0:00:00(upbeat music)
0:00:02Hello and welcome to Connected episode 384.
0:00:13It's made possible this week by our sponsors,
0:00:15Bombas, Fitbod, and New Relic.
0:00:19My name is Stephen Hackett.
0:00:20I am joined by Mr. Federico Vittucci.
0:00:22- Hello, hi.
0:00:23- Hello, we're back.
0:00:25And we're back with our friend Myke Hurley.
0:00:27- Ah, hi.
0:00:29How is everybody?
0:00:30I'm exhausted. I feel super weird. I apologize already.
0:00:34Why are you exhausted? Tell us more about it.
0:00:36I recorded a really, really long thing before.
0:00:39So today as we recorded this, we did two things for The Panadict.
0:00:44It is our 500th episode and also today is our 10th anniversary of working together on the show too.
0:00:52They just ended up incredibly just lining up.
0:00:56We didn't do anything special for it. They just lined up.
0:00:59We recorded a three-hour episode, which was like a very listener intensive feedback show.
0:01:06Like people wrote in a bunch of stuff to us and we promised we'd read every message.
0:01:10I finished recording that show like 20 minutes before we started recording.
0:01:19So I'm a little bit all over the place in the moment.
0:01:22Congrats though. I mean that's an incredible milestone.
0:01:26I can't believe you haven't blogged about this.
0:01:29Like, I can see the headline already on, like, a Medium blog or something.
0:01:33Like, I recorded 500 episodes for a podcast about pants.
0:01:38Here's everything I learned.
0:01:39-Here's everything I learned. -Like, super click-baity, you know?
0:01:42Yeah. I'm not really sure what I've learned yet, though.
0:01:44I have to think about that.
0:01:46[laughs]
0:01:46Nothing. Nothing.
0:01:48-It's just a blank post. -It's what I learned.
0:01:51[laughs]
0:01:53Well, congratulations.
0:01:54I remember it I cannot I refuse it's not that I can't I refuse to believe that it's been 10 years I
0:02:01Don't I don't understand how that's possible at all
0:02:06Well, we started the show in 2012. No, I understand how math works but like holy crap decade
0:02:12Unbelievable. Yeah, it's crazy, right? Yes. Congratulations. Thank you. All right, so here on the non pin show
0:02:21We were on episode 384. It would be episode
0:02:24441 if you count the prompt that gives you some context of how long you've been doing the pen addict
0:02:29It's over a year. Yep more episodes than we've been doing this show
0:02:32but for now
0:02:35384 episodes we start with follow-up two things about the
0:02:39Jeremy's the game that we played last week cannot believe we forgot and says on me because actually have it further down in the show notes
0:02:46where like my Jeremy's template is. I just missed it. We didn't tell people about the
0:02:50website. So you can go to thejeremys.herokuapp.com, link is in the show notes, and there is put
0:03:00together here all of the picks for the Jeremy's over the last many years. You can see all
0:03:07the guesses Federico made and if he eventually got it right or eventually got it wrong. It's
0:03:13amazing and you should go check it out.
0:03:15The good thing about this page specifically and why it's worth looking at it sometime
0:03:20afterwards which I always enjoy doing is that Jason lists every guess Federico makes, not
0:03:27just the one that was correct.
0:03:30That's the best part about this which is always fun to look back on.
0:03:34Beans has been in my head a lot recently.
0:03:42sent in the PDF for the proposal for biting lip emoji.
0:03:47Okay.
0:03:48And I just want to read some of this.
0:03:50Please.
0:03:51This is from the introduction.
0:03:53Humans have a long experience with nonverbal communication.
0:03:57Before we had words, we needed to try to rely on groaning and gesturing.
0:04:00These old habits stuck...
0:04:02Whoa!
0:04:03Wait, what?
0:04:04Okay.
0:04:05These old habits stuck.
0:04:06This is an interesting energy.
0:04:07And it's hardwired in our brain that we even just, just, we even gesticulate while speaking
0:04:15on the phone or while on a podcast, while obviously the other person can't see us.
0:04:21And then they go on to, "Biting and chewing lip can indicate a range of emotions, including
0:04:25fear, anxiety, and discomfort in a situation, or perhaps the person is worried or insecure."
0:04:32but also lip biting can be iconic of flirtation
0:04:36and exercising restraint.
0:04:38- Okay.
0:04:40- So, and it goes on and on with Google search results,
0:04:44multiple usages.
0:04:46This person who put this together really puts flirtation
0:04:49and fear and anxiety sort of on the same level
0:04:51throughout this document.
0:04:52So, you know, maybe they've been burned in the area of love
0:04:56and it comes coming out in their PDF, but here you go.
0:04:59- Yeah, there's tons of examples for pain,
0:05:02anticipation, excitement, arousal,
0:05:06which is another category.
0:05:08- Okay, so my least favorite thing about this,
0:05:11I have two least favorite things.
0:05:14Least favorite thing number one is
0:05:16in the introduction thing,
0:05:17they've put in a bunch of imagery as like examples
0:05:20and there's three stock images
0:05:22and then there's an image of Harry and Megan
0:05:25on their wedding day.
0:05:26And it's just like, I'm not really sure why.
0:05:29He's buying his lip.
0:05:31Yeah, but like why this image
0:05:32and then three random stock images, you know?
0:05:35Like I don't understand the--
0:05:37The first one gives, you know.
0:05:40Like popular context, but I feel like
0:05:43there are probably a million movie scenes
0:05:45that you could pick from.
0:05:47Also the zwidge that they suggested
0:05:49was a mouth plus a tooth,
0:05:50and I don't like that as a thing.
0:05:53And also just this, I just still cannot believe this emoji.
0:05:57I just can't believe this emoji is a thing.
0:05:59- It's the best one.
0:06:01- You know, there's a lot of other emoji in this document.
0:06:05- Biting lip is expected to have high usage.
0:06:08- Right.
0:06:09- When it comes to Google, biting lip greatly outperforms
0:06:11the median smiley emoji dueling face.
0:06:14- This is a very formal, this is a very formal proposal.
0:06:19- Yeah, I mean, you're submitting it
0:06:21to like a consortium committee type thing, right?
0:06:23You've got to try and make it, even though,
0:06:25even though like, look, this is what's kind of funny to me really about this proposal
0:06:29is like, the people that made this proposal, what they're looking for is a sexting emoji,
0:06:35right? It's justification for... But they have to present it in such an official way.
0:06:42That duality is very entertaining for me. Exactly, it's so professional, but done in
0:06:47a way to justify the thirst behind this emoji, which makes it so perfect. It's like from
0:06:54From the dawn of time, human beings have commuted.
0:06:57It's like, alright, okay.
0:06:59Don't you know that biting a lip is like, look, I get it.
0:07:02Also I enjoy, right, like, the way they've stacked this.
0:07:06Lip biting can be a trademark of insecure shy types, but also lip biting can be iconic
0:07:11of flirtation or exercising restraint.
0:07:13No, not also.
0:07:15Not also.
0:07:16I was like, oh, I'm so nervous right now, lip bite emoji.
0:07:19No one's gonna do that.
0:07:22Under the section labeled "Breaking New Ground," the author is right.
0:07:26Other than "Smirking Face" (aka Sexual Face, Smug Face, and Suggestive Smile), there aren't
0:07:32any other emojis effective at communicating the tension that comes with flirtation.
0:07:37Water droplet guy, peach, heart eyes, eggplant, but none that convey the emotional complexity
0:07:43that comes with relationships.
0:07:45Right, right.
0:07:49But the biting lip does.
0:07:51The biting lip really speaks to emotional complexity.
0:07:54Anyway, that's enough of that.
0:07:56- You took that further than I was expecting, Steven.
0:08:02- Just the whole document, it's just--
0:08:03- I'm a sophisticated person.
0:08:06I don't send the peach emoji, I send the biting lip one.
0:08:09- I'm gonna read the next piece of follow-up
0:08:12because I feel like I put this out into the world,
0:08:14so I should just continue pulling it out.
0:08:16- No, no, no, please don't, no, no.
0:08:17- It doesn't feel fair.
0:08:18It doesn't feel fair for other people
0:08:20clear it out to have to read it no there is no clearing up I was right the first
0:08:24time and this is just more information from Rafi indeed the pupil of the eye is
0:08:28a hole no which lets light in and the image is then projected on the back of
0:08:34the eye just like in a camera also like a camera the pupil gets smaller when
0:08:38there's more lights and like smaller larger you know the pupil is black
0:08:41because it's dark inside the eyeball because it's a hole and you're looking
0:08:45inside the eye. This is also why you get red eyes when taking picture with a flash right
0:08:52in front of the eyes. The flash simply lights the inside of your eyeball showing the red
0:08:59color inside our head. This comes from Rafi, who I can only assume is a very well known
0:09:07ophthalmologist. No, I don't care. Why send this piece of follow up? Kate's asked a great
0:09:13question. Kate asked a really great question. Why are we doing this again? The reason is
0:09:17Stephen put this in a document and I just decided to read it. Holes. Just holes. Holes
0:09:25in the eyes. Moving on. Let's talk about feet. If you think about it, the pupils are just
0:09:31like the nostrils of the eyes. You know? Enough about holes. Feet. Right? Much better. From
0:09:41Lip bike. Let's go to feet now. We're doing the whole anatomy thing today.
0:09:48That's the theme of today's episode is we're covering the entire anatomy.
0:09:52The gang discovers the human body. This is what we're doing today.
0:09:56Friend of the show, Matt Van Ormer. Let's talk about Matt's feet.
0:10:04aka the foot mod, has bought and reviewed the Steam Deck pedal.
0:10:10Ultimately, there's kind of nothing surprising from this, like it is what we thought it was.
0:10:17Matt did note that it was very well made, like the hardware is very well made and in use was
0:10:21really enjoyed. It's got three buttons on it kind of, right? Three pedals.
0:10:26Two on each side are raised higher than the one in the middle, which you can kind of see from
0:10:31from the imagery, but this helps you,
0:10:34no, or is the one in the middle raised?
0:10:36There's a difference in height between the two
0:10:38on either side and the one in the middle.
0:10:40And this helps you kind of feel with your feet
0:10:44which button you're pressing.
0:10:45So it's very useful in use.
0:10:48Did either of you buy one of these, by the way?
0:10:50- No, no, but there's a section of this post
0:10:55called Alto Automation.
0:10:58(laughing)
0:11:00- It's sold out basically immediately.
0:11:05So a lot of people are into foot automation.
0:11:07- Or toe-mation.
0:11:09- Toe-nation.
0:11:10- All toe-mation.
0:11:12- All toe-mation.
0:11:13- Oh, did he use it barefoot?
0:11:15Do we know?
0:11:17- I don't know.
0:11:17Matt is in the Discord.
0:11:18Matt, did you use it barefoot or with socks or with shoes?
0:11:21We would like to know.
0:11:22This is a very important follow-up.
0:11:24Do you like the pictures that Matt included
0:11:26with his dog in there?
0:11:28- I do, very good, especially good dog.
0:11:31- Mostly socked, but sometimes barefoot, so there you go.
0:11:36- Very good, very good, okay, okay.
0:11:39Yeah, one of the best dogs I've seen
0:11:41from the follow-up segment.
0:11:43We've seen a few over the years.
0:11:45It's an extremely good dog.
0:11:47Look at those eyes, yeah.
0:11:49Look at the gracious pose, yeah.
0:11:51Very good dog, very good dog.
0:11:53- Do you think dogs have holes in their eyes?
0:11:55- Yeah. - Can you please, no.
0:11:57I'm quitting how do you quit zoom close a call you can never quit zoom okay
0:12:09should I consider the steam deck pedal should I you already have one considered
0:12:15it like it's only a matter of time until you get it quote unquote for your work
0:12:20so it's like one shortcuts for serious shortcuts no maybe stop oh my god maybe
0:12:29you could program one of the pedals to quit zoom you know so if I keep talking
0:12:37about things you don't like bang and then you're gone I could check it out at
0:12:41the podcast yeah I could look into that yeah I may added a role in discord just
0:12:47for Matt named foot mod.
0:12:49- Accurate.
0:12:49- That's there for all time.
0:12:51Just as like a related plug in, I think two weeks from now,
0:12:56now this, not the next episode,
0:12:57but the one after that on MPU,
0:12:59we're getting deep into the stream deck.
0:13:01So I'm like, I like burned down my whole stream deck set up,
0:13:04have rebuilt it.
0:13:04I wanted to check out the foot pedal, but it was sold out.
0:13:07So if you're stream deck curious,
0:13:09we have an MPU coming that I think you will like a lot.
0:13:11- I am actually, so I will look forward to that.
0:13:13Well, I mean, you didn't have, you know, don't have one.
0:13:18You've never had one.
0:13:18- I do have one.
0:13:19I had one before you.
0:13:20I set it up again and I've never used it.
0:13:22I set it up with it.
0:13:23I spent an afternoon setting it up
0:13:25and I just don't ever press it.
0:13:26I never think to press the button.
0:13:28I think maybe I'm just not a Stream Deck person,
0:13:29but I will listen to that Mac Power Users episode
0:13:31and then make my final decision.
0:13:34- This episode of Connected is brought to you by Bombas.
0:13:37With Bombas, everyone can be a foot mod
0:13:40because they make super comfortable clothes.
0:13:45- Stop that now, that is unacceptable.
0:13:47- They make great stuff, socks, shirts, underwear,
0:13:51and what's really cool, for every item they sell,
0:13:55an equal item is donated.
0:13:57So you get comfortable socks and shirts and underwear
0:13:59and you're helping someone in need.
0:14:02Everything they make is soft, seamless, tagless,
0:14:05has a luxuriously cozy feel.
0:14:08They're made from super soft materials like Merino wool,
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0:14:15They make perfect cozy winter layers.
0:14:18There's a pair of Bombas socks for everything you do.
0:14:20I'm wearing my podcasting socks right now.
0:14:23But you got a bunch of sports you play,
0:14:24different types of sports have different needs.
0:14:26Bombas has socks for everyone.
0:14:29It's the only thing in my sock drawer anymore.
0:14:31I absolutely love them.
0:14:32Their t-shirts are also great.
0:14:34They're made with thoughtful design features
0:14:35like invisible seams, soft fabrics,
0:14:38The weight is just right.
0:14:40Bombas underwear has a barely there feel.
0:14:43They may make you forget you're even wearing them,
0:14:46but in a good way, the biting lip emoji way.
0:14:49See, I've tied it into two topics in the show.
0:14:51It's really good stuff.
0:14:52Go to bombas.com/connected.
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0:15:03That's bombas.com/connected, B-O-M-B-A-S,
0:15:07bombus.com/connected.
0:15:09Our thanks to Bombus for their support of the show
0:15:11and Relay FM.
0:15:13- So Apple has announced a new thing called Tap to Pay
0:15:17on the iPhone.
0:15:18This is kind of like somebody reminded me on Twitter
0:15:21about this, about, you remember they did the Find My Network
0:15:25before they announced AirTags?
0:15:26- Yeah.
0:15:27- I think it might be something similar here.
0:15:29They're announcing they're doing this thing
0:15:30and then maybe they're gonna announce something else,
0:15:32probably like NFC and an iPad or whatever, right?
0:15:35maybe I'm just gonna make some kind of accessory to put an iPad in, whatever, so you can make
0:15:39like a point of sale terminal. Basically what it's doing is unlocking the functionality
0:15:44inside of the NFC chips in iPhones so that an iPhone can be used like a contactless payment
0:15:51terminal. So instead of using one of those big things on a desk or you know you've got
0:15:56like the little square reader or whatever, it's just bang straight on the iPhone, easy
0:16:01to go. Now Federico, I see you have a bunch of questions in the document. Yes I do. I
0:16:05think I might be able to answer for you, so maybe as a better way to talk about this,
0:16:09why don't you ask these questions to me? I am glad you are here to provide answers to
0:16:13my questions. My questions are developed on two separate fronts. There's the more, the
0:16:22questions about this announcement and then in a broader context of payments in America.
0:16:28But in the context of Tap to Pay on the iPhone, can you explain to me why this is a big deal
0:16:34according to a lot of people? Because when I shop here in Italy, I have never, and I'm
0:16:39not, this is not an exaggeration or anything, I have never seen the, like, the things that
0:16:45I've seen in America, like those iPads in coffee shops or something. Everybody here
0:16:50as a standard POS, point of sale terminal, that accepts contactless payments or the chip-based cards.
0:17:00Literally everyone has it.
0:17:03See, the reason I think I can help you specifically is because the UK has a kind of a hybrid system,
0:17:09where we are, like Europe, everywhere has contactless payments and you can use anything.
0:17:17It's not like there are places in America where it's like,
0:17:19"Oh, you can do contactless,
0:17:21but you sometimes have to put your card in."
0:17:22And sometimes Apple Pay works, and we're the same as you.
0:17:25But something that I see here that I also see in America
0:17:28is small businesses with these more modern systems
0:17:32that either look like an iPad or are an iPad,
0:17:34or they use these little things that plug into an iPad.
0:17:37And this tends to be relatively new or small businesses
0:17:40or people that are setting up, say,
0:17:43you have like a farmer's market kind of thing or whatever, right? Where it's like you can't
0:17:49have a checkout system because you're outside and there's nowhere to plug in or whatever.
0:17:54So you'll see a lot of the time.
0:17:55Maybe I've just been to the wrong places then.
0:17:57I don't know. Like it depends what's around you, what's local to you. I mean, my expectation
0:18:02probably is a lot of the businesses that you frequent have been around for a long time.
0:18:07You know what I mean? So like they're just more established. I don't know. Like I've
0:18:11There's a lot of places that I frequent in the UK that are more artsy places and they're
0:18:16new and they're trying to make it work and they've only been in their business for three
0:18:21weeks and they've got a little square reader kind of thing.
0:18:24So the benefit to what Apple's doing here is you don't have to use the hardware provided
0:18:33by the company, which I'm sure comes with some kind of fee.
0:18:37This would remove that, so you don't need to worry about that anymore.
0:18:41And also for a lot of people, especially in very constrained environments, or as I say,
0:18:48like a farmer's market or something, they don't need another piece of hardware.
0:18:52So like for example, when I used to help Brad out at the pen shows, we would always need
0:18:57to use his phone because it was the only one that had the Square Reader in it.
0:19:02But if we could all just sign into an account, which would be his account, and just use say
0:19:07the Square app and then it can just take the payment because it's on anyone's phone, that's
0:19:12going to be way better as a system for a lot of people. This isn't going to be the case
0:19:17for everybody. I'm sure in a lot of coffee shops they're still going to want a dedicated
0:19:21terminal. There's a company that I see a lot now called Clover. I see those in the UK,
0:19:27I've seen them in America as well, where they make a really nice thing. And it's just a
0:19:31point of sale system, but it's modern looking. It looks like those kind of iPad focused ones,
0:19:35like it's an actual contained unit, people are still going to use that. But this would
0:19:39allow for small businesses, new businesses especially, to not have to get these like
0:19:46any point of sale hardware, whether cheap or expensive, they could just use their phone
0:19:53or their probably an iPad instead.
0:19:55Okay, that's cool. I'm never going to see this in Italy, but okay, that's...
0:20:01- You might, you might, because honestly,
0:20:03there might be some companies that want
0:20:05a different experience and this is gonna be
0:20:08probably free to them to use,
0:20:11if it comes outside of the US.
0:20:14Which I reckon it will, 'cause like they're working,
0:20:15one of the people they're working with,
0:20:17I think the only company they've announced
0:20:18they're working with so far is Stripe.
0:20:21And Stripe is very international, so considering
0:20:24Stripe will be the facilitator of the payments here,
0:20:28I don't see why they couldn't roll this out.
0:20:30This isn't like Apple Pay Cash, where Apple's working with a specific bank or whatever to
0:20:35make that work.
0:20:36I could imagine that this would roll out faster than say the peer-to-peer payment stuff would.
0:20:41And my second question, not related to, what's it called, Tap to Pay?
0:20:47Tap to Pay.
0:20:48Not related to Tap to Pay, but more in the broader context of like all these apps and
0:20:54services that let you do person-to-person payments, usually in America. Like, they seem
0:21:00to be a big deal for American users, like CashApp and Venmo, like everybody's using
0:21:07them. And I saw a video on Twitter a while back that was actually a TikTok video that
0:21:13a friend of the show, Rob, found again for me today, so thank you, Rob. So it's basically
0:21:20video of someone explaining why these services are so popular in America to do the peer-to-peer
0:21:28payments and explaining the difference between the American bank system and the European
0:21:34bank system where in Europe I can send money to someone basically for free in two seconds.
0:21:42But like this thing with like these services like Cash App and Venmo, that's just not a
0:21:48thing here.
0:21:49Yeah, it's like we have it too. It's like imagine if your bank worked as easily as Venmo,
0:21:55because that's what it's like in Europe and in the UK as well. And I'm sure in a lot of
0:22:00other places. We don't have fees for these transfers and they happen immediately across
0:22:05banks. It's not even for the same bank.
0:22:08But this is not true in America, hence why they are popular, these services.
0:22:12Yeah, it's filling, it's like filling a hole left open by our bad, like our bad system,
0:22:20right?
0:22:21If we had what y'all have in Europe, this wouldn't be as exciting to us.
0:22:25This could be a reason why maybe Apple's never really pushed on Apple Pay Cash, because there
0:22:29isn't really that much of a need for it.
0:22:31Whereas this one specifically could be used in other countries, because it's not really
0:22:36about a failure of the banking system as such.
0:22:40more that just like these days small businesses would just prefer much more flexibility and
0:22:46this would enable even more flexibility because there's always an iPhone in the middle of
0:22:50these square transactions or whatever and now you don't need to have that hardware that
0:22:56gets between the phone and the customer. So it's pretty cool I'm pleased that they've
0:23:00done this. I think this is an interesting thing. I am just wondering is there another
0:23:05shoe to drop here? Exactly like it can be iPhone only right?
0:23:10So it definitely seems like this is something
0:23:12that future iPads will support.
0:23:14So you can like have, be that person, right?
0:23:16We have like an iPad.
0:23:18I mean, my favorite coffee shop,
0:23:20like they use iPads with like the square reader,
0:23:22but I've even been other places,
0:23:23like if you go to, especially like a temporary store
0:23:28or like a festival or something,
0:23:29it's like iPad minis and those little credit card readers.
0:23:32It's like, man, all that could just go away.
0:23:34So I would bet good money,
0:23:37and maybe this will be a prediction
0:23:38in a future Ricky's episode that future iPads will support
0:23:42whatever hardware is needed to make this work.
0:23:45- I think I saw on six colors,
0:23:46I think Dan wrote the article that like, and it's true.
0:23:49I had a vague memory of this and I was pleased
0:23:51somebody found it.
0:23:52Like iPads have had NFC chips in them before,
0:23:54they've just not been turned on.
0:23:56But like, it just seems like it was like,
0:23:59it was cheaper for them to put them in
0:24:01than not put them in kind of thing.
0:24:03You know, sometimes you get like weird hardware in a device.
0:24:05It's like, why is this sensor here?
0:24:07Like there's that weird sensor in the HomePod mini, right?
0:24:09That doesn't do anything, right?
0:24:11It's like a temperature sensor or something.
0:24:13Am I losing my mind here?
0:24:15It seems like nobody's on board with me.
0:24:17- Yeah, I got nothing.
0:24:18- Okay, well, anyway, someone knows what I'm talking about.
0:24:23- Anyway, payments, right?
0:24:25(laughing)
0:24:27- I'm off in like my little fever dream over here.
0:24:31Have you not heard about the secret chips
0:24:32nobody knows about?
0:24:33- It's just your body, it's fine.
0:24:35- They're hiding them in there, Federico.
0:24:36There's NFC everywhere, man.
0:24:38It's fine. You go play over there with your chips.
0:24:42All right, so cool.
0:24:44So payments, huh?
0:24:45Money, money, money.
0:24:47It's important these days.
0:24:48Makes the world go round, is what I say.
0:24:50That's why Apple is doing it.
0:24:52Oh, Matt in the foot mod came up
0:24:54with the Bloomberg article about a humidity
0:24:58and temperature sensor from a HomePod mini.
0:25:01Believe it now, Bloomberg said it.
0:25:02He don't believe it when I said it.
0:25:03Mark Gorman says it.
0:25:04He like, "Oh, it's so true."
0:25:05when Myke says it, it's like you're--
0:25:07- Well, I mean, when has Bloomberg ever been in trouble
0:25:10for a story that may or may not have been super accurate?
0:25:12- Footnote, Bloomberg was responsible for the--
0:25:15(laughing)
0:25:17- Yeah, boy! - We're not doing that.
0:25:18No, we're not doing that, no.
0:25:20That's worse than the pupil, I'm sorry.
0:25:23(laughing)
0:25:25- Everyone has a hole in their foot where the light comes in.
0:25:29(laughing)
0:25:30- God, okay.
0:25:32Oh my God. - Oh, God.
0:25:35Please keep talking about banks and payments.
0:25:39Let's talk about betas.
0:25:40OK.
0:25:40Let's talk about that.
0:25:41I can actually tie all this together if you want.
0:25:43iOS 15.4 beta 2 includes the functionality for the tap
0:25:48to pay.
0:25:49So that's one thing.
0:25:50And second, just in general, I'm really
0:25:53excited about this face ID of mask.
0:25:55I'm not running the betas.
0:25:56I'm just going to wait.
0:25:58But because I-- now when I have to use Apple Pay in the local
0:26:03coffee shop and I have to put my code in right I'm like oh man I can't wait
0:26:08until I don't have to do this anymore or like a couple of days. You don't have to do it now.
0:26:12Just put the bag on. I don't want to put the bag on my phone. And also like I was in IKEA yesterday and I
0:26:17couldn't remember the PIN number for a card. It's like a card I don't use very
0:26:21frequently so I had to like I could put the card in I was like oh no I've
0:26:24forgotten and then I had to open one password put in my master password find
0:26:29I was like I hate doing that so embarrassing you stand in there for like
0:26:32two minutes where you search up the stuff. So I'm very excited about the face ID mask thing.
0:26:36Just hold your breath, take your mask off real quick, that's bad advice.
0:26:41No, you see, I don't like doing it, right? Like, it's not me, I don't like looking like that guy,
0:26:45you know? Like, I don't want to be that guy who's like, "Oh, I pulled his mask down." Like,
0:26:49like a fool. They added some stuff with Beta 2, Look Down to Unlocked, it kind of reminds me of,
0:26:56like, the whatever on the iPad or something like that, right? Where they point, like, "Hey, the
0:27:00face things over here. Because I think it needs your attention, is that right Federico? Like it
0:27:04needs... Yeah. It has to have... you have to be looking at the phone so like you can't turn off
0:27:10the attention detection thing for that. I think that's accurate, yeah. Right? Yeah. I think it's
0:27:16like the attention detection thing. It's really good. I've been running the beta and it's such a
0:27:22good feature. It's so useful. The change in shortcuts is like made tech press
0:27:29people happy. Where you can run some automations without notifications. Not
0:27:36all of them. The one that I use the most often which is replace a home screen
0:27:39icon with a shortcut. That still shows the banner which is frustrating but I
0:27:45think people are excited about this and it feels like another slow step towards
0:27:49maybe shortcuts can just like do stuff in the background
0:27:53all the time.
0:27:54- Yeah. - Not bother me.
0:27:56- They still have a bit of work to do there.
0:27:58Like for example, automations like in,
0:28:01any kind of automation in shortcuts
0:28:05does not exist on Monterey at all.
0:28:08If you want to run shortcuts on the Mac on a schedule,
0:28:10you got to use like Chrome jobs or external utilities,
0:28:14like better touch tool with time triggers
0:28:17or something like that,
0:28:18because they don't have like the automation tab
0:28:21in the Mac app, it's just not there,
0:28:24which is kind of weird.
0:28:25But what you mentioned for the home screen icons,
0:28:29I was hoping that they would,
0:28:31we talked about this last week,
0:28:32that they would add like a toggle
0:28:34in the shortcuts details page
0:28:37that lets you do what you can do with automations,
0:28:41which is notify when run.
0:28:43But it's as of beta two, it's still not there.
0:28:46I still want to kind of believe
0:28:48that they're gonna add this to the shortcuts inspector,
0:28:52or maybe as a toggle, it could even be like an option
0:28:56that you only see when you add a shortcut
0:28:59to the home screen, like in the icon picking,
0:29:02like sort of final confirmation screen,
0:29:04there could be maybe an option there.
0:29:06I don't know.
0:29:07I feel like it's odd to have that inconsistency right now
0:29:12where an automation like--
0:29:13- My only question to this was like,
0:29:15what if they do what you suggested in your Ricky pic?
0:29:18Like homes, this was one of your Ricky pics,
0:29:21like customization stuff?
0:29:23- Yep, yep.
0:29:24- So maybe they wouldn't want to offer this
0:29:26'cause they've got like a thing
0:29:27they're gonna do with app icons.
0:29:29- Maybe, maybe, because like using a shortcut
0:29:33to install a custom icon for an app
0:29:35is a kind of a silly work around.
0:29:39- Yeah.
0:29:39- You're not supposed to make a shortcut
0:29:42if you want to customize your home screen.
0:29:44and we're all in agreement there.
0:29:46It's a workaround that people have discovered.
0:29:49Apple actually made it better.
0:29:51If you recall, before iOS 14.2, .3, maybe,
0:29:56basically after this became a thing,
0:30:01before that, these kinds of shortcuts,
0:30:06they would still open the shortcuts app first,
0:30:10and then it would take you to the app
0:30:12that you wanted to launch from a custom icon.
0:30:14And then Apple realized,
0:30:15"Oh, millions of people are doing this.
0:30:17"I guess we gotta make it a little better for them."
0:30:19And so now those custom icons, those custom shortcuts,
0:30:23when you tap them from the home screen,
0:30:25they just go straight to the app that you're launching.
0:30:28But it didn't used to be like this.
0:30:30It used to be worse.
0:30:31So Apple made it a bit better.
0:30:33But now they could make it all the way better.
0:30:35And it seems like they don't want to.
0:30:38And the inconsistency is weird because arguably,
0:30:41an automation that runs in the background
0:30:44and can do all kinds of things,
0:30:47I mean, it's technically more dangerous
0:30:49than a shortcut that you run as an icon
0:30:52from the home screen, you know?
0:30:54But still, there's an option there
0:30:56and not when you wanna add a shortcut
0:30:58with a custom icon to your home screen.
0:31:00I don't get it.
0:31:02- Marina in the Discord had a question.
0:31:04Does the iPad also get Face ID with a mask on?
0:31:08- I don't think it does.
0:31:10- Do you think they'll do that?
0:31:11- Maybe, I don't know.
0:31:12I can see why they wouldn't just because they like don't think they need to.
0:31:17You know what I mean? Like I could see that being like a blind spot,
0:31:20but I think it would be good to have it.
0:31:22I wonder if it has anything to do with the,
0:31:25the iPad's ability to do face ID from more angles.
0:31:29Like I wonder if that makes it more or less complicated. I just don't know,
0:31:33but it would be nice. Like if you have, if you can do it, it should.
0:31:38So maybe there's a reason that it can't.
0:31:41- Isn't it weird that the iPhone never got the ability
0:31:43to do it from multiple angles?
0:31:46- I think it is.
0:31:46I think it's super weird.
0:31:47- Why is that?
0:31:49Why is that?
0:31:49If the iPad can do it,
0:31:51and it seems like the sensors are basically the same.
0:31:55Hmm, I don't know.
0:31:57- I'm so used to the iPad Mini now with the Touch ID.
0:32:02It's like I never even considered the Face ID iPads
0:32:06needing or not needing this feature.
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0:34:35So the Six Colors Apple Report Card
0:34:40was just released earlier this week,
0:34:42or maybe last week now.
0:34:44I don't know how time works.
0:34:46But one of the sections--
0:34:47- It was this week, it was like two days ago.
0:34:49(laughing)
0:34:50- We didn't talk about it,
0:34:51but I didn't have power for like a week.
0:34:52- You didn't have power, so what do you know?
0:34:55- Yeah, Memphis had this big ice storm,
0:34:58I didn't have power for almost a week,
0:34:59so like I'm, I, seriously, if we weren't recording today,
0:35:02I wouldn't know what day it is because I'm so off.
0:35:05But it's fascinating, go read it.
0:35:06All three of us are lucky enough to participate in it,
0:35:09which I always enjoy.
0:35:11But one of the sections that always gets
0:35:14pretty much a rough score is HomeKit,
0:35:16Apple's smart home platform.
0:35:18It's a weird ecosystem because Apple,
0:35:21like HomeKit's kind of invisible.
0:35:23They have the home app, which is not very good,
0:35:26but then there's all these other parts of the service
0:35:28that aren't even exposed and the home app
0:35:31and other apps can build on top of it.
0:35:32but Apple doesn't make any hardware for it,
0:35:34other than the HomePod and the Apple TV,
0:35:36which can act as basically HomeKit hubs,
0:35:40so you can use and access your stuff
0:35:42when you're away from your network.
0:35:43But they don't make cameras or lights or anything,
0:35:45they leave all that up to the third party
0:35:47sort of world to make stuff.
0:35:49And the three of us have all experimented with HomeKit
0:35:53and Smart Home stuff over the years.
0:35:55So I kind of wanted to touch base with the two of you
0:35:57and see kind of where things are
0:36:00with your Smart Home stuff,
0:36:01What do you think about HomeKit in particular?
0:36:03Are you looking to move past it?
0:36:04Are you looking to engage more with it?
0:36:06Kind of the lay of the land,
0:36:09and Federico gave this section a very good name
0:36:12that we should recognize.
0:36:13So Federico, what are we doing today?
0:36:16- Because you mentioned, like,
0:36:17why don't we go sort of round-robin style,
0:36:20talking about our setups and all the different rooms
0:36:24that we have in our homes.
0:36:26I thought we could call this a room-robbing.
0:36:30So, you're welcome.
0:36:31- It's very good.
0:36:33- Really good.
0:36:33- Are we gonna actually do this around Robin's style?
0:36:36- I mean, we can.
0:36:38- I mean, why else?
0:36:40- Well, Steven said that.
0:36:42- Yeah.
0:36:43- I mean, we have to now.
0:36:45- It's a room Robin.
0:36:47- Okay.
0:36:48- You know?
0:36:48I'll go first because I came up with the title,
0:36:52which grants me rights to--
0:36:54- Makes you king of the room.
0:36:55- Makes me the king of the room.
0:36:58So I will say that, first of all, Myke,
0:37:01I enjoyed your quote in the Six Colors report card.
0:37:06For context, for those who have not read it,
0:37:08Myke said that Apple spent all of its energy
0:37:11building the home set for the keynote videos.
0:37:14(laughing)
0:37:16- You know, like, I don't know if you ever have this,
0:37:18like, when I fill out the report card,
0:37:21it's like it's just going to Jason.
0:37:23- Yes, it's like, yeah.
0:37:25- And then when it's published, I'm like,
0:37:28But the design may be a little...
0:37:29Oh no, what have I done?
0:37:30Did I say that the right way? I don't know.
0:37:33This was meant to be for you and you only.
0:37:36No, I know it's not that.
0:37:38Like, I know that it's...
0:37:40But like, it feels different.
0:37:41But anyway, he sent it to me beforehand
0:37:43and I didn't ask him to remove it.
0:37:45But like, it was one of those things that I was like,
0:37:46I was maybe a little unnecessarily snarky there,
0:37:49but nevertheless.
0:37:50That was good, that was good.
0:37:51So I will say that my smart home setup
0:37:54has been simplified a lot over the years.
0:37:57That's partly because we're still renting a very small place.
0:38:02There's not enough freedom for us at the moment to install the things we would like to install or to change.
0:38:08Some of the things we would like to change, like a new thermostat for example, or redoing all of the lights,
0:38:14redoing all of the light switches. We can't do that.
0:38:16And until we find a new place that is ours and that we fully control, that sort of stuff is not available for me.
0:38:23And I have also simplified, because I realized that sometimes, you know, you can easily overdo
0:38:31home automation stuff to the point where it gets in the way. And sometimes it's just, it's better
0:38:38to have something that is easy and, you know... - Have you met my friend Homebridge? - Exactly, exactly.
0:38:45And so when I say this, I say this because I know what it's like to go really deep down the
0:38:52the rabbit hole of like turning everything
0:38:54into a HomeKit appliance or making everything a switch
0:38:59in the Home app that you can also control with Siri.
0:39:02You can overdo this stuff,
0:39:04just like you can overdo any kind of automation, right?
0:39:08You just gotta figure out what works, what sticks for you,
0:39:12what is easy and reliable and consistent.
0:39:15In the context of home automation,
0:39:16what makes it tricky is it's not just for you,
0:39:19it's also for other people who live with you,
0:39:22which is something that is another topic to consider.
0:39:25Like you may think that something that you just set up
0:39:27in HomeKit or Alexa or whatever is cool,
0:39:30but remember, it needs to be usable by other people
0:39:33in your household as well, including kids, possibly.
0:39:36So yeah, it's a whole topic,
0:39:39but essentially I have a very small place
0:39:43and Myke has seen my place, can confirm that it's small.
0:39:47The one true John has seen it.
0:39:49Steven hasn't because Steven has never,
0:39:51Steven hates Italy, Steven hates Europe.
0:39:53The thing about your apartment, it's a small apartment, massive balcony.
0:39:58It's like half of the apartment is balcony.
0:40:02Yeah, yeah.
0:40:03Yes, but there's a whole story there, but we cannot get into that here.
0:40:07Anyway, we have three Logi Circle 2 cameras.
0:40:14These are the second generation Logi Circle that got updated to support HomeKit Secure Video,
0:40:20which we are using on all three of them.
0:40:23I have one in the entrance room of the apartment,
0:40:28I have one in the kitchen/living room,
0:40:31and another in the short hallway that connects the living room to the bedroom and the second bathroom.
0:40:38These are the three cameras that we use most of the time that we set up with HomeKit Secure Video.
0:40:45Outside on the huge balcony that Myke mentioned, I have an old D-Link Ommina camera.
0:40:56So yeah, I wanted to start from the first room that I want to cover,
0:41:02it's the balcony and the entrance, because they're camera-related.
0:41:05There's two cameras, two Hue lights, so there's one white only,
0:41:14and outside there's a colored one, just because we spend more time in the spring and in the summer outside with friends.
0:41:21And it's nice to have some accent colors there.
0:41:25And in addition, outside we also have the Eve weather sensor.
0:41:31This is a Thread-compatible temperature sensor that can live outside.
0:41:37I also forgot to put this on the list, but on the balcony we also have the
0:41:43Eve Energy. This is a smart plug that is also thread compatible. I basically repurchased all
0:41:52of these HomeKit accessories last year when I wanted to make sure that I had thread compatibility
0:41:58everywhere as much as possible. It has improved reliability, but not as much as I hoped, honestly.
0:42:06this Thread Radio stuff. It's not as foolproof as I hoped it would be. So yeah, basically when
0:42:14the first two rooms of the apartment, which are... I think of them as one thing, because they were
0:42:20supposed to be one thing, but it's a whole... Sorry. - If we're around Robbing-ing, should it not move on now?
0:42:27- Yes, I am gonna let you move on, but I just wanted to recap. Entrance and balcony, LogiCircle2,
0:42:342U lights, an old D-Link omni that really should change eventually,
0:42:38Eve weather and Eve energy. Nice, Eve weather, that's the one. Eve weather. Eve weather.
0:43:03So in my entrance, I guess, really like the front of my house, I've got a ring camera looking out.
0:43:10I used Nest stuff for a long time, and I bought one of their sort of new generation cameras,
0:43:16and we talked about on the show, it was so abysmal, I just ended up replacing my other
0:43:23couple of Nest cameras with ring stuff. I know people have, and it's a good conversation to have,
0:43:28about ring and privacy and the stuff they do. You can turn all of it off now, you can have
0:43:32end-to-end encryption turned on their, at least their new hardware, I have that turned
0:43:37on everywhere. It makes some of the alerts a little slower but I'm fine with
0:43:40that. So we've got a ring camera looking at the front and then I have an
0:43:45overhead light on our front porch that is set to come on an hour before sunset
0:43:53and stay on an hour after sunrise, so it's on at night. You may think, "Oh, well
0:43:59how you doing that? You have like an app? No, I have what's called an "Intermatic
0:44:03STO1". There'll be a link in the show notes. Love the STO1. That's the, that's the,
0:44:08that's the good one. That's the good one. That's the good one. So this goes where you put your
0:44:16regular light switch, and you can use it as a regular light switch, you can just
0:44:19push it and it clicks like a regular switch, but this has a timer in it and
0:44:27and you can tell it where you are, and it knows,
0:44:32due to I guess internal programming,
0:44:34'cause this thing's not on the network,
0:44:35like it's all built in logic.
0:44:37- Yeah.
0:44:38- It knows when sunrise and sunset is,
0:44:39it knows when daylight savings time is,
0:44:41and so you can program it.
0:44:42This came with our house, by the way,
0:44:44this was here when we bought the house,
0:44:48and I haven't changed it.
0:44:49- Do you think this thing survived Y2K?
0:44:52Like, do you think it handled it?
0:44:53- I mean, it still works now.
0:44:54- I guess, right?
0:44:55- So, yes.
0:44:56- I'm sure it will survive Y3K.
0:44:58- If my house is still here in a thousand years,
0:45:01then have at it.
0:45:03(laughing)
0:45:05And I mean, I don't think,
0:45:07I don't know if I would have known
0:45:09to look for something like this.
0:45:10I probably would have tried to find something
0:45:12smart and clever, but it totally gets the job done.
0:45:15And it came with the house, so it has stayed
0:45:18'cause it is really reliable.
0:45:20There's a note on the website that's fantastic.
0:45:23It says, "Not for use with sun lamps, saunas,
0:45:26or loads that could cause personal injury
0:45:28if timed incorrectly.
0:45:30- Oh, what is that?
0:45:33What happened?
0:45:34- Yeah, someone died in a sauna is what happened.
0:45:37- No, it's the last part.
0:45:39Loads that could cause personal injury
0:45:42if timed incorrectly.
0:45:43- Like a breathing machine or something?
0:45:46I don't know.
0:45:47- Someone was using one of these to wait something
0:45:50and it just hit the time wrong and it fell, right?
0:45:53Like that's what happened here and I wanna know.
0:45:55- I didn't mean electrical loads, not like a load of rocks.
0:45:59- Yeah, it's just holding a big row of rocks, as you say,
0:46:02and then switch goes off, rocks fall down.
0:46:06- Anyways, you get 'em at your hardware store.
0:46:08Really simple, I just have the PDF manual and Apple Notes,
0:46:11and if I ever wanna make adjustments,
0:46:13but I've been happy with it, so I have this thing,
0:46:17which is like smart home stuff before smart home stuff.
0:46:21But as far as the front of my house, that's about it.
0:46:25I honestly, so that's it for yours?
0:46:28Yeah.
0:46:29I don't know if you'll believe me when I tell you that for our home security system,
0:46:36kind of which is the only thing in our entrance way, I am using a canary.
0:46:41No, still? I mean come on, it's been 20 years.
0:46:45I'm still using the same canary that I've been using.
0:46:51Are they still around?
0:46:52you know what I couldn't believe this they updated the app a couple of weeks
0:46:56ago and added new features to the canary I assumed I was the only customer home
0:47:05kit support no are you sure there's not like a single engineer that is creepily
0:47:12watching you no I don't know I mean isn't that couldn't that be the thing
0:47:16of all of this stuff who knows what did you name your canary I remember it
0:47:20having a name. Buster. Buster! He's at Bust the Bad Guys. He busts the bad guys, you know?
0:47:24That's right. He's gonna take care of it for you. So what did they add? They added...
0:47:29They actually do a lot of stuff. They've added audio alerts for
0:47:35professional monitoring. Oh, that is professional. Better real-time
0:47:39conversations with their two-way talk system. Yeah, they've, I don't know, they
0:47:45keep doing things. It surprises me to be honest. But I'll tell you this thing,
0:47:49rock-solid like still works like the day I bought it I've had this thing since
0:47:54January 2016 I do not we do not have problems with it and it doesn't you know
0:47:59it doesn't go off all the time you know like it's not like one of it's not very
0:48:03sensitive but I know it's still working like if we leave the blinds open or
0:48:08whatever like sunlight can still affect it just like any of these things but
0:48:12that canary that's still that is still going that thing and I think it's
0:48:16awesome. That's great. I've looked for a while like could I find something that
0:48:22did everything in one unit? No, it's still the only one. What we like about it is
0:48:28it's always doing it you know it's always available like for video calling
0:48:32when we want it, turns on and off when like the video camera turn on off when
0:48:36when we wanted to, has a speaker in it, has like a heat sensor, smoke sensor,
0:48:41everything all in one new unit. I think it's awesome and I love it and it's
0:48:46not that expensive to run as the service. I've been very happy the whole time.
0:48:51They now seem they give you free cameras if you sign up for the service now so
0:48:55you know I can't speak to the longevity of Canary like I'm not necessarily
0:49:01advocating people jump in now but we are still very happy with ours. Should I go
0:49:07next yeah we're back to the Robin again we're back we're back to me okay neither
0:49:12neither me or Steven have expansive balconies to talk about so right right so
0:49:17the kitchen is a bit more interesting for me I have another LogiCircle 2
0:49:21which I mentioned before more you lights we have two of them now we have the
0:49:29original HomePod is back because as I mentioned the while back the echo is
0:49:35gone again. Alexa is gone once. We actually sold... And it is impossible to keep up with... Look it's very
0:49:45easy and I'm telling you I sold the echoes again. The experiment did not
0:49:51last even even a year I think. They're gone. They've been purchased by a close
0:49:58friend of ours and they now live in a better home which is actually a dense
0:50:02school but still. That is a better home. It is a better home. They're actually using
0:50:07the intercom feature at the school with the two echoes it's in a very clever way
0:50:13it's nice. So now we are back to have the original home pod, one of those
0:50:19one of the home pods that I physically bought in America and the
0:50:24last WWDC that I attended in person so it's a nice gift from that era that it's
0:50:31it's never coming back.
0:50:32- You were your own Big Apple Buddy.
0:50:34- Yes, I was my own Big Apple Buddy
0:50:36before Big Apple Buddy existed.
0:50:40So there's a HomePod that we mostly use for,
0:50:43so it's set in English.
0:50:47I could set it in Italian
0:50:49because it's now available as an option,
0:50:51but I didn't because of,
0:50:53like Sylvia never uses the HomePod via voice.
0:50:57I occasionally do,
0:50:59And at this point, I would prefer to ask questions
0:51:03to the assistant in English.
0:51:05I would feel kind of weird asking them in Italian.
0:51:07I don't know why.
0:51:08Well, no, I guess I know why.
0:51:09All of my other devices are set to English.
0:51:12I use Siri in English.
0:51:13I wouldn't even know.
0:51:14Like, I'm actually using-- like, my Italian is getting worse.
0:51:18My friends are making fun of me.
0:51:20Silvia is making fun of me, but I'm also kind of concerned.
0:51:22Like, it was getting worse before,
0:51:24but now it's gotten much worse.
0:51:27Like I tried because I very rarely, especially like writing in Italian,
0:51:34it's very concerning.
0:51:36Like I, you know, I write in English, I talk in English a lot of hours each day.
0:51:41And the pandemic happened and we've been in isolation a lot.
0:51:47And is Sylvia just more forgiving?
0:51:48Oh, Sylvia is getting worse too, actually.
0:51:51In terms of like using like English words instead of Italian words.
0:51:56Oh, because you two speak in Italian to each other.
0:51:59We do, we do, we do.
0:52:00But it's sort of become this hybrid language at this point.
0:52:04Yeah, it's very weird and funny
0:52:06and concerning at the same time.
0:52:07Anyway, we mostly use the HomePod as an AirPlay receiver
0:52:11in the music app, you know, selecting as a destination.
0:52:14Then we have an Apple TV that we use
0:52:17when we want to watch Netflix or something, you know,
0:52:19at dinner instead of regular television.
0:52:22This is an Apple TV 4K.
0:52:25I upgraded the remote last year, and it's very good.
0:52:28Very good remote that I also mentioned
0:52:31in the Six Colors Report Card.
0:52:33I love it.
0:52:34The latest addition to the kitchen
0:52:37that is not a HomeKit device at all, but is essential,
0:52:42because it's a home server that I use for something else,
0:52:46it's an Intel NUC.
0:52:48We mentioned this one before.
0:52:49It sits above my TV, right next to the modem from my ISP.
0:52:55I love it. I love that little thing. It acts as a music server for me.
0:52:59Runs the excellent Roon, that's R-O-O-N. It runs the excellent Roon software with my personal
0:53:08offline music library that I then stream and listen to with the setup that I will describe
0:53:16for the bedroom later. But yes, this one lives in the kitchen, it's plugged into my Orbi
0:53:24via ethernet and it's very tiny and compact and it's been running for months without having
0:53:31to ever reboot it.
0:53:33It's super reliable, I love it.
0:53:35It's amazing to me how much love the Apple TV remote got.
0:53:40I mean, in the episode of Upgrade, Jason was like, "Yeah, I burned out my whole TV setup
0:53:45because this remote was so good."
0:53:47Mm-hmm, great remote.
0:53:49Pretty wild.
0:53:50In my kitchen I have the only remaining big home pot.
0:53:55I had three, two have died, the one in the kitchen lives on, and it's great in the kitchen,
0:54:03mostly.
0:54:04The multiple timer thing is a lot better.
0:54:08The sound is still amazing, and I don't have any plans on replacing that if and until it
0:54:16fails.
0:54:17One new thing in the kitchen is the addition of some hue light strips under our cabinets
0:54:25that shine down on the countertops.
0:54:28We have not had under cabinet lighting in our kitchen and we looked at some options.
0:54:34At some point early on in the pandemic I got some like regular just LED kind of bar lights
0:54:41you could touch and they would come on.
0:54:44But they ended up not really being bright enough and they were a little bit finicky
0:54:48to use.
0:54:49And so I was like, well, I know the hue light strip stuff works really well.
0:54:53When we get to the office, I have a lot of hue light stuff out here.
0:54:56Let me just get a light strip for that.
0:54:58So I have that running under a couple of cabinets and I have a scene in HomeKit so we can just
0:55:04say turn cabinet light on and it comes to the brightness and the color temperature we
0:55:09like.
0:55:10But of course it can be any color or any brightness.
0:55:13So sometimes it's fun to mix that up.
0:55:18And it's been like a nice fun addition in the kitchen to have that hue light strip.
0:55:23I think if I were going to, you know, if we were like do a kitchen from the start, I would
0:55:30not use, like this is overkill probably for our use.
0:55:35And there's a lot of like real like nice options for like kitchen lighting.
0:55:38But as far as a retrofit, I was pretty happy with how it came out.
0:55:41Do you stick them on like you stick them on with the way that they like the adhesive that comes on the back of them?
0:55:47Yes, and then I did the same thing out here. I got a metal staple that's wide enough
0:55:55so it doesn't puncture the light strip right and
0:55:57Put that there as well to help hold it up and it's it's been fine. Okay now
0:56:03It's not like over the stove or anything. There's not like a lot of steam or humidity
0:56:07Where it is, you know, that would be a factor I think but it's kind of off to the side in the kitchen
0:56:12It's been fine for probably going on a year. Say your kitchen. That's my kitchen. That's it
0:56:18We've already done the entrance. So the door is open
0:56:21You can come in
0:56:23To the kitchen in my home. I only have one small home thing in my entire kitchen a robot wait
0:56:31No, it's the echo show
0:56:36So we use one of the... so like we are a split household like for the way that we
0:56:43interact with our smart devices. It's not that like one of us chooses one over the other
0:56:49for all the time or whatever. Like I'm sometimes I will ask the Echo and sometimes I will ask Siri.
0:56:55But like for us there are some stuff that like the Echo does and it just does better than the HomePod. Like I've mentioned it
0:57:01before but you know, we use a shopping service that has an
0:57:05echo skill that allows us to add things directly to our shopping list and it's
0:57:10such a killer feature for me where it's like I'm cooking and I have used the
0:57:14last of a certain ingredient and I can just add it to the actual cart of our
0:57:21grocery provider. That's pretty cool. Like that is so much better than adding it
0:57:26anywhere else because I add it anywhere else I still gotta add it to the cart
0:57:29later on. So still things like that measurements and stuff like that I much
0:57:33prefer having a screen than just having it audio. Our echo show has been getting
0:57:38a bit long in the tooth I think we have the second generation which we got in
0:57:432019. Sometimes it's a little slow to respond like it feels like it's genuine
0:57:49like getting old like a person gets old like it sometimes it gets a little
0:57:53confused or like you'll ask it to do something and it can't hear you. This is the saddest thing I've ever heard about a robot.
0:58:01Sometimes, sometimes like the screen is black, like it's fallen asleep or something.
0:58:06It's really weird, genuinely it's really weird.
0:58:09Oh my god.
0:58:11We also use it for like a digital photo frame kind of thing, you know?
0:58:16Like we will have, we have like images of some of our favorite vacations and playing on a loop.
0:58:24So I think I'm going to upgrade this.
0:58:25I would love Apple to make a product like this.
0:58:27I don't know if they're going to, even if they do,
0:58:29I don't think it's going to do everything that I want in the way that I want it to.
0:58:32So we're probably going to remain with the Echo Show.
0:58:35And plus I'll say that there's like a thing that we'll do is like,
0:58:39we'll say like the name of the assistant, whether it's Siri or Alexa,
0:58:42we'll just say like, turn on living room.
0:58:44And like in it with the Echo that just turns on the lights.
0:58:48But with Siri, it turns on everything.
0:58:52The TV comes on, everything comes on.
0:58:55And like, that's not what I want it to do.
0:58:57and I also just really like that command.
0:58:59And the way I get around it,
0:59:01'cause I do ask Siri this a lot,
0:59:02is I'll just say living room lights and it works.
0:59:05- You just have to be a little bit more specific with it.
0:59:07The other way to do it is to set scenes
0:59:09and then call the scene name.
0:59:11But HomeKit could be--
0:59:14- Siri doesn't like it because the name
0:59:15and the scene are the same.
0:59:16And I found that to be inconsistent.
0:59:18I found it to be less inconsistent with the echo.
0:59:21Look, with the echo, it kind of does it
0:59:22the way that I expect it to.
0:59:23- Yeah, I was gonna say HomeKit sort of
0:59:25makes bad assumptions sometimes
0:59:28with some of the voice commands.
0:59:29So if you're all home kit, like I have no,
0:59:32I mean, I have a, what,
0:59:33like the little baby Amazon Echo Show out here,
0:59:36I don't wanna use it very much,
0:59:37it's kind of over on the shelf,
0:59:38basically being a fancy clock,
0:59:39but with home kit, you kind of have to like work around
0:59:42some of that stuff.
0:59:44And that's a little frustrating
0:59:45because when you're setting it up,
0:59:47to Federica's point earlier,
0:59:48which is like a really good point about all this stuff,
0:59:51you have to do this in a way,
0:59:52like if you live with other people,
0:59:53that they have to be able to use it.
0:59:55And if it's like, oh, we have to say this Cernit texturing
0:59:58in just the right way, or everything will come on
1:00:01or everything will go off and you just meant the light.
1:00:02It's like, that makes it frustrating for other people to use
1:00:05who aren't the nerds or who--
1:00:08- And this is, I know Adina would not accept the fact
1:00:10that she now has to be specific.
1:00:13Like she just internalized the light.
1:00:14And I honestly, most of the time will ask the Echo
1:00:17to turn the lights on and off just as simpler.
1:00:20But in general, I prefer HomeKit
1:00:23for the smart home automation stuff.
1:00:26Everything I buy, I try and make sure
1:00:28that it's home kit enabled,
1:00:29just because I find it to be fast
1:00:31and I like having it all on my iPhone,
1:00:33just like all in control center or whatever.
1:00:35It's like typically what I'll use.
1:00:37But you will hear as I go through,
1:00:39I don't have a lot of home stuff at home.
1:00:41I have more at the studio,
1:00:43but even then I think I'm,
1:00:44compared to the two of you,
1:00:45I actually think I'm the most basic of the three of us.
1:00:48So, but yeah, that's it for my kitchen,
1:00:51just the Echo Show.
1:00:52- Okay, I would be super into a home pod with a screen.
1:00:56I think that'd be really cool.
1:00:57And I would put it in the kitchen.
1:00:59That's where it would go for me, for sure.
1:01:01- That would be my hope, right?
1:01:02That I could replace what I have, but I don't know.
1:01:06We'll see.
1:01:07- All right, my hallway is very simple.
1:01:11I only have two devices, three if you count
1:01:15the Dyson hot and cool fan that we have,
1:01:20but it's not HomeKit compatible.
1:01:22used to be HomeKit compatible via Homebridge two years ago,
1:01:29but I found that eventually too unreliable to keep it around
1:01:33for my taste.
1:01:34And so now we control the Dyson fan using the remote,
1:01:38because it comes with a physical remote,
1:01:40or via the Dyson app on our iPhones.
1:01:44We do have, though, HomePod Mini.
1:01:47So this is one of the two HomePod Minis that we have.
1:01:50This used to be, by the way, these two HomePod Minis, they used to be a stereo pair in the
1:01:56bedroom for the LG TV that we have, using the ARC sound out thing, but that also turned
1:02:05out to be too unreliable for our taste, and so we split up the stereo pair, and we just
1:02:12went back to using a HomePod Mini in the hallway, and another in the bedroom I'll talk about
1:02:17later.
1:02:18So in the hallway we have this IKEA cabinet with a HomePod Mini on top of it and a LogiCircle2
1:02:25camera.
1:02:27No smart lights here, just this HomePod Mini that we use to put on some background music
1:02:32when we want.
1:02:34Otherwise it also serves as another Thread Radio in the house.
1:02:39So the hallway is very simple, Dyson fan that is not compatible with HomeKit, unless you
1:02:45want to use HomeBridge.
1:02:46LogiCircle to the camera and a white HomePod Mini.
1:02:50- I don't have a hallway.
1:02:52I mean, I do have a hallway.
1:02:54- I don't have a hallway, really.
1:02:55But it's the entrance for me.
1:02:57The entrance and the hallway are one and the same thing.
1:03:00It's all I have.
1:03:01- I guess I'll just do like what I labeled in my section,
1:03:04interior rooms.
1:03:06So just kind of like stuff that's randomly in the house.
1:03:11So we have a white HomePod Mini in Mary and I's bedroom.
1:03:15It replaced a full blown HomePod when it died.
1:03:18I would do yellow probably for our room, or maybe blue,
1:03:21but I bought it before the colors came out.
1:03:24I have iHome Smart Plugs.
1:03:27I have several of them.
1:03:29Some of them are seasonal,
1:03:30like I use some for Christmas lights,
1:03:31but I have one that's permanently like in the den,
1:03:35one in the living room and one in the bedroom.
1:03:38And they just put regular, in two cases, floor lamps,
1:03:42the ones like a bedside lamp into HomeKit.
1:03:46And the iHome switches just plug into the outlet,
1:03:47the lamp plugs into the front of it,
1:03:49and it just toggles on and off with a command.
1:03:52It also works with the Amazon Echo family of products.
1:03:56There's a lot of HomeKit only,
1:04:02or Amazon Echo only plugs now.
1:04:08I bought these a long time ago,
1:04:10and there is an iHome app that you can use,
1:04:14although they also talk directly to HomeKit.
1:04:16I keep the iHome app around because,
1:04:19in case you need to update one,
1:04:22or if anything's acting weird,
1:04:23you can do a reset with the iHome app.
1:04:26If I were to replace these now,
1:04:29I would look for something that was just HomeKit native
1:04:32100% that you didn't need its own app
1:04:34to kind of be the intermediate step.
1:04:38But I did get the job done.
1:04:39My only complaint, and I ran into this the other day
1:04:41after my power came back out of the storm,
1:04:43is that these things don't rejoin the network
1:04:46like the right way,
1:04:48or it may be that my network takes longer to come up
1:04:50than these things,
1:04:51but if the power's out and the power comes back on,
1:04:55I have to like go around and unplug all these things
1:04:57and plug them back in for it to see the wifi.
1:04:59So maybe it's like a order of operations thing.
1:05:01And that's really annoying.
1:05:03Like maybe they just give up trying to connect
1:05:05to the network after a few seconds, I don't know.
1:05:08But it's something that I've noticed that if anything weird
1:05:12happens with the network or the power,
1:05:14these things often need a reset.
1:05:15So I just have to go around and unplug them
1:05:17and plug them back in like some sort of caveman.
1:05:21And then lastly, we spoke about this in previous episodes,
1:05:26we bought our first OLED TV last year.
1:05:28We got the 48 inch LG, the exact same TV Myke,
1:05:31you and Adina have.
1:05:33- Yeah.
1:05:34- It's fantastic.
1:05:35Man, I just had no idea how good TVs were
1:05:38'cause my last one I bought in like 2010.
1:05:40But it's really great.
1:05:41We have the Apple TV, the new one,
1:05:45or maybe not the new new one, but the one before it,
1:05:47the first 4K one with the new remote
1:05:50and a Sonos Beam as the soundbar.
1:05:54And I don't really use the Sonos Beam on its own,
1:05:57although it is available for AirPlay and HomeKit stuff,
1:06:01but I don't, I just basically just use it as a soundbar.
1:06:05But what is nice is the LG TV is in home kit
1:06:09and you can airplay directly to it without the Apple TV.
1:06:11So I can tell Siri just to turn off the TV
1:06:15or turn on the TV and that works perfectly.
1:06:19I've been really impressed with that.
1:06:20I really love this LG OLED.
1:06:23Everyone says they're really good and everyone is correct.
1:06:26That's been a really nice addition to our house
1:06:28over the last, I guess maybe year or so.
1:06:31- I guess you can use the Sonos Beam
1:06:33like a Sonos too, right?
1:06:34Not just airplay like it's just it's the Sonos
1:06:37And I think I would if our TV our TVs like not in our main like living space like my house
1:06:44Has like a big living room dining room as you come in and then it's kind of like a TV room
1:06:50We're like a separate den and that's where the television is
1:06:53And so that room is not huge if that if our TV was in the big open space
1:06:58I would probably use the Sonos beam as a speaker
1:07:02But we have the HomePod not far away.
1:07:05So I just didn't really pan out that I'm using it for all the features.
1:07:07So I could have gone cheaper with my soundbar.
1:07:09I kind of regret the Beam purchase, honestly, but it is what it is at this point.
1:07:13Alright, so I'll do my living room now.
1:07:17Okay.
1:07:18So we have a stereo pair of the original HomePod there.
1:07:23Still going great.
1:07:24We use that attached to our Apple TV.
1:07:27Like it's basically just our TV speakers.
1:07:29It's kind of the only thing we use it for.
1:07:31put music on it occasionally but we're not really big like just have music on
1:07:35in the house people. Hue lights we have like hue lamps there we have the same
1:07:41LG OLED Steven. I think the only thing that is unique for us that you don't
1:07:45have is we have a power strip by a company called Meros. Mm-hmm. These are
1:07:50available on Amazon. They're really cool. They're like they're power strips where
1:07:53you can turn the whole thing on and off or it's got like four plugs and a bunch
1:07:57USBs and you can set it to turn each one of them on and off whenever you want and
1:08:04on a schedule and it's all in HomeKit. I really like that actually. Very easy to
1:08:08automate it and stuff like that. Yeah. It's a cool, it's a really cool product.
1:08:12That's our living room. I don't have a ton of stuff at home I don't think. I know
1:08:16when you first set it up you had issues with the HomePod stereo pairing in the
1:08:20Apple TV. Has that gotten better over time with subsequent updates? It's 100%
1:08:23fixed. Really? Absolutely 100% fixed. Yeah I don't have any problems at all.
1:08:27And can you use the Minis as a stereo pair now?
1:08:32Stereo pair? Yes.
1:08:34Okay. Obviously not going to sound as good.
1:08:36I bet your HomePod stereo pair sounds awesome.
1:08:38Sounds so good.
1:08:40I bet.
1:08:41Yeah, I'm actually really pleased that we did it.
1:08:44It really sounds excellent.
1:08:48I'm sure the Minis sound good too,
1:08:50but this sounds real good.
1:08:51So I'm very happy that we ended up
1:08:53kind of leaning into that and doing it.
1:08:56All right, let's take a break here,
1:08:58and then we will finish our round room robin
1:09:02that we're doing today.
1:09:04This episode of Connected is made possible by New Relic.
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1:10:50Alright, the last room of my house is the bedroom and...
1:10:55It's where the magic happens.
1:10:57It's where... this is actually where the fun happens, but like for real, and I'm especially happy with my desk setup right now.
1:11:05I don't have a dedicated office space. My office has a desk in the corner of our bedroom.
1:11:12That's for the special business. It's in there.
1:11:14This is where I'm talking to you from right now.
1:11:17I like it, no, I like it.
1:11:18standard stuff first. We have an LG B7 from 2017, 55-inch OLED TV. We love it. I would eventually
1:11:29like an upgrade for 120Hz refresh, HDMI 2.1, that kind of stuff, but this still works absolutely fine
1:11:38for my PS5, for my Apple TV, and the picture quality is great. We love it. We use it a ton.
1:11:45We watch a ton of movies and TV shows in the bedroom before sleep or after dinner.
1:11:50It's very comfy and big and beautiful. We love the LG makes good televisions.
1:11:56There's an Apple TV, like I mentioned. We also upgraded the Siri remote here.
1:12:02And the second HomePod mini is also in the bedroom on a shelf next to an e-room sensor.
1:12:12This is another indoor temperature and humidity sensor. We have a bit of a humidity problem in the
1:12:18winter season over here, so it's important to keep an eye on it. We have a dehumidifier, but it's not
1:12:25smart at all. It's a pretty traditional one, with a basic display, no wi-fi, no Bluetooth or anything,
1:12:34and when necessary, it's got wheels on it, so we can carry it from the bathroom into the
1:12:39the bedroom to dehumidify a little bit. The fun stuff is at my desk. Now, I've been working
1:12:47on this setup for the past three years, and you guys know me, a hobby of mine besides
1:12:55video games and consoles in general, it's music equipment.
1:13:00Scrubbling.
1:13:01It's a scrubbling, man. It all comes down to the Scrubble, right? At the end of the
1:13:08we do all this for no other reason than the scrubbling.
1:13:13Just for the scrubble.
1:13:14It's all for the...
1:13:16I do it for the scrubbling, I'll be honest.
1:13:20I do it all because of that.
1:13:22We don't have kids, but we do have the scrubbles.
1:13:25So it's all in the name of the scrubbling.
1:13:30All right, so last year I upgraded my desktop deck
1:13:36to a bigger, more powerful, better sounding model.
1:13:41It's still a Matrix Audio DAC,
1:13:45but I upgraded from a Matrix Audio Mini iPro 3
1:13:50to the bigger, nicer,
1:13:54Matrix Audio Saber 3.
1:13:58- Oh good, yeah, that's the one.
1:14:00- Well, yeah, I know you were gonna make fun of this.
1:14:03I don't care. - They said the previous one,
1:14:04specific loads could kill people.
1:14:07(laughing)
1:14:07Please that you've moved to this one.
1:14:10- Yes, so you guys can make fun of it as much as you want.
1:14:14I absolutely love my DAC.
1:14:17And I mention it in the context of home automation
1:14:21because it's also an AirPlay receiver.
1:14:24It supports AirPlay 2 and it shows up in HomeKit
1:14:28as an AirPlay device, which is a nice touch.
1:14:31But the DAC is important for a couple of reasons.
1:14:34It's a Rune-certified playback destination device,
1:14:39meaning that in the Rune software,
1:14:42I can select my X Saber 3 as a playback destination device.
1:14:47However, the DAC alone wouldn't do much
1:14:51because on top of it, there's my also new,
1:14:55well, new, I got it last year.
1:14:57It's been with us for a few months now.
1:15:00It's Milo.
1:15:02Milo is here.
1:15:03specifically Milo hey man I'm gonna post a picture in the discord of my setup
1:15:08Milo is my new best friend Milo is my headphone amp 24,240
1:15:16scrabbles that's a lot of scrabbles man look that's not Milo Milo is the black
1:15:20thing on top of the deck with that with the with the fin spoken out of it that's
1:15:26That's the giant hintsink that it's got.
1:15:30You gotta keep that Ogg Vorbis cool, you know?
1:15:33Yeah, it's the flak, it's the flak, man, come on.
1:15:37Ogg Vorbis, I'm not an animal, come on.
1:15:39There's a real interesting scale issue with this image,
1:15:43like where Milo originally looks small, and then when you start looking at the other things around it,
1:15:49it's like, "Oh, Milo's a big boy."
1:15:51Milo is a chunky boy.
1:15:53He's a big old boy.
1:15:54Big old boy that's got a ton of power inside of it.
1:15:57He had to get a special power condition cable for it and everything.
1:16:02Anyway, it's one of the few amps that can power my headphones.
1:16:07It's a whole thing, I'm super happy with it, it sounds incredible.
1:16:10I got it from this family-run business based out of San Jose in California.
1:16:16This is actually like a family-run company, very old school, I love it.
1:16:19talk directly to the guy to get this handmade for you. It's an incredible experience, super
1:16:26fun and kind people. If I ever make it back to San Jose, I want to go visit their store,
1:16:32because they have like a sort of like showroom, museum of sorts. Very good people, very cool
1:16:42experience purchasing this and waiting for this to come to Italy. And most of all, it sounds
1:16:46incredible. So what's nice about this is, usually I just use Rune to stream my
1:16:57FLAC library to the DAC that sends its signal to the amp, and I listen with my headphones.
1:17:05But I can also choose, if I want to listen at lower quality, but if I just want to try something
1:17:11from Apple Music or from any other AirPlay source, I can. And I usually do that if I
1:17:18want to try something out on Apple Music before actually buying the album and purchasing the
1:17:25album for my offline personal music collection. The DAC shows up in Control Center, it shows
1:17:32up in HomeKit, and I can control playback there. It's very nice. It's a nice way to
1:17:37to try something out on Apple Music
1:17:39before committing to a full-on purchase.
1:17:42Lastly--
1:17:43- Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on.
1:17:45I'm looking at the website for the Milo,
1:17:47the Wells Audio.
1:17:49I just wanna share the name to some of their other products.
1:17:53So you have Milo, you have Commander.
1:17:57That thing is huge.
1:18:00You have Majestic.
1:18:02Enigma 2.
1:18:06You want to get enigma one the load on the enigma one could sometimes kill people. Yeah. Yeah head trip head trip to whoa
1:18:14Head trip to level two. That's the real as the real one. That one's $15,000 by the way, so don't don't buy that
1:18:22Look at the last one in the list dragon dragon
1:18:26One is the real deal it doesn't have a price it doesn't have a price
1:18:35There's no price on it.
1:18:37Nope.
1:18:38Wow.
1:18:39Oh, wait, hang on.
1:18:39No, there kind of is.
1:18:41Level three Dragon Tube headphone amplifier, $5,500.
1:18:45Wow.
1:18:47I can't tell.
1:18:49This company makes serious things, don't they?
1:18:52Yes, yes.
1:18:53I think maybe even more than serious,
1:18:55this all looks handmade.
1:18:57And not in a bad way.
1:18:58Yeah.
1:18:59Well.
1:19:00Just looks like someone's putting this together.
1:19:00This is what their website says.
1:19:02Yeah.
1:19:03All Wells Audio products are custom built in the USA
1:19:06for the best parts money can buy,
1:19:08allowing us to accommodate special feature requests
1:19:10by customers.
1:19:11And then there's a biting lip emoji, that's weird.
1:19:14- In my case, I wanted to have a specific knob
1:19:19for the volume.
1:19:20And so I got this,
1:19:23I believe it's called the Goldpoint Attenuator.
1:19:26Maybe you can pick up the nice sound that it makes.
1:19:31Hold on, let's see.
1:19:32[typing sounds]
1:19:36Yeah, okay. That's a big old dial.
1:19:39Yeah. It's a very nice feel and a very nice way to control volume.
1:19:44Anyway, the last item on my desk, I actually need to thank one of my idols from my teenage years.
1:19:54Back when I used to be in high school, I used to read this music website called Absolute Punk.
1:20:00Now, Absolute Punk, you've probably been on the forums, that was back in the MySpace era.
1:20:07People my age, people my age, you all know what I'm talking about.
1:20:11You know, when Fallout Boy were a new band, you know, you've been on Absolute Punk.
1:20:18I'm sure.
1:20:19Yeah, just people my age and your age.
1:20:21That generation, you know what I mean.
1:20:23Nobody, you know, that generation.
1:20:25Maybe Stevens, age two, but like people...
1:20:27Oh yeah, I'm familiar with this.
1:20:29Okay, well, I don't think you are, but I'll believe you for the sake of the show.
1:20:34Absolute Punk is now known as Chorus FM.
1:20:38It's my favorite music website, and Jason Tate still writes Chorus FM.
1:20:42Now, Jason, a few months ago, did this very cool side project that we also linked on Mac
1:20:50Stories, I believe.
1:20:52Jason turned a Raspberry Pi into a portable standalone display, this is what Myke was
1:21:01making fun of a few minutes ago, for your Last.fm scroubles.
1:21:07So this is a tiny, square-shaped display that in real time updates and shows you a bunch
1:21:15of stats from your Last.fm account.
1:21:19And I thought that was an... because it updates in real time, as you start listening to something,
1:21:25in apps like Marvis, for example, on iPhone and iPad, which is an Apple Music client,
1:21:31or on the Mac, you can listen in the music app, but then have something like Neptunes,
1:21:35for example, that instantly scrabbles what you're listening to.
1:21:39In real time, this shows up on the Raspberry Pi display.
1:21:43It's basically a physical, now playing screen.
1:21:47And I loved the idea so much that I ordered the parts, and actually a bunch of them had
1:21:54to be shipped to me from the Voorhis family.
1:22:01Some parts started in Chicago, went to Ireland, and then from Dublin they came to Rome.
1:22:08So thank you to the Voorhis family, as always, for the assistance here.
1:22:13I built it all.
1:22:15It took me a few tries to... because you're getting essentially this Raspberry Pi Zero,
1:22:23it's called.
1:22:24You're getting just the board of a Raspberry Pi, and then you connect the display.
1:22:29And then you need to follow a bunch of instructions, but it was also a weekend project for me,
1:22:34and now it's done, it's set up, and when music is playing, it shows up on the Raspberry Pi.
1:22:41music is not playing, I get stats, which I also posted with the photo on Discord. So
1:22:47that's my desk. It's very fun. It's a lot of Scrobbles. Yeah. Every day is Scrobblin'.
1:22:53I think I made that joke last time. I think you did. You always do. It never gets old,
1:22:59and I understand why you do. Thanks. I think. I mean, I'm an easy target with the Scrobbling,
1:23:05So I get it, I get it.
1:23:08Alright my office.
1:23:10If you saw my video tour I did on my YouTube channel, you've seen a lot of this, but lots
1:23:16of hue lights in here.
1:23:18I've got one in my desk lamp.
1:23:20I've got two sets of shelves.
1:23:22They have the hue strip lights on them so I can control them.
1:23:26I have each shelving unit as a group and so I can say like turn on wood shelves and they're
1:23:30all three levels come on all at once.
1:23:34handy. I have an iHome temperature and humidity sensor so it just plugs into
1:23:41the wall and it basically just reports temperature humidity into home kit so I
1:23:47can see like Federico said I have a humidity issue out here sometimes and
1:23:51I run a dehumidifier and that can kind of keep me in the loop about what's
1:23:55going on out here as far as that's concerned. It got really cold in here and
1:23:59the power was out I would imagine but in that power so how cold nobody knows.
1:24:03a pair of HomePods Mini in orange and they sound pretty good as a pair. I
1:24:11realized after I talked to you about that a second ago, Myke, that I do have a
1:24:15pair of them and they sound pretty good. So I have a set of those and then the
1:24:22sort of the wildest thing on my whole HomeKit network or I guess my SmartHome
1:24:27network because these aren't like... these are in HomeKit via HardwareBridge
1:24:31which a lot of these, I mean, HUDA is the same thing,
1:24:33a lot of these companies have like a bridge
1:24:36that you plug into power and ethernet
1:24:37and it talks to their accessories and it talks to HomeKit.
1:24:40But I have two smart shades over the two big windows
1:24:44in my new studio from a company called Serena,
1:24:48which are actually owned by Lutron,
1:24:50they make the smart light switches and stuff.
1:24:53And they're like custom made to fit these windows,
1:24:56you pick the color and everything.
1:24:58By far one of the biggest expenses
1:25:00putting this office together but it's fantastic to have them in HomeKit so I
1:25:06can open or close them via Siri or buttons on my stream deck or the home
1:25:13app but I also have an automation setup that 15 minutes before sunset close the
1:25:20shades and so they just you know every day 15 minutes before sunset if they're
1:25:26not already closed, then they'll close themselves and they're great.
1:25:33I cannot recommend them due to the expense. This is Quinn Nelson's fault. I was
1:25:38talking to him about outfitting HomeKit stuff. He's like, "You need these." He's a
1:25:43very bad influence, but here they are and it's pretty cool to have shades
1:25:47on your smart home network, I gotta say. Why do Lutron have so many brand
1:25:54names it's weird right right like cassette a by Lutron Serena by Lutron
1:26:00why not just they're almost worse than the walls audio family of maybe like the
1:26:07thing with the walls audio thing is they're all just single products right
1:26:11that they make we're like Lutron have like all these sub brands that make
1:26:16multiple products is it also the cassette a but yeah you said about
1:26:20Lutron and I see one here it's like outdoor smart plug from Caseta by Lutron
1:26:25why not just call it the Lutron outdoor smart plug? Like why does it if you're gonna also
1:26:30always put Lutron in there there's no point sub-branding it. It reminds me of
1:26:35that meme image with the label on the t-shirt Mark Jacobs by Mark Jacobs by
1:26:42Marc Jacobs. Marc by Marc Jacobs by Marc Jacobs.
1:26:47For Marc Jacobs.
1:26:49They look nice, those shades. They're there.
1:26:57Is that the end of the pod cabin? I think it is. I was trying to think about other
1:27:02smart home stuff. I guess I can talk about my network a little bit if we
1:27:05wanted to go that deep. Well, I've still got two more rooms to go. Okay, why don't
1:27:09don't you take us to your bedroom and then we'll loop back around. Because we've done a really bad
1:27:13job of like, for some reason Stephen had interior rooms not bedroom, I don't know. Yeah it's a
1:27:20lumpy Robin today. So take us to your bedroom and then Federica and then we can just like talk about
1:27:27our network so quick and be done. But I haven't done the studio yet. Oh yeah. Oh god this is gonna
1:27:32go on forever. Well I mean I can't be held responsible for this. Federica you started the round Robin by
1:27:38doing two rooms so you know I wanted to speed it up you know it's a mega no no
1:27:44bedroom echo dot hue lamp Dyson hot and cool fan that's it oh I forgot to talk
1:27:51about a room burrelly we have a room yeah I do too it's rolling around
1:27:55somewhere so that's the end of the bedroom now we can move back around to
1:27:58Federico again I'm done like I got nothing else to Federico's done so now
1:28:04we move back around again to Steve's small apartment I was gonna mention my
1:28:08network I've got three wired Eero Pro base stations which is fantastic if you
1:28:14use something like Eero or Linksys or any other sort of mesh network and you
1:28:19can do it and a lot of people like Federico can't be doing a bunch of holes
1:28:24and running wires everywhere but if you can I really recommend having your base
1:28:28stations all wired with Ethernet so they use Ethernet as the backhaul I found it
1:28:34to be much more reliable and faster having done that.
1:28:37And so a couple of era pro base stations in the house
1:28:40and one out here in the studio,
1:28:42there is ethernet linking the studio back to the house.
1:28:45It's been in place now since I built this
1:28:47the first time around.
1:28:48And especially when you're doing things like cameras
1:28:53that may be on the outside of the house
1:28:54or the more smart homes that you add,
1:28:57it's network congestion.
1:28:58And so if you're finding issues with connectivity
1:29:01with some of this stuff,
1:29:03Definitely check out Mesh Networking.
1:29:05I like your stuff, they've been a sponsor.
1:29:07But a lot of the good brands out there too.
1:29:10It can be worth the sort of investment.
1:29:12And it's a pain, right?
1:29:13It's a pain to redo your network.
1:29:14But if you're adding more and more smart home stuff,
1:29:17like the network is really the glue
1:29:18that holds it all together.
1:29:19And that's really why I wanted to mention it.
1:29:22- I don't think this is gonna take me very long
1:29:24to do at the studio 'cause I have a lot of the same product.
1:29:27The only thing, we have a Ring security system.
1:29:30We have the previous version,
1:29:32the one that is now but the only difference is just the way it looks. I like it. It's
1:29:36got like one box, it's got everything I needed like the alarm system, security, like the
1:29:43sensors and all that kind of stuff. I got one too. Couple of cameras. In the pod cabin.
1:29:47We have some Hue lamps. And you know sharks. There's sharks circling. Yeah, they do that
1:29:52too. It's funny how Ring provide that but Ring Sharks is a real good service. I have
1:29:58some Hue lamps and I have a Hue switch for those lamps as well. Linked just so I could
1:30:01I have that by the door in case I just want to turn it off when I'm leaving.
1:30:05I have an echo pair that I never use.
1:30:08It was a bad purchase.
1:30:11The echoes don't really do very well in this space.
1:30:14I don't know why.
1:30:15I think maybe they shouldn't have two so close to each other.
1:30:18I don't know what it is.
1:30:19It doesn't work very well.
1:30:20I have a HomePod mini.
1:30:22It's what I use to do any voice commands here because I've just got everything hooked up
1:30:27by Home with the Home app.
1:30:30accept ring. I hope that matter, which is the thing that we have not spoken about today
1:30:34because who the frick knows when it will come or what it's actually going to be. I hope
1:30:38that matter will be able to help with that, like make that better for me in the future,
1:30:42like connect these things together maybe. I have here a couple of radiators, like regular
1:30:50radiators and I have a thing that Eve make called the Eve Thermo radiator kit. So basically
1:30:56you replace the radiator valve with these smart valves and it can turn them on and off
1:31:01and you can adjust the temperature and stuff. I really like that because this studio can
1:31:04get pretty cold because it's just a big brick room and so I like that I can turn that on
1:31:10or I can automate that as well if I want to so that was a real game changer for me honestly.
1:31:16I have another one of the Dyson fans here, it's the hot and cool air purifying fan. We
1:31:21got one for home and I loved it so much I got one for here. That was before I got the
1:31:25radiator valves because I didn't know that was a thing so I was trying to use
1:31:28that to heat the room and that didn't really do a good job but I like having
1:31:31that and then an Apple TV I have a regular I have like a Panasonic TV it's
1:31:35like our old TV from home it's not very it's not smart at all and I have an
1:31:41Apple TV that I use for that I don't have any fancy speakers or anything here
1:31:45I might do a home pod mini pair here actually get like a second home pod mini
1:31:49and set them up there I might do that I haven't thought about that yet might do that
1:31:52That's Megastudio. Cool. And the round robin is complete. The robin is finally
1:31:57done around. Nice job, thank you. I think that's it. We have toured our houses,
1:32:03been down the hall, stopped in the bedroom. Yeah, Myke's door is open, so.
1:32:09Always open. You wanna come over? My door is open. Okay. You can find links to all the stuff we
1:32:16spoke about over on the website relay.fm/connected/384. There you can
1:32:22get in touch with feedback or follow up there's an email link there on the side
1:32:25of the page you can also join connected pro and you'll get a longer ad-free
1:32:31version of the show each and every week this week we talked about portable
1:32:37gaming like handheld pcs and emulation through dolphin was a lot of fun
1:32:41basically weird small computers are awesome that we all agree on that yes
1:32:45you can find us all online you can find Federico on Twitter as Vitici V I T I CCI
1:32:50and he's the editor-in-chief of max stories dotnet. Federico, what's going on
1:32:55at max stories? Nothing, we're just waiting for the Nintendo Direct. Nothing
1:33:00else is going on. Yes, it's a couple of hours, I'm really excited about it.
1:33:04Metroid Prime on Switch, baby! It's happening! This episode will, like, that would have
1:33:12happened. You would have been disappointed before this episode is
1:33:14released. You can also follow Myke on Twitter I M Y K E. Myke hosts a bunch of
1:33:22shows here on Relay FM. Myke what are you up to this week? I don't know man, my brain's
1:33:28falling out of my ears. I've been recording like six hours straight today. I don't know what's
1:33:33happening anymore. Go listen to Panatic 500. Go do it. I'm gonna listen. You could
1:33:40at least listen to the start. I'm gonna try to listen. Yeah I want to listen to you
1:33:44all cry together then that'll be it we are known to do that I've been in person
1:33:49when it's happened while recording and while not recording both very intense
1:33:54around the two of you couple of cry guys pull it together you can follow me on
1:33:58Twitter as is mh did you hear that everyone that was some toxic masculinity
1:34:02from Steven there wow okay you know they won't accept that boys can cry you know
1:34:06I'm just saying it's intense I don't say it was bad mm-hmm you said pull it
1:34:10together you know I just feel like you know let me and Brad express
1:34:14our feelings. I do think it's time to cancel you, Steven. We've all decided, we all got together.
1:34:21So I'm sorry, but yeah, you've been cancelled. So... Oh, why don't you end the show then?
1:34:29Steve, Federico, you gotta end it. You gotta end it now. You used to be able to find
1:34:35find Steven on Twitter @ismh or on his website 512pixels.net. Thanks to our sponsors this
1:34:44week. They were three sponsors, if I'm not mistaken Bombas, Fitbot and New Relic. So
1:34:51thank you to our three sponsors. All three of them. Thank you very much for your support
1:34:56and thank you to our listeners, whether you listen to the regular show or Connected Pro.
1:35:00Myke, where can people find Connected Pro? GetConnectedPro.co
1:35:04All right, thank you Michael, thank you to all the members of our Discord as well.
1:35:10You're really missing out if you don't join Discord, and until next time, say goodbye Myke.
1:35:15Cheerio!
1:35:16Arrivederci!