HomePod Mini 2 Rumor Roundup, Nanoleaf Monitor Lights, & Cameras in Matter 1.5
45:25 Share

Welcome everybody to another exciting episode of HomeKit Insider. You've got me, your host as always, Andrew O'Hara. Joining me once more this week is Wesley Ilyard. How you doing, man?

Pretty good. I'm excited. I'm going to be staking my lawn with a wire so I can put out a robot lawnmower this weekend. That's a very exciting prospect to me. It reminds me of in high school having to do that for the invisible fence situation. Right. Having to use the things to find the cut in there when it inevitably would get broken somehow by some animal or something. Trying to dig it up and repair it.

Fun times. I'm very excited for you. Oh, yeah. The curious thing is finding out how big my yard is because they sent it a giant spool, and they're like, it can't get any longer than this. So I'm just going to unwind it until either my yard is encircled or I'm out of wire, and then we'll find out together, I guess. Yeah, I guess. I would think maybe put, like, pegs in the corners and then, like,

stretch it around those and like yeah yeah i don't know that sounds fun no i'll be doing the pegs second the wire goes down first and then i'm walking around i'm not doing all that work to like wind up three inches short and have to like readjust the whole thing yeah yeah

Well, in terms of actual Apple news, there wasn't anything too crazy this week. We had basically new betas once again. 18.4 coming along. It's going to include the new robotic vacuum cleaner. So that's the big update there. I wish I had. We were debating literally before we recorded this. We had Ecovacs told me that their Matter update was arriving for users on March 20th. And it is past that.

And as far as I know, that update is not out. So if you are waiting for that, and if you get it, tell me. Like, let me know on Twitter or something that that update is available, because I have not seen it publicly acknowledged yet. But I would love to know if anyone is testing iOS 18.4 and got the Matter update, because it's pretty exciting and fun to test.

So I'm still loving that, as it's still just so handy to be able to say, clean the kitchen, clean this. It's great. I cannot wait for this to come to more robots and for everyone to actually be able to experience this with 18.4, because I think this really makes vacuums easier, more accessible, and probably more frequently used, really. I'll have to reach out to Narwhal, because I have one of their recent units available.

And honestly, there's no reason why it shouldn't get the update. I don't think there's any particular component that is required for matter. It just needs the software and this thing's a powerful little robot. So, um, unless it's just time, right. You know, sometimes software updates, they prioritize certain systems and they're only going to do it for the newer ones because it encourages people to buy the new ones and stuff like that. But I don't know. Mine's a relatively recent one. I reviewed it for Apple insider, uh,

mid last year. So I don't know, we'll see, but hopefully it comes to more because existing units, because of course buying these things only for matter feels a little bit wasteful.

Yeah. That's a, especially the good ones. Like I personally, I am not a fan of a lot of like the four to $500 ones. I think so many of them are just meh. And then people end up buying them and they don't do a great job. So then they don't really use them a bunch. And this is one of those money. Yeah. Like 1500 plus appliance territory. Um, but when you get the good ones, they last forever. I mean, uh, I've,

Really landed on this narwhal one that I have Frio Ultra, something like that. And it's been really good for our home. So no complaints here. We're finally getting to the point where we're changing up brushes and soap and stuff like that. Like it's sticking around for a while.

Nice. That's awesome. So I guess the big thing that we want to talk about this episode before we get into the rest of the news, because there is a bunch of news this week, but I just did a video on new updates coming for HomePod and HomePod Mini. So let's go ahead and round up the rumors on what we could see for a new technically third-generation HomePod and a second-generation HomePod Mini. Okay.

How many, okay, before we get into this, Wes, how many HomePod and HomePod Minis do you have in your home? That's a good question. I would have to count somewhere in the range of eight. Oh my gosh. Let's look. I don't mean to judge, Wes, but I think eight is too many. I think eight is too many HomePods and HomePod Minis in a house. Well, let's count together. Well, it's just the way my house is shaped. So I have one Mini in the kitchen, one Mini in the dining room.

um one mini in my bedroom one mini in my fiance's bedroom yes we have separate bedrooms uh so that's four then we have two in the office and as uh large ones in the speaker pair and two in the living room in a speaker pair and two in the den and a speaker pair so yeah uh but hey they've been these things have been around since what when did they first release 2016 i want to say

It's been a while. I have all of the large ones are original HomePods, except for the living room pair, which is a set of new HomePod large ones, and then the rest are mini. So do the math. A lot of them I got on sale. It just works out. It's not as egregious as it sounds. But remember, we've talked about on the show before, I replaced my Sonos system with HomePods, and that's why we have them everywhere. I have no other smart speaker in my home other than HomePods.

I have one in my kitchen, just a HomePod Mini. I have a HomePod Mini in the studio. I have two HomePod Minis in our bedroom, and there's one more HomePod Mini in Faith's office. So I have that and many. I do have an extra one behind me that's a full-size HomePod that I use for studio set dressing because I was going to put somewhere where I don't even need necessarily the full-size HomePod anywhere because the Mini...

works so well and then if I'm wanting better audio I switch over to the Sonos system because I have like the sound bar and the subwoofer and you're never gonna recreate that massive subwoofer on the sub is the sub is the only thing I will say Sonos has over Apple as far as like home theater because but just as a little aside I

I still don't miss it. Um, having my new, the newest large home pod stereo pair as my home TV system has been excellent. And I've had it that way for a while now. I couldn't tell you when, but, uh,

Yeah, go back in the show, I guess, and find it where I replaced it. That is one of the things that we will perpetually disagree on. I know. I couldn't do it. I felt the bass was sloppy and heavy-handed, and I do agree that since then, Apple has added the reduced bass options that originally was HomePod only and then came to third-party speakers.

I'm happy with the base and I'm happy the voice recreations been nice. I use it for gaming on my ps5, right? I have it set up. So my ps5 is hooked up through a hue sync box and the hue sync box goes to the arc system for my Apple TV, so it's getting the Audio from that and it works out really well actually no lag on my PlayStation even though it's going through two separate systems and

And the audio is telling the PlayStation that it is a 7.1 surround sound Dolby Atmos system. And it comes out clear and it very well recreates because the shape of the room, it can very easily recreate left and right channel and sometimes rear channel sounds. So the only thing I ask Apple to do is give me the ability to do four HomePods and I'll have one in each corner of my room. And that would be pretty amazing.

I did the, even the dialogue was never clear. It just felt muddied in a set of big home pods. Like I used it for a little while. I'm like, it's just not, it's just not as good. And they have made improvements since then. And I do use a pair of home pod minis in the bedroom. And those are great. Cause we have them literally perched like on the wall stands on each side of the bed. So that works out perfectly. Cause then you can keep it low. Yeah.

for like, you know, the kid in the house and everything. But still, I don't know. Getting into actual rumors, though, for new HomePods, the biggest thing is for the HomePod Mini, there's no design changes rumored so far. Everything says it's going to look basically the exact same as they do now. Tiny little baseballs. Yeah. The biggest change that we have heard for HomePods in terms of design is on the full-size HomePod, which should have a new top display. Okay.

Now it's going to be more of like an actual touchscreen versus the kind of light that is there now. We've actually seen like components leak of this and it should be able to show you like the album artwork and other information besides just a glowing orb. I don't know if it'll actually show you like responses if you talk to the digital assistant or if it's just going to show things like

and more specific information, but that's going to be the biggest hardware upgrade in terms of design and change on these two. I just want it to animate like a magic eight ball whenever you talk to Siri and it doesn't work and it just says try again later. They should move that display onto the HomePod or the, yeah, the HomePod mini and you should be able to pick it up and shake it. Just shake it and ask questions. It should be an Easter egg little feature there.

Especially the HomePod Mini, because that thing is a magic eight ball, right? Seriously. I don't know. These systems, I can tell that. So the HomePods in my office are in use constantly. So they're definitely showing their age more and more every day. Random disconnects and popping sounds sometimes.

It's the slow death of the HomePod. We've heard about this for a long time. Some of them just will catastrophically fail eventually. And I've gotten lucky so far. The ones in my office are like original generation HomePods. So like day one purchase kind of thing. So yeah.

I don't know. I definitely look forward to replacing some of these with newer generations. The living room always gets the priority. I'll put Gen 3, or I guess Gen 3 large ones in the living room. And I don't know about replacing the other HomePod minis unless they do something different. I like that the current ones have temperature sensors, so maybe if they got more home data or something like that, give me a reason to upgrade the room ones. Otherwise, no reason.

Yeah. Well, sticking with the design, how do you feel the fabric has held up over time? Because I think that on my – they seem to look dusty very easily. And because they're like a 3D mesh fabric, it's not like it's exactly simple to like –

dust them off you need almost like a condensed air can to spray them out to get that off and the one that I have that actually came from like our old video people the the the fabric on it the white has become like discolored and gotten really yellowed and things so I I'm not sure if I still like I love the look of them but I feel like now that we're you know years and years on I

The fabric, I don't know. I don't know. Well, I've got to see some in different environments. All of mine are gray, except for the one in my room is blue, and my fiance has a yellow one. The color ones look great, and the gray ones are fine. They do collect dust from time to time, but I've noticed just touching them with a cloth is enough to get it off of there. Maybe...

Yeah, like an air duster will help. But mostly it's just the top glass that needs cleaning more often than anything because it just attracts things, static and glass things.

But overall, fine. Now, in a home where there's smoke in the air, people smoking cigarettes give up. It's over, especially if you have a white one. And that's the case I've seen with this one. It is just it's it's slowly gotten more and more dingy over time after years of just being exposed to cigarette smoke and stuff like that. So if you smoke, maybe don't get a white one. Just saying. I don't.

Apple could always change the design. I think they created this mesh and they bragged about it specifically to say it's very good acoustic mesh, but I don't see any reason to change the design. The display thing is cool. I never look at my HomePods. I think the only ones in my home that I could physically see the top of is in my living room because of the TV stand being low. But otherwise, yeah, I don't know. I wonder how Apple will pitch all of it. It's true.

So we'll have basically the similar designs as we have now, updated display on the larger version than we have on the inside. So I would expect, correct me if I'm wrong, Wes, with the Master of HomePods, the big one actually doesn't have the same temperature and humidity sensor as the small one. So personally, I would assume that Apple would

would make that up, right? And add those to the bigger one? Or does it happen now? They came in the new one when they re-alived. Yeah, the new ones. Yeah, they don't have any of the big ones actually set up anymore. So that's going to stay the same. The biggest internal change is Apple's going to be adding a new processor as well as a new Wi-Fi chip. So this has been a whole debate that Wes and I were having pre-show again.

Apple's been working on their own in-house wireless chip aside from their modem that they have in the 16E. This is a new dedicated Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip codenamed Proxima. Bloomberg broke the news of this back in December, and we're getting closer and closer. Now, things have shifted since then, so now things are a little bit more in flux.

The original report said that Apple was going to be supporting Wi-Fi 6E with this. Now, that would already be a big upgrade for HomePods because they have Wi-Fi 4 on them now, so Wi-Fi 4 to Wi-Fi 6E. But now that...

I guess taking a step back, Bloomberg said that this is going to debut first in Apple's smart home products, the HomePods and the Apple TV, before eventually making its way to things like the iPhone. But now that things have possibly shifted with Apple's smart home hub and the new HomePods, now it's like, are they going to have two separate chips, one for the iPhone, one for the smart home HomePod line, or is it going to be Wi-Fi 7 because they're going to have to support Wi-Fi 7 on the new iPhones?

I'm not sure, but one way or another, it sounds like they're having a new Wi-Fi chip in this for sure. Yeah, I wonder if they're going to come up with a new system on a chip just for HomeStuff because they're going to be focusing so much on HomeStuff. So this new Home Hub would have whatever chip in it. Now, we're running out of letters. It can't be the H for home. It can't be W for wireless. I don't know. The Q, we're just going to call it a random letter. But...

I wouldn't, I would imagine Apple maybe refocusing instead of using watch chips, right? Or using a series chips, uh,

and it's HomePods and the new Home Hub, I think they're going to get their own proprietary chipset, and that would include the Wi-Fi chip. And then that would enable them to say, yeah, Wi-Fi 6E, that's fine. And because as far as the separate Wi-Fi chip, I don't think it makes much sense for them to have two generations all at once and then be Wi-Fi 6E for home stuff and Wi-Fi 7 for the phone chip.

within weeks of each other. We're talking, even if Apple waits till June to announce these new home products, it's just September till the iPhone. Why would they have two generations of Wi-Fi chip out at the same time? That's not very cost friendly and Apple loves their supply chain. So I don't know. Maybe it'll be Wi-Fi 7 all the way around. Uh,

Maybe it's all just wrong and we're not going to get any of this stuff till after iPhone and iPhone's going to get Wi-Fi 7. And then after that, it doesn't make sense to release anything without Wi-Fi 7. So we'll just have to wait and see.

Well, playing devil's advocate as I do, I have two reasons why I think we could see the two different ships. So the first reason is all this was expected to debut earlier this year, right? Or at least like springtime, roughly. That was the launch for like 18.4 with the upgraded Siri and the new smart home hub. And I believe like a new other smart home products would arrive in a similar time fashion. So if that was expected to be the case, then...

hardware would have been locked in a while ago. And of course the same would go for an iPhone in the fall months ahead of time, but that would make sense of why they had the 16 E chips ready to go as their first wireless chip while also simultaneously working on that second gen chip to debut in the iPhone line. So hardware wise, I think they were fine. This seems like the delay was mostly related to the software side of things and for the cohesion in the redesign with iOS and their smart home hub.

So that's reason number one. The second reason could be different ones because Bloomberg had the stuff in there about how Apple could possibly use these Proxima chips in its smart home products as some sort of like Wi-Fi extender situation. And I don't know if that functionality would just eventually require it to be some sort of differently configured chip from the ones that are incredibly tiny that show up in an iPhone.

Those are my only two reasons of why we could see different ones. Otherwise, I completely agree from a supply chain point of view, it makes sense to make one ship and have it in everything, but maybe they shouldn't have the wifi seven version ready in time when they expected these smart home products to launch before software delayed them. I don't know. If these things are already like in a warehouse, I would agree with you, but otherwise no. If they're doing any kind of construction right now, then yeah,

it doesn't make any sense for them to not have the same chip, but maybe they're already ready to go. I don't know. Well, so same design on the HomePod mini upgraded display on the full size HomePod. The internals will have its own custom wireless chip and an upgraded processor one way or the other. Other things that you can probably expect is improved audio. Apple's of course going to take any chance it can to improve the acoustics and the audio on these things. We should also see an improved assistant. Now,

There will not be full-blown Apple intelligence on the HomePod or HomePod Minis. Apple's still going to keep that for its other devices as well as the Smart Home Hub. I think that makes sense. That's kind of like that upsell reason for the Smart Home Hub over a HomePod or HomePod Mini. But I will say I expected to have improved voiceover.

voice assistant, because right now you can do things like on your iPhone, like stuttering and miss a word and then, and redo it. Things like that. So you open the living room, uh, uh, shades and it can follow along with those stammers or saying, can you unlock the door in the living room? No, sorry. Unlock the room. I'm like the studio door and it can follow that train of thought. So I think that similar, uh,

you know, better understanding will come to the home pods with their version of Apple's assistant. So I think we will see that. Maybe, I mean, that's obviously going to come to these speakers, but I do wonder why that couldn't just come in an over the air update. It doesn't seem like it would require that much horsepower, but maybe just the processors, man. I mean, we're talking to watch processors and then it's been like five years.

And you can't do the stuttering thing on the watch either. This is only an iPhone feature. So I agree with you there. That makes sense. But I also wonder where all this is going as far as the home OS update we're getting to. If this fall, if Apple is going to actually release a whole new operating system built around HomePod, Apple TV and this new Home Hub, we'll have to just wait and see.

That's true. Okay, lastly on HomePods here, price drops. This is the thing that I'm hoping actually happens. There's no evidence, no one's saying this, but I'm hoping it happens for a couple reasons. One, Apple's really doing this push into the smart home, and I think it needs to make its devices more accessible to people than making them as expensive as they are. So that's number one. It needs to get those prices down to make more people pick them up. Two, I think it'll put a bigger price

you know, price difference between these HomePods and that smart home display. It'll allow that one to have like the premium end of the market and the speakers to be on the lower end. And I think Apple will want to pair them together, whether it is pairing HomePods with an Apple TV or it's pairing those HomePods with the Home Hub. So I think by doing that, it could completely lower those prices. I mean, we even saw Apple do it with the new MacBook Airs.

That same design we've had for years, it was able to get those prices down. The designs here aren't changing. Apple's making its own chips now. We should be able to see enough cost savings in optimizing that manufacturing process to bring those prices down and get more people buying HomePods. So I'm hoping, hoping that that will be the case. Yeah, I'm guessing this price structure is going to look something like the Home Hub itself, maybe $300, and then the regular HomePod 250 and the HomePod Mini 250.

Maybe 79. I would hope like 79. Yeah, those are the sweet spots. I would expect 79. Yeah, 50 is not going to happen. But yeah, those would be the sweet spots, I think, price-wise, especially since when we see them on sale for those prices, they empty shelves. People go crazy. I remember when the first clearance on the original HomePods was happening and they were getting as low as like $199 in some certain places. Yeah.

And yeah, they would just sell out in a day because that is a killer price for that speaker. So... Well, I mean...

At that point, too, people thought the big ones were forever done and really didn't want to not have it. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. We'll see. I mean, Apple's not afraid of lowering prices, and I think that they should be readjusting for the smart home. They can't announce a light bulb next year, and it costs $50 a bulb. It's just that's not the era we're in anymore. I don't care what it does. That's true.

Well, Wes, did you know that Fast Growing Trees is the biggest online nursery in the U.S. with thousands of different plants and over 2 million happy customers? Did you know that? No.

Okay.

You guys know that I have bought stuff from Fast Green Trees. I have several fruit trees in my yard that I'm very excited for between apple trees, cherry trees. And I have this like multi apple tree that they created by grafting branches from other apple trees onto one apple tree.

So I have one apple tree that'll give me five different types of apples. And just as we started recording, I get ads from Fast Growing Trees, which is fantastic because they have like all these sales going on. Lavender plants, which looks so pretty. My wife loves lavender plants. They also have blueberries on sale. And I bought blueberries last year, a lemonade blueberry bush, and I was very excited for it this year. And then our mower ran over it. So I immediately was like talking like I got to buy it.

a new blueberry bush because it was destroyed. So I'm for sure buying some more blueberry bushes, but these things arrive ready to go. I literally, these trees, you can pick your height. They come, they are so healthy. I put them in the ground. All of our plants are flourishing other than that dead blueberry bush. So I'm for sure doing this. We're also going to be looking around the chicken coop to make it look better. We're going to ask like pavers and some plants and hydrangeas and things like that or whatever. I don't know.

But yeah, Beth is already looking at fast green trees to pick something out to landscape around the chicken coop and making it look all pretty. So I'm for sure putting an order in this year. And if you want to, you should too. So you can go ahead and check them out and get some deals. This spring they have the best deals for your yard, up to half off select plants and other deals. And listen to our show, Can Bet, Can Get,

15% off their first purchase when using the code HOMEKIT at checkout. That's an additional 15% off at FastGrowingTrees.com using the code HOMEKIT at checkout. FastGrowingTrees.com, code HOMEKIT. Now's the perfect time to plant. Use HOMEKIT to save today. Offer is valid for a limited time. Terms and conditions apply.

Then we've got Shopify, and it's funny because I was literally in the shop app this morning because I just bought a new hat. I bought a new hat from Melon, and they are yet another Shopify site. I always look at their stuff, and I clicked on the check. I'm like, oh, of course. Of course it happens to be Shopify. So I knew I could pay with Apple Pay. I used a promo code, used Apple Pay, checked on out, kicked it over to the shop app, and I could track that order, and I'm getting push updates from the shop app this morning that your order is out for delivery. So yeah.

I love it. I love to see all the different sites that use Shopify, 12 South, Nomad, Moment, Rothy's. My wife just bought shoes from Allbirds and of course, you shop pay or whatever to check out makes it so easy to do.

There's so many reasons that we love Shopify over here. It's really easy on like the business side of things because they handle it all for you. They handle figuring out like how much tax to charge on your orders, how much shipping is going to be, all that gets unaccounted calculated. You can control where you ship to, whether it's just in the U.S. or which countries around the world.

They can manage your inventory system between your online store and a physical marketplace. And of course, the recognizable checkout process that gives your site credibility and trustworthiness and helps convert people from just browsers into actual customers.

buyers. And they're one of the only ones that actually, like, sites that use that will track with the Wallet app, which is really cool to see. So you've got nice Apple integrations like Wallet, like Apple Pay, make the whole process easier from the business side, from the consumer side of things. I also love that it scales really easily from, like, small companies to big companies. You've heard some of the brands that use it. So if you want to upgrade your business and get the same checkout as all of those different brands,

Sign up for $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com slash HomeKit. All lowercase. Go to Shopify.com slash HomeKit to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com slash HomeKit. Well, let's go into the news now outside from kind of our rumor roundup.

We're gonna start off with Nanoleaf. Nanoleaf has a new light strip out. This looks very cool. So it's like a Z-shaped light strip and it's meant for going around your monitor. It fits up to 32 inch monitors, works for both Windows and Mac computers. It is trimmable so you can put it on there with an adhesive, get it to the size of your monitor, trim off the rest.

Really easy to do and it's powered up over USB-C. So, basically you put it on there, plug it into a USB-C port and then it syncs with software on your computer to give you this really nice ambient lighting effect. If you have your computer up against a wall, it just looks really pretty. It'll kind of like mirror your computer behind you as well as doing all these other kind of different fun lighting effects.

This is really cool. I love it in 50 bucks. So it's not even that expensive. I think this is, this is really cool. I think this is great. Yeah, this is a interesting, it reminds me, I had a monitor that had a built-in led light. It was one of those gaming monitors and,

But my issue as always will be that I'm using an iPad and none of these things do that. So I think it would still be interesting to buy this and maybe have it, you know, I could hook up to my Mac, set it up to kind of go through different colors or follow different kinds of schedules rather than using my monitor, like my feedback from my monitor to change based on what's on the display. But still kind of interesting having backlighting on a monitor.

True. And this does not support, you know, Matter or HomeKit or anything like that because it is just meant to like mirror your monitor. So no smart home controls, but really easy that it powers up over USB-C. Yeah, that's nice because, I mean, we're just out of outlets. Like I don't know how many more outlets you can add to a desk setup these days. So USB-C all the way for sure.

True story. Well, then we have Derek over on Twitter sent this to me. So it looks like there's actually evidence that Matter might be getting camera support in the 1.5 update.

Don't get too excited. Take this with a grain of salt. But yeah, so basically the CSA publishes Matter as like this open spec. So it's on GitHub. Like you can go through the code and look at them building Matter if you want to. So Derek was apparently doing that, you know, on a weekday afternoon, as we all do. And he found some evidence that they're working on cameras. So there's like these camera streaming things that...

A bunch of code. I am a developer, but I'm not even going to get into what different parts of these are using because I don't know their terminology for stuff. But they are obviously this is something that's been worked on, but it's literally pointing to 1.5. So very, very interesting here on if it's actually going to be included in this update. Now, while they may be working on it now,

This won't be released or announced until May. So we still have a month and a half, probably at least until we hear confirmation on what is in matter 1.5. So there's,

plenty of plausibility that this does not make it into this update. If it's not done, it's going to get bunted to 1.6 or 1.7 after that. I'm hopeful maybe we'll see it. Hopefully we'll hear some news because this will be great. My guess is this first version of it is going to be just streaming, which is going to be fine because then you could see doorbells on your wall display and

And Apple will adopt Matter 1.5 in 2029. Yeah.

Okay, way to rain, pulling us back to reality as we get all excited about... I mean, this will be cool to have more access for camera systems, but from what I've seen from Matter, it's mostly about getting it to other systems, especially when you're an Apple user, because if you're Apple, you're probably already buying Apple, so...

It'll be nice knowing that at least in the future, if there are specific camera brands you want that aren't in Apple right now, they could come to Apple later. But that's once Apple adopts the Matter spec. So we'll just see when it rolls out.

I think the big thing for cameras is I want other smart displays. I mean, we talked about like the Aqara wall panels that are coming that look really amazing and they'd be able to pull up your camera feeds or your doorbell feed and you wouldn't have to worry about like HomeKit doesn't allow that. HomeKit cameras go directly into the home app and to select third party apps. The recording is even more limited to just the home app.

So now something that could get certified as a secure matter controller, like in a car wall panel or a brilliant wall panel, could then access those streams.

And that part I get very excited for. And it would be easier for, like you said, other cameras that currently don't support HomeKit can get Matter certified and show in the Home app. A little more interoperability and control. Just, yeah, more options is always good for users, especially in the smart home where there's just always more coming and you never know where it's going to work. Yeah.

Right. As the CSA keeps saying, Chris LaPree and Tobin Richardson, like one of the things they kind of like emphasize is how much this is a member driven organization. So when the member orgs decide we want cameras done, they can throw resources at it and they can make it happen. So maybe that's why we're seeing this earlier than we thought we would, because from all indications, this was not coming out until next year. So hopefully this is good.

Next up in the news we have SwitchBot. So SwitchBot is apparently working on a new hub. So I actually have the hub 2 holding up on screen as their existing SwitchBot hub and the new one looks very little like this. It looks a lot nicer and the biggest change is they put this big old knob on the front of it. Now this is not official yet but it has been shown on the CSA website. So it's apparently like certified with Matter should be coming soon and

still has all of your like data on the front of it, but there's this big old knob in the center. They say can control things like maybe for an AC, you can turn it up and down to control your AC directly from that hub, like right on your desk. That would be really cool.

Um, it can also tie into like third party weather forecasts and stuff. You could also use it to control AV equipment. So maybe if they literally cite like in their notes, Apple TV as a possibility. So you could tie this to your Apple TV and turn this little knob to turn your Apple TV down. I think that'd be really handy to have like on your desk. You don't even need to grab your Apple TV remote. Just turn this thing down.

Um, but yeah, I think this looks very cool. Looks really nice. Motion activated screen, uh, instantly wakes up interface, uh, upon detecting motion integrates with all the different platforms, including matter in this case. So I'm excited for it. I hope they announce this thing soon. Yeah. I just want more random like controller options for home kit. Like I, I want more like the nano leaf die thing that you could just roll and have a different color pop out. Um,

just, you know what knobs everywhere. Let's go. Let's just have a knob on the wall that controls the brightness and hue saturation, you know, stuff like that. That's always fun. Well, if you want more controls, you could get one in the third reality new button. So basically third reality is not a company that I had even heard of. And then I saw it on Twitter and I was like, what is this? And they've been teasing a new model of their remote that I don't

did not even know existed before this. But they have an existing remote that looks literally like an old iPod shuffle, like the white ones that were tall and kind of skinny, like a stick of gum or a pack of gum shape, but all white. So it looks like that with a button right in the center. The original one was Zigbee and it was like $17. Seems pretty decent for a little button to control things. Well, now they're teasing a new version

The button itself on the front has moved down a little bit more towards the middle, but it is a matter and thread button. So matter over thread. So it could control any smart home stuff that you've got, you know, that is matter or home kit. So that all looks great. Single button. So I'm guessing it has like the single press, double press and hold similar to most buttons that we've seen so far. And yeah,

Yeah, third reality apparently sells a bunch of smart home tech like motion sensors and plugs and smart bulbs, outlets, all those types of deals. And now they're going to have a matter button. So it's going to work with all your home stuff. So there we go. Kind of a kind of a big button. I I'm a fan of the car button because it's like just literally the button on the wall. But I don't think well, I guess it's matter through their hub, isn't it? But yeah, that's true.

Okay, last launch that we are seeing this week, and I'm actually pretty excited for these because these look so cool. These were announced a while ago, and they first launched in Europe, but they're making their way to the U.S. It is the Hue Datura. So these are wall fixtures, wall, or sorry, ceiling fixtures, ceiling fixtures from Philips Hue, and they come in four different shapes. There is a square,

There is a longer rectangle, which looks like about two squares. There is a round one, and there is a big round one.

and they mount on your ceiling. They're aluminum. I think they come in, they're at least white. I don't know if they have black ones, but they're at least white. And then they have an upward facing light and a downward facing light. So your upward facing light is going to be like a nice diffused ambiance one. And your downward one is going to be your actual like utility light, your productivity light that actually lights up your room.

And you can control them each independently so they can be different colors, you could set them to different warmth, or you can even just turn on your top one. So I love this if you mount it in somewhere like a kitchen, you come into your kitchen in the middle of the night and just the top one comes on as like a soft warm glow. And you don't even have to turn on the down light.

or if you're having a party, turn on the lower one as like a nice, warm, cool down light, and then your top one is like a nice accent color to bring some, you know, color and fun to the room. I think these look really cool.

I love the style of them. I love the control. They're hue. So they work with the hue hub and matter and Apple home on top of that. Two 99 for the smaller ones at three 99 for the bigger ones, which considering who prices also doesn't seem terrible, at least for some of these smart light fixtures. It's a big light, like go look at the photos and like of the hands installing one of them. And it's just enormous. But, uh,

Yeah, I kind of feel for people who rely on ceiling fans because this does not do that. But otherwise... I think the small one, they have the sizes. I think the small one is like 16 inches, something like that. Or sorry, let me see. I'm on... That's the big one. Round, small. It is a size of... View product specs. Where are you? I can't even see this. We're looking this up. This is real time, folks. So with 108 millimeters...

Yeah, I mean... 10 centimeters? That's not huge. Well, no, they're just, they're, yeah, it's just, they're big lights and they replace a light bulb fixture in your ceiling. You'll need, you'll need hot wire to get it to work. It's not battery or whatever powered. It is, you are wiring it to your home. And yeah, this, this looks cool though. I mean, if I was in a home that didn't need a ceiling fan, this would definitely be an option.

Yeah, I mean, how many homes, especially in a lot of bedrooms, have, like, those old school ones that look like, like those dome lights that are going around? Yeah, just like a hallway light. Like, you ever see the hallway light with the glass thing that just hangs down and it's a two-bulb fixture? Like, this is, I would replace that with this, I think. 100%. Yeah.

entrance way, dining rooms, hallways, bedrooms, a lot of uses for this. But I think these look really cool. So I'm very excited. They're actually coming to the U S after such a long time in Europe before that. And two 99, if you look at a fancier fixture, fixtures are expensive. So you get all the smart tech. Yeah. Hugh has some wild looking lights.

I know they have weird ones. This is actually pretty normal because it's just it's it's super slim profile. It looks like it's maybe like an inch or so, an inch and a half, maybe thick or something. And then it's got to hang down from the ceiling another inch or so just for that diffused upward light. But they look great.

There, of course, can be said is the chapter art. So if you're watching, if you look at the chapter, you'll see a picture of them. If you don't want to follow the link that are in the show notes. Also, just not we're going to end this, but I also just happened. It sets me off every time I got a push on a vacation. Wes, that GM is cracking down on aftermarket car play solutions. Like, seriously? Yeah.

What is wrong with you, GM? You are the worst. Like, can't even do your own thing to your own car. That's crazy. Like, are you kidding me? They want your data and your information that bad. Then not only are they going to not give you CarPlay, but then they're going to stop you from putting in your own aftermarket CarPlay. Oh my gosh. If we could curse on this podcast, I'd have some nice words for GM. Yeah. Speaking of CarPlay, have you seen these electric car conversion kits? Yeah.

No. You can convert your gas car to electric. It's crazy. It reminds me of the Back to the Future where you see a billboard for converting your car to a flying car. Yeah, so you can get an entire conversion kit, converts your existing vehicle to electric, and

But you still, to this day, cannot buy a car key system for aftermarket. I don't care if it's $1,000. The instant that becomes available, I will install car key in my car. I'm telling you. But why? Why can you not do this? I told you why. I still believe why because you have to actually replace the whole door handle. I will do it. And then you have to make a whole lot of door handles. I will do it. Make a door handle.

3D print a door handle. I don't think it's going to happen. Maybe it will. No. I don't think it's going to happen. On an infinite timeline, it might happen. But by then, I'll probably hopefully have a car that actually just has it built in. Exactly. I will 100% jump to a car that has that. Yeah. Like, let's go. Wireless CarPlay, I've got that. Now I just need next-gen CarPlay and CarKey. Yeah. Next-gen CarPlay, man. And...

Now we're just talking about cars. One thing that I want, Wes, that really frustrates me that more don't have, like Tesla has it, Ford has it, probably some others, is support for shortcuts and voice control. Why is that so hard? Start your car, cool it down. Yeah, Apple pushes Ford Pass...

All the time, because they're supporting the action button and control center. They're quick with all these things. And part of me goes, I kind of want a Ford again. I don't, because I had one. But part of me is like, I kind of want to get a Ford again, just because of how cool that is. If Rivian could ever just...

to like Apple, that would probably be the vehicle I got. Just give me a Rivian with CarPlay and CarKey, or yeah, that's all I would need done. I saw this one, there was an EV that I saw at CES, and I can't remember...

Scout Motors maybe have you seen those no give those a google real quick but I think I think that's the one that I saw at CES and they looked really really neat and I did ask them about things like car key and car play and they're still too far out from their actual launch date that they were remaining uncommittal but they wanted to try to do it so if that was a thing this is I could make that happen this is one of those things that I just feel like with Apple yeah these look cool

That's kind of a classic Jeep look. That's kind of neat. But yeah, I think Apple needs to be better. Just like with Apple vision pro evangelism, just find a company to partner with and say, Hey, make the car that everyone wants to buy. Right. Go to Honda, give them a pile of money and say, make the super Apple car thing with a next gen car play and car key. And that way, you know, other people can follow suit, set the example and,

We'll just throw a bunch of money at you, make it happen. Find an American company. I don't know. But they just – they're not doing it. I think that would be very smart because then you're going to have like just all the latest tech coming out in that car. And when consumers are able to get – like when Apple is pushing that because it is like their version of it.

You're going to have other car makers. It trickles down. That customer is asking for it. Yeah. Give us car key that you have that perfect unlock experience, the ultra wideband and everything, and next-gen CarPlay with wireless and the infotainment set, like all those things. Apple, you have the money. Just give it to someone, and we'll buy that car. Build a car. You know what? Apple, build a car. Have you ever thought of that? Ooh, I wonder if they thought of that. That'd be a good idea. Yeah.

It would only cost about $10 billion, but you might be able to figure it out. Maybe.

Well, okay. I think we've rambled enough on cars. I'm probably gonna have to make this a whole chapter at this point now, uh, since we went off for an extra five minutes, but thank you everybody for listening per usual. Wes, thank you for joining us. If you guys want, you can watch the video version of this podcast over youtube.com slash home kit insider. Uh, go ahead and give us a five, 10, a hundred star rating on your podcast player of choice. You can find links for everything we talked about in this episode down below in the show notes. Anything else to end on Wes?

Nope. Just give us a listen on the Apple Insider podcast as well. Good topic this week. Lots of Apple intelligence stuff as usual. Just lots going on in the Apple world. So yeah, make sure you're keeping up with us on the site, on social media and in the other podcasts. Sounds good. Thanks everyone. We'll see you next week.