Episode 62 - Watching the Watch

With the official launch of the Apple Watch now behind us, we thought we would take this episode to discuss the implications of the device on the smart home market. To no one's surprise details on many of the current Apple Watch smart home apps are a little sparse. A select few companies, such as Alarm.com, were presumably given a leg up on development so that their app could be featured in Apple's keynote. By and large however most companies are still scrambling to get their apps to market.

We spend a good deal of the conversation focusing on specific Apple Watch smart home apps from companies such as Crestron, Savant, Lutron, Ecobee, Honeywell and more. Beyond that however we also focus on the bigger picture, discussing what Apple's entry in wearable technology will mean long term for the smart home market.  We also discuss the (somewhat predictable) lack of apps from Google-owned, ahem, Nest-owned products / companies like the Nest thermostat and DropCam. 

If you are interested in keeping up on Apple Watch apps specifically related to the smart home and home automation we are keeping a running list on our website which you can find here. As always we hope you enjoy the show, and we look forward to connecting again next week!

Episode 61 - The Wink Debacle (and Recovery)

With no guest for this week's show we take the opportunity to get caught up on some significant goings-on in the smart home. To kick things off we have a brief discussion about the official launch of the Apple Watch. We sat down to record this episode the night before the product finally goes on sale. Mostly we discuss how, and which, smart home manufacturers will benefit from the product's release. We hope to have more to chat about on this front for next week's episode, so be sure to tune in to get our thoughts.

Following our Apple Watch discussion, we hit a few follow up points regarding the "Great Dash Button Debate". Back on Epsiode 58 we had a conversation about Amazon's recently released Dash Button and Replenishment Services. For fear of kicking a dead horse we won't go into specifics here. We did however want to mention that recently good friends of the show Mike Wolf and Richard Gunther gave their thoughts on an episode of Mike's Smart Home Show. They both offer great insights, and we recommend you give it a listen. 

After (hopefully) concluding our Dash-debate we move on to give our thoughts about the recent Control4 "Smarter Living Experience". Last week we had Brad Hintze from Control4 on to discuss the event. With the show now in our collective rearview we provide our analysis. In spite of some apparent technical difficulties, it would seem Control4 effectively communicated their message. Tune in to hear more. 

Lastly we discuss what was (regrettably) the main event in smart home news last week. In what was a completely avoidable set of circumstances, the folks over Wink failed to update a security certificate on their hardware. This oversight caused a substantial number of their deployed units to fall offline completely, with no ability to reconnect. There are a number of lessons in this story, not the least of which is how the company handled the outage - effectively and with full humility and candor. Listen in as we give our thoughts on how this event will affect Wink, and the smart home landscape at large. 

As always we hope you enjoy! If you have any thoughts, comments, or suggestions related to this week's show, or any others, please don't hesitate to contact us, or let us know on twitter!

See you next week!

wink_debacle_hometech.jpg

Episode 60 - Smarter Living

We spend a lot of time here at HomeTech talking about what it really means to have a "smart home".  This terminology does, after all, get bandied about at an ever-increasing pace. The attention of everyday consumers is a surely a welcome sign to anyone with an interest in the smart home market. There are those, however, who would take care to more accurately define what the term "smart home" really means. 

With this in mind we were interested to learn more about Control4's upcoming "Smarter Living Experience". Beyond the obvious motivation of getting their product in front of more eyeballs, this event has a larger, and arguably more difficult mission: to define the value of a truly integrated home. After all standalone solutions, like the Nest thermostat or Philips Hue lights, provide real value to consumers at a very low cost-of-entry. Few would argue otherwise.

What remains to be seen is if companies like Control4 can continue to sell the value of an overarching system, one capable of bringing all the technology together into a singular, unified user-experience. On this week's show we are joined by Control4's Director of Product Marketing Brad Hintze, to discuss that and more. 

Following our conversation with Brad, we dive into a chat about Seth's personal smart home retrofit project. Many of you have been requesting an update on his progress, and we thought now would be a great time to get you caught up. For this episode we take specific aim at Seth's choice of a lighting control system. Tune in to hear more...

We hope you enjoy our conversation with Brad. If you are able to watch Control4's event we would love to hear your thoughts afterwards. Let us know your thoughts using our feedback page or even better, send us a comment on twitter! 

Thanks for listening! See you next week.

Episode 59 - Intelligent Irrigation with Franz Garsombke of Rachio

In our main segment this week were joined by Franz Garsombke, co-founder of CTO of Rachio. For the uninitiated Rachio is the manufacturer behind Iro, an intelligent irrigation controller. Since it's launch the Iro has gained traction with several major brick-and-mortar retailers, including Home Depot, Apple Stores, and Best Buy. We brought Franz on to chat about what has lead to the product's success. Our conversation covered everything from the basics of installation and setup, to the large-scale challenges of water conservation the product aims to address.

As always we hope you enjoy the show. If you find the podcast valuable, entertaining, or both please consider becoming a patron, or leaving us a review on iTunes! 

intelligent_irrigation_rachio_hometech.jpg

Episode 58 - Listeners' Corner feat. Cody Crossland

We started out this week's show by trying to settle a little internal debate here at HomeTech. Amazon made a big splash on the tech-news scene this week with the announcement of the "Dash Button". One half of the HomeTech team thinks the product very clever, and worthy of the smart home label most tech journalists are using to describe it. The other half thinks it's just a silly button to help you buy more crap. Tune in to hear the debate (and tweet us with your thoughts if you're so inclined). 

In other news this week we discuss the release of a new controller by Savant. It's Savant's first processor with imbedded I/O ports (IR, RS-232, Relays etc). This means that, for the first time, you do not need separate hardware to control devices such as TV's, AVR's, and cable boxes. Also worth noting is the inclusion of Z-Wave, an addition that could mean a move further downstream towards a true DIY solution. 

Our main feature this week is the second installment of "Listeners' Corner". We brought on Cody Crossland, who has been one of our most ardent supporters since launching the show. Cody is a fellow systems integrator and, similar to Seth, is a Control4 dealer. We had a great conversation about some of the pitfalls that end users need to be aware when purchasing new technology. Ranging from new TV's (4K / UHD) all the way up to entire smart home systems, Cody has some great insights to share. 

We had a great time recording this episode. If you are interested in joining us on a future installment of our listener-series let us know on our feedback page!

See you next week!

cody_crossland_hometech.jpg