Sonos Streaming Box, Amazon Event Preview, & Matter to Solve Wi-Fi with Jennifer Tuohy
53:01 Share

Hey!

Andrew. I'm very well, thanks. Always a pleasure to be here. The biggest downside of being on the show is then it's not as fun to listen to the show. I know, you know, that's the downside, but I'm glad that you are, you're taking that bullet for us to join us and give us a good exciting episode. Because man, we got a lot of stuff to talk about. I know it started out as a slow week, and then all of a sudden, it's not.

That happens so often. I don't know if it's because we record towards the end of the week, but I know I was messaging you like, hey, we got two stories. Do you have anything we can throw at the wall here? And next thing we know, we're like,

Talking about cuts that we're going to have to make. So we might as well get into this with our first story, which is Sonos. Chris Welch over at The Verge, I believe, knocking out more Sonos stories, more details on their Apple TV competitor, their set-top streaming box.

So many details here that he has pulled out from this price point, which is $200 to $400. Wow. That's a lot. But, you know, Sonos is expensive. That's kind of their brand, right? It is, but that just seems, I don't know. I mean, we always talked about, oh, is Apple charging too much for Apple TV? We got to get that price down. And now Sonos is like, it's not high enough. Hold my beer. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.

Yeah, I mean... They do have a few things here that are at least pushing that envelope forward. I mean, at least from a value proposition compared to Apple TV, because they're talking about even being an HDMI switch for your console, your Blu-ray player, stuff like that. I mean, that's pretty big. Yeah, and you know, honestly, the promise that it will just work

for me is actually worth quite a lot. I was like, when I saw this, because I love my Apple TV, but I test all the different streaming boxes and I was like, oh, you know, what I really like about this is the fact that it might actually mean that my Sonos Arc always syncs with the TV. Because I have some serious audio issues when I try using like the Chromecast or Fire TV or the new Google streaming box. And

And I'm constantly tinkering. It always works on Apple TV, though. But it's like, if this means it just works, I'm actually quite willing to pay a little bit more. And like you say, the switching, you know, right now it feels like home theater systems are kind of piecing things together to, you know, force things to work. Whereas, you know, if you could get it all from one company and it all just works, that's worth a lot of time and money and less frustration. Yeah.

But yeah, $400, no. $200, I would think about it.

Yeah, I think that's a little bit more of a realistic price point in that range. I mean, maybe I'm just, you know, used to living in that Apple walled garden where things do work appropriate most of the time. Because like you said, it works with the Apple TV. I never had issues with the Sonos soundbars in the Apple TV. For the most part, they're spot on for me. So I guess I know, like I test out like the Roku and the Firesticks, but they're very short lived because I get annoyed with

the ads and the interfaces and things like that. So it never really makes sense. The newest fire TV stick I was testing for, and I test them for quite a while and it just kept desyncing the audio. And you know, so this, the most annoying thing, you can't watch a show if their lips don't match the sound. And I was also, my husband hates, hates the Siri remote, like refuses to use it.

So we can only use Apple TV if I'm in control of the remote. But yes, that's a me problem. But also the Siri remote is kind of still a bit of a pain, even with the redesign. I actually like it. I like it. I like it. And funny enough, Faith actually, she almost always uses just – she doesn't even bother –

wherever our son has stick in the remote, she uses her phone all the time. Like every single time she basically just pulls it up. I'm still looking for it. And she's like, yeah, I got it. Got it. I'm good. Just sit down. Don't worry about it. Probably because it's so hard to track the Apple TV remote without an actual AirTag type thing. I know. And that's the other thing. The Google TV streamer has the little button on the back.

I have used that so many times. The other day I was sitting, I put my bag down by a chair and I went and did something. And then the next day we couldn't find the remote anywhere. And my, my, my daughter's like, Oh yeah, I was using the remote. So we're looking all around the chair, you know, we start ringing it and we're like going all around the house trying to find it. And what had happened is that remote had fallen into my bag and I had taken my bag up to my office, but we finally found it by following the sound. It would have been years. Otherwise I think. Yeah.

I know. And the Apple TV one, it basically told me yesterday it's in the living room. It just kept saying, yep, you're near. And I'm like, where? Is it in this blanket? Is it under the cushion? Is it under the couch? Is it between the two couches? Yeah. Like I could not find it despite using the find my thing. It got so close and was just like, it's right there. Why are you blind? And nope, not good enough. Your dog ate it.

Enough complaining about the Apple one. Okay, sorry. The Sonos one is also supposed to have gigabit Ethernet as well as Wi-Fi 7, which are two things that I don't necessarily think are going to be supported. At least Wi-Fi 7 won't be supported on the new Apple TV because they have their fancy new wireless chip that's going to be, I think they said 6E, their first wireless chip is going to be 6E.

Yeah. And that, I mean, Wi-Fi 7 especially, it feels like that's the level where we need to get with streaming devices, especially when you're in a smart home and you have a lot of other things going on in your network. You want your streaming device to be, you know, to have the premier route. And I mean, 6E, obviously you get six gigahertz, which is what you really need. But the next level, you know, higher is better. Yeah.

Especially as we're moving in, I mean, Sonos is clearly focused on future-proofing hardware. They don't do a ton of hardware upgrades to their products until they really kind of need to. So it makes sense. They want this to be capable for years before they have to worry about that hardware refresh. Yeah. I think my biggest thing that I would be excited to see, the one thing that would get me to tilt my head just a little bit...

would be if they actually brought in Netflix into their unified search interface because that's the one stupid streaming service that isn't supported on the Apple TV app. Yeah, the unified streaming –

That was another thing that made me go, oh, yes, because, yeah, it is. There's still too many devices, too many services that aren't offered. And like I say, I switch between them all. And it's so frustrating. You just kind of get stuck in a rut that way, too. But, yes, but that's Netflix's issue.

Right. Like they probably know. So are they going to play nice with Sonos, but they're not going to play notes with play? Yeah. Maybe that's it. Sonos is going to pay Netflix a bunch of money to get in there. But I will say we don't watch Netflix nearly as much as we used to because of that.

And I didn't update my card on it. And currently our Netflix subscription has lapsed. And I'm like, I'll just update it when there's something we want to watch on there again. And it hasn't happened yet. See how long you can go. Right? Yeah. I'm sorry. I just have to have a live counter on my Twitter bio or something. Since I've updated the Netflix account.

Well, wrapping the Sonos news up, I guess they also just went through some layoffs. So we have a new interim CEO taking over and now they have 12%, I think, of staff was laid off. So it's a wild time over at Sonos. The app issues from the past year have

Hopefully we're looking up. I really liked the new soundbar a lot. I never had the app issues because I was so limited in like the things that I used it for. And I still really love the Sonos Ace headphones. I've been using those more than apples. Oh, interesting. Yeah, I feel like this move makes sense. You kind of think this would happen with a new CEO or even though, you know, all of that's still up in the air. But, you know, streamline, focus on the core product, get things back. Yeah.

To where they should be and then, yeah, see where they go from here. And, you know, beginning of the year, it's the time to reset and a new, something like a streaming box could really help give them, you know, a bit of a renaissance. Just not for $400. Of course we're going to have to see, right? I'm curious if they're going to do anything on the smart home standard too. I mean, are they going to go with Matter support anywhere in there? Because we do have support for, you know, streaming boxes and TVs, everything like that. Will they do anything? Yeah.

Yeah, that would be interesting. Well, and then there's the matter speaker concept that sort of floated late last year. And the man behind that is actually from Sonos originally. I don't know what the relationship like that there is today. But yes, it would, if they're going to sort of do a whole kind of refocus shift, being a bit more, you know, if you encouraging people to be within your ecosystem, but letting your ecosystem be open is a lot easier.

of a pill to swallow in a way. Like I'm going to be, okay, yes, I'm happy to do all Sonos, but being able to also use that outside of your system makes a lot of sense. So, but that's not really the way they've gone in the past. So I have to wait and see. I know, I mean,

I just wanted them to add Apple's assistant, right? Like we have on the Ecobee thermostat, like literally the one product who has integrated that. I would love for Sonos to do that instead of require – like they got the Amazon assistant in there. They've got I think the Google one. Then there's the Sonos person. The Sonos one. Yeah. Do you ever use it? Yeah. Every time I'm walking down the hallway and throw out a command, the Ecobee is the one that happens to pick it up. No, I mean do you use the Sonos one? No. No, never at all. Never. Never.

Yeah. Nope. I don't think I've even tried. I haven't turned it on. There you go. That tells you what you need to know. Yeah.

Okay, well, maybe you can walk us through this one about what you expect, because this week we also saw that Amazon, I guess last week, and everyone's listening to this, but last week, Amazon announced their new press event that they're going to be hosting. Yes, yes. It was kind of supposed to be maybe end of 2024, but now we're getting it here with the one big thing is, I think, expected. So what are you expecting? Yes.

So last, they normally have a big fall hardware event where they announce about 5 billion products. And they didn't last year. Last year was the first year they had a new head of devices and services, Panos Panay from Microsoft. So, you know, reset year, not that surprising, I suppose. But the year prior, they had announced the new generative AI powered voice assistant that begins with an A, which I won't say to not set up everyone's devices, although this is a HomeKit podcast, so there's

probably not a lot of people with them out there. You never know. And anyway, we've been waiting and waiting for over a year for them to launch this assistant that is apparently a lot smarter along the lines of what's happening with Apple's assistant, Google's assistant, LLM Power,

generative AI coming to these assistants to make them smarter, be able to have more conversational interactions with them, better integration, not integration, but better control of your smart home, being able to say, hey, turn on my lights and adjust the thermostat and then also go and lock the door and then could you play this playlist for me? You know, this kind of thing, as well as being able to do more advanced things that you can do with systems like ChatGPT today. So we're waiting for this to come to all the voice assistants. Amazon said it's coming to its voice assistant

But it's been delayed. And I've reported on The Verge and that numerous delays over the last year, lots of sort of leaks from Bloomberg and Reuters and saying, you know, this is terrible. It's never going to work. It can't. It's still really dumb. And one of the key problems seems to be connecting what existing voice assistants can do with what these smarter people,

LLM power genitive AI systems can do because but we also there's the danger of the hallucinations like you don't want a hallucinating LLM in your smart home you just don't the things that could go wrong I don't even want to think about so we've been waiting for this and finally it sounds like they are going to announce it the invite had no information on it other than that

There is an event, February 26th, in New York City. But this is a little Easter egg I found. All the different... There were five different invites sent out. And when you put all five invites together, they do spell Alexa. So, yes. So I think the cat's out of the bag there. I mean, we all knew that's what it was going to be. They didn't specifically say that's what it's going to be, but they did hide the message. Very Apple-like in the invite. Yeah.

I like it. To say that, yes, it's all about the A-Lady. So I'm very excited to see what's going to happen. Reuters actually reported yesterday, sorry, on Wednesday, Reuters reported that the new assistant will actually have agentic powers. So it will actually be able to take actions on your behalf.

which is something that we've started to see reports about and we've seen different systems try and sort of crack this but the idea being that you can actually ask not just say things like turn on the lights but do more advanced tasks for you which in the smart home could be really interesting so yeah I'm excited I think this could be really interesting.

I think this is, I mean, this is like such good timing too with Apple's just kind of around the corner. Like we're all waiting for the 18.4 beta. I talked about last week that it might be coming and it didn't come last week. So maybe the week that you're listening to this, it'll actually be here. But we're still waiting that 18.4 beta that is supposed to have the new version of the Apple Assistant. Literally just this morning, again, I was like,

Assistant, turn on the living room lights. Turn on the kitchen lights. Open the window to 75%. Like I had to do three different commands and wait for it to think, process, do each of those, and then re-invoke every time because there's no way just to say, hey, can you turn on the kitchen lights, living room lights, and open the window? Like it should be able to do those things, and it feels so far behind that we can't. Yeah, yeah.

And they're all there, to be fair. So, you know, it's a race now. Who's going to get there first? But I think and also that balance, you know, we've seen it with Apple because when they announced their smarter voice assistant, the chat GPT portion is kind of walled off because of those types of concerns like,

How is generative AI really going to impact systems in our homes? Imagine if you have your home backup battery and all of your appliances connected to your smart home and then something goes crazy with a chat GPT integration. So yes, I said I wouldn't think about these disasters, but it's hard not to. Well, I just saw the story of Google editing its Super Bowl ad because...

Gemini had made up some statistics. We had so much fun with that at The Virgin, actually, the cheese story. But it didn't make it up. This was, to be fair... Okay, there were some websites that had it. Right. It took a statistic that isn't verified. Exactly. You know, that's probably not true. And this is the problem with all of these intelligent assistants, is they're only as smart as the information that they can get. And if that information's incorrect...

Things can just go, things go wrong. And then the hallucinations. So there's just so many problems. But if these companies can crack this and deliver an actually smart assistant,

That can really help manage our smart homes. I mean, it really feels like generative AI in the smart home is one of the areas where AI really just makes sense. It just has to be well implemented. And I think the whole idea of artificial general intelligence is actually a little scary in the smart home. I like AI.

I'm more into artificial specific intelligence. It has very specific tasks and it knows how to do them. And that's something you can implement in the smart home and hopefully that's what companies are going to start doing. So we shall see. It's going to be an interesting year. We shall. And I'm excited to see what Amazon is actually going to unveil.

Well, before we get into the rest of the news, let's take our first break. Let's go ahead and talk about ExpressVPN. Going online without ExpressVPN is like driving without car insurance. You might be a great driver, but with all the crazy, unpredictable people on the road, why would you take that risk? I was just in New York. I was out at CES. And it's one of those things where there are so many people around you that there's just a little bit of an unnerving that's going on with these public Wi-Fis all the time where you're trying to get stuff done. You're trying to send information across to people.

Most of the time, you're probably going to be safe. You're probably going to be okay. But there's times where you're not going to be, and that's when you need something like a VPN, let alone you're trying to watch playoff games or something, and you have random geo-fencing restrictions on every streaming service that is out there.

So it doesn't take much technical knowledge to hack somebody. Just some cheap hardware is needed. A 12 year old could do it. At least that's what my notes say. So your data is super valuable. It can be sold for up to a thousand dollars per person, which is crazy. So express VPN stops hackers from stealing that data by creating a secure encrypted tunnel between your device and the internet.

It would take a hacker with a supercomputer over a billion years to get past ExpressVPN's encryption. Plus, it is really easy to use and works on all of your devices. Works on your Apple devices, your Apple TV, iPhone, iPad, the Mac. Simple, easy to install. One click, get connected. Ready.

to go. Whenever I travel, it gives me just that extra peace of mind that I'm protected. I always turn on a VPN on my phone or on my laptop. So here's what you guys can do. You can secure your online data today by visiting expressvpn.com slash HKI. That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash H-K-I and you can get an extra four months free. Expressvpn.com slash H-K-I.

Okay, Jennifer, let's talk about smart locks. I feel like this is a popular topic on the show. And we have two new ones. I'm not familiar with these because they are Z-Wave, but I don't know if you have played around with either of these, or at least like their predecessors. So Kwikset has two new locks coming out, the Home Connect 918 and Home Connect 620, that both include Z-Wave long range in them, which is...

I'm actually very excited about because it's pretty cool. Yeah, I've used... So, QuickSet has quite a range of smart locks. They just came out, which I know you've discussed with their first Matter over Thread one. But they also have a number that have been part of smart home systems like Vivint or...

ring alarm that will connect over systems like Z-Wave or Zigbee and I've used those I used those when I tested the Vivint smart home system actually and that is you know they're fairly basic they're push button which some people like and these these are the same these are push button I mean they have

a number of different designs and that's one of the nice things about Kwikset and Schlage is you have a lot of different finishes they match your door hardware and they have sort of the modern the classic looking ones and these are very much like that with the push buttons and also a keyway I know there's strong opinions whether you should have a keyway or not I'm a non-keyway gal but

So, yeah, and the long range is really interesting because especially as these are lower priced products compared to, say,

a Schlage home key lock. You know, you could use these, say, on an accessory building like a garage or a shed. And with the Z-Wave long range, you're still going to be able to control them. And long range is, yeah, I'm excited about the technology too. It does really give you, you know, broadens the scope of your smart home. Because once I have found for years a frustration of as soon as you step out your back door or your front door, your smart home basically falls apart. Yeah.

So it's nice to be able to use things like in the right now I'm testing the Aero 7 outdoor router, which is just been sort of quite transformational in terms of security cameras. Like it's great. I've got a camera inside my chicken coop now that I can watch the chickens at night. Yeah.

So, yeah, I think these are a neat addition to have, you know, if you have a Z-Wave home, if you have an alarm system. I think I'm pretty sure these would work with Ring Alarm, Vivint, any of those systems. And, of course, for HomeKit listeners, if you have a hub that works well.

with Z-Wave and that can bridge these devices into your setup, like I believe Homey would be one that you can do that with. It could be a great thing for, like I said, for accessory buildings, I mean, or your front door too, if you like the push button style, which is actually quite hard to find. I don't know that there are many Apple Home products

supported smart locks that work with Apple Home that have the push button. The push button, you know, I love a good touchscreen, but they can be quite confusing, especially for someone that isn't used to them. Like the Yale ones, you have to kind of palm over them to get them to show up. I remember one night my husband was coming home. He worked 24-hour shifts and he came home really late. And he's like, I had switched the door lock. And he's like, I don't know how to work it. Yeah.

So yeah, push buttons for the win. Yep, that sounds about right. That sounds accurate. I'm excited about this. I feel like we've seen more and more of these long-range things. It hasn't launched yet, but Abode has that new...

extra long range wifi camera that they've still been working on. Uh, I asked about it at CES and they said, uh, there's just working on software and battery life improvements, things like that. So still coming. Um, we have the Eero outdoor wifi extender, which is huge and works super well. And then we have ones like this that yes, will work in Apple home when you have a Z wave hub. And I, I know you mentioned the homie one. I think there are several others cause I'm pretty sure I remember, uh,

talking about several different ones. I've yet to test any of them, mostly because I can't ever find a Z-Wave product that I specifically want over a HomeKit one or a Matter one. But in this case, there is nothing like it that is in Apple Home directly or Matter. So this is a perfect one to test something like that out with for a shed, an exterior building, anything like that. Easy connect. So I'm pretty excited about these.

We also kind of – like if we want to just touch on this again, I want to get your take on it. We talked about the ultra-wide band locks quite a bit on the show that are coming this year. There are some that are coming early like the Ultra Lock that doesn't have a Lero. And then everyone else is waiting for Lero. Yes, exactly. I mean – And then Schleg is like, we're going to come out and then add a Lero with a software update. Yeah.

What's your take on this? So my take is that Schlage's lock will not come out until the Alero standard comes out. That's why... You don't think so? No. And I think the Alero standard is coming out this year. I mean, they won't give me a date. They say it's going to be updated, but they wouldn't give me a time range at all. So you think they're going to... I think the Alero standard will be announced and the lock will come out. Because Allegiant, the company that owns Schlage, is one of the companies developing Alero, along with Assa Abloy, which owns...

So they keep switching. They all buy each and sell each other. But yes, Kwikset got sold to Assa Abloy and also Level Lock.

is owned by Assa Abloy. And then the other big one is Allegian, which owns Schlage. But they're all working together to develop Illyrio. And I spoke to both Kwikset and Schlage at CES, and basically it sounds like whilst there is no standard yet, official spec,

We've been told it's going to support UWB and NFC, but with NFC as the primary one, so that is basically going to bring Apple HomeKey to any smart lock. Yay! And then UWB will be optional because it's obviously a bit more of an advanced technology, a bit more expensive, as you can see from the price of these locks.

Then, you know, the cheapest one is $390. And the Lockley, which is the Lockley one that was also announced at CES, but that's not coming out to Q4. Then there is the UltraLock one, which I think they announced is going to be $400. Schlage has not given a price, but as we all know, Schlage locks are not cheap. So these are expensive. This is an expensive technology, but

Honestly, I think it's going to become the norm within sooner rather than later, because it really is the most frictionless way to use a smart lock. Just have it open as you arrive at the door or as you walk up. And for my, I got to test a couple of these locks and compared to the current solutions with auto unlocking, which if you've used an August lock or a Yale lock, those are options that

It's so it seemed it worked more quickly. And the way I have been described to me is much more reliable because it's radio to radio communication as opposed to having to use Wi-Fi and GPS and Bluetooth and everything and making sure that the app is running on your phone.

This won't have to have an app running in the background on your phone because it will be, thanks to Alero, embedded in the software level of your phone, whether you're using an iPhone or an Android phone. So yeah, it's exciting. I'm excited about this technology. I just think it may be a while until it's affordable enough to be sort of mainstream, but I feel like it's going to be the way of the future for smart locks. You know, you'll have NFC and UWB

And those will be the way that you can. And it addresses a lot of security concerns as well. Although one concern I've heard a lot is, well, people's car keys can be cloned.

will this mean my smart lock can be cloned too because it's using UWB? But there are many more security layers in a smartphone than there are in a smart key. So we don't know yet because the standard has not been released, but that will be something to look at once we get the standard. But I think it's all going to happen this year. But I spoke to UltraLock and I was like, why do you do this? Yeah.

why launch this before the standard? And they were just like, well, because we could and we didn't want to wait for the standard. So you do have to have the Ultra Lock app running in the background in order to use the UWB unlocking, which is similar to the current auto unlock situation. Whereas once there's a Lero, that won't be necessary. So they're just doing it because they wanted to be the first and I get that.

And there are some – I'm sure there are people that will want this technology now and they'll buy it. And then if you want the Alero version, maybe you'll buy that when it comes out. But it's going to be interesting. I don't see people upgrading twice with these prices. No.

I think it works better. It works. It definitely works better than the existing solutions. Yeah. Because while the app still has to be running, it's still like in what I tested, it still worked really fast. The radio to radio. The other ones. Yeah. Because like you said, okay, now I have to wait for my GPS to realize that I'm home. Yeah. And then once it does that, it has to go to then establish a Bluetooth connection and all of that stuff. And yeah,

And that multiple points can fail or cause delay in having that auto-unlock happen. This is so much quicker. Yeah. Even if it isn't the full Alluro version. So, yeah, it's a lot of fun.

It's very interesting. It is a bummer whether or not Schlage comes out ahead of it or not. Either way, it's getting a Lero. And they're going to have to specifically have a second version with hardware changes to support a Lero. Yeah. And I struggle. I'm like, okay, I guess if you really want it. But to me, it's like, okay, you're an early adopter and you're okay spending a bunch on a smart lock. Is it worth that compromise to go now versus just wait? I would wait.

I love ultra locks, but I would wait. And if that's what you want, wait. Especially the NFC side. So, you know, because that's...

There's a lot here to unpack, but ultimately the UWB is really just going to be for the homeowners. I think the great thing about the NFC is it's going to be much easier to share. And I know we're still waiting. Are we still waiting for Apple to be able to share keys? Yeah, I think it'll come when Aliro comes because it'll be so much more secure to share them. And then you can share them to your friends with Android phones as well. Yeah, that'll be big.

That'll be really big. Well, we still have more news to talk about. An Apple robot prototype thing, a new Eve cam was updated, and some maybe Wi-Fi changes if we have time. But before we get into them, let's take a second to thank our second sponsor for this episode, Apple.

Indeed. So before my life here at, you know, Apple Insider doing all this stuff, I was in positions where I had to look for people to hire and hire people for multiple different departments. And there are so many options out there. There's so many different websites and solutions and just flyers on a wall that you could go with.

But using something like Indeed can really speed this up and help you find the candidates that make sense. I did not use Indeed when I was doing it, and it was a laborious process. And I remember sitting around a table with a whole bunch of printed out resumes, like some sort of cave person. Something like Indeed would make this so much easier where you're able to see these resumes, see what qualifications fit, whittle down the people to the people that make sense for the position that you are hiring for.

When you're trying to look through a huge array of people applying, you do not need to look through every single little detail when Indeed can help you do that. When it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. So stop struggling to get your job posting on other job sites. Indeed's sponsored jobs helps you stand out and hire fast.

With Sponsored Jobs, your post jumps to the top of the page for your relevant candidates so you can reach the people you want faster. And it makes a huge difference. According to Indeed's data, Sponsored Jobs...

hosted directly on Indeed have 45% more applications than non-sponsored jobs. So try it out. You can go ahead with Indeed-sponsored jobs. There's no monthly subscriptions, no long-term contracts, and you only pay for results. That's my favorite part about this. You're only paying when you have results. And this is also really cool. It's a little fun fact. How fast is Indeed? In the minute that I've been talking to you about Indeed, 23 hires were made on Indeed.

according to IndieData from Worldwide. I just think it's cool. I was talking and 23 people got hired. Congrats to them, by the way. You guys did it all because of Indeed. So there's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. And listeners of the show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibly at Indeed.com slash HomeKit.

Just go to Indeed.com slash HomeKit right now and support our show by saying you heard about it. Heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash HomeKit. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. Okay, Jen, we have a new Eve Cam that fixes, that fixes the stupidest thing about all the smart home stuff that I've seen. They shipped that first Eve Cam with micro USB.

That didn't happen 15 years ago. It was only a few. But now, new Eve cam with USB-C. Finally. Well, now, this is the second gen version, right? Yes. But now, didn't they release the second gen version not that long ago? Is this now an update to it? I kind of got lost.

I think this is only a second gen version. Did they ever have an actual second gen? I think this is the second gen. I remember there was a rumor that they were going to have a square one. Do you remember that?

Anyway, ignore me. But yes, the new version, there is a new version with USB-C and also better motion detection, which is, I'm interested in how this works because I understood the motion detection all went through Apple's HomeKit secure video. But they're saying that now the motion detection relies on image processing and now also works through Windows. So did it not?

So before, I'm confused. So I'm interested to see if it's better because that was an issue before. Because there are some cameras you can turn off the IR so that you can put them up against a window and see through the window. Apparently, this is something that people do quite often. I've not tried it myself. Because I've seen it with the EVE camera. Not the EVE camera. We're talking about the EVE camera. The Ecobee has this, the old Logitech Circle 2 doorbell or doorbell.

camera had a little adhesive for the window but in all of those but you had to turn off where you had to say window mode right it would turn off that ir sensor so yes i actually did not remember what the original eve cam was using for motion but based on the fact that they are now touting image based it had to be a pir sensor yeah your typical passive infrared

sensors that most motion sensor use in the home. Yeah. That we all know are fairly inaccurate and not super useful. So yeah, I think now based on this, so my understanding, Jen, you tell me if this makes sense or not to you, but I think that the way it works is the camera is responsible first for detecting the motion. So it's,

It watches for the motion, whether it's coming from that IR sensor or from image-based processing. So it does that first. And as soon as it detects motion, then it starts sending to your Apple device for the AI processing. Yes. And there is when it detects, like, person, animal, creature.

car, package, those types of things, as well as the facial recognition based on who is in your photos library. But all of that processing is done through your home hub slash Apple account iCloud situation. So I think that's what this is. So it detects that first five meters of range for night vision as well.

So we should have better motion support for night vision, I'm hoping here. But yeah, it'll do that. Kick it over to iCloud when motion's detected. And of course, this still supports iCloud secure video, 1080p, all of that kind of stuff.

So not a huge update, not like an upgrade-worthy update, I guess I would say. But it's nice if you're buying one. And USB-C is definitely better. And then I guess hopefully the motions – I mean I wonder if this will make a difference to how reliable it is to use motion as a trigger in HomeKit because I can't use motion for my camera as a trigger in HomeKit unless I want my lights to flash. No, you won't.

You're still not going to be able to do that reliably. No. But you can. But as a lot of listeners on the show know, Apple doesn't allow you to set triggers based on what the motion is. Is, yes. I know. One day. One day. Yeah. But we do have – our Eve cam is in the kitchen and I am –

There are times when I'm missing motion, like a dog runs through or something. And the motion sensor, the IR sensor, isn't... I don't know if it's like the range because it is mounted on top of a cabinet or what. But this should fix that issue. Yeah. At least for me in my current situation of making it more reliable to detect that motion and record things. So I'm excited about it just because Eve products are great, supports everything that we want from Apple stuff. It just seems late when we are...

Maybe it's not late because I think based on my talks at CES, it's probably going to be at least two years or more until we get a HomeKit or a Matter-enabled camera.

Yeah, I think we're still a ways out on that. But the nice thing about the Eve, which unlike a lot of the other HomeKit secure video cameras, is that it's small and discreet. And most of them are white. And I like the Eves. It's small. You can angle it nicely. It kind of resembles the old drop cam, which was one of the best. I thought those were great. So yeah, which then became the Nest Cam and then became the little chunky camera.

brownish white one they have now but it is it's flexible I've yeah I think it'll be a nice nice upgrade I'm interested to test this out and see I haven't used the Eve Cam in a while because of the some of the issues we've discussed so I'll be I'll be excited to test the the upgraded version

Absolutely. Well, I know we're running low on time here, Jen. So what do you want to talk about? Do you want to talk about this Apple robot? Or do you want to talk about CSA's plan to fix Wi-Fi and your unresponsive accessories? Oh, well, the robot's really cute. And it looks like a little table nap. But I'm way more interested in Wi-Fi. Yeah.

Perfect. Samesies. Let's talk about it. So, yes, when I was at CES, I got a chance to sit down and talk with the head of the Thread group, the president of Thread group, the head of Matter CSA, and the president of the Wi-Fi Alliance. And they wanted to talk about how they're working together to improve a lot of problems that we've seen over the last couple of years with Matter and Thread and

And you can read the entire Q&A, which is quite long, on thevoge.com.

But one of the really interesting things that came out of it was a conversation between... So the head of the Thread Group, the president of the Thread Group right now, is an Apple engineer. And he was... He's obviously speaking... He's not speaking on behalf of Apple. He's speaking on behalf of Thread. But obviously, he works for Apple. So he's very familiar with all of the issues in the smart home, in particular with Apple. And he...

talked a lot about how so I know you've discussed this on the show that hrap is a new part of matter home routers and access points and that was introduced in the last update I believe and that was basically saying we're going to make home routers what matter devices

Part of that is going to require adding thread radios. But what Vivid Siddhar, who is the president of the Thread Group, told me is that originally that working group, the working group inside MATA to develop home router and access points to be part of MATA, was developed to fix Wi-Fi in the smart home.

And I was like, what? I bet you how many times people have come to you to be like, how come I can't get it to join my network? And you have the different, oh, it only supports 2.4 or 5. And now we've got six going into the mix. It is so many problems with these devices. And the unresponsive ones at the same time that are just get lost. Yeah.

Right. And so that is, you know, so basically, and this is getting kind of weedsy, but one of the issues with Matter, and if you recall, Matter is based on HomeKit. So you can't, it doesn't take too much joining of the dots there to understand this. One of the problems that this kind of goes back to what's happening in Apple with Apple Home issues, and you mentioned the non-response that people get and get very frustrated about. This is all to do with

an implementation on home Wi-Fi routers called multicasting. And I am not a home networking nerd, but I have spoken to a couple, and I think I understand what's going on here, is that the combination of Thread being an internet protocol-based network

wireless protocol, it uses IPv6, and the need for multicast discovery in smart home devices, which is what HomeKit also relies on, number of newer routers and older routers deliberately either turn off these functions or don't implement them well. And one of the things that they said to me is that, you know, the way routers implement multicast discovery can actually be broken, excuse,

excuse me, can actually be broken or has been deliberately disabled because it maybe might cause some other issues, but it's not designed for the smart home. And so what would happen here, and because Matter and HomeKit relies on that kind of discovery mechanism to always be working, when it doesn't, that's when you have devices that show offline. So if Matter can develop a standard that

and they're working here with the Wi-Fi Alliance and the Thread Group that actually put software on your routers to make sure your smart home devices connect properly and stay connected, it's literally going to fix the smart home, which is what they've been promising us from the beginning. But that is the biggest issue. That's the biggest issue I have had with Matter devices beyond setting them up and using multi-admin is them staying online. Right.

So I'm excited about this. What do you think?

No, I think this is one of the few – this is one of the very few issues I've had with my Matter devices, specifically ones that are – that were never HomeKit and were just added via Matter. So ones that were like updated to support it. And the two that I have are like the Govee Ice Maker that I just talked about and the Govee Starlight Projector in our kids' room. And a couple times now, like the projector, it just goes offline. And I have to reset it and re-get it to add to the network.

To get it to play nice again. Because it just somehow loses... I don't know. It just goes no response. And this is what it is. What routers do you use? I think I'm on the latest Eero ones. Yeah. See, I'm on Eero too, but I also was on Asus for a while and Google Home Mesh. I've used multiple routers and they all seem to have this problem. And Eero, you would think, would have this fixed because it is...

They have the matter and the thread and they're, you know, Amazon and Amazon's deeply involved in all of this. But it's still I still have the same problems. And I don't know. I haven't delved deeply into all the technical details, but it does sound like what they're working on. If this is not to be clear, this is not part of the 1.4 that came out with Ahraps. This is what they're working on now.

So it should be part of future releases, but basically fixing home Wi-Fi routers and making them work nicely with

your matter devices. Basically, this is the closest we're going to get to Apple developing their Wi-Fi router, I'm afraid. Why? The amount of times I hear that Apple should just make their own routers, even from like lay people, like, oh, I still use like my airport router. It's like, yeah. Really? Why is this a, my grandma is still running her house off of an airport express and she has no issues with it.

Even using her HomeKit secure video doorbell, going through a little airport express in her home. I had to upgrade her to an Apple TV so she could handle the remote...

and everything in the recording for her doorbell. She uses it probably more for that. I think she watches Ted Lasso and she uses it for her HomeKit accessories. That is it. But yeah, it's... I'm impressed that your grandma uses HomeKit accessories. Hey, she's got an Ecobee thermostat. She's got a Belkin Wemo, you know, video doorbell. Doorbell.

Airport Express and an Apple TV. She does have those Amazon speakers. She does. The biggest thing is I can't get her to switch because the HomePod minis are too expensive.

She's like, well, these are basically free. I'm like, yeah. Well, that tabletop robot from Apple is probably not going to be cheap either. That's true. Whenever that comes along. Yeah. But yeah, I'm excited to see what they can do here. And it's great that these three organizations are working together and they've identified that there's a big problem here. And they do, you know, because it's these three big organizations, they probably do have the clout to make this work. And obviously these organizations, in case your listeners aren't aware, they're all run by...

by the same companies. So like Thread and Matter have Apple, Amazon, Google, Samsung are all part of the boards. And then the Wi-Fi Alliance, obviously, they're all involved with that too. So they're all working here together. So it's exciting to see what they can come up with. And this is the problem that definitely needs to be fixed. Well, here's my worry that I ever see is that a lot of the

affordable budget routers that people end up buying, they don't necessarily have the feet. Like a lot of the tech is baked. Like the smart home tech that we see now is baked into like the higher price range routers. Yeah. And I'm like, I'm hoping that they don't just take this and they put it into all the high end routers again, because you're still going to end up with your average people who are just buying something off the shelf and

having the exact same problems because the cheaper versions of the routers didn't bother to include the stuff that actually works. So hopefully they'll figure that out as well, maybe bake it directly into the Wi-Fi spec versus something beyond that.

I don't know. I hope it's not a price delta there. I think, and I did try and press for Kevin Robinson, who's the head of the Wi-Fi Alliance. I was like, when are these routers going to work with Matter? And he said, you know, most of it can be done by an over-the-air update. And interestingly, talking to the CSA, they think telecommunication companies like Comcast and Verizon and AT&T, who are all getting into home Wi-Fi, I mean, Comcast already was, but

is they're interested in Matter to potentially produce their own solutions in the smart home, which would, yeah, that aside, but that would drive them to include Matter on all of their devices. The downside is that currently in the spec, the downside for those people, not for us, is that Matter HREP does have to have a thread radio in, which in theory would mean new hardware, although they could also offer a dongle,

to add thread to it. So we'll see. I think there are ways that we could see this come through to all the routers and not just the high-end ones. But yes, I think it's likely to start, like we're seeing with the robot vacuums, it's going to start in the high-end and then hopefully trickle down.

I believe it. Well, hopefully it doesn't take just as long. Because I know we talk about the cameras. It's like, oh, cool. It's not going to be in the spec probably this year, which means maybe next spring or something we'll get it in the Matter spec. And then it's going to be, what, at least a year before hardware starts to drop. So that's almost saying like two years maybe before we can get into some Matter camera hardware. Yeah.

It's going to be a while. I know. Yeah. And that's the thing that everyone's asking for. But also, you know, in this conversation I had, they really emphasised that 2025 is going to be a year of fixing all the problems and the bugs and not necessarily new hardware. And that is an argument or this is something I've heard people complain about a lot with companies.

that maybe they have focused too much on new devices and not enough on actually making it all work. So that criticism is being addressed here with, we're going to make sure it all works. Because once you add cameras in, I mean, that's quite, that is adding a big layer of complication. I mean, we've seen robots, vacuums has been a sort of a slow process.

implementation too because I think it's adding a significant level of complication over on off dim bright which is pretty much what most of the other device types are doing right now so before we add in they sort of before they bring in the layers that are going to be more complicated they need to make sure that the foundation is working that is the message I was getting from them so we'll see if they're able to do it

I just feel like another one of the things where they got to spend a little bit more money on it. It's like you got all these massive companies working together and things still feel very slow. I mean, it's even just on the basics of marketing what matter is and like no one wants to spend the money on it on educating people. Maybe they will when they decide that they've fixed the bugs. Yeah.

maybe that's the point that they'll start to tell people about it. Yeah. Cause it's still hard to sort of say, I think for companies like Amazon and Apple to really promote it because they don't support everything that works. And Google actually, Google is lagging behind the furthest on Samsung is the only one. Yeah. Even at CES, I couldn't even get answers to almost any of my smart home questions. Um,

Unless you found like the one person that was ready to answer smart things questions. I know. Yeah. It's smart things, but yeah, it's smart things. Obviously the, one of the biggest companies in, in the field there, but also not,

on the smart home front. Like it just isn't the platform that people are using. Although they have a huge user base, it's because if you buy a Samsung on clients and use it, you've downloaded the SmartThings app, whether you've actually done anything else, any other sort of smart home integrations. But obviously in Korea, it's one of the dominant platforms. And it's great that they're leading the way though, because I think they're putting the pressure on the others because they could come up behind, you know, Bixby.

Bixby could be the next big thing one day. Maybe. I want the Bally. I'm excited about the Bally rolling around my house. Bally with Bixby built in. That's what we all need. That is. Oh.

Okay. Well, on that note, I think we should call it for the episode. Thank you, Jen, so much for hanging out today. Lots of The Verge stories this week, and they will all be linked in the show notes for your reading pleasure, so everyone can check those out. You can also find Jennifer, which you want to point anyone to any other platforms or social medias?

So I'm on Blue Sky and Threads. I'm JP2E and Smart Home Mama on Threads. Those are where you'll find me on the socials mainly, but all my work is at theverge.com, my author profile. We also have a Smart Home story stream. You can check out where all of the Smart Home stories that we write, every reporter on The Verge that writes Smart Home stories, that all ends up in there so you can keep up with all the news.

And yeah, happy to have been here. Nice to see you and excited. Hopefully it won't be so long next time before I get an invite. I know. And we didn't even get to really chat at CES. We like bumped into each other and I ran one way and you chased down the ultra lock and never saw each other again. I know it is. I'm always so excited to see everyone at CES. And then it's just like, ah, two seconds and they're gone. I know.

Pretty much. Yeah. Next year. Well, everyone else, you can go and leave the podcast a 5, 10, 100 star rating on your podcast player of choice. You can view the video version on this and see our expressive faces over at youtube.com slash homekitinsider. Otherwise, we'll catch you guys in the next episode. Bye.