Speaker 1: Welcome to How Do They Afford That? The podcast that
Speaker 1: peaks into the financial lives of everyday Australians. I'm Michael Thompson.
Speaker 1: I'm a writer and the co host of the podcast
Speaker 1: Fear and Greed business News, and as always, I'm with
Speaker 1: Canna Campbell, financial planner and founder of Sugar mam A TV,
Speaker 1: the financial literacy platform that you will find on Instagram
Speaker 1: and threads and YouTube, podcast books, TikTok, keynote speeches and more.
Speaker 2: Hello, Canna, good morning, How are you.
Speaker 1: I'm going well? I'm very excited for today's episode because
Speaker 1: it is essentially part two of a two part series
Speaker 1: that we have done on affordable technology. If you haven't
Speaker 1: listened to the last episode, maybe stop now, just pause,
Speaker 1: hit pause, go back and listen to that one. Because
Speaker 1: we talked all about affordable mobile technology, mobile phones and
Speaker 1: wearable smart watches, all that kind of thing. We do
Speaker 1: not have the expertise between us, Canna, you and I.
Speaker 1: I think if we're talking about superannuation, we would be
Speaker 1: fine because we have you. If we're talking about in
Speaker 1: or financial advice or anything where we're okay. When it
Speaker 1: comes to technology, we need help.
Speaker 2: Considering I have anxiety about charging my phone and letting
Speaker 2: it sit there and charge my phone. We can definitely
Speaker 2: say we have n f I.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, that's quite an extreme stuff. But we
Speaker 1: are joined in the studio once again by Stephen Fennick,
Speaker 1: one of Australia's top technology journalists, the editor of tech
Speaker 1: guide dot com dot au. Stephen, welcome back to how
Speaker 1: do they.
Speaker 3: Ford that great to be here? Here? You going? We
Speaker 3: are good? We are.
Speaker 1: I don't know whether Canna has any money left after
Speaker 1: the last episode. She missed out of the studio off
Speaker 1: to buy some new phones and a new new Apple
Speaker 1: Watch and all of these things. We need to cover
Speaker 1: some other tech today because TV shopping or computer shopping
Speaker 1: with me is an absolute nightmare because I do not
Speaker 1: know where to start. I walk into kind of a shop,
Speaker 1: whether it's kind of Harvey Norman or any one of those.
Speaker 2: I feel like any type of shopping with you would
Speaker 2: be a nightmare. Like I've seen what type of air
Speaker 2: fry you bought it. I was like, wow, I feels
Speaker 2: like just dominated your whole entire kitchens very bigger than
Speaker 2: your oven.
Speaker 1: It actually is, but we use it more than the
Speaker 1: oven now, so.
Speaker 2: It's always good advice from me.
Speaker 1: So you just criticized me, and then you take.
Speaker 2: The bread fry, not buy one the size of a
Speaker 2: mess to three.
Speaker 1: But when you've got kids and you need to cook
Speaker 1: like twenty nuggets at a time, you're going to need
Speaker 1: the bigger air fry. Anyway, That's that's kind of beside
Speaker 1: the point. What we are talking about here is if
Speaker 1: you go into a shop and you're looking at the
Speaker 1: wall of TVs, for instance, it is it is so
Speaker 1: easy to be overwhelmed and you kind of go straight
Speaker 1: to the brands that you know. You go to your Sony,
Speaker 1: or you go to your Samsung, or you go to
Speaker 1: your LG And how on earth are you comparing like
Speaker 1: for like and trying to decide what is value for money?
Speaker 1: And I feel like there is a risk of just
Speaker 1: being drawn to probably the more expensive one because you
Speaker 1: assume it costs more. Yep, it is going to be
Speaker 1: better quality, apparently we're starting with because it's just where
Speaker 1: I launched.
Speaker 3: Absolutely no. And I think when you consider a television,
Speaker 3: it's not something you buy often normally, like eight years
Speaker 3: normally people have their televisions for so you can imagine
Speaker 3: last time you bought a TV. It was eight years
Speaker 3: is a long time in technology. So they're out there
Speaker 3: looking at this whole new market of four K and
Speaker 3: quantum dot technology and all these for these things, these
Speaker 3: features that didn't exist for their other TV. So I
Speaker 3: think what what a customer needs to do is a
Speaker 3: look at the size they want. And we're going bigger
Speaker 3: TV sizes. It's go big or go home now where
Speaker 3: we're seventy five, eighty five, one hundred inch TVs we're buying.
Speaker 3: There is value in those still in those large sizes.
Speaker 1: Still, do you lose quality?
Speaker 3: You know you usually will. You can't not buy a
Speaker 3: four K TV. Every TV is four K. You can
Speaker 3: even buy an eight K TV if you wanted to
Speaker 3: spend the extra money. But four K is fine. So
Speaker 3: I think you just need to look for those factors,
Speaker 3: the size and obviously the brand as well, and where
Speaker 3: you're going to watch, the conditions as well on that where.
Speaker 1: You're going to watch it, and the size. And this
Speaker 1: is really we're getting off topic here, but I'm so
Speaker 1: curious about this. Is there some science behind how far
Speaker 1: back you need to be from a TV because you
Speaker 1: see kind of these eighty inch TVs one hundred inches
Speaker 1: and you're surely you must have a room that is
Speaker 1: so deep in order to be able to sit back
Speaker 1: and see it. Otherwise it's like sitting in the front
Speaker 1: rod of the cinema.
Speaker 3: Yeah, years ago, the formula was whatever the screen size is,
Speaker 3: you should sit two and a half times away from it.
Speaker 3: But that was an old formula because back with the HDTVs,
Speaker 3: if you sat too close you could see the pixels.
Speaker 3: So now with four K and eight K, I think
Speaker 3: that formulas sort of be thrown out the window a
Speaker 3: little bit. So maybe two times what the size of
Speaker 3: the TV is, even one and a half times what
Speaker 3: the size of the TV is, because even though you're
Speaker 3: sitting close, it's still going to be quite sharp and clear.
Speaker 3: And obviously size we're talking about size that affects the
Speaker 3: price too, So if the bigger the TV, the more
Speaker 3: it's going to cost. But it is a very competitive market.
Speaker 3: We're seeing obviously Samsung as the leader. You've got LG
Speaker 3: in the market as well. They also see that all
Speaker 3: these big brands have good, better, best options in TV.
Speaker 3: So you can buy the top of the line TV
Speaker 3: for twelve thousand, or the entry level TV two Triple nine.
Speaker 1: Can I put you on the spot here then and
Speaker 1: say we have a standard family which is that is
Speaker 1: not a thing, but just a normal family usage. Perhaps
Speaker 1: they watch it with watch some movies, watch a bit
Speaker 1: of sport, generally watching Netflix and things like this. What
Speaker 1: is and looking at the same medium size Let's say,
Speaker 1: what's an average size, say sixty sixty five inch? What
Speaker 1: would be the best value TV out there at the moment?
Speaker 3: I would have a look at either the Samsung Crystal UHD,
Speaker 3: which is kind of their entry level four K TVs
Speaker 3: which is still quite high quality, or also High Sense.
Speaker 3: High Sense in the last few years have really made
Speaker 3: a really huge urge in the market. They're a Chinese
Speaker 3: brand and they basically taking the place of Panasonic. Panasonic
Speaker 3: no longer sell TVs in Australia, so they've sort of
Speaker 3: become one of the what I call the Big four.
Speaker 3: So you've got your Samsung, Sony LG. High Sense has
Speaker 3: now become that fourth brand. So they offer a lot
Speaker 3: of value. So like inch inch to inch cost wise,
Speaker 3: I think you're getting a lot of value from High Sense.
Speaker 3: But other brands to look out for that also pretty
Speaker 3: aggressive companies like TCL tcls actually a display company. We
Speaker 3: mentioned with them in the previous show. They make phones
Speaker 3: as well, so they make screens from phone size to
Speaker 3: TV size. They offer a lot of value and the
Speaker 3: good thing with tcltvs is there the sound quality is
Speaker 3: also pretty good as well, so you don't have to
Speaker 3: buy a soundbar. The sound quality is all already built in,
Speaker 3: so that's an option. Also, I'm sure you've heard of Cogan.
Speaker 3: Cogan has been selling TVs online for many years, and
Speaker 3: the selling point for the lot of the Cogan TVs,
Speaker 3: and I think we were talking off here about this
Speaker 3: is that the panels in a Cogan TV aten made
Speaker 3: by Samsung, so you're getting a Samsung panel in a
Speaker 3: Cogan TV. Even Aldi sell their Born TVs. Those panels
Speaker 3: are often LG. Often they have the LG software running
Speaker 3: on board as well, so you can have the quality
Speaker 3: but have the value at the same time.
Speaker 2: This is my question, like about the white labeling, you know,
Speaker 2: you really buying a cheap TV that's really got like
Speaker 2: the sony of the Samsung or the LG technology behind it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well it's it's I wrote a story years ago
Speaker 3: who actually made my TV? So which TV? Which panel.
Speaker 3: Am I looking at like a Sony O Lead TV?
Speaker 3: For example? That O Lead panel is made by LG.
Speaker 3: LG makes O Lead and they sell it to other brands.
Speaker 3: So if you each other, well it's they're just doing business.
Speaker 3: So I guess buying different parts and components. But here's
Speaker 3: here's if not.
Speaker 1: Quite the TV can tell that that can is trying
Speaker 1: to all TV is something.
Speaker 3: That's really important. Use it every day. We're streaming, we'red
Speaker 3: use watching sport, watching, and it's a lot of air
Speaker 3: entertainment on it. So the temptation is to buy a
Speaker 3: new television, but there are ways to turn an older
Speaker 3: TV into a smart TV with a product called the
Speaker 3: Google Chrome Cast. So if you spend ninety nine dollars,
Speaker 3: you can plug this into your TV and you then
Speaker 3: will are given an interface that then allows you to
Speaker 3: watch Netflix and all the streaming services. Because that's another
Speaker 3: reason why people upgrade is they want to have the
Speaker 3: streaming services. The TV's older and they think, I can't
Speaker 3: watch Netflix, I can't watch Paramount Plus, I can't watch
Speaker 3: nine Now. But they spend ninety nine bucks and that
Speaker 3: will turn that old TV into a smart TV. So
Speaker 3: rather than spending three thousand on new Teley that could
Speaker 3: be an option. Spend ninety nine dollars on a Google
Speaker 3: Chrome Cast and you've got all those streaming services right
Speaker 3: at your fingertips.
Speaker 2: Can I ask you a personal question, It's okay, we
Speaker 2: won't be talking about ear canals. My conspiracy theory with
Speaker 2: the television manufacturers. Where would you buy your technology? Like
Speaker 2: you've got to say, your moving house and you've got
Speaker 2: doing a whole new fit out. Is there a store
Speaker 2: of preference asking for a friend, of.
Speaker 3: Course, I think there's no real one place that you
Speaker 3: get the best deal. I think if you shop around,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of specials. JB. Harvey's, Bingley, you name them.
Speaker 3: They all compete on price. So I think, yeah, if
Speaker 3: you do your homework, all the catalogs always have all
Speaker 3: the TVs on the front of there because they know
Speaker 3: it's an item that they can move. Another tip too,
Speaker 3: would be normally obviously, like phones, TVs are updated every
Speaker 3: year as well, so the twenty twenty four models, of
Speaker 3: course are going to be the latest and greatest and
Speaker 3: more expensive. They often have a runout on last year's TVs.
Speaker 3: You can get a bargain on the twenty twenty three TV,
Speaker 3: so I would ask for that. They often advertise these
Speaker 3: runout sales where you get to save thousands of dollars.
Speaker 3: Last year's TV is still excellent. This year's TV newer
Speaker 3: and more expensive, So that's an option to save a
Speaker 3: bit of money as well.
Speaker 1: That is a great tip, all right. So summarizing TVs,
Speaker 1: the things that you need to consider when you're going
Speaker 1: in there are the size that you're looking for, what
Speaker 1: you're going to use it for, the location we're going
Speaker 1: to be watching it, the conditions that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Then consider the brands and kind of Samsung as the leader, you.
Speaker 3: Said, Samsung, LG, Sony. Yeah. High Sense is another really
Speaker 3: sort of top tier brand that's doing offering a lot
Speaker 3: of value, sort of like inch inch per inch. I
Speaker 3: think the best value is High Sense of the moment.
Speaker 1: And then you get into the lower price bracket, which
Speaker 1: is say you're TCL and then even further.
Speaker 3: Aldi, which often have panels from that are made by
Speaker 3: Samsung and LG and all these other companies. So obviously,
Speaker 3: look I compare the value you get from Cogan and
Speaker 3: Borne and Aldi of those brands. People say to me,
Speaker 3: look what are they good? So well, look, if you
Speaker 3: want to buy Mercedes Bins, then that's the best experience
Speaker 3: if you want to drive, okay, but if you want
Speaker 3: to buy a Kia, you're gonna it's still gonna get
Speaker 3: you where you need to go, but it's going to
Speaker 3: be a lot cheaper. It's not might not be the quality,
Speaker 3: might not be as high and the but it's still
Speaker 3: going to do what you needed to do. So there
Speaker 3: is there's that thing to consider as well.
Speaker 1: And then I suppose the question with the Born TV
Speaker 1: is like, if it's got potentially an LG panel, is
Speaker 1: it like an LG TV or is it a born TV.
Speaker 1: It's really struggling with its born identity.
Speaker 2: Oh god, that was the worst.
Speaker 3: Head not bad, that was it. And I know you're
Speaker 3: a movie buff. I figured that I got it straight away. Mate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you have one person who will appreciate this. It
Speaker 1: is Stephen Fennick.
Speaker 2: It is not camp most definitely not. And also for
Speaker 2: other you know, fifty five thousand listeners today, they won't
Speaker 2: appreciate any of that.
Speaker 1: I think everyone appreciates that. Let's move on from TV's
Speaker 1: and from excellent jokes. Let's go to it's just judging
Speaker 1: myself the computers.
Speaker 3: Yes, so I.
Speaker 1: Again, I don't mean to start everything with Apple. Yes
Speaker 1: we did last time. But I am an Apple user,
Speaker 1: and which I kind of go straight to the MacBook.
Speaker 3: I'm a Mac I'm a Mac user too. I've got
Speaker 3: I've got a Mac Studio as my desktop computer with
Speaker 3: an external monitor, and I've got a MacBook Air.
Speaker 1: At the moment, does does a computer come down to
Speaker 1: in terms of what you're going to spend on it?
Speaker 1: Does it all come down to what you need it for?
Speaker 1: For instance, if you if you need a computer for work,
Speaker 1: for design, for gaming, or something like that, I imagine
Speaker 1: the price that you pay is going to be dictated
Speaker 1: by what you need it for.
Speaker 3: Absolutely right, So if you buy if you want to,
Speaker 3: let's use gaming start with that. So you need for
Speaker 3: a game, you need a bigger screen to enjoy the game.
Speaker 3: You also need a faster processor to make sure that
Speaker 3: you're getting the best experience. So that puts that at
Speaker 3: a higher bracket. If you're a videographer or a photographer,
Speaker 3: a creative professional, then you would similarly need high processing power,
Speaker 3: bigger screen to do what you need to do. If
Speaker 3: you and I get this question a lot, if like
Speaker 3: I want to buy a laptop, my question is, well,
Speaker 3: what are you going to use it for? Oh, just
Speaker 3: to check email, browse the web, and often the a
Speaker 3: solution under a thousand dollars if it's a Windows computer,
Speaker 3: even under eight hundred dollars, you can buy a Lenovo,
Speaker 3: a hp Asa, Azeus. All these brands have sub thousand
Speaker 3: dollars laptops and we'll do exactly what you need them
Speaker 3: to do because there's not a lot of the processing powers.
Speaker 3: Not reed, you don't need a lot of processing power
Speaker 3: to browse the web and to check an email. But
Speaker 3: my other advice to a lot of customers looking to
Speaker 3: get a laptop is I think they should consider a
Speaker 3: tablet as the alternative. Oh yeah, so rather than buying
Speaker 3: a laptop, buy a tablet and attach a keyboard. Especially
Speaker 3: if you're only just going to browse the web checking emails,
Speaker 3: then why go to that spend extra money, but also
Speaker 3: go to the extra trouble of having a computer another computer?
Speaker 3: A tablet could often be the solution.
Speaker 2: I recently did that I need. It was about to
Speaker 2: upgrade my laptop and then I decided, no, I'm just
Speaker 2: going to a new tablet and it's changed my.
Speaker 1: Life, and it be quite a bit cheaper, can't they
Speaker 1: They can be cheaper.
Speaker 3: You can, like everything, you can spend thousands of dollars
Speaker 3: on a tablet like the latest iPad pro or the
Speaker 3: new Samsung tab s nine that you can spend as
Speaker 3: much as you want. But there are a lot of
Speaker 3: other brands like Samsung included Apple Apple iPad you can
Speaker 3: buy it for under six hundred bucks now. So it's
Speaker 3: there are alternatives to the laptop, especially if you you're
Speaker 3: only going to use it for pretty what to call
Speaker 3: casual usage. But again, if you if you're you didn't
Speaker 3: want to play games or you need that process in power,
Speaker 3: then you've got to consider the options of a bigger screen,
Speaker 3: half fast a processor. So that really determines the budget
Speaker 3: that you're playing in.
Speaker 1: And say you didn't really know what you needed. Is
Speaker 1: this the kind of thing that you could go into
Speaker 1: a shop, for instance, and talk to the salesperson and
Speaker 1: just say this is this is what I need. I
Speaker 1: was listening to how Today Afford that. I was listening
Speaker 1: to Steven Fanick, and he said, if I don't need
Speaker 1: it for gaming, if I don't need it for this,
Speaker 1: to look at this and they should be to help
Speaker 1: you absolutely.
Speaker 3: What's happened recently is the release of you know, AI
Speaker 3: is the buzzword everywhere now. So there's a new class
Speaker 3: of laptops called Copilot plus PC. So these are basically
Speaker 3: AI PCs and being new technology there, they're a bit
Speaker 3: on the expensive side. So now what's happened. The PC
Speaker 3: market now has two halves, Copilot plus PC and the
Speaker 3: non Copilot plus PC, which if the non Copilot plus
Speaker 3: now has created this much cheaper market of laptops, So
Speaker 3: there is the affordability now is even higher. If AI
Speaker 3: is something you don't want to use on the device,
Speaker 3: if you're happy to go off to chat GPT whenever
Speaker 3: you need your AI, then these cheaper laptops now there
Speaker 3: exist in the market. The retailers are happy that they've
Speaker 3: got a more expensive PC to sell with the Copilot
Speaker 3: plus PC. But now the non Copilot plus PC's they
Speaker 3: are normal laptops I call them. They've come right down
Speaker 3: in price.
Speaker 1: What about then, for say your zoom calls and things,
Speaker 1: you should be looking at the quality of the camera
Speaker 1: in there and the microphone that's built in. Are these
Speaker 1: the factors as well that you should be totally right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there are a lot of the selling points now
Speaker 3: they know a lot of people work remotely, work from home,
Speaker 3: and that video conferencing is now part of your day,
Speaker 3: day to day workflow. And so there are a lot
Speaker 3: of brands that have cameras that have been optimized for
Speaker 3: you know, that are sensitive to light and can do
Speaker 3: noise cancelation and have all those features. So they're absolutely
Speaker 3: features that are even on entry level laptops. Now you'll
Speaker 3: see that those features taken into consideration.
Speaker 1: So really, I mean, you do not need to go
Speaker 1: for your top end Apple, your top end products if
Speaker 1: you are not necessarily going to be using all of
Speaker 1: the features and you don't need that amount of processing
Speaker 1: power that Lenovo HP potentially even a tablet with a
Speaker 1: keyboard kind of plugged into it. All these non copilt
Speaker 1: plus computers which are essentially you're older.
Speaker 3: Just your regular Windows eleven computers. Yeah, and even even
Speaker 3: the Mac. You talk about the MacBook Air like that's
Speaker 3: only you can get it I think for fifteen hundred
Speaker 3: bucks now, so that's the entry level on a Mac.
Speaker 3: On a MacBook Air has become a little bit more affordable.
Speaker 3: But again it's like the phone is you're either an
Speaker 3: iPhone user or an Android user. In this instance, you're
Speaker 3: either a Mac or a PC. And obviously PC eighty
Speaker 3: percent of the world's computers are run Windows, so a
Speaker 3: lot of more choices on the PC side.
Speaker 1: Where do you stand, Canna, Oh, I'm.
Speaker 2: An Apple, I'm Mac. Yes, everything in my life. Don't
Speaker 2: don't interrupt the flow, Okay, because me too.
Speaker 3: I've been a Mac user for thirty years. I've been
Speaker 3: a Mac user years. My first computer was the Apple
Speaker 3: LC two. I bought it in nineteen ninety two. You
Speaker 3: still had it, I don't know. I sold it to
Speaker 3: get my next one.
Speaker 1: That's the kind of thing that if he still had it,
Speaker 1: that would be well.
Speaker 3: It isn't a museum. There is a computer museum in
Speaker 3: San Francisco, in the in Silicon Valley.
Speaker 1: There interesting, that is amazing. All Right, we have covered computers,
Speaker 1: we have covered TVs. We'll take a quick break and
Speaker 1: we'll come back on something. Oh God, you've been just
Speaker 1: itching to discuss this, haven't you. We are talking about
Speaker 1: smart speakers, smart homes, all of the things that make
Speaker 1: your house schmick. Schmick was not the word I was
Speaker 1: going to use, but We're going to roll with it.
Speaker 1: We will come back in a second and discuss making
Speaker 1: your house Schmick Cana. We are talking affordable technology today.
Speaker 1: We have covered TVs, we have covered computers, and now
Speaker 1: we are getting into the part that really really excites you. Sound,
Speaker 1: sound and making your house just everything, just work when
Speaker 1: you need it too. We are joined in the studio
Speaker 1: today by Stephen Fannick, the editor of tech Guide dot
Speaker 1: com dot au, who knows I reckon more than any
Speaker 1: This is going to overstate it more than any human
Speaker 1: being alive about all ever.
Speaker 3: Wow, that's a big claim, but I try my best.
Speaker 1: Yes, well, you certainly no more than anyone in the studio, which,
Speaker 1: with Kata and I is a very low bar that
Speaker 1: you had to step over. Let's start with smart speakers,
Speaker 1: shall we, Because they were big. There was so much
Speaker 1: attention and so much excitement about around sound Alexa and
Speaker 1: your Google Assistant and all of these, and they don't
Speaker 1: Maybe this is wrong, but they don't seem to be
Speaker 1: as big in Australia, perhaps as they are elsewhere in
Speaker 1: the world, perhaps in the US. Are we going to
Speaker 1: get to that point.
Speaker 3: Where they are still big? I think the initial surge
Speaker 3: the initial interest. Really everyone invested early, and then it's
Speaker 3: the levels of sales are sort of being steady. Okay,
Speaker 3: so everyone was talking about because they were new, but
Speaker 3: they're still quite a popular product, and a lot of
Speaker 3: people they buy more than one as well, because they're
Speaker 3: actually quite affordable. Now you can buy an Go for
Speaker 3: like under fifty bucks, an Echo little little Spot speaker,
Speaker 3: and even the Google Assistant speakers are quite cheap as well.
Speaker 3: So I know at my place we've got several Alexas
Speaker 3: around the house, so it's it's an easy way to
Speaker 3: keep communicate with everyone in the house, so you might
Speaker 3: want to you've got smart speakers, you can actually what
Speaker 3: they're on a Lexi. You can do what they call
Speaker 3: a drop in, so you might say communicate with say
Speaker 3: your child's in their room, and you might say from
Speaker 3: the kitchen, dinner's ready, and it'll come through their speaker
Speaker 3: to say they're rather new yellow Yeah, hell loudly. But
Speaker 3: it's become I think, a good starting point for because
Speaker 3: you know everyone's talking smart homes and smart products. The
Speaker 3: smart speaker is a great little way to start and
Speaker 3: a great gift to gift to someone because they can
Speaker 3: build on it. They can. They can now add a
Speaker 3: like a smart light and then tell the speaker turn
Speaker 3: the light off, or turn the light red, or turn
Speaker 3: it off at nine o'clock. And so they can set
Speaker 3: these little rules in the house.
Speaker 1: Which one, though, do you choose? Because if if you buy,
Speaker 1: say you were gifting somebody and you buy them a
Speaker 1: smart speaker, are you then kind of confining them to
Speaker 1: only that certain brand. If they need all of their
Speaker 1: house to talk to everything else within the house and
Speaker 1: you buy an Echo, are you limiting their ops?
Speaker 3: No, no you're not. Because there's a new technology called Matter.
Speaker 3: So this is like a consistent technology that unites every brand.
Speaker 3: So consider Matter to be like Bluetooth on your phone,
Speaker 3: So you can use any brand of earphones and any
Speaker 3: phone as long as it's got Bluetooth, it's going to
Speaker 3: connect the two devices. So that's what Matter is for
Speaker 3: your smart home now. So no matter what brand you buy,
Speaker 3: whether you've got an Echo or a Google Assistant, or
Speaker 3: an Arlo security camera or a Phillips smart light, they're
Speaker 3: all going to talk to each other now thanks to
Speaker 3: this new Matter And that's on the packaging whenever you
Speaker 3: buy it, so you know that you're not going to
Speaker 3: be left with a relic. You're not going to be
Speaker 3: stranded with something you can't use. So again that's why
Speaker 3: smart speakers are a great way to start, because you
Speaker 3: can build on that system at a light, at a
Speaker 3: smart switch, at a security camera. It's really becoming and
Speaker 3: quite affordable too, which is the good news that these products.
Speaker 3: You can buy smart switch now for ten dollars and
Speaker 3: you plug that in the wall. You plug something into
Speaker 3: the smart switch, and then that product that's plugged into
Speaker 3: it can now be controlled using your app or using
Speaker 3: your routines in your house. So, for example, you might
Speaker 3: have a fan, plug the fan into the smart switch.
Speaker 3: You can then remotely turn the fan on, turn it off,
Speaker 3: see if it's on, see if it's off. Plug the
Speaker 3: iron into it so you can tell if you've left
Speaker 3: the iron on looking at your phone. So these are
Speaker 3: the little things that turn make your house smarter, and
Speaker 3: that day costs you a lot of money.
Speaker 2: Spy on my dogs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, cameras, cameras, they've come a long way. Security
Speaker 3: cameras you can get for under one hundred dollars. You
Speaker 3: get a security camera that will be able to check
Speaker 3: your pets, check your children, check your home, check your office.
Speaker 3: You can get noifications when there's a movement or sound delivery.
Speaker 3: You know when you've got a passel at the doorstep
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, because I see a lot of people with
Speaker 1: the is it a ring?
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's ring doorbell, there's the r Lo doorbell. Google
Speaker 3: Nest has a doorbell as well, all pretty affordable a
Speaker 3: couple hundred dollars, and you can talk to whoever's at
Speaker 3: your front door of I think someone rang my doorbell
Speaker 3: while we're recording right now, so you can I talked
Speaker 3: to someone at my door three times a day, so
Speaker 3: they're delivering review products and picking up stuff, and so
Speaker 3: you're able to answer your door without being home. But
Speaker 3: it's also a security camera as well that can tell
Speaker 3: if there's someone there, a package or whatever is at
Speaker 3: your front door step.
Speaker 1: I'm going to confess I find it overwhelming. I find
Speaker 1: that the idea of it overwhelming in terms of getting
Speaker 1: it set up. Yes, is it, Say, let's just start
Speaker 1: with the doorbell, because I would find that I would
Speaker 1: love to be able to know who was at the door,
Speaker 1: and then I can stay well hidden inside the house
Speaker 1: if it's someone that I don't like, I don't want
Speaker 1: to talk.
Speaker 3: They're sure.
Speaker 1: How how do you go about setting it up?
Speaker 3: It's really easy actually, it's just it's all done through
Speaker 3: your home Wi Fi, so there you whatever product you get,
Speaker 3: it'll attach to your home Wi Fi and just be
Speaker 3: part of your network.
Speaker 2: So do you need one? Really easy for each gadget?
Speaker 3: Not always? There are On On Samsung they have an
Speaker 3: app called smart Things which gathers them all. On Apple
Speaker 3: they've got an app called home Kit that also unites
Speaker 3: them all as well, and you can if you've got
Speaker 3: a smart speaker, you don't even need an app. You
Speaker 3: can talk to them and say, well, what turn turn
Speaker 3: the lights off in the kitchen, or if you've set
Speaker 3: routines as well. A lot of it happens by itself.
Speaker 3: But the good thing about the smart speaker is you
Speaker 3: can issue the command and it'll just it'll do. Like
Speaker 3: if you've got a robot vacuum cleaner, for example, you
Speaker 3: might say go clean the mess in the kitchen and
Speaker 3: it'll start up and go into the kitchen. Because all
Speaker 3: of these all of these devices are Google Assistant compatible,
Speaker 3: Alexa compatible, so they just become part of your network.
Speaker 2: And we have touched on this on a previous episode.
Speaker 2: Some insurance companies such as I Think True will actually
Speaker 2: give you a bit of a discount on your insurance
Speaker 2: premiums if you have a smart home with certain devices
Speaker 2: set up, because you can sense sturit account and break
Speaker 2: ins and.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well there's all senses you can buy. You can
Speaker 3: buy censors for the consens water leaks and sensors that
Speaker 3: know for door or windows were opened, and the cameras
Speaker 3: can listen out as well as you'll see any movement,
Speaker 3: so you get notifications. And so if you've got security
Speaker 3: on your home, you can you can monitor your home
Speaker 3: from anywhere, so.
Speaker 2: It may pay for itself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, So to wrap things up on the smart
Speaker 1: home side, can we make a little bit of a list, sure, right,
Speaker 1: EIX At the moment, assume that my home is not
Speaker 1: a smart home. That's a fairly safe assumption to make.
Speaker 1: Say I wanted it to meet the kind of definition
Speaker 1: of being a smarter home. What am I going to need?
Speaker 1: And I'm just because I'm going to put together some
Speaker 1: costs surely as we go.
Speaker 3: So I can give you the cost as we go.
Speaker 3: If you're like a smart speaker less than one hundred bucks,
Speaker 3: a security camera, or let's start with the doorbell. Doorbell
Speaker 3: you can buy are there's brands like Laser and Connect
Speaker 3: and these these different retailers have their own little home
Speaker 3: brands for under one hundred dollars. You can get a doorbell.
Speaker 3: Security cameras I've mentioned can be from ninety nine bucks
Speaker 3: up to I think there's a the Rlo Essential is
Speaker 3: like one hundred and fifty nine bucks. Smart lights you
Speaker 3: can buy a bulb for twelve bucks. You can buy
Speaker 3: a smart switch for ten dollars. So suddenly, now you've
Speaker 3: got this little ecosystem that you can then within the
Speaker 3: app set rules like at nine o'clock turn all the
Speaker 3: lights off, eight am, turn them all turn them all on,
Speaker 3: or lift the blinds or whatever, so you can start off.
Speaker 3: That's the beauty of having the smart products. You can
Speaker 3: start off pretty affordably and then build on it as
Speaker 3: you go, so to have to spend all your money
Speaker 3: at once, you can space it out.
Speaker 2: I think you've just made Michael's Yeah, it's like he's glowing.
Speaker 1: Now. I'm for kind of Christmas presents and birth and
Speaker 1: Father's Day and all of these because it says, Okay,
Speaker 1: I want something else to smartify the smartify the house,
Speaker 1: and in doing so, I've proven myself not to be
Speaker 1: qualified for a smart home. Okay, so just final question
Speaker 1: on the smart speaker, which one is your favorite?
Speaker 3: I use the Echo Show five, which is a smart
Speaker 3: speaker with a five inch display, so I can not
Speaker 3: only talk to it, but also look at it as well,
Speaker 3: so it gives me weather little news updates. Well, I
Speaker 3: can look at my to do lists on as well.
Speaker 3: So that. There are other echoes that have no displays.
Speaker 3: They call the Echo Echo Dot, which is like under
Speaker 3: one hundred bucks and it can display the time on it.
Speaker 3: And I just I use mostly use my smart speakers
Speaker 3: to listen to the radio, So I just say, hey, Alexa,
Speaker 3: play whatever's radio station I want to listen to. And
Speaker 3: that's that's another handy use for your smart speaker as well.
Speaker 1: And the audio qualities. Okay, fantastic. Yeah, I have learned
Speaker 1: an awful lot. You know what, I think you've achieved
Speaker 1: the impossible. You have maybe not feel overwhelmed by the
Speaker 1: idea of a smart home and just adding those costs
Speaker 1: up kind of we are looking at getting the basics
Speaker 1: here for say three hundred four hundred dollars, and then
Speaker 1: you just kind of add on more switches and more
Speaker 1: lies you as you as you need it. And I
Speaker 1: love the idea of if you were to have a switch, right,
Speaker 1: could you then plug that in and then I could
Speaker 1: get the coffee machine to turn on at six o'clock
Speaker 1: in the morning.
Speaker 3: Yes, you can, absolutely, Yep, that's part of that. You
Speaker 3: can set that up as a schedule. You can schedule
Speaker 3: stuff to turn on and off. You can even for
Speaker 3: the fan example, you can say turn on when it
Speaker 3: hits twenty eight degrees every day, turn the fan on.
Speaker 3: And that's part of the whole convenience of having a
Speaker 3: smart home. Hoh, You're going to go even deeper. There's
Speaker 3: a lot of homes of people like fully kit out
Speaker 3: their homes with smart systems so that they can have
Speaker 3: their curtains foot drop when it reaches a certain temperature
Speaker 3: to keep the heir cool. And not only for convenience,
Speaker 3: but also saves a lot of energy too. You're saving
Speaker 3: on your power bills. So if you can reduce your
Speaker 3: energy consumption or water usage too, there's smart products that
Speaker 3: can help you do all of that.
Speaker 2: Wow is your mind as blown as is right now,
Speaker 2: all I now need is someone to do my laundry,
Speaker 2: walk the do well.
Speaker 1: You can walk the dogs with one of the robot vacuums.
Speaker 1: Just attach attach the least I'm assuming.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well the cat the cats like you either call
Speaker 3: the back robo vacuums the cat magic carpet. Cats love
Speaker 3: to ride on the robe vacuums. Have you seen those?
Speaker 1: I'm sure you see those videos I have, and I'm
Speaker 1: seeing that people make like little tanks and things and
Speaker 1: put them on top of it. They have a little
Speaker 1: battle between a.
Speaker 3: Lot of the robots now have cameras. The robot vacuums
Speaker 3: have cameras, so you can actually use them like a
Speaker 3: security camera. You can check in on your pets, so
Speaker 3: you can actually steer that through the house and check
Speaker 3: on your pets, your kids can you And also at
Speaker 3: the same time you can't talk through them as well
Speaker 3: the speakers as well.
Speaker 1: You have helped us enormous today. Stephen, Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for coming in.
Speaker 3: It was my pleasure mate.
Speaker 1: That was Stephen Fennick, one of Australia's top technology journalists
Speaker 1: and the editor of tech guide dot com dot au.
Speaker 1: If you do nothing else today. Go to that website
Speaker 1: and check out Stephen's reviews of all the different products,
Speaker 1: everything that we're talking about today. You'll find it all
Speaker 1: over the website and it is definitely worth a look
Speaker 1: before you make any future purchases. Canna. I don't know,
Speaker 1: let's not even go there.
Speaker 2: I don't even I'm just I'm just blown away. I
Speaker 2: didn't think we could outdo our previous episode, and I'm
Speaker 2: just lost for words.
Speaker 1: I have a shopping list a mile long. It is extraordinary,
Speaker 1: isn't it.
Speaker 3: We're gonna have some fun, Canna.
Speaker 1: If we want to find out anything more from you,
Speaker 1: or to actually see your progress in turning your house
Speaker 1: into a smart home, where do we find you?
Speaker 2: You better follow me on can account official because that's
Speaker 2: where I sort of share the disturbing reality of my
Speaker 2: real life and this includes all the technology advancements.
Speaker 1: That is on inst So check canner out there and
Speaker 1: you can hear me every day with Sean Aylmer on
Speaker 1: Fear and Greed Business news for people who make their
Speaker 1: own decisions. Thank you very much for listening to how
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