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578 episodes

Episode 78 · September 7, 2015

Empowering Creators with Peter Hoddie of Kinoma

This week's episode of HomeTech features a guest well-known within engineering and technology circles, Peter Hoddie. Having once served as Chief Quicktime Architect at Apple, Peter boasts a very impressive resume. Peter currently serves as VP of Kinoma, a division within the giant semi-conductor company Marvell. Back in 2002 he co-founded Kinoma, producing a virtual software platform widely deployed by companies like Palm, Sony, and Sling Media. While Kinoma has since been acquired, in many ways they continue to proudly demonstrate their startup roots.

Episode 77 · August 31, 2015

A Constant Cacophony

Ever wonder what the how the rest of the world perceives home technology integrators? Wonder no more. We kick this week's episode off by sharing the audio from a YouTube clip we think sums it perfectly. Not sure if we should laugh or cry, but a little levity never hurts either way.

Episode 76 · August 24, 2015

We Get No Respect

In what has become a bit of a rare occurrence lately this week's show actually features both of your regular hosts. No interview guest, but plenty of interesting news and opinion pieces to discuss. First we provide a wrap-up of the CEPro Summit, an event recently attended by Jason. Focused primarily on the professional integrators in our audience, the conversation provides an interesting peek behind the curtain for end-users and enthusiasts as well.

Episode 75 · August 17, 2015

The Proactive Smart Home with Alexei Erchak of BeON

Many tech companies are quick to use the word "security" when describing features such as mobile alerts and remote access to cameras. While certainly convenient these technologies are necessarily limited by their reactive nature, likely affording you little more than a front row seat to the violation of your home. Lost in all this marketing hype is the fact that a true security system's biggest benefit lies in it's ability to proactively prevent an intrusion from happening in the first place.

Episode 74 · August 10, 2015

The Smart Kitchen with Mike Wolf

This week Seth takes the mic solo again and chats with (super) special guest Mike Wolf about his upcoming Smart Kitchen Summit event in November. They also chat about a few bits of news that happened over the past week including creepy TVs, a new DIY security platform, and robot chefs.

Episode 73 · August 3, 2015

HomeTech.biz

This week Seth and Jason are back together to chat about the last few weeks in HomeTech. A little follow up here and a little news there -- overall a really fun show this week. Thank you to all our Patreon supporters for showing your support! You guys rock!

Episode 72 · July 27, 2015

Special Guest Julie Jacobson of CEPro

This week Seth sits down to chat with industry veteran and Editor-at-Large of CEPro Julie Jacobson. Julie has been covering the home automation market for more than two decades and has been one of our go to sources for home automation news each week. We chat about the interesting stock performance of Control4 and Alarm.com and discuss the recent news of Savant killing off their LiteTouch panelized lighting control system.

Episode 71 · July 13, 2015

4Kp, 4Ki, and HD-OH-MY!

On this week's show we sit down to revisit last week's popular discussion on voice control in the home (spoiler: Jason still isn't a fan). We also chat about the future of 4K and what integrators need to know about video distribution thanks to a great article by Chris Pinder of HDAnywhere. Rounding out the show is a new home automation offering from Legrand that targets the production builder market.

Episode 70 · July 6, 2015

Apple Music 101: Radio on the Internet

Apple is rarely the first one to any party, but they tend to turn a lot of heads when they do finally show up. From portable music players, to tablets, to smart watches Apple has demonstrated this pattern time and again. True to form the company has now staked their claim in another existing market, subscription based streaming music, with Apple Music.

Episode 69 · June 29, 2015

"Lights That Rock" with Shaun Springer from Twist

For this week's show we are pleased to present a conversation with Shaun Springer. Shaun is the founder and CEO of Astro, the company behind the newly released smart lightbulb / speaker combination Twist. Shaun's background in the smart home will be of particular interest to the integrators in our audience. Earlier in his career Shaun worked at Crestron, where he led research and development on the company's Core3 UI initiative.

Episode 68 · June 22, 2015

The Nest No-Show

In a couple of respects this was a rather disappointing week in the smart home. On one hand we had been looking forward to a press conference from Nest. The company has been awfully quiet since being acquired by Google in February of 2014 for whopping $3.2 billion. At the time of that blockbuster deal it was only natural to assume that, given this sort of brand-power and funding, Nest would be moving quick with further ventures into the smart home. Cue the crickets...

Episode 67 · June 15, 2015

The HomeKit Roundtable 2015

Smart home professionals, enthusiasts, and reporters alike were once again left wanting in the wake of an Apple event. It's been over a year since the original announcement of Apple's smart home initiative known as HomeKit. Despite recent, and rather unexpected, announcements by several smart home manufacturers that HomeKit product is now shipping, Cupertino continues to keep the platform out of the spotlight. Those holding their breath for a long-overdue update to the AppleTV, which many suspect could play an integral role in HomeKit, were also left exhaling in disappointment.

Episode 66 · June 8, 2015

Sensors and the Smart Home with Brian Leeners of NYCE Sensors

It's our first interview episode in quite some time, and well worth the wait. We are joined by Brian Leeners, CEO and founder for NYCE Control. NYCE is a company driving innovation in the sensor market with an array of zigbee devices. Brian brings a diverse background and well-educated set of opinions to the table in what proved to be a very fun and interesting conversation. In addition to covering NYCE's array of product offerings we also dive into discussions about how sensor technology will drive smart home adoption. As always we hope you enjoy!

Episode 65 · June 1, 2015

Crushing the AppleTV Pipe Dream

Last week we decided to take a small breather in order to celebrate Memorial Day as well as our own Seth Johnson's birthday (be sure to send him some BDay love on twitter). Turns out taking a breather was a good idea. This week we are back with a vengeance in what feels like just the beginning of what should remain a very busy 2015.

Episode 64 · May 18, 2015

Ding! Ding! Dusting Off the New-Platform-Bell...

In another guest-free-episode we discuss a number of important smart home stories from the week, not the least of which is a new announcement from Samsung & SmartThings. At IoT World the companies announced a new initiative aimed at the burgeoning market for connected devices. A combination of chipsets, dubbed "Artik", as well as the development of cloud-based backend infrastructure, called "OpenCloud", gives manufacturers of connected devices some compelling options. Additionally the news gave us occasion to dust off the new-platform-bell... DING! DING!

Episode 63 · May 11, 2015

If This Then What?

In this episode we sat down to discuss a number of news stories from this week in the smart home. We start of the show with a couple of follow up points related the Apple Watch. Specifically we mention the release of the SmartThings app, which made its debut the day after we recorded last week's episode in which we commented on its conspicuous absence. Also in Apple news we discuss rumors of a completely redesigned AppleTV remote, supposedly being developed as part of the forthcoming product release expected this June.

Episode 62 · May 4, 2015

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.

Episode 61 · April 27, 2015

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.

Episode 60 · April 20, 2015

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.

Episode 59 · April 13, 2015

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.