WEBVTT - Smart Homes 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.200 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:14.760 Forward Thinking. You welcome the Forward Thinking, the podcast that 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:17.439 looks at the future and says, guess that this must 0:00:17.480 --> 0:00:22.880 be the place. I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Joe McCormick. Hey, 0:00:22.920 --> 0:00:25.960 I've got a question for you. Yeah, do you ever 0:00:26.160 --> 0:00:32.800 feel like your home might be intellectually inferior? There there? Yes, 0:00:33.200 --> 0:00:36.279 this past year I have I have you well two 0:00:36.320 --> 0:00:41.840 thousand fourteen, I used several colorful metaphors to describe certain 0:00:41.880 --> 0:00:45.559 aspects of my home as a dumb stuff was happening. 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:48.520 I mean, you know it's it's things breakdown and don't 0:00:48.520 --> 0:00:52.120 repair themselves. Doors don't open for you, your closet doesn't 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:53.640 give you what you want to wear in the morning 0:00:53.640 --> 0:00:56.320 you have to go looking for it, dangers everything on 0:00:56.440 --> 0:01:01.000 Final Jeopardy, and then forgets to perform it in the question. Yeah, 0:01:01.080 --> 0:01:03.360 My my biggest pet peeve is that when I walked 0:01:03.400 --> 0:01:06.360 through the door, Gallivant is not automatically playing on my TV. 0:01:07.360 --> 0:01:10.440 I mean, that's just I don't get it. You may 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:13.280 guess from that awkward introduction that today we're going to 0:01:13.360 --> 0:01:15.520 talk about smart home and the rest of it is 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:20.200 going to be smooth sailor. Yeah, Jonathan, Yeah, did you 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:22.880 recently go to c E S. I did recently go 0:01:22.959 --> 0:01:27.440 to CEF the Consumer Electronics Show. Are you sure that 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:31.320 S doesn't stand for circus spelled wrong? Well, it doesn't 0:01:31.319 --> 0:01:34.480 stand for anything these days. It's just c S. Yeah. Yeah, 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:36.759 that used to be Consumer Electronics Show, but now it's 0:01:36.880 --> 0:01:39.360 just CES. Sort of like that, you know, they they 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:42.880 they've decided to go super celeb on us. It's like KFC. 0:01:43.160 --> 0:01:45.800 It's like these letters could stand for any right, right, 0:01:46.680 --> 0:01:48.600 and Uh. At ce S there are a lot of 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:51.800 big themes that came out that year, lots of stuff 0:01:51.800 --> 0:01:55.520 that you know, the various companies were really focusing on, 0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:59.400 and one of the biggest was smart home technology. And 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:02.240 this is something that we've seen at c S year 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:05.840 after year, but this year was kind of like critical mass. 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:08.720 I would say, you know, this was where I suddenly 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:11.480 saw more examples of it. In fact, there was an 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:14.760 entire section of the show floor set aside just for 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:19.840 smart homes and uh. In fact, one one exhibitor had 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:22.560 built out a booth that was a home and you 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:25.320 walked through it and saw that saw how the technology worked. 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:28.480 Within the context of a home. But we wanted to 0:02:28.480 --> 0:02:31.639 talk kind of all about smart homes and sort of 0:02:31.680 --> 0:02:34.359 where the idea came from and where it's going and 0:02:34.440 --> 0:02:36.960 some of the pros and cons of it. But to 0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:38.920 begin with, I just wanted to talk a little bit 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:43.559 about where where this whole automation and smart home technology 0:02:43.840 --> 0:02:48.560 got its start. Sure, because it's not actually a new idea. No, no, 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:50.800 So you're going to take us back to smart caves, 0:02:51.080 --> 0:02:54.200 they're not quite that far. I'm gonna go to the 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:59.520 early twentieth century, and that was when we started seeing uh, 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:04.320 electronic and mechanical appliances first hit the market for the 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:08.320 general consumer. Now, there were earlier examples in the nineteenth centuries, 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:11.079 sort of the predecessors for the technology we depend upon, 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:14.960 but we really saw the mature in the early nineteen hundreds. 0:03:15.000 --> 0:03:18.360 So this is stuff like you know, washers and dryers 0:03:18.400 --> 0:03:22.560 and dishwashers and uh, you know, eventually other things like 0:03:22.880 --> 0:03:25.320 toasters that wouldn't burn your house down and things of 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:31.600 that nature. So this was all about saving effort, labor, yeah, yeah, 0:03:31.639 --> 0:03:34.480 and and it actually made a huge impact. We did 0:03:34.520 --> 0:03:38.520 a series of episodes on on washing machines and dryers 0:03:38.640 --> 0:03:40.840 in uh in text app Yeah, back when I was 0:03:40.840 --> 0:03:43.440 on the show, and it's it's pretty it's actually pretty 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:47.120 interesting stuff, right, and uh, really interesting to see. I 0:03:47.160 --> 0:03:50.360 mean there's a whole political, kind of controversial part of 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:53.240 the washing machine, for example, people who should have gotten 0:03:53.240 --> 0:03:57.200 credit and didn't. But there's also just the overall story 0:03:57.280 --> 0:04:00.520 of how can we create labor saving devices so that 0:04:00.560 --> 0:04:03.840 people can maximize their time and not spend it all 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:09.280 doing backbreaking labor that could be handled automatically. Um So 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:13.680 that was sort of the the germ of the idea, right, 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:16.360 But it wasn't until the nineteen sixties that we start 0:04:16.440 --> 0:04:19.480 seeing kind of a giant leap forward on this. Now 0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:22.280 we had seen technology start to take on more and 0:04:22.320 --> 0:04:26.279 more automated style roles. Like the original washing machines, you 0:04:26.320 --> 0:04:29.360 actually had to monitor them, you had to change them, 0:04:29.360 --> 0:04:32.200 turn them on and turn them off manually. They didn't 0:04:32.200 --> 0:04:35.000 have automatic shutoffs or timers or things like that that 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:37.560 developed throughout the decades. But the nineteen sixties we go 0:04:38.320 --> 0:04:41.880 kind of a a jump ahead, I would say, with 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:44.760 the Echo four, which was a home automation system. It 0:04:44.800 --> 0:04:48.960 was also known as the Electronic Computing Home Operator and 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:51.880 It was made out of surplus electronic parts and it 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:56.880 was housed in a tall walnut cabinet, and um it 0:04:56.960 --> 0:05:00.360 was I missed the days of putting electronic X in 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:03.640 wood case. Yeah yeah, kind of like the old televisions 0:05:03.680 --> 0:05:08.360 as well. Yeah. So well, this thing could supposedly handle finances, 0:05:08.400 --> 0:05:12.520 the home finances. It could compute shopping lists, so if 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:14.320 you said you wanted to make a certain thing and 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:16.800 you told it what ingredients you had, it could tell 0:05:16.839 --> 0:05:18.599 you which ones you were missing and therefore you need 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:21.240 to go and get them. Um. It could also control 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:24.200 the thermostatic, could predict the weather and even turn appliances 0:05:24.240 --> 0:05:27.160 on and off. It was designed by Jim Sutherland, who 0:05:27.200 --> 0:05:31.360 was an employee at Westinghouse, and he built it for himself. 0:05:31.800 --> 0:05:34.360 I gotta say, I'm skeptical about how good this thing 0:05:34.520 --> 0:05:37.480 was at those tasks you just list, well, you just listed, 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:40.400 and it never it was never put into any kind 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:44.120 of production, like this was literally his his home project. 0:05:44.240 --> 0:05:47.240 Probably telling right, didn't go into production. I mean also 0:05:47.320 --> 0:05:50.279 computer technology at the time being what it was, I'd 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:52.159 like to think of it as operating under the same 0:05:52.200 --> 0:05:55.599 sort of rules as the Pewee Herman Rube Goldberg device 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:58.200 at the beginning of Pewee's big adventure to feed his dog, 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:00.400 you know that kind of thing. Um. There is also, 0:06:00.720 --> 0:06:05.039 uh the Kitchen computer, which was another device that was 0:06:05.040 --> 0:06:07.000 meant to automate the home. This one came out the 0:06:07.080 --> 0:06:11.640 year after Echo four was sort of um displayed in 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:15.360 like a popular mechanics article. Uh So, this one came 0:06:15.400 --> 0:06:17.960 from Honeywell, and it could store recipes and tell you 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:19.839 what sort of meals you could cook based upon the 0:06:19.920 --> 0:06:22.360 ingredients you had available. So if you said, like, I've 0:06:22.360 --> 0:06:24.320 got these five ingredients, what can I make with this? 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:26.280 And it could give you a list of different recipes 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:30.520 to try. Uh, all of that convenience could be yours 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:33.080 for the low low price of ten thousand, six hundred 0:06:33.120 --> 0:06:37.320 dollars in nineteen mid nineteen sixties money. That's like the 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:41.080 cost of a couple of houses at that time. Yeah yeah, yeah, 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:43.560 but hey do you'd never have to worry about what 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:45.200 to make for dinner because you just tell it, like, 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:46.960 I got a bottle to catch up some Jolke cold 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:50.680 be nuts. What can I whip up here's a recipe 0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:55.240 for lasagna? Um So, by the nineteen eighties, home automation 0:06:55.320 --> 0:06:58.440 was becoming more of a reality, although in these cases 0:06:58.480 --> 0:07:00.760 it was a lot of contract or work. So if 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:03.520 you wanted to have a system put in, you had 0:07:03.520 --> 0:07:05.359 to go out hire a contractor. They would come in 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:08.320 and usually the various elements of your home automation would 0:07:08.320 --> 0:07:11.920 actually rely on infrared sensors and transmitters, so the same 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:15.280 sort of technology that most remote controls rely on today. 0:07:15.760 --> 0:07:17.800 You know, you may not realize this. When the nineteen 0:07:17.840 --> 0:07:21.080 seventies remote controls were mostly well, at least some were 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:25.720 using sonic signals. Yeah, where you would press a button 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:28.440 and I have a little piece of metal inside the 0:07:28.520 --> 0:07:30.880 remote control, and when it flexed, it would give off 0:07:31.160 --> 0:07:34.200 ultrasonic frequencies and the television would respond to it, which 0:07:34.240 --> 0:07:37.440 is why if you dropped your change and there was 0:07:37.480 --> 0:07:40.720 a hard floor, you could accidentally change the channel, or 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:43.240 if you played with a slinky near the TV, you 0:07:43.280 --> 0:07:46.920 could affect it. But eventually it was pretty cool. I 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:49.040 actually had one of those TVs when I was a kid, 0:07:49.400 --> 0:07:51.640 and I could I could have a slinky and play 0:07:51.680 --> 0:07:53.480 with it and things would happen on the TV. And 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:56.800 I thought, I guess I should be glad that Palter 0:07:56.880 --> 0:07:59.840 Guist had not come out yet. So at any rate, 0:08:00.160 --> 0:08:04.000 the the infrared sensor technology began to come down in price, 0:08:04.040 --> 0:08:06.400 and that meant we could incorporate in more and more stuff. 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:08.960 But this meant that you had a remote control to 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:12.280 handle things, right, It wasn't truly automated in the sense 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:14.720 that we think of today. It was just you were 0:08:14.960 --> 0:08:16.880 you had a step removed. You didn't have to go 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:19.600 and turn on a switch or plug something in. But 0:08:19.800 --> 0:08:22.080 uh it was also a niche market. It was pretty 0:08:22.080 --> 0:08:24.520 expensive because usually you had to have, like I said, 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:26.880 a contractor come in and install this stuff. It wasn't 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:30.080 plug and play. Uh, so it really limited the number 0:08:30.080 --> 0:08:32.160 of people who could actually do this. You know, I 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:35.440 kept on hearing about home automation. It was very much 0:08:35.480 --> 0:08:38.280 a bleeding edge adopter kind of thing at that point. 0:08:39.200 --> 0:08:42.440 So by the late ninety nineties as when we first 0:08:42.480 --> 0:08:46.600 started seeing appliances that could connect into a computer network, 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:49.520 not just have some sort of sensor on it that 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:52.520 would allow it to operate when you use a remote control, 0:08:52.640 --> 0:08:56.440 but something that could interact with a network through WiFi 0:08:56.600 --> 0:08:59.920 or a wired connection. So this is when the first 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:04.559 first start seeing things like networked refrigerators or networked washers 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:08.960 or network dryers. They weren't really that good. They didn't 0:09:08.960 --> 0:09:11.600 do a lot of things that would have necessitated them 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:14.400 to be connected. When they were first coming out, it 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:16.920 was really a novelty. I remember the first time I 0:09:16.960 --> 0:09:19.160 saw one. I looked at and I thought, oh, that's 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:24.240 really cool. Um, why would you do that? Like, what 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:28.400 what's the benefit? And like the benefits were pretty tenuous. 0:09:28.920 --> 0:09:31.720 You could you could right yourself a program and see 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:34.880 to control your washer. It was you know, it involved 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:37.839 a lot of like like refrigerators, the example I always 0:09:37.840 --> 0:09:39.880 think of it, It involved a lot of work on 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:42.320 the part of the consumer for it to have any 0:09:42.800 --> 0:09:48.160 meaningful impacts, things like logging the stuff that's going into 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:51.840 your refrigerator, so that way, when you're are at work 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:53.559 and you're thinking, oh, I would like to make such 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:55.600 and such, do I have all the things I need? 0:09:56.080 --> 0:09:57.520 But it would mean that you were the one who 0:09:57.520 --> 0:10:00.920 had to actually maintain essentially like a database inventory, which 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:03.520 does not sound appealing to me. That just seems like 0:10:03.559 --> 0:10:05.560 a different type of labor that I have to do. 0:10:06.240 --> 0:10:08.440 Why would that even be connected to the fridge. You 0:10:08.440 --> 0:10:11.560 could just keep a spreadsheet on your computer. Yeah, good, 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:14.640 good point. An excellent point. I mean, yeah, at the 0:10:14.679 --> 0:10:17.320 point that you're logging something in Excel anyway, Like you 0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:19.120 don't really need to have your fridge send you a 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:21.600 facts telling you to get more eggs, right, unless you're 0:10:21.640 --> 0:10:23.319 in back to the future too, in which case all 0:10:23.400 --> 0:10:27.200 communication is done to facts. Yeah, we've established that, done 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:31.000 by multiple duplicates. By the end of two thousand fifteen, 0:10:31.000 --> 0:10:34.080 your fridge will be facing you repeatedly throughout the day 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:36.400 and through all of your rooms in your house, all 0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:38.560 of which have their own facts, including your closets, including 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:43.640 your closets, um so all caps you've got food poisoning, 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:49.520 that explains the vomiting. So the the way the automation 0:10:49.520 --> 0:10:51.720 has changed a lot over the last couple of years 0:10:51.800 --> 0:10:55.199 is that again technology has continued to get less expensive. 0:10:55.240 --> 0:10:58.839 Like the basic sensors, the basic connectors that allow us 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:01.839 to network things together have all come come down in price, 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:04.760 which means that there are a lot more consumer level options, right. 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:07.560 And I think we're also just now getting to the 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:11.680 point where some of these applications might actually be useful, 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:14.840 Like they really do increase your convenience in certain cases. Right, 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:17.440 And we've got we've got a lot of development, not 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:19.640 just in the hardware side, but the software side, which 0:11:19.679 --> 0:11:21.640 is where a lot of that functionality is coming from. 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:24.679 It's not, you know, the the hardware is not demonstrably 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:27.560 that different from the earlier generations. It's not like a 0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:31.959 smart refrigerator is that different from a regular refrigerator. But 0:11:32.080 --> 0:11:34.600 the apps that are designed around it to allow you 0:11:34.679 --> 0:11:37.880 to leverage that technology have matured over the last couple 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:41.120 of years. And I think that's why smart home technology 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:43.199 is starting to hit it big because we are are 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:45.880 our user interface has improved to the point where now 0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:49.440 people can say, oh, I get it now, now it 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:52.560 makes sense. Yeah. I would say also that we have 0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:56.880 a lot of unrealized capacity now. I mean, we're at 0:11:56.920 --> 0:12:01.680 a stage technologically where you could have fridge that actually 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:05.880 could log everything you put in it without you having 0:12:05.960 --> 0:12:08.560 to intervene. But it would require stuff that we don't do, 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:10.880 like say putting r F I D tags on all 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:13.679 of our food products or something like that. You can 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:17.520 maybe have some sort of scanner essentially attach a scanner 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:19.800 to the to the front of the fridge that would 0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:23.200 read a UPC code or something. Right. Yeah, But so 0:12:23.240 --> 0:12:26.520 I'd say we are closer to sort of the fantasy 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:29.440 of the smart home than we were before, even if 0:12:30.280 --> 0:12:33.000 even if in a lot of cases it's not actually realized, 0:12:33.080 --> 0:12:36.480 we could do it now. Yeah, and there are several 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:38.760 examples I thought I would give. Actually I'm just going 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:42.120 to do three because obviously if if we wanted to, 0:12:42.200 --> 0:12:45.960 we could have an episode. Yeah, they're There are hundreds 0:12:46.000 --> 0:12:49.840 of products on the market that fall into home automation 0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:52.400 and smart home technology, but just to kind of give 0:12:52.440 --> 0:12:56.520 you a very brief broad overview of some of the options. 0:12:57.040 --> 0:12:59.720 One is sort of the plug and play approach, which 0:12:59.800 --> 0:13:03.160 is where instead of you going in and replacing a 0:13:03.240 --> 0:13:06.800 specific system like the lighting or the security of your home, 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:11.360 you have these these modules that essentially plug into wall sockets. 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:13.560 That's what where they get their power. They connect to 0:13:13.600 --> 0:13:17.600 your network and then you plug stuff into them and 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:21.000 that allows you to have remote access to the power 0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:24.240 that goes to that appliance. So Belkan has the we 0:13:24.400 --> 0:13:27.240 Mo switch plus Motion, which is a plug in play 0:13:27.280 --> 0:13:30.240 automation gadget that does exactly that. Right, You you plug 0:13:30.280 --> 0:13:32.640 this thing into the wall, you plug your up your 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:37.959 appliance into the sensor. You use a smartphone Apple to 0:13:38.440 --> 0:13:40.319 access it, so you can turn it on and off 0:13:40.320 --> 0:13:43.680 it will. Now clearly this only works if whatever gadget 0:13:43.720 --> 0:13:47.800 is plugged into the Wemo has a permanent on feature. Right, 0:13:48.160 --> 0:13:51.120 So if you are talking about something like a lamp, 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:53.000 that's very easy. You turn the lamp to the on 0:13:53.120 --> 0:13:56.920 position when you activate the Wemo, then the lamp is 0:13:56.920 --> 0:13:59.400 gonna come on. When you turn it off remotely, the 0:13:59.480 --> 0:14:03.600 lamp goes off. Other devices obviously they have more input 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:05.600 than that. You know, you need to do something more 0:14:05.640 --> 0:14:08.440 than just turn it on, and this will not help 0:14:08.480 --> 0:14:10.680 you with that. So if you plug your toaster into 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:13.280 one of these things, it's not gonna push the lever 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:16.559 down so that you get toast. It'll it'll provide power 0:14:16.600 --> 0:14:21.120 to it, but it won't it won't actually activate the 0:14:21.160 --> 0:14:25.920 toaster toaster oven. Yeah, I was just thinking, probably don't 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:29.240 want to remotely activate that when you're when you're not home, 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:32.520 but I'm going to but maybe croc pot, you know 0:14:32.920 --> 0:14:34.720 something like that, where you're like, oh, I just want 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:37.120 to have this thing's gonna take four hours to cook, 0:14:37.520 --> 0:14:39.120 It's gonna be on a certain level of heat that 0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:41.080 I feel comfortable with. I don't want to have to 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:42.880 come home to start it. I don't want it to 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:45.920 just be on warm for all day. So at some 0:14:45.960 --> 0:14:47.360 point in the day I'm going to go onto my 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:51.440 smartphone app and turn my crock pot on. Now I'm hungry. Thanks, 0:14:51.760 --> 0:14:55.920 thanks Internet. Um. Another example is the nest thermostat, the 0:14:56.040 --> 0:14:59.160 learning thermostat. And we've talked about this on I think 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:01.000 we've talked about four we're thinking. I know I've talked 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:05.360 about on tech stuff. UM. This is the thermostat that 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:07.840 came from a couple of engineers who used to work 0:15:07.840 --> 0:15:12.280 at Apple, and then they developed this smart thermostat UH. 0:15:12.640 --> 0:15:17.560 The place for birds to live, a smart thermostat and 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:22.240 home for birds, right, That's why it's called nests. In 0:15:22.280 --> 0:15:24.680 this case, the the nest is is your is your 0:15:24.720 --> 0:15:27.520 little nest at home, and you want you want your 0:15:27.520 --> 0:15:30.560 nest to be comfy. So the thermostat has a lot 0:15:30.600 --> 0:15:34.080 of features that are very easy to explain to people, 0:15:34.120 --> 0:15:36.760 like the fact that you can remotely change the temperature 0:15:36.800 --> 0:15:39.000 on your thermostat no matter where you happen to be 0:15:39.200 --> 0:15:42.560 used the app, you connect to the internet, you change it. 0:15:42.800 --> 0:15:46.040 Your your nest is UH is hooked into your home 0:15:46.440 --> 0:15:50.440 WiFi system. It gets the command changes it in that 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:53.520 way your your house will the climate control will kick in, 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:57.480 whether it's heat or air conditioning or whatever. So this 0:15:57.600 --> 0:16:00.320 is useful obviously if you want to be able to 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:04.640 adjust the temperature to maximize your eco friendliness and not 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:08.360 run it when no one's home. But the thing is 0:16:08.560 --> 0:16:11.800 the Nest also has a microprocessor and an algorithm that 0:16:11.800 --> 0:16:15.600 allows it to learn your behaviors and do this on 0:16:15.640 --> 0:16:17.560 its own, so that you don't have to send it 0:16:17.600 --> 0:16:20.840 the commands. Right, You don't have to say, all right, 0:16:20.840 --> 0:16:23.240 I'm at the office now, let's turn the heat off, 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:26.240 or I'm coming home, turn on the air conditioning because 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:28.160 it's really hot outside. So that way when I get 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:30.200 home in half an hour, it'll be nice and cool 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:33.120 in my house. The Nest, their amstetics itself starts to 0:16:33.200 --> 0:16:36.800 learn what your routine is and anticipates it ahead of 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:39.920 time and and makes those changes for you, which is 0:16:39.920 --> 0:16:41.880 pretty awesome. And that's really where we're getting at with 0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:44.400 the smart It's not just the connectivity, but the fact 0:16:44.480 --> 0:16:48.000 that it can start to anticipate what you want. Then 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:50.880 we have the Phillips Hugh light bulbs. Have you guys 0:16:50.960 --> 0:16:56.960 seen these? I love thee I almost bought some they're 0:16:56.960 --> 0:17:00.000 a little more dim than I would prefer. I would 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:02.560 them to be a bit brighter. But they are beautiful 0:17:02.640 --> 0:17:05.000 and they can change different colors. They have led in them. 0:17:05.600 --> 0:17:07.760 You can use a smartphone app to adjust it, so 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:10.000 you can change like whatever you like if you want, Hey, 0:17:10.200 --> 0:17:12.640 you know what, my living room is gonna have neon 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:14.960 green light for tonight. I could do that, or I 0:17:15.000 --> 0:17:17.919 can be like, let's go purple. Could do that. But 0:17:18.040 --> 0:17:21.720 on top of that, there's the smartphone. Have you seen 0:17:21.720 --> 0:17:25.879 the smartphone app Lauren? Okay, they have a smartphone app 0:17:25.920 --> 0:17:29.399 where it listens to the TV shows you watch, and 0:17:29.480 --> 0:17:32.080 for certain TV shows, depending upon what's going on on 0:17:32.119 --> 0:17:34.640 the screen, it will match the lighting in your room 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:38.320 to match the mood on screen. It gives you TV 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:42.920 mood lighting. Yeah, exactly. So like the detectives are going 0:17:42.960 --> 0:17:46.720 into a dark room, your lights come down, the there's 0:17:46.840 --> 0:17:50.680 there's like a photographer flashing pictures. Your your lights are 0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:55.720 flashing in sync with the TV program. I don't think 0:17:55.760 --> 0:18:00.240 I want That sounds horrible, but I'd give it try. 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:03.280 I wanted, I mean, I'm interested. I wanted to all 0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:06.000 my all my rooms, and I want speakers going to 0:18:06.080 --> 0:18:08.680 all my rooms, and I want the app and all 0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:12.000 my rooms so that my house is just constantly flashing, 0:18:12.080 --> 0:18:14.400 like and I want to just watch the omen over 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:18.720 and over. That's all I want. Oh yeah, I wonder 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:21.360 if it responds to the sound of lightning strikes. It's 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:24.240 it's the way it was designed. I can't remember which 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:27.800 shows in particular it's it's matched up to. It's only 0:18:27.840 --> 0:18:31.280 a couple, but it because obviously, you know, in order 0:18:31.320 --> 0:18:34.159 to pull this off, you already have to know what 0:18:34.400 --> 0:18:37.720 happens in the show to match the lighting. Yeah, it's 0:18:37.760 --> 0:18:40.240 it's not a sound cue that it's that it's listening for. 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:44.120 It's a it's a digital programmed sound que I'm sure, 0:18:44.520 --> 0:18:47.080 just waiting waiting for Homer to say, sure is dark 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:48.880 in here, and then like all the lights come off, 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:51.040 go off, and you're like, huh. If I could just 0:18:51.040 --> 0:18:53.400 do a really good Homer voice, I could freak people out. 0:18:53.720 --> 0:18:56.159 So yeah, but that's just that's just three products on 0:18:56.200 --> 0:18:59.440 the market. There are so many of the dozens and dozens, 0:18:59.480 --> 0:19:02.240 and they cover everything, right, they're covering you know. I 0:19:02.280 --> 0:19:04.840 just talked about some very simple systems, but things like 0:19:04.920 --> 0:19:07.920 you could you could have smart locks on your doors, 0:19:08.119 --> 0:19:11.240 so that you could use a code or a Bluetooth 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:16.240 device where your luck um unlocks automatically when that device 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:19.320 gets within range. Or you could have security system like 0:19:19.400 --> 0:19:22.560 video surveillance that that's a very popular one that you 0:19:22.600 --> 0:19:24.840 could have as part of your smart home. I'd imagine 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:27.040 a very good application of something like a smart lock 0:19:27.119 --> 0:19:29.520 would be being able to let somebody into your house 0:19:29.600 --> 0:19:33.640 remotely you being there. Yeah, there are quite a few 0:19:33.720 --> 0:19:36.159 versions I've seen. Some of them allow for you to 0:19:36.359 --> 0:19:39.600 give a a like a four digit code to somebody 0:19:39.640 --> 0:19:43.040 that only works within a span of time. So let's 0:19:43.040 --> 0:19:47.280 say there's yeah, exactly. So like you have a dog walker. 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:49.600 Let's say and the dog walker says, okay, I'm gonna 0:19:49.600 --> 0:19:52.600 be at your place between twelve and two. You could say, 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:54.360 all right, I'm gonna be safe. I'm gonna go from 0:19:54.359 --> 0:19:57.639 eleven thirty to two thirty. This pen will give you 0:19:57.680 --> 0:20:00.480 access to my house, and then after two thirty it 0:20:00.520 --> 0:20:03.680 no longer works, and before eleven thirty it doesn't work. Uh, 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:06.320 that sort of thing. In other cases, you could just 0:20:06.560 --> 0:20:09.199 do it remotely yourself, so that they could call you 0:20:09.240 --> 0:20:11.520 when they get to your doorstep and and yeah, and 0:20:11.560 --> 0:20:13.800 you could just press the like unlock that door button 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:16.399 on your phone and let them in. And even at 0:20:16.440 --> 0:20:18.280 the at ces we even saw one that was a 0:20:18.320 --> 0:20:22.600 doggie door, a smart home doggie door where you could 0:20:22.640 --> 0:20:25.080 you could allow the doggie door to swing free so 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:27.000 the dog can go outside. When the dog comes back in, 0:20:27.080 --> 0:20:29.520 you can lock it in place again. And you know 0:20:29.880 --> 0:20:33.760 that sort of stuff, which I thought was kind of neat. Yeah, so, uh, 0:20:34.400 --> 0:20:36.760 you can see where the convenience comes in. You can 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:40.320 see where some of the benefits are to kind of 0:20:41.440 --> 0:20:45.120 segue into benefits. That remote access is a big one obviously, right, 0:20:45.359 --> 0:20:47.880 the ability to control the systems of your house wherever 0:20:47.960 --> 0:20:51.320 you happen to be. That could be for lots of reasons. 0:20:51.359 --> 0:20:53.840 It could be that, again, you're trying to save money, 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:55.880 so you don't want to spend you know, you don't 0:20:55.880 --> 0:20:58.520 want to you don't want to be consuming electricity when 0:20:58.600 --> 0:21:01.240 you don't need it. Um, it could be that you're 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:03.800 doing it for security. So you might be going out 0:21:03.800 --> 0:21:05.639 of town for a few days, but you want your 0:21:05.720 --> 0:21:07.800 lights to come on as if someone's home so that 0:21:07.840 --> 0:21:09.760 you don't give the indication that hey, there's an empty 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:12.920 house here. That kind of stuff, UM, A lot of 0:21:12.960 --> 0:21:15.800 different reasons why you would want to remote access and 0:21:16.280 --> 0:21:20.840