Interview with Twelve South Co-Founder Andrew Green, Eve Dimmer, & Amazon Alexa Plus!
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Welcome, everybody, to another exciting episode of HomeKit Insider. You've got me, your host, as always, Andrew O'Hara. And joining me this week, as we talked about, is the co-founder, founder of 12South, Andrew Green. It's the Andrew show this week. Hey, what's up? Andrew and Andrew. Andrew squared? I don't know. I like Andrew squared. That's a good one. Yeah, let's do that. Yeah. So we've worked together for quite a long time. Ages. I know. And now we're actually hanging out at the 12South offices this week in Charleston, California.

Talking new products and now we're going to sit down here for the podcast. We're going to cover the news as normal and then we're going to talk a little bit about 12 South, MacSafe stuff and find my devices and standby mode and all sorts of cool stuff. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my. It's all from like the warm, sunny Charleston, South Carolina. Well, we got a chance to show Andrew around this today and it was just, it was amazing. Good day. I know the weather is just bizarrely amazing out here. It's just so nice. It's Charleston. It's Charleston.

Well, we do have a lot of news this week, so let's go ahead and jump into it. iOS 18.4 finally did go into beta eventually, and we have a couple things we talked about last week with robotic vacuum cleaners. Another addition that was kind of revealed from CyberMod Studios, revealed a lot of stuff, Matter smoke alarms are back into the Home app, which is handy. We've had HomeKit ones, and now there are Matter-enabled ones are finally supported, so a

additional devices coming along the way. So that's nice. That's super cool. Did you have any features in 18.4 that you've been waiting for, you're most excited about? I mean, the robotic vacuum cleaners has been the one that everyone has been waiting for, but it has been so confusing between the Matter spec and then everyone doing it differently. And then what, even robotic vacuum cleaners had stuff in 1.2 and 1.4.

Yeah.

Oh my God. But so that's, that's, that's our world. It's all good. Um, 18 for, uh, my favorite feature is the, uh, the little ambient stations that you'll put in control center. So it's like, like instant chill, instant go to sleep, instant, just like have like a vibe and,

And so I put all four in my control center and finally kind of figured out how to do a shortcut to choose my speakers and stuff. So that's my favorite feature I've seen so far is like instant chill mode. Yes, that is super handy. I mean, plus they even added like the littlest things of the...

the status bars actually reflect your service level. So if you have two bars and now the cellular icon that shows two bars, like that little bit of consistency is, is nice. Oh, that's cool. I didn't know that. There's so many small things in 18.4. It's going to be a big update. Well, I mean like by the time they get to the 0.3s and 0.4s, they start showing off. They start like doing like the details and stuff. The little animation. Right, right, right. So it's, it's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, we apparently have some new products coming soon. So we have a new version of the AirTag, which has been rumored for a while. So leaker Kasutami on Twitter says that actually this is going to be coming in like May or June timeframe. It's coming up. It sounds like it could be before DubDub if it makes it. I would assume that the dimensions are the same. So every keychain on the planet is still free.

Let's hope so. Wouldn't that be brutal if it was like three or four millimeters off and every like dog collar and key chain and like luggage holder didn't fit all of a sudden? I don't think that'll happen and I don't know, but I would assume at least the form factor will be the same with some enhanced features. It seems like, I mean, rumors have said like three times longer range, which is pretty nuts. Mm-hmm.

Louder speaker, which you would need if the range is longer. Sure. An upgraded wireless chip on the inside. And then apparently to make it harder to remove the battery for like security reasons and stuff like that. Or not battery, but the speaker. You can't disable the speaker so easily. I did a whole video covering AirTag 2. So many people wrote in like, I can't believe they're going to make it harder to disable the speaker.

And people at least claim that they want to use it to track down thieves. Like if they steal their stuff. Apple doesn't really want you doing that. Right. I mean, they can't necessarily stop you, but they don't want people like...

going out and tracking people down. I wonder if they'll update it to where it can use batteries that has like a sour taste on it, like the Duracell. Have you ever like switched an airtight with the bitter like coating on it so it doesn't work at first and you have to sand it down so the contacts hit it and it works? Yeah. But like until you know that trick, you're like, what in the world is going on with my new battery? Let me lick it.

Oh, snap. It's sour. Just rough it up a little bit to get that bitter at all. That's true. If you haven't hit that, you will. It's an awesome tip. I think Duracell has bitters, and it's a great reason. So babies don't eat batteries.

That's fine, but it also actually makes some stuff, including AirTags, sometimes not work with it until you kind of rough the side up that has the bidders so full contact can happen. Just a smooth tip out there. Yeah. Well, Kasutami also says that the new doorbell that Apple is working on, this is very interesting to me, is supposedly going to involve MagSafe in some way.

I don't know if it's going to be battery powered, so you'll remove it and then use MagSafe to charge. That is true. There's two different kinds, right? One that wires to that really low wattage if you already have a wired. But then also there's the need for fully wireless doorbells that have onboard batteries. So how would you charge that every three or four months? Yeah.

But I mean, like then they would have to, I mean, you have to secure it and everybody's running around. Is this a MagSafe when I'm going to steal? Is this a MagSafe when I'm going to steal? Right. That's definitely a concern on how that's going to work. Maybe it would like unlock with your watch to take in charge. That would be fine. I was wondering, I thought like maybe they would have like MagSafe to hold up, like there'd be like a MagSafe mount for your door, but then you'd still have to have some sort of security device because you don't want people just popping out doorbells and stealing them.

Well, I mean, like it's near a door and security is a big deal. And the whole point is that it can use like, you know, a facial ID. So if you if it's you, you can take it off to charge it. But if it's already dead, what do you do? I don't know. That's why they're figuring it out. Not me.

That is true. That's true, I guess. Well, we also have new routers coming out this week. Love to have new routers. Amazon, despite having an event that we're going to get to, they dropped some Eero routers right before that. So we have the Eero 7 and the Eero Pro 7. So Wi-Fi 7 routers. The 7 is a dual-band router. Got 2.5 gigabit Ethernet, 2,000 square feet of coverage per device. If you have nodes, you'll get 2, 4, 6,000 with 1, 2, or 3.

Then we have the, and that's 1.8 gigabits per second on wireless speeds. So then there's the Eero 7 Pro, which is tri-band. So you have your 2.4, 5, and 6 gigahertz bands. And it's going to be two 5 gigabit Ethernet ports. And then fanless design, same as previous ones, same coverage as the regular Eero 7s.

But it will have 3.9 gigabits per second of wireless speeds. And best of all for a smart home, Matter support, Matter Hub or whatever, and then a Thread router in there as well. So Thread border router support. In my limited experience, Yiro is the way to go for a nice mesh coverage. It's also the one that looks the least like a spider that's going to get up in the middle of the night and kill you.

So there's that. That is a benefit. Yeah. Some spooky shadow casting all the multiple antennas up on the wall. Which is the brand that still do that? Like six antennas pop up and clean at night when you're asleep, that flips over and crawls away. That's the new robot that's coming out. Oh, yeah. They'll just turn into... Yeah, you're strong. Yeah, they're solid.

Well, then we have the Eve dimmer. So this is finally getting ready to launch. Everyone's been asking Eve for a dimmer switch. They gotcha. It is coming out. It's dropping on March 17th. It works for single pole and three-way designs. It's a paddle style switch. Basically, it looks like their older ones.

but it has a little dimmer additional paddle on the side. So plus goes brighter, minus goes dimmer. Pretty similar. 50 bucks the red, just like all Eve products, matter-enabled, out of the box. So yeah, everyone who's been asking Eve for one of these, now you got one, can be consistent with any of your other Eve switches that you got around the house. And now if you ask for it, you have to buy it because that's what they were assuming as well. True story.

Let's see. Govee is in the news. Govee has a new BR30 bulb. So kind of like your downlight, you're kind of like your can light looking thing. Standard E26 base. These new ones are Wi-Fi matter enabled. They did lower the lumens a little bit. So like 850 lumens, but your standard 16 million colors, cool to warm whites, but they're cheap too.

two pack for 20 bucks with a $10 coupon. That's cheap. I heard Govee is like eating some competitors, but they're, they're very, very competitive pricing. I know. Do you have experience with Govee? Yeah. I just, I just launched like a review of the matter enabled ice maker up on Apple insider. And I've used like their tower lamps because I really like those. They look really nice in corners and can have some nice, like, um, indirect, the

the lighting, but their products, we ignored them for the longest time because they didn't have matter or didn't have Apple home. And now that matters here, they're jumping on the bandwagon and we've covered them quite a bit. It's funny. Like, you know, exactly what you just described that they can be kind of off your radar and like one feature set, one opportunity to kind of like take a step up competitively. And all of a sudden they're, they're, they're on stage in the playing field. Absolutely. Okay. Do you have pets?

I have two kitties. Two kitties? Well, this is not going to be helpful for your kitties necessarily, but Pawport has introduced a new version of their pet door, and you can now buy a floor-to-ceiling wood or glass door, floor-to-ceiling window from Kolbe, K-O-L-B-E, with a Pawport smart pet security door.

built right into it. So you don't have to put this into the door of your house if you're having new windows installed. You can have a pet door installed from the beginning to make it very secure. It works with Siri shortcuts so you can automate it and build into your smart home scenes. So you say goodnight at the end of the night and you can lock

down that door so your pets can't go outside anymore. Talk to me though. Is it like going in between the door and the wall of a slider or something? How does it physically work? So the other versions you would have to basically put a hole into your door. You bust a hole through the bottom of the door with the old flap, old school. Okay. And you would put this in and it's a smart door. You can have it set up so like their colors, automated based on time of day, stuff like that.

And this new version can come pre-installed into a sheet of glass. Whoa. So if you have, you know, a rear-facing, maybe a slider door or something, like the left side is like solid, maybe you could just put it there. Or if any other floor-to-ceiling windows that you have, you could just have a pet door built right there. Yeah, but then you're going to train them to just run straight for a glass door. And any time it doesn't have it, you're going to make a new YouTube video. You're going to give your pet a concussion each time. That's right.

But I do like them, so it was nice to see you get the orange color. - More pet stuff.

Okay, now we have to talk about Amazon. This has literally happened today while we were hanging out here in Charleston. Amazon had their big press event to unveil their new version of Amazon. Honestly, not a ton specifically relevant to the smart home. I was expecting to be all this coverage, new smart home stuff, new matter, and all these automation things. And really, we just focused on their new Amazon Alexa Plus subscription package.

It's $20, or if you have Prime, it's free. But their whole new LLM model, they're

Senior Vice President of Devices and Services, Panos Panay, who is from Microsoft, says that you can now book dinner, find a restaurant, get an Uber, call your sitter, get concert tickets. And sing happy birthday. And sing happy birthday. All these things, which so many of these seem very focused on buying. Like, I have to imagine they're getting a cut of that Uber ride you booked or that Instacart order you put in, let alone your purchases through Amazon. It's...

Well, so all of the partnerships appear to be the LLM reaching out to like, like reality things and like, you know, like what's in it for like the regulars and like folks and stuff that aren't coding and stuff. So, so the partnerships maybe are an effort to make this technology real and to like, you know, give people something to chew on. Which is bad. I mean, Apple's doing that with like their app intense and like their new version of Siri and everything that has been delayed. Yeah.

The solutions, the searching for, what is it, the problems, the searching, how do you say that? Where, like, it's like it's a solution searching for a problem. Well, so the partnerships, and then what Apple did with AI and stuff like that, is that, like, this is how this, like, you know, robot really helps, makes you, like, not sound stupid in your emails. This is how the robot really helps, you know, book a dinner reservation and a car, just chatting. And so we'll see what

We'll check it out. We'll definitely play around with it, but I just thought there'd be a little more focus on the smart home, and it was really just focused on having a conversation and reaching out to these different services. Well, I mean, it's been a minute since we've been talking about Alexa, so we are now. There's that. But we'll see. It's good that it looks like it's backwards compatible with, they said, most hardware. Yeah, I wrote a little list of the show, including third-party.

Oh, see, I didn't even know you were like the Sonos. Okay. The Sonos integration with Alexa and stuff like that apparently works with this as well. That's pretty cool. I did not hear the date. Did you hear the date? March is what I heard. Sure. Let's go with March. We'll take it. Yeah. We'll take it with March.

Cool. Well, that covers it for the news. Let's go ahead. We got to pivot. I'm going to take a break. I'll edit it in here, but let's go ahead. Let's go ahead and talk about some 12 South. Let's do. Hey, I'm going to have to interrupt myself and Andrew real quick. Him and I, frankly, could continue talking unabated for quite some time. And we kind of do. And I wanted to be able to talk to him as much as I could, but we still have sponsors to thank for the week. So I'm going to take a break right now and do just that. Starting off with one of my favorites, which is Fandango.

Factor is the ready-to-eat meal that is delivered to your house that you can cook in two minutes in your microwave or a few minutes longer if you want to put something at the toaster oven or the oven and get it even better. What I love about Factor is how many options there are now. There is a weekly menu that you can choose from, and there's plenty of different add-ons from breakfast to snacks to wellness drinks to shots to smoothies.

All of these different things that they've added on to Factor. Now, personally, we have a family. I've got my wife and kid, and we are busy around the clock. And the last thing that I feel like I have time for right now is making a healthy, nutritious meal each and every day, which is why I've used Factor multiple times to help fill in those gaps.

Seriously, the menu each week, they always look so good. Santa Fe style green chili beef skillet, green chili queso and chicken thigh pasta, smoky Gouda chicken, loaded bacon shredded chicken. All of these sound amazing. And I can attest that basically they all are.

There's so many things that you can choose from. There's different meal choices that you can choose. So if you want to do something that's more keto friendly, you can like lose some weight, do a keto diet or something. There are 40 options across eight dietary preferences on the menu each week. It's easy to pick meals that are tailored to your goals. So choose from preferences like calorie smart, protein plus or keto.

Factor can help you feel your best all day long with wholesome smoothies, breakfast, grab-and-go snacks, and more. Reach your goals this year with ingredients you can trust and convenience you can't beat. Really, it is super helpful because I like other meal ones that you can make stuff, but something about having a really high-quality, fresh, healthy-tasting, delicious meal that I can microwave or toast or oven for a few minutes and then be ready to eat for me, my wife, and kid...

it's really hard to top that. So if you want to try it out for yourself, you can eat smart with Factor. Get started at factormeals.com slash factor podcast and use code Factor podcast to get 50% off your first box plus free shipping. That's code Factor podcast at factormeals.com slash Factor podcast to get 50% off plus free shipping on your first box. We

We also give a shout out to Shopify. You guys know how much I love Shopify. There are so many brands that I am in a really unique position to be able to highlight, whether it is on short form video, whether it's on this podcast or written reviews on Apple Insider.

Thank you.

I'm trying to think of many of the other ones, but so many of them do a 12 South all run on Shopify. It's a great platform that can scale from whether you're a small startup selling knitted oven mitts out of your garage, or you're a large company like the ones that I have mentioned that are selling across the globe. Shopify handles so many things for you that you don't even have to know or worry about, whether it's calculating sales,

Yeah, it does that too. You can even do ship-to-store stuff. They can buy it online and pick it up in your brick and mortar. I love it. They

They just do so many things, and from a customer perspective, it feels safe, protected. When they get to your checkout, they recognize that checkout. They know that they can trust putting in their contact information, their credit card information, and it gives you options like ShopPay, Apple Pay, Google Pay, all of those to make it just really seamless to convert those prospective buyers into actual buyers.

Bye.

Awesome. And I even use the shop app just even when I'm not like buying something from a site, I get into the shop app to use their AI tool to find more cool things to buy, especially for gifts. I don't want to get out my secret, but it is one of the ways that I find new cool brands and products to use for gifting. So yeah,

It's a really cool thing. And it even supports Apple wallet. So like you can track your orders in Apple wallet. There's a lot to love. Seriously. Ask me in time and I'll ramble on about it. As many people I talked to this week can attest. So here's what you can do. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout that all of those different brands use. Shop.

So sign up for your $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. Okay, so Andrew, you founded 12South with your wife? Yeah, you bet. How long ago at this point? My wife Leanne and I started 12South in like 2009.

And that seems like a long time ago now. But you know what? I came out of the industry. I worked at Griffin Technology and then at DLO, which is what got me to Charleston, South Carolina. They're the folks that made the Action Jacket and the Jam Jacket and were really like the captains of like the cases for iPods and Best Buy.

My wife was in the fashion industry and so she did like fashion merchandising and the business of it and sold to all the big box retailers and Walmart and department stores and Macy's and stuff like that. So when those kind of like things were kind of winding down and we were ready to maybe do this ourselves,

What we saw was this huge ecosystem for accessories for the mobile devices, the iPods, the iPhones. And what had been left out was the Macs and the MacBooks. But the consumers were discovering the brand left and right.

Right. A consumer would buy an iPod Nano and love their experience with this like brand Apple. And so when it was time to get a new laptop, they're like, man, I got to let it let me try MacBook. And so the entire billion dollar ecosystem of accessories that was available for an iPod.

They went to the Mac and saw nothing. They, at that time they saw like PC accessories painted white and said compatible. Right. And so listen, I'm, I'm an Apple fan boy. And so we know when we're being like duped and it's like, Oh, that's just painted white. It's not special.

And so we started 12 South in 2009 to make really like special accessories exclusively for Mac and for Apple accessories and really elevate that specific ecosystem. And it's because I was a fan boy. It's because there's stuff I wanted to make, too, if I'm being honest. But then also making stuff for this community.

in a really authentic way, really kind of spoke to them. And actually when you specialize in what is actually a pretty small selection of Apple hardware, you can do magic things, right? Like our very first product was the book art, which took advantage of closed clamshell mode, which actually like not a lot of people like even knew you could do that. So, oh, you can use your MacBook closed, why? So you can use a giant screen and a more comfortable keyboard and mouse.

And like the backpack, which put like a little shelf on the back of an iMac or cinema display. And so we could do like special little products like that because we focused and not just because I was a fanboy, but because like we focused on Apple hardware specifically that allowed us to do really like magic, amazing accessories for the platforms.

There's been so many. And I was just, my parents had just moved and I was going through like our upstairs closet from when I was like a child. And I found like my original box and like the, I think it was like the original book book that was up there that I had had for, for so long. But now we have, you kind of pivoted because I feel like you did, you did soft goods and like those, like, I don't know what you want to call them, but ambient products like a book art, like it's metal, but it's not, there's no electronics in it. Now,

Now we're getting some even smarter things that have been featured by Apple in keynote presentations, like the new versions of the HiRise chargers with MagSafe and standby mode. And even my...

It might be one of my favorite products. It's for sure one of my favorite products. It's the Plug Bug. Yeah. Find My built in. I know people have pushed back on the price a little bit, but that's what I have heard. But I just think it is so good. It is the lowest cost USB-C charger with Find My in it.

Because it is the only USBC charger with fine mining. And when you invent something like that, should it also be the lowest cost one as well? There's always cheaper ones and we all know where to find them. And if that is your number one priority, knock yourself out. I totally get it. But if you want something that's innovative, that's going to bring something to the ecosystem that you're fully in.

then that's where you come to us for solutions that you're not going to find anywhere else until we're copied. So how'd you come up with it? Like you would never, that's your first find my product. Where did that come to? You're like, Oh, what? And that was a whole new thing.

to get into more electronics and into the whole... It was definitely a new step into the power category. And when we look at any category, especially one we're not particularly in, we really don't want to go into it unless we have a unique offering with a unique story.

Right. So we do not want to go and just source like another power supply like a lot of our friends do. We wanted to think about what could we do that really kind of made the experience special, that maybe experience 12 south. Right. And then we all use fine. It's probably one of the top three, four or five features on a phone. Where's my kid? Where's my watch? Where's my phone? Like, you know, I've heard many people say they get an Apple Watch just to find their damn phone. Right.

But anyway, so Find My was this like really, really important feature that people use like, you know, dozens of times a day. And you have the ability to like build that into devices. And there have been a few devices, right? Like the bicycle that had it in there. That was really, right. And then like, and then a backpack, which is less than brilliant because you can just throw an AirTag in there. Hyper offers both.

There's a cheaper one and then one with a built in. So you got your you got your choice there. But but I mean, like, I don't think that like doing that has been exploited like to the to the, you know, to the level it could. And so that's what kicked it for us. And that is is that to add fine my to like one of the most frequently lost devices in your in your kit.

Right? Like, oh, I left it in my hotel room. Oh, I forgot it on my business trip. Well, you put find my in there and number one, it can show you it's still in your hotel room and you can go retrieve it or ask somebody at the hotel to number two, you can say, let me know if I'm leaving my house without it and

And then it will remind you before you're too far away to like go get your stinking power supply. So it was a way for us to add a feature that, by the way, made it special to the Apple ecosystem that no one else had done. And we didn't want to go into power until we had a unique story with a unique solution that didn't exist. And PlugBug with FindMy is that product.

Do you think we're going to see more Find My enabled items from you guys? Is this a one-off or are there other ideas you're mulling around that we could build Find My into? When it makes sense. I mean, obviously, you can put Find My in a lot of stuff and you may or may not want that. We're going to do it methodically. It's not just like, okay, flat Find My on everything. That's not what we're going to do. Actually, we're going to play in power for a little bit more with some other really, really smart solutions.

So I would call the plug bug with Find My a high-end power solution. In fact, like the one that is 120 watts that has four like omni-dynamic ports, which means it doesn't matter. There's not like a hot port and a cold port, right? You can choose whichever one you want, but it can charge like four MacBook Airs like at full power or all of your phones when you're at Disney World with your two kids or three kids and a single parent. I'm like, boo.

Anyway. But anyway, so I would call that a high-end charging solution, right? And we're interested in the gamut of that, and we have some new ideas in power that really are going to make an impact that we're excited to do. So to answer your question, we are not like for here and on out just going to slap fine line everything.

But we are going to play in power and continue to do really smart solutions in that that really cover a big, wide range of needs for charging your devices up. So we've talked a little bit. I hope this isn't oversharing, but I feel like you guys are moving. You've done some travel things. You've done, I feel like, a lot of home office type things. It feels like more of a vibe of going into the home, the general home and stuff.

What are the chances that you're going to – we need like a 12-south version of some smart home products because there's a lot of like your design cues and stuff that I feel like makes sense. And we have a lot of smart home companies that they're more the technology and don't focus as much on the design. Is there any chance that we're going to be able to get you guys to do something more?

more on the smart home that makes smart home, you know, it's simple, accessible, that has some benefit. You know, have you, have you looked into the smart home space at all? We,

We have not. We are too busy kind of doing what we're doing. We're looking at this year and into 26. And it's just not on our radar. There's some amazing products out there. And so we're big fans of it. A lot of the team here uses smart home devices and we love playing with it. But we are not ready to climb that hill yet.

Even though this is like HomeKit Insider, we're all big fans of HomeKit and we use a lot of smart home stuff. But 12 South is going to spend our next year or two really kind of like going into like a more luxurious format, really like cleaning up the stuff to where it looks more comfortable in your home. And maybe that's smart, right? Sure. See what I did there? Yeah. And

And I mean, we have too many ideas that we need to get out before we would really kind of like make a pivot like that. So, I mean, that's OK. That's one thing we used to do is that we would like hop to different lily pads all the time. We would do a great product like the first adjustable MacBook stand, the high rise product.

And then we would like lily pad hop to like something else and do like a snap on like USB, a charger, the plug bug for the old Apple adapter. And so we would just kind of go to like whatever was interesting at the moment, but never stay in a place or a category.

That changed like a few years ago, especially like with the AirFly where we kept innovating and making it better and better and better because we stayed, because we kind of dropped the snowplow and said, let's continue in this space making a single product category better instead of just like getting like, you know, like bored really quick and like going and doing a hundred things. So right now for us, that's kind of upping our game, making a little more like home friendly and luxurious for

that's playing in power category and bringing out some really innovative new ideas at the top and bottom of that spectrum. But it is not a smart home on the radar yet. But you never know what our friends at Cupertino say. We don't really discuss coming things. But I will tell you that we're working on other stuff in the near future.

Well, like, so, you know, we're talking about iterating products. Like, you've iterated on, you know, AirFly a few times now, and now you're focusing on power a little bit. Why couldn't we maybe get, like, a version of, like, the HiRise and do something even simple, like integrating an NFC chip into the front of it so you could, like, tap your phone to trigger an automation and then slap your phone into standby mode? Something like that would be, like, an easy little step that, you know, not everyone's using NFC, but...

you guys make things like approachable and it would be an easier way for people to start playing with like an automation and would be perfect for home and office. That's cool. I mean, the only thing related to that we did is that we were one of the first to put like a wireless charging MagSafe specifically in the base of our high rise to where like when you threw your phone like at the bottom of like your Mac stand like you do, it's charging at least. And so we played with kind of multi-format

like products, but we haven't played there yet, but you never know. You know, that's, that's why we chat is because like having these conversations always kind of like spins us off into new ideas. We, I know for a frequent list of the podcast and we talked about the Pitaka podcast,

car mount, car mag, safe car charger. They have actually three NFC tags and there's a little switch and you literally put it on the one you want. So you get in your car and you can tap it. It could automate a text message to your partner and send your ETA. It could pull up your playlist or open audible. Uh,

whatever you want to do. Like, so you can set up three different automations and then just tap your phone and set it on the charger. And I've been so in love with the idea and you know, it's, you can put NFC tags, but that's when it gets like too hard for people like, Oh, what NFC tag do I buy necessarily? And you have to like put somewhere like under a ledger on your table. It doesn't look as nice, but building into a charger, uh,

Yeah. It'd be a nice bespoke way to be able to write. I hear you, man. That sounds really cool. I have like, I have like the, the ghetto way to do that. The, the, the easy way to do the right now. And that is, is that, and maybe this exists. Um, you, you make QR codes to trigger things. Yeah.

And you put QR code stickers across your dashboard and play first wave, call my wife. And so you hit a QR code for all the different things you want to do, and that triggers a sequence of events. I can't remember what brand did it. Well, it reminds me of this other product, and I'm really blanking on the name of it. It is, but it's this little wooden thing.

that has a metal inlaid Wi-Fi symbol, and you use it for your home or your office. And when someone comes over, they just tap it, and it's an NFC chip that will get them onto the Wi-Fi network. You literally program it so they can tap it, and it'll hop them onto your Wi-Fi. And you flip it over, there's a QR code. So for people who don't have an NFC, like an Android device or something, they can still scan the QR code to get onto your home's Wi-Fi.

It's like that reminds me a little bit of that. You could do the QR codes, but I feel like that's just as techie as putting a bunch of NFC tags down your dashboard, just manually buying them. That would be more techie than putting like a dashboard full of silly QR codes. By the way, didn't the pandemic save QR codes? It basically did. Everyone learned what they were.

No, they got out of like Nerdville. Like you had to use it for your menu, the drink menu and stuff like that. Yeah, that's what I mean. Like no one seems to, everyone seems to have forgotten QR codes exist in the pandemic game. Right. I mean, that was like one of like three good things. It's like it rescued QR codes from you. QR codes were good.

dead before. They were. I was using them. I worked in retail a little bit, like on the marketing and development side. And I would make custom QR codes for brands, like logos in the middle and things like that. And I could never get anyone to use them. No one knew. They just looked like they were part of the sign or something. And they never quite clicked. And now everyone uses them everywhere. My oldest kid, when he graduated college, had a QR code printed out and put it on his graduation cap.

And so I'd be like, oh my gosh, what's that? And they scanned it and it was a Rick roll. Nice. Genius. Well, speaking of your chargers, you know, standby mode has been...

It's easily one of my favorite features that Apple has introduced on iOS in a long time. Isn't that funny? Like a clock is like our favorite feature of the last decade. I love it. We were talking about this earlier where – because you guys have had chargers for a little while now, and you would have to find third-party clock apps to lock up. We collected them. So the flip clock, that was a big favorite. But we –

I think it's called Red Clock. It's something like that. We could put it in the show notes and stuff, but it's like my favorite way to make – by the way, you still need to do this for iPads. It's true. Like standby mode on iPads. Let's go. Wow. It's like Apple is working on some other sort of smart display type product that they don't want to just put that feature on to.

It's true. Like when you take like the three or four things that they're doing from like control center to shortcuts and stuff like that, and you put that all together, you have this like absolutely obvious secret product. Apple TV's, uh, screensaver changing. Oh,

You swipe up or whatever, and it's got this new interface to scroll through and pick different screens. All the widget work? All the widgets, yeah. And all the widget work within standby? Yeah, absolutely. If this thing comes out like it's rumored to, we'll look back and go, yeah, they were absolutely designing that in front of us for the last three years. It's so true. So back to standby mode, you're right. So for years...

we would show the value of your phone when you're not using your phone actively. Like, it can show you the weather. It can have a smart screen. It can, like, have a real cool clock and stuff. And so, I mean, obviously, like, it, you know...

Somebody heard us in Cupertino because they agreed. And if you think about it, your phone is passive more times than it's active with you. Of course it is. And so why wouldn't it add value? Why wouldn't it tell you what the temperature is outside or your next to-dos or your clock radio while you're traveling? And so...

I think that's why a lot of people really like standby mode. It wasn't the most difficult technical lift they've ever done, but it added immense value to the phone more times than when you're using it.

Because if you count charging and overnight and when it's just sitting on your desk, all of a sudden it's adding value to your space and doing that. And so, yeah, so for years, 12 South would not fake that, but find our favorite apps that did that already to use in photos. And we would answer like emails all the time. Oh, yeah, go get this app. This is that app. This is our favorite weather app and stuff like that. And so we were always searching for ways to show passive apps.

on our devices in our favorite stands, the hover bar and high rise and stuff like that, to show them that not only are we making a charger, but here's what to do with your phone while it's charging. And so that's kind of 12 South, right? And that is that we don't really just kind of make the stand. We say, and here's something to add value beyond the piece of hardware that we're showing you. Absolutely. Yeah.

Well, can you tease us anything else about standby mode? Are we going to see more? We have a couple products now that you have with MagSafe and standby mode. You've got the HiRise and HiRise Deluxe, right? Yeah. I think those are the big ones. HiRise 3 Deluxe is our three-in-one. It's the best one I know how to design with my design team here. It holds your phone high enough to...

to where it's a proper, you know, kind of like above the thing. A lot of the stands out there are really still close to the desk and you look down. So it gives you like a proper six or seven inches to the center of the screen, which really kind of elevates it and really puts your phone on a platform where you want it. If you have to use it for like a hands-free, like, you know, FaceTime call, or if now you're using standby mode, especially on the larger plus size phones.

But then below it, you have the rockable Apple Watch charger, which also charges the AirPods Pro. That's the secret. Not a huge amount of people know. AirPods Pro is the only thing I know that charges MagSafe.

And on the Apple – it's the only thing outside of an Apple Watch that charges on an Apple Watch disc, isn't it? Yeah. And then, of course, plugging in. I think now the AirPods 3 do as well, but they don't have the MagSafe magnets. But I think it does still do the watch on the wireless version. Right. So those technically do, but they lack the magnets, which drives me crazy. So it is the newest phone. Yeah. Am I bitter? I'm not bitter. Yeah.

But so, and then in the back of it, it has a full on Qi charger in the back, right? So, so you have your typical three in one where you have your phone, a nice height off the desk. You have your Apple watch in the front flat or upright and

And then in the back, you have a cheap charger that you can use for your AirPods or your mate's other phone. You can put someone else's phone there or 16E because it can't see what I did there anyway. But so anyway, that's one of my favorite chargers. And where I was going with that is, is that all of that is in the footprint of a plus size phone, the Pro Max.

The Pro Max and our Hi-Rise 3 Deluxe are the same footprint, except we're charging three things in that same footprint on your bedside. And it's covered in this beautiful soft leather product. And it's actually one of the only chargers where the MagSafe disc is covered in leather as well.

I know. And I want to see you bring that, like that, that leather material to other products as well. So it's such a good aesthetic and you don't see it in a ton of other things. I want to see it in, in, in other products. It costs more. Yeah. And so like, if people are like going for like, you know, the cheaper they, they run to poly, but on things that you touch, we really wanted it to feel luxurious and feel warm. So it fits into the places that it's going. Yeah.

We also didn't even mention it, but the Butterfly and the Butterfly SE, right? Yeah. The Butterfly is the aluminum one. And then are you going to rename it 16E for the smaller one now? Right? Yeah.

No, you're just going to have to find your spot. You have to find the perfect spot when using the butterfly and any other charger that has magnets in it. That would be such a good. Wouldn't it be cool is if there was a magnet charger that like perfectly positioned a phone on it? Man, that'd be so cool. What is that? Anyway, yeah, the butterfly is the luxury version that I travel with. Honestly, it's a two in one.

hits USB-C, is your Apple Watch disc flat or upright, and your wireless charging phone, typically MagSafe. And then its magic trick is that it folds up and becomes a standby stand. And so when I'm traveling, it's my bedside clock. It's great. I love it to death. Yeah. So you got any teases for us? Are we going to see any more standby MagSafe products from you guys? No. No.

No more. The 16E ruined it. Right? Questions like why we're all here, like what we're doing. Wait, wait, what? That wasn't assumed? No, no, no. We've got some amazing stuff coming. I don't think any of them is. There's a lot of MagSafe chargers on the market, and we have some of our best foot forward ones already there. And there's no need to update them because they're still the best. Ooh, mic drop. Okay.

No, no, no. The Hi-Rise 3 Deluxe is the best three-in-one charging stand that we know how to make. The Hi-Rise 2 is that if you don't need it for your Apple Watch, and it's similarly like styled. It's really soft and luxurious and really does that really well. And the butterfly is beautiful. The aluminum version is great. It's the same aluminum as the MacBook Pro.

And then in the colors, the poly colors that we have in the SE, that's just really fun. And I mean, like, it's just a go to travel solution for like your your your bedside and your hotel or Airbnb.

When I reviewed the original Hi-Rise 3 or Hi-Rise 3 Deluxe, the one problem I had with it was it had a barrel connector on the back and I didn't even know this. You guys have now been moving to a USB-C version now, right? There are still some out there that are barrel connections. The very first edition had a barrel connector.

And by the end of this year, I believe that all the Hi-Res 3 Deluxes will be USB-C connectors. However, don't be afraid of the barrel connector because if you use the barrel connector and the power supply that comes with it, you know you're getting the right wattage.

Yes. A hundred percent. Especially for people who don't want to deal with techie stuff. It's an easy plug and play solution. It is. Um, like for me, they're like, I'm on my desk, like in my studio and I move between these different chargers and move around. I'm like, Oh,

Oh, I want to use this one and I need to go get that special barrel connector. That's fine. Just for the sake of argument, say you did that and you plugged it into like not enough watts to run our three in one. And then you have an experience where it doesn't work the way it is because you're underpowering it with any old USB-C. I would never do such a thing. No, you would never do such a thing. But I mean, like it is nice that you take it out and if it's for the bedside, you plug the barrel and you plug it in the wall and it just works.

So there's that. Especially when you're setting it up like that and you're leaving it. It is nice just to have it. But there's people like me who want the USB-C option. The reason that I actually prefer the USB-C is not just because of the proprietariness of a barrel connector, but I like to have an additional USB-C cable available. So I'll plug in a multi-charger that does like a

120 watts. So I can feed this thing the appropriate wattage it needs, but still have an additional output that I can use for an iPad or something else. That's true. That I need to charge. I'll give you a scoop on a product that we designed and didn't make. Okay. And that was a power strip of USB-C.

Like a really elegant USB-C power strip. I mean, that's kind of like... I was taking it. I know, right? I mean, and so they're out there, like, you know, four or five or more. Did you see what Plugable released this week? What did they do? How many? Ten. It's a power strip with ten USB-C ports. Right. That's for me right there. How many watts? I don't know. It's a...

I don't know. A bazillion. So if you had 10, what's the minimum that each one should do? So you're plugging 10 things in. How much would you really need to have dedicated to all 10 for it to be worth it? 30? Yeah.

That's a massive power. Sure, but I have a 300-gan charger sitting on my desk, so... That's true. That's killer. So, yeah, so we played with that because, like, USB-C is going to be the new power strip, basically, and it is. I mean, that's what's in the market. It's ridiculous. I am seeing so, like, so many things that I wouldn't think would be Type-C are shipping with Type-C power cables now, which is...

Did anything switching from Lightning to C make you just buy it for the C? No, not a thing. I don't plug my phone in, folks. I literally use MagSafe almost exclusively. I plug in my phone like one time. That's true. You're right. I haven't plugged my phone in for like years. Yeah. So it's like, oh, it's so nice. I'm like, yeah, maybe. Maybe.

Even the only time I actually thought I would use it, especially on the Pros, was faster data transfer. And I still find myself airdropping my videos from my phone to my Mac. Like, I don't even bother. Like, why track down a cable for 30 seconds and play it? Yeah.

The only thing I did it with was the AirPods Pro. I think I conveniently lost my lightning AirPods Pro, so I had to pick up a USB-C one, which completed my travel kit of USB-C. So I might have done that. And then it just happened, actually. So I used Apple's keyboard and trackpad, and I went to charge it, and I'm like, doink, doink. I'm like, oh my gosh, it's still lightning. What kind of nerd am I? I had to go find a lightning cable.

The horror. I had to go plug in my SE, my old SE to get ready for the 16E launch. And yeah, I was like digging through things trying to find a light cable. I just gave a whole massive like tub of them to my aunt who still has like a 14 or something. So whatever it is, she hasn't quite got to the C yet. So now she'll be using that for her next phone that will be C and she'll be like, ah.

I was just complaining about this on Twitter. She literally told me a week ago that she's like, I don't want to upgrade phones because Apple made me switch the cable. I'm like, you literally, okay, three things. You literally use USB-C for your Mac. You have a MacBook Air. You use USB-C for your iPad Pro. And I know your house, you use a MagSafe charger. When do you even plug in your phone? Here's the thing, dude. Besides us,

Nobody cares about that. They're not supposed to know C and A. It's just supposed to work. You're supposed to plug it into the wall, plug it into your thing, and it worked. It's supposed to be that simple. So like we get frustrated with our people like, what do you mean you don't know the wattage and USPC and fast charge and blah, blah, blah. They're not supposed to. Right. It's our job to make that easy. And

And what we've done up until now is make it harder. And you just made it worse because you dumped like a rando set of cables on her to like that she's going to like strangle you. It should all be MagSafe other than the 16E. Other than the 16E! Ah.

Goodness. There's cases that'll add that, right? There will be cases for sure. We've seen a bunch of them. What I thought was actually really funny, and you'll appreciate this, Apple had to design a new charger for its stores to display the 16. Right. I thought that same thing. I'm like, oh, yeah? What are they going to do in the stores? It's going to be a modified version of their MagSafe dock, so they're going to lower the puck down to the appropriate height, and then there's a little divot in the bottom, so the phone will sit into a divot and lean back

Again, so it'll be appropriately aligned, but it won't be magnetically connected. Listen, who am I to question? But when you have to make a kickstand for your newest phone for your flagship stores, okay, okay. Would you trade the action button for MagSafe and the 16E?

Probably. I mean, I do use my action button quite a bit. I use it to run automations, but I've also been getting more, using Siri a lot more frequently to just run things, just walk back, say goodnight. Or if, you know, I had a charger with like an NFC tag in it that I could tap to run an automation, it'd be great too. But yeah,

I use the capture button all the time. It's just so fast to open the camera. Like, it's the quickest way to open the camera. Right. I mean, because you know there is a spreadsheet up on a screen somewhere in the last few years going MagSafe or Action or this or that. I mean, it came down to, like, a spreadsheet somewhere at some point. The fact the price is so high and they still had to cut MagSafe, it's just a bummer to me. Yeah, well, what do you got to do?

I don't know. Okay. Anything you want to leave us with? We've been getting looks through the window here from the team that I'm sure wants to steal you back. So anything you want to leave us here as we wrap up the podcast? I mean, listen, I know all your listeners and stuff have been supporters of 12 South for a long time. And I just have nothing but appreciation and just a humble thanks for all your support and all the...

listener support of 12 South through the years. You've let us make some incredible products and then some that were marginal and get to make our dreams come true because at the end of the day, we're typically making stuff that we want. And so when you support 12 South, you reinforce that and let us make more. So just thank you for years and years of support of 12 South.

Awesome. Cool. Well, thank you, Andrew, for joining. Everyone can go, you know, learn about 12 South stuff at 12 South's website. Uh,

Well, I'll link probably the Hi-Rise and a couple others, the PlugBug, because I love it so much, down in the show notes. The PlugBug with Find My. It is the cheapest and only USB-C charger that has Find My built into it. So that's all I would say. If you're in the Apple ecosystem, if you use Find My today, your power supply should have it as well. No? No.

I agree. So check it out. Check it out. And you know what? Just get the 50 watt one that's your go-to for your phone. You don't have to get the more expensive 120 unless it's like your travel everything. But even your daily to-go 50 is good for a phone and a MacBook Air. Still pitching. Still pitching. Always ABC. Always be closing, right? No, it's good. Check out the...

The plug bug with Fama is really cool. It's a, it's one of those like good ideas you only get every once in a while. So I'm really proud of it. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you again, everybody. Do we guys do best? Give us a five, 10, a hundred star rating on your podcast player of choice. Watch the video version of this hanging out here in 12 South offices in Charleston. You can see it over youtube.com slash home kit insider. Otherwise I'll catch you guys in the next episode. Peace.