying to have the HomeKit stuff buried for just seemingly no reason. I was in Home Depot and they were advertising they have a big camera display and it's literally ring, blink, the Google ones, and ring, blink, wise. Those are the four. And I'm like, none of you work with Apple Home.

The majority of your customers are iPhone users and you don't even have like a single Apple Home compatible one there. I don't know if it's because companies like Eve don't want to or struggling to get into, you know, Home Depot and Lowe's and stuff like that. Or if it like, you know, do customers still even know what to necessarily ask for?

Let's talk about this soon. I may have some info on getting into Home Depot type. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Perfect. Okay. Let's round out this episode because we've been talking for a hot second already. I want to talk about... It came out probably two months ago, but...

I finally got my like installed how I wanted and really kind of good to go. And I was, I was shocked and I was shocked at how good this thing was and I didn't fully expect it. And so I did do a video so you guys can watch the full video breakdown where I just laud praise on this camera for like eight minutes, but it is the Aqara camera hub G5 pro and

I've tested a whole lot of cameras, you know, across the board, wireless ones, plug-in ones, HomeKit ones, non-HomeKit ones. And there's just something about this one that I really like. So I'll hit the high points. Then I want to hear your thoughts on

Camera Hub G5 Pro comes in two different versions. There's a Wi-Fi flavor and a PoE flavor. So very few that are PoE that work with Apple Home. There's only one other one that I know about. So not a lot of options there. And then the camera itself can also act as a hub. So you have like full matter and thread hub, Zigbee hub. So if you have outdoor things, because this is also an outdoor camera or an indoor camera,

You can have a ThreadBorder router, MatterHub, ZigbeeHub outside your house to bridge those additional devices, which is really handy because I actually have a sensor on our mailbox to know when it's opened and closed. But it was a struggle because it didn't always connect because it was too far away. Now I have a hub. Now I have a hub that will actually handle that for me. So you have that going on.

Multiple mounting options you can attach it to the wall It's got an articulating base that you can pivot around and attach it to a wall or silicone foot You can set it on a counter use it that way It's got a built-in torch light so you can it's not a full spotlight like an Arlo pro Spotlight cam with the big things or the Eve cam that's got a big outdoor spotlight on it but it's still got a pretty decent flare on it full color night mode and

HomeKit secure video is built in here, but you can also use the car app at the same time. So like I have like a timeline in the car app, which is nicer than the home app, but you still have HomeKit secure video. If that's like your full route that you want to go, then a car has a bunch of AI features built in instead of including like crime detection. There's lingerer detection, which happened in while we were recording.

I got an alert that someone was lingering on my porch and I look and my mother-in-law had shown up to drop something off and she was like fussing around on the porch, like putting stuff down. And it was like, there's a lingerer. Mother-in-law detection is a max level mode. I like that. So you probably wanted to wash some clothing or something. Okay. Dan, Dan, that's it. You're not making it to a fourth time. Yeah.

Oh, yeah, this is great. Cool product. So many random things, like a lot of stuff on this guy.

Yeah, that's awesome. And I know a lot of the standards are trying to make long range better, exactly for the reasons you're talking about. Just how can we make the smart home expand beyond the walls of your home itself? You know, tap into your car as it's coming home, tap into your mailbox, tap into backyards and, you know, the different devices you can have around the perimeter, I'd say, of your home itself. So it's nice to see that built in kind of here with the product as well. But yeah, the

The security camera space is really interesting right now when it comes to HomeKit secure video because there's been all those rumors about Apple, you know, this year, next year, the year after, who knows at this point, getting into more of a smart home security vibe.

and kind of category. So it's cool to see a lot of these brands ramp up their production of their take on it and maybe what Apple does to partner with them in a deeper integration or partnership or what Apple takes and makes their own as well, which we've seen them do time and time again. So I like to see these brands like Aqara

showcase their greatest innovations and their greatest R&D. And the G5 Pro clearly does that. I'm excited to watch your video as well. Yeah. I mean, it also is, you can do 24-7 recording, like actual full loop recording to a local NAS. So you don't even have to use their cloud service or HomeKit. You can just do a local NAS to record around the clock and get everything recorded.

Um, the resolution is 1520. So they call it a four megapixel sensor. So you get 1520 P resolution. So it's not quite full 2k. So I, I would like it to maybe be a little higher on the resolution part. And the weird thing is there's no power supply in the box because they do have the POE version.

And the Wi-Fi version just uses USB-C. So I don't know if they just assumed everyone's got a USB-C cable, which is fine. But if they're saying it's an outdoor camera, you need an outdoor rated power supply. And I was shocked that they didn't

They don't even offer one to buy. Like, I wish I could just buy one from a car so that I knew which power supply I needed. And they don't even say, like, not included on the box, which I don't know. They should tell you that you need a power supply when you buy it so

So you actually make sure that you get one. And then the only thing they say, like really tiny print, it says, you know, power input, five volts, two amps. So, you know, your old school math of P power equals voltage times amps. You get like a 10 watt power adapter. You need to at least 10 watts, but I'm going to tell you like the wattage on the power adapters. Why? What if you have a five watt power adapter, you plug it in and it doesn't work. You think your camera's busted notes because you didn't use a high enough wattage.

power adapter, but not everyone knows how to calculate wattage from there. So that was one of my things. Maybe I got hung up on it a lot, but I just felt like from a consumer point of view, you need to tell them that there's no power supply included, and then you need to tell them, yes, any USB power supply will work at least 10 watts, and maybe offer one yourself that's water resistant instead of leaving it to the consumers to try to find...

Cause if people put that outside, are they just going to plug in, you know, their old iPad power supply and hope that they're fine, but that's going to get completely damaged sitting on your porch in weather. Yeah. That's really, I did find one. I did find one, but, uh,

Yeah, I don't know. That just struck me as weird when I was setting this thing up. That's good feedback, and I imagine they'll listen to that, and at the very least, for reviewers like yourself, add something in the reviewer's guide or maybe send something along with the product and hopefully translates to consumers as well in the near future. That's really good feedback for the brand. I also want to show you, this is in the video, but the reason I think this is the best one on the market

Here's my Aqara app. Okay. And the same thing works in the home app. I guess enter it. Okay. It's this tile right here at the bottom. Watch how fast this thing pulls up, Dan from there. Boom. That's live. That's it. That's that lady sees is next to zero. That's amazing. Like how, how, how, and it even works the same thing in home. Like here's the home app. Here's a tile. Okay.

And it's done. Like that is the fastest I've ever seen a camera pull up in the home app. Yeah, me too. I haven't seen anything like that before. That's amazing. And it's rock solid reliable. It's every single time. I've never had this thing go offline and I've never had it like fail to load on me.

And I have that with almost all of the other HomeKit cameras. Like, every once in a while, I'll be like, oh, this camera dropped offline, and now it's back online. Like, those random notifications you get if you have the offline alerts turned on. And I always, like, I just kind of figured it was, like, a home thing because they're constantly checking in, like an Apple Home thing. And then I got this one. I'm like, wait, those aren't a thing that happens online?

Just occasionally. It's not an Apple home thing though, because I, even Nest cameras also take forever to load sometimes. And it's, it's just the fact that you're saying it's not just the instant open, but it's like actually reliable that it does that each and every time. That to me is the big game changer. That's, that's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it, that's what I literally saw that happen. And I'm like, Holy smokes.

Because my wife is always like, this camera isn't loading. This camera isn't loading. You know, random things like that. And most of them they will or they just take a second to fully load. And then this one just does it every single time without fail in like less than a second. I'm like...

Okay, apparently other companies need to start, you know, I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's their networking that is better. I don't know if it's the processor in the cameras. I don't actually know what the component or part of all this that is actually doing it. But it's pretty cool. Yeah, that's awesome. Man, well, anything else that you want to leave us with, Dan? I think this was a very busy episode. We have new product launches.

More vacuum cleaners. Can we do fashion talk for one second, Andrew? What is this shirt you're wearing? I love the whole pocket situation there on the chest. Okay, so I don't know why I bought this. The weird things that I buy, Dan. This is from a company called Rumpel, like R-U-M-P-E-L. Okay. And they make blankets.

They make blankets, and I actually really like their blankets, and it's like a sleeping bag type material. They also make beer koozies that are just tiny sleeping bags, but for your drinks, also adorable. And I was putting in an order for a blanket or something, and they had this shirt, and it's got like sleeping bag material for a pocket. It's just a gray shirt with a sleeping bag material on a pocket with some like topographic stitching over top of it. And it's like...

you know, scratchy sounding like little sweatpants from the early years. Uh, I don't know, but I like it. It's just a comfy shirt. It's great. Yeah. I like, I'm going to check that out. I wonder if they're on Shopify, Shopify. I bet they are. HomeKit. HomeKit. And maybe they'll sponsor. If you all put it in, maybe they'll sponsor the show. Like that's how I think it works. If you all put the code in and they're like, man, this guy is sending us a lot of referrals. Um,

We should do something with them. Rumpel. R-U-M-P-L. All right. I'm going to check them out. I really like that. They have really, really cool blankets. Like, they legit do. And Faith is a big blanket person. So, like, I've gotten her some. And...

They, like, compact, really small. I think they're super, super warm. She doesn't like the ones that are, like, the swishy material on both sides. I do because I sleep hot, so I feel like I don't want necessarily something super hot all the time. So I feel like it keeps you warm, but it's not, like...

like the softness of a fuzzy blanket that like lets you overheat. So I think it's like a perfect comfort, but they also have ones that are swishing material on one side and like a fuzzy material on the other. So they do have options depending on the type of human that you are, uh, and what blankets that you like, but yeah, they'll do like random, like limited edition runs and collabs and stuff like that. But they're just really cool blankets. I like them.

Amazing. All right, I'll leave you with one more thing on my end. May 19th, it's coming up. My new book is coming out. My new children's book. It's called My Siblings Do Homework. This is the pre-sale copy.

Getting lots of cool stuff in here. Really good writing, really good illustration. I use that same illustration company. Oh, boy, my center stage is going a little wild there. Same illustration company as I use for my dad does PR and my mom does work.

And I'm really excited for this one because each of my kids gets their own books now. And my two olders were complaining, why is there no book for the youngest baby who's going to be a year on May 19th? So for her birthday, I have completed and will be publishing, self-publishing,

My Siblings Do Homework. If you have kids that are learning to play together and kids that are going to school and coming home and having to do homework and not able to play with the younger ones, this is the book for you. It's a really fun family, fun family love story. And if you want to check it out, it'll be on sale May 19th on Amazon.

Nice. I didn't even know you had a new book coming out. This wasn't even a plug, guys. It was a surprise. It was a surprise plug. I did not know Dan was this perfect timing. I mean, well, most perfect timing. Like two weeks, two and a half weeks. So yeah, check those out. I put links for it in the show notes along with everything else we've talked about today. Dan, anything else to leave us with?

It's always a pleasure being here. Go Leafs, go. I hope you win the Stanley Cup. And next time I will be wearing Leafs gear when we talk next. Appreciate you having me, Andrew. Okay, okay. Anyway, get out of here with your Leafs. Go Blue Jackets. Let's go. They're out, man. They're out. You got to check the standings.

I know. They had a good run. They were doing good in the middle. It was up until the last day. It was like the last game of the season where I think the Montreal Canadiens or something knocked them out because of some standing drama, but yeah. They were doing decent. They were in the middle kind of like all year this year, but...

yeah, it's fine. It's fine. We're I'm pivoting. Uh, I'm back now. We're now we're into baseball again. So, uh, let's go guards. We took out Yankees two in a row on the series, which let's go. Yeah, let's go. Uh,

bummed we didn't win the series. Like, I guess they hadn't swept the Yankees in a series since like the 70s or something. So I'm like, oh, we are one game away. One game away. If you want to bring this back to Apple for a second, sorry, we'll close. We'll close. I promise. The Friday Night Baseball broadcast that Apple TV Plus does

I think it's the best sports broadcast on TV right now. They're just so good at integrating cool stat pop-ups, and the commentators are really great. So, yeah, I don't know if you've watched any Guardians games on Friday Night Baseball yet, but they're really fun. No, because there never is. There never is. I guess they stick to the larger markets, but maybe when they're playing the Yankees or something next, it'll be a Friday night.

They do have one on the schedule. I can't remember when it is, but they do have one coming up. So I don't watch a lot of the Friday night baseball through there, but I will say like MLB is, is actually pretty great for their tech that they do. Like they've been a solid Apple partner for years. They're, they're always one of the first, you know, to try out a new function, the live in the, the Apple Island, whatever it's called, the dynamic Island. Now they yeah, they're doing all sorts of cool things with the new Apple sports app and,

Yeah, they're a very good partner. They have the Vision Pro app that is pretty insane where you can sit in a virtual recreation of all the ballparks and watch the games kind of play out. They do some really cool stuff, and it just kind of goes, I feel like, a little bit under the radar compared to football that really does...

I don't know. I mean, I know they have a lot of the same, I know a lot of the camera systems like that, whatever it is, Hawkeye view, Eagle view, owl cam. What? I don't know. Whatever it is that the cameras, they move around on top. I think it's like the same tech that they use for a lot of the stadiums and stuff. Yeah. But, um, yeah, I just think MLB does a really great job. Yeah.

Well, I think that is enough. That is a long episode. Thank you, Dan, as always, for joining. If any of you guys have questions, you can, of course, hit me up. Email andrewatappelinsider.com, Twitter, Andrew underscore OSU. You can also find me on threads and Instagram. I got those accounts, too, apparently, that I will check every once in a while in case something happens.

does flow my way but you'll have to just find them because i couldn't even tell you what my name is on them but they exist you can also watch a video version of this you can see me holding up the box for the camera and dan's new book on the video version that's over youtube.com slash home kit insider give us a 5 10 100 star rating on your podcast player of choice and i'll see you guys in the next episode five star reviews when i'm on guys i need to come back all right

Thanks, Andrew. Specifically leave Dan an extra review inside of the body of the review. What are we rating Dan? He's so positive. I liked his sweater. Those books look amazing. I'm just, you know, spitballing ideas here, guys. So generous of you. So generous of you. We'll see you guys. See you, buddy.