Speaker 1: Welcome to tex Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with iHeart Radio and
Speaker 1: I love all things tech, and today it is time
Speaker 1: for a classic episode of tech Stuff. This episode originally
Speaker 1: published way back on January twenty second, two thousand and fourteen.
Speaker 1: It is titled text Stuff builds a Nest Enjoy. So
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk today about the Nest Labs company and
Speaker 1: UH and the products they make. And I, like Lauren
Speaker 1: was saying, Google has made a really incredible move in
Speaker 1: offering to purchase Nest for a what some might call
Speaker 1: a ridiculous sum of money. I think that three point
Speaker 1: two billion accounts as pretty ridiculous. I mean, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a company that makes two things so far, yes,
Speaker 1: and it's only existed since so and they've only been
Speaker 1: having stuff that they could sell since So anyway, let's
Speaker 1: let's talk about this. If you had told me ten
Speaker 1: years ago that I'd be sitting down and talking into
Speaker 1: a microphone to record a show about a company that's
Speaker 1: big product is a thermostat first, I would say who
Speaker 1: are you and why are you? In this consulting firm
Speaker 1: because that's where I was ten years ago. But moreover,
Speaker 1: I just said no, I wouldn't. Who who would want
Speaker 1: to listen to that? Well, okay, there has been a
Speaker 1: lot of buzz about Nest over the past couple of
Speaker 1: years that it has existed because they make these these
Speaker 1: smart devices, smart thermostats and smart smoke detector carbon monoxide exactly, um.
Speaker 1: And and you know, with the Internet of Things becoming
Speaker 1: more of a real thing, people have been excited about.
Speaker 1: This is one of the leading companies that's creating the
Speaker 1: kind of hardware that you can use to to make
Speaker 1: your home and Internet of things. Yeah, and also the
Speaker 1: design aesthetic right, gorgeous it is and and and it
Speaker 1: works with your smartphone and that's all terrific. And I
Speaker 1: did want to mention that for the record, thermostats are
Speaker 1: kind of a big business. There's some ten million sold
Speaker 1: in the US every year, and they control some half
Speaker 1: of the energy used in US homes, right, so this
Speaker 1: is not insignificant. Yeah, if you talk, if you look
Speaker 1: at your energy bill and you divide it by two,
Speaker 1: that amount of money is going straight to your system. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So if you are able to make an impact on that.
Speaker 1: It will reflect in the amount of money you have
Speaker 1: to spend on energy bills, particularly if you live in
Speaker 1: a place where you have a fairly extreme climate, so
Speaker 1: that you're HVA system has to work extra hard to
Speaker 1: make sure your living space is a comfortable one. And uh.
Speaker 1: And in fact, what this all comes back to a
Speaker 1: guy named Tony Fidel, who once upon a time worked
Speaker 1: for a little company called Apple. Yeah, by work, do
Speaker 1: we mean it? He kind of led the iPod and
Speaker 1: kind of that the iPhone teams for a while, for
Speaker 1: multiple generations for iPod and I think three generations of
Speaker 1: iPhone he was overseeing that. He was senior vice president
Speaker 1: of those departments. And uh. And so yeah, we're talking
Speaker 1: about someone who definitely knew about designing for a particular aesthetic, uh,
Speaker 1: and to create something that is attractive for consumers. Because
Speaker 1: it's easy for us to forget this and I know
Speaker 1: we say it on tech stuff all the time, so
Speaker 1: maybe it's not easy for you to forget because we
Speaker 1: say it so frequently. But before the iPod, you know,
Speaker 1: MP three players existed, there were, but no one had
Speaker 1: really designed one that really cut the public's attention like
Speaker 1: there were there was no one that was a dominant
Speaker 1: player at the time, and then the iPods design really
Speaker 1: started to kind of dominate to the point where you
Speaker 1: started seeing other companies designs look more iPod ish. Not
Speaker 1: to Ryan Stirrup any patent, you know, wars again, but
Speaker 1: but people realized that. I mean, previous to that, I
Speaker 1: think that most MP three players looked like they were functional, Yeah,
Speaker 1: like bricks. I had one. I mean I had one
Speaker 1: that I loved because it was probably about the price
Speaker 1: of an iPod, but it had twice the capacity. But
Speaker 1: it looked like a brick and it felt like one too.
Speaker 1: It was heavy. But the uh, you know, and the
Speaker 1: iPhone another great example. We've talked about that before too,
Speaker 1: about how in the United States smartphones were pretty much
Speaker 1: the realm of executives, right like BlackBerry was king in
Speaker 1: the US. Now in Europe and in Japan that was
Speaker 1: a different story, but not here in the US. It
Speaker 1: wasn't until the iPhone came out that you started seeing
Speaker 1: the consumer market move toward it. So this is a
Speaker 1: guy who was right there on the forefront. He knew
Speaker 1: a thing or two about, you know, making sure you
Speaker 1: had an attractive product. But that's not exactly what got
Speaker 1: him excited about this. First of all, he retired. He
Speaker 1: retired in two thousand eight from Bowl. He was he
Speaker 1: was like, okay, I have made my mark. I I
Speaker 1: have helped bring to really influential products to the market.
Speaker 1: I may rest, but apparently things just weren't always you know,
Speaker 1: the most comfortable temperature at the Fidel house. Maybe he
Speaker 1: just got up to change the thermostat one too many times,
Speaker 1: and he started thinking about this fact, the fact that
Speaker 1: half of your energy is spent controlling the climate of
Speaker 1: your home, and that, according to at least some study
Speaker 1: that he was aware of, because it's in a blog
Speaker 1: post on the Nest web page, that the average person
Speaker 1: adjusts his or her thermostat hundred times a year, and
Speaker 1: so and and and Furthermore, he was, you know, he
Speaker 1: was trying to update his home to he he was like,
Speaker 1: we've got these gorgeous products for our music and for communication.
Speaker 1: Why can't we have that kind of thing for everything?
Speaker 1: Why does why does this control for my climate? Where
Speaker 1: apparently I'm getting up to do it multiple times a day,
Speaker 1: Because if it's times a year, that's you know, that's
Speaker 1: a bunch. Why is it so boxy and ugly, and
Speaker 1: because the almost thermostats not really aesthetically pleasing, they're they're functional, right,
Speaker 1: So that's why Yeah. Yeah, According to another guy that
Speaker 1: we're going to be talking about in just a couple
Speaker 1: of seconds, the design, the basic design on thermostats has
Speaker 1: not really changed since the nineties. Yeah. You either have
Speaker 1: the digital kind or you have the old kind that
Speaker 1: has sort of a coiled thermometer in it. If you
Speaker 1: want to know more, you can actually go back. We
Speaker 1: did a tech Stuff episode about how thermostats work back
Speaker 1: in the day where we talk about the actual the
Speaker 1: actual mechanics of a thermostat, both the I think we
Speaker 1: mainly focused on the old, the old mercury switch kind,
Speaker 1: but there are various other types as well. Um. And
Speaker 1: another thing that Fiddel was thinking about was the fact
Speaker 1: that he, you know, we we live in the incredible future.
Speaker 1: Why can't I control my thermostat from my smart phone? Right?
Speaker 1: And and and there were some products out there that
Speaker 1: would let you do that, but they cost like five
Speaker 1: dollars a unit, right, And you had to you know,
Speaker 1: you you essentially had to go to some sort of
Speaker 1: home automation specialist and then have that installed forum then
Speaker 1: why are why are these things in for you? It
Speaker 1: wasn't like something where you could go to a warehouse
Speaker 1: in or or is some major store Hony People or
Speaker 1: Lows or something like that and say show me where
Speaker 1: the automated or the remote thermostats are, because it was
Speaker 1: all packages that you had to go through contractors to get,
Speaker 1: so not the not the most accessible, certainly. And he
Speaker 1: also realized that we were getting to a point as
Speaker 1: far as computer software is concerned, where you could create
Speaker 1: very sophisticated algorithms that could have quote unquote learning behavior right,
Speaker 1: they could start to recognize patterns and then respond to
Speaker 1: those patterns in a predetermined way. So the big example
Speaker 1: that we would have with nest is that if no
Speaker 1: one's in the house, there's no need to have the
Speaker 1: heat cranked up or the a C cranked up to
Speaker 1: keep the house at the regular comfortable temperature. And if
Speaker 1: you know when people are coming home, all right, if
Speaker 1: it notices that you come home at six thirty every night,
Speaker 1: then it can start working the house towards that temperature
Speaker 1: whenever it needs to in order to have it ready
Speaker 1: for you to get home. Yeah, so when you walk
Speaker 1: through the door. It feels as if your house has
Speaker 1: stayed that temperature all day long, whereas the reality is
Speaker 1: between the hours of whatever and whatever, it was not
Speaker 1: you know, either the system wasn't working at all, or
Speaker 1: it wasn't working nearly at full capacity, it was working
Speaker 1: enough so that it wouldn't take too much work to Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't want to. I mean, obviously you don't want
Speaker 1: to shut everything down. Like if it's if it's the
Speaker 1: the what was what do they call it the polar vortex?
Speaker 1: When uh, it was when I was at ce S,
Speaker 1: so I missed it. I wasn't here in Atlanta, and
Speaker 1: that's what they called it. Nine degrees here. There's some
Speaker 1: kind of science about it that I think that we
Speaker 1: have actually written and stuff about on how stuff works
Speaker 1: at this point, but I have no idea. I just
Speaker 1: saw tweets that said polar vort text. I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is it the day after
Speaker 1: tomorrow back in Atlanta, I don't know nine degrees it
Speaker 1: was basically yeah, in that case, you wouldn't want the
Speaker 1: house to get all the way down to you know,
Speaker 1: below freezing obviously not. But but at the same time,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't want it to be at you know, seventy
Speaker 1: five degrees because you'd be using a lot of energy
Speaker 1: while you're not actually there. So it needed he solve
Speaker 1: the problem. It was an engineering problem. You had to
Speaker 1: build a device that could monitor the temperature, keep it
Speaker 1: within a certain range, and then be flexible enough so
Speaker 1: that that range changes based upon the parameters that are present.
Speaker 1: And also if you happen to like it warm in
Speaker 1: the morning but cold at night, then if you had
Speaker 1: a thermostat that could learn these patterns, it could start
Speaker 1: to anticipate it and change them for you proactively, so
Speaker 1: you don't have to be the one to go up
Speaker 1: there and say like, oh, you know, I like it
Speaker 1: cold when I go to bed, but when I wake up,
Speaker 1: it's it's my body temperature so low. I need to
Speaker 1: get my temperature up. I needed to be warmer. So
Speaker 1: this was a great opportunity he saw. So he ended
Speaker 1: up contacting a couple of other folks and working on
Speaker 1: an idea for a learning thermostat. Yeah, and these were
Speaker 1: mostly other ex Apple folks or perhaps folks that were
Speaker 1: maybe at the time still working for Apple. Exactly the
Speaker 1: date lines of these there's certainly ex Apple folks now yes, um,
Speaker 1: and and one of them, Mr Matt Rogers, he would
Speaker 1: wind up co founding this company, Nest with yep. So
Speaker 1: twenty ten is when Nest Labs officially forms May specifically,
Speaker 1: and they their strategy was to be kind of quiet
Speaker 1: about what they were doing. They didn't talk about their products,
Speaker 1: I didn't talk about their lines of research really, and
Speaker 1: so it kind of took the world by surprise when
Speaker 1: in October of twenty eleven, Fidel essentially announces, Hey, here's
Speaker 1: this thing we've been working on. Is this little, round,
Speaker 1: gorgeous looking device. It's actually a thermostat and it's smart
Speaker 1: and it can connect to WiFi and you can adjust
Speaker 1: it with your phone and it learns what you like.
Speaker 1: And people were just thinking, you are saying too many things,
Speaker 1: Mr man, I don't know what you're what's going on.
Speaker 1: I think that they owe so much of their um
Speaker 1: just general corporate feel from Apple. Uh. You know. Matt
Speaker 1: Rogers strikes me as kind of an Apple fanboy who
Speaker 1: who became eventually one of the iPod software developers there. Um.
Speaker 1: But he has said that his first computer, when he
Speaker 1: was like three years old, was a Macintosh Plus and that, um,
Speaker 1: a lot of the you know, design, sensibility and just
Speaker 1: just concepts of how to run a business are definitely
Speaker 1: deeply owed to Apple in general and Steve Jobs very
Speaker 1: particularly sure, and you can certainly see elements of that
Speaker 1: when you look at both the company and its products.
Speaker 1: So Fidel wrote a blog post that when up on
Speaker 1: the Nest website October and kind of explained why a
Speaker 1: thermostat because that was you know that you had two
Speaker 1: big reactions from people when this was first announced. People
Speaker 1: would say, uh huh, like what, what's what's your game?
Speaker 1: Why would you even do this? And the other were
Speaker 1: like where when and where can I buy one of these?
Speaker 1: Because it looks beautiful? And I mean, I remember when
Speaker 1: this came out because I remember, you know, I was
Speaker 1: a big fan of shows like c Nets Buzz Out Loud,
Speaker 1: and I remember people like Tom Merritt and Molly would going, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of bonkers over this thing. They were
Speaker 1: they were like this, yeah, and at the same time
Speaker 1: when I started looking into it and my gosh, I
Speaker 1: kind of want one of those two. Well, he in
Speaker 1: that blog post laid out what it was they wanted.
Speaker 1: The thermostat to be able to do. He said he
Speaker 1: wanted to design the thermostat to learn your preferred temperature
Speaker 1: and schedule since when you left the house or when
Speaker 1: you came home, to give you tips and feedback on
Speaker 1: your energy use. To be able to connect to WiFi
Speaker 1: so you can control it from anywhere, for it to
Speaker 1: look beautiful, and for you to feel proud to actually
Speaker 1: be an owner of it, which it's very Steve jobs
Speaker 1: ish kind of thing, right right, and also to have
Speaker 1: a positive impact on the world. And you know, I
Speaker 1: honestly think based upon the work that this company has done,
Speaker 1: they're being they're being sincere about that. It's not that
Speaker 1: you know, it's obviously it's a business, but it's not
Speaker 1: something where I don't think that's just lip service, like
Speaker 1: let's make the world a better place. I haven't heard
Speaker 1: any numbers from outside sources, but according to the company
Speaker 1: UM as of as of only February, they had already
Speaker 1: helped energy efficiency to the tune of saving like two
Speaker 1: million kill a lot hours of energy. So I'm like
Speaker 1: twenty nine million dollars worth and in US, yeah, convergion,
Speaker 1: so you're saving money and you're also by by taking
Speaker 1: down some of that demand, we don't have to produce
Speaker 1: as much energy and we're not wasting it on on
Speaker 1: heating an empty house, or we're not burned, we're not
Speaker 1: burning even more coal or or using up more natural
Speaker 1: gas or whatever it happens to be that has provided
Speaker 1: the heat and or a c for those homes. And um,
Speaker 1: it's interesting. They started taking pre orders for the Nest thermostat,
Speaker 1: and I think that was at a price point of two,
Speaker 1: which I believe is what still is today. Two, So
Speaker 1: you know, not a small amount of money for something
Speaker 1: like that, but still cheaper than any I mean by half,
Speaker 1: cheaper than any relatively similar products in the market. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and also it would ultimately save you money, assuming that
Speaker 1: you're using it properly. So at any rate, pre orders
Speaker 1: pre orders within three days of of them talking about this,
Speaker 1: that within that blog post going up, they had sold
Speaker 1: out of all of their stock that they had planned
Speaker 1: on producing in the short term. So after three days
Speaker 1: of the store being opened, they shut it. They closed
Speaker 1: the store after three days with the explanation of guys,
Speaker 1: this had way more of a demand than we had anticipated.
Speaker 1: We knew that we had something potentially big on our hands.
Speaker 1: We didn't know that all of you would agree with us.
Speaker 1: And so they closed the store and they started working
Speaker 1: very hard on meeting the demands of the initial pre
Speaker 1: orders as well as figuring out how were they going
Speaker 1: to meet the expanded demand. And it wouldn't be until
Speaker 1: uh later in UH I think it was March two
Speaker 1: thousand and twelve. So they shut the store down November
Speaker 1: two thleven. It's not until March two thousand twelve that
Speaker 1: they're able to open the store back up again. I'm
Speaker 1: sure that most of that time was devoted to um
Speaker 1: to investment related issues and sure and maybe like uh
Speaker 1: streamlining manufacturing process and he's getting the supply chain in order,
Speaker 1: you know, lots of stuff that the background stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's not terribly exciting to talk about. It's pretty important.
Speaker 1: It turns out that that's a big deal. We'll be
Speaker 1: back with more about tech stuff explaining how Nest works
Speaker 1: after this quick break. So, starting in May two twelve,
Speaker 1: the Nest Thermostat became available in other places besides their
Speaker 1: online store. You could get it at Lowe's Hardware stores.
Speaker 1: By June, you can get it on Amazon. By a
Speaker 1: little bit later in the year. I think of by
Speaker 1: October that year you could get it best Buy. You
Speaker 1: can't even get it at the Apple online store. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you know, that's obviously the relation. And I don't know,
Speaker 1: I'll be right now, I don't know if that's going
Speaker 1: to be be the same now that Google has is
Speaker 1: acquiring Nest. Yeah, that's a con question. They have affirmed
Speaker 1: that they are going to um continue supporting I I
Speaker 1: O S product exactly. Yeah. It's not gonna be like
Speaker 1: suddenly your iPhone is unable to adjust the temperature of
Speaker 1: your home, right that would be that would be a
Speaker 1: pretty ridiculously poor business decision. And I think I think
Speaker 1: the Google and Apple have both learned their lesson on
Speaker 1: that kind of I mean, you even had for a while,
Speaker 1: you had one person, like you had the CEO of
Speaker 1: Google sitting on the board of directors of Apple for
Speaker 1: a while, that was Eric Schmidt. That that didn't last forever.
Speaker 1: He did a step down for the board of directors eventually.
Speaker 1: But the relationship between Google and Apple is not always contentious,
Speaker 1: even though they are direct competitors, at least in the
Speaker 1: mobile space and arguably in the computer space. But I
Speaker 1: don't think chromebooks are really that big of a competitor
Speaker 1: against at any rate. Yeah, at any rate. Getting back
Speaker 1: to Nest, So by October, remember this is just one year,
Speaker 1: not even a full year since they had announced it,
Speaker 1: because they they announced it late in October two eleven.
Speaker 1: But in October twelve, the second generation of Nest Thermostat
Speaker 1: debuted and um, this one was you know, a little
Speaker 1: sexy er, even it was thinner. So they were able
Speaker 1: to miniaturize some of the components make it even more compact,
Speaker 1: which is kind of astounding because they even increased the
Speaker 1: capabilities of the second generation. So the first generation worked
Speaker 1: with oh, I don't know, it was something like fIF
Speaker 1: HVAC systems out there, and you had to check to
Speaker 1: make sure before you know, they stressed check to make
Speaker 1: sure that the one that you have, the system you
Speaker 1: have is uh is compatible with the system UH. Well,
Speaker 1: they were able to open that up to a much
Speaker 1: larger percentage of the market. They also were able to
Speaker 1: create a device that could work with uh H VAC
Speaker 1: systems that had two different capacities for cooling down your house,
Speaker 1: so some of them would work at a percent sometime
Speaker 1: and then knock it down to for just maintaining a temperature,
Speaker 1: or if it didn't need to, like if you're getting
Speaker 1: starting to approach the temperature, then they might might power
Speaker 1: down a little bit, but not turn all the way off. Well,
Speaker 1: those systems have two dedicated wires for that. There's one
Speaker 1: dedicated for there's one decadent, and the original Nest did
Speaker 1: not have the capability. Yeah, you couldn't. It didn't have
Speaker 1: a place to plug both of those in the second
Speaker 1: Nest did, so you could do that. It also works
Speaker 1: with multi stage heating systems. That works with systems that
Speaker 1: have humidifiers or de humidifiers, and and across all energy modes.
Speaker 1: I mean if you've got gas or propane or electricity
Speaker 1: or etcetera. Yeah, So, so it definitely opened up the
Speaker 1: market a lot wider than the initial Nest did. And
Speaker 1: again it was smaller too, so um or at least
Speaker 1: it was thinner, it didn't project out as far from
Speaker 1: the wall. So yeah. They say that three out of
Speaker 1: four of their Nest customers opt to install it themselves
Speaker 1: and that it can be installed within thirty minutes. They
Speaker 1: also have the Nest Concierge service, so if you feel
Speaker 1: like you are one of those one of who would
Speaker 1: likely electrocute him or herself were you to attempt to
Speaker 1: install it, such as, I don't know yours truly, uh,
Speaker 1: not that I haven't nest, but if I did, I
Speaker 1: would totally. I'm tech savvy, which means I also know
Speaker 1: it can kill me. Um. But yeah, you can actually
Speaker 1: opt for an additional fee to have someone come out
Speaker 1: and help you. So then made two thousand thirteen, Nest
Speaker 1: made its first acquisition. It was a company called my Energy,
Speaker 1: which specifically builds products that let users track energy usage
Speaker 1: and savings. So the idea is by getting some more
Speaker 1: analytic data and some more collective uh products, they can
Speaker 1: make the Nest even more effective and make products further
Speaker 1: down the line that are able to incorporate some of
Speaker 1: this analysis so that you get an even more granular
Speaker 1: idea of what's going on and how you can save energy. Now,
Speaker 1: as we've seen in the past, there's a huge market
Speaker 1: for stuff that collects data and then analyzes it and
Speaker 1: presents it to you in an understandable way. Oh sure,
Speaker 1: and and basically any time that you allow these days, um,
Speaker 1: you know, nerds, which are most of us. Let's be
Speaker 1: honest and um to to min max their surroundings. You're
Speaker 1: going to yeah, fitness trackers perfect example, right, being able
Speaker 1: to sit there and say, like, now I'm able to
Speaker 1: attract every single calorie that I intake and burn. I
Speaker 1: don't mean to make you check your force while you're
Speaker 1: doing that, but it's a little bit over a thousand today,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna work out. Okay, that's good. So yeah, I don't.
Speaker 1: I'm not wearing any of my accouchramal today, not even
Speaker 1: my pebble. I feel a little lost without it, to
Speaker 1: be honest. But anyway, so clearly there's a market there,
Speaker 1: so it makes sense to bring that in and incorporate
Speaker 1: that in the Nest family. But then, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we get over. Towards the end of two thirteen, they
Speaker 1: also introduced a brand new product, and that's the Nest Protect.
Speaker 1: That's their smoke detector and carbon monoxide detector. Now, this
Speaker 1: was obviously a departure and some people again we're thinking,
Speaker 1: why why would you would I need one of those
Speaker 1: to be smart? Doesn't the thing on the ceiling that
Speaker 1: beeps do just as well. But this one, again is
Speaker 1: WiFi enabled. It can can neck to an app so
Speaker 1: that that way you can get an alert on your
Speaker 1: phone if your smoke detector goes off, which obviously could
Speaker 1: be you know that could be monumentally important. Oh sure,
Speaker 1: sure it can. It will wirelessly connect to other smoke
Speaker 1: detectors in your house, so that if, for example, there's
Speaker 1: a fire in the kitchen, then all of them when
Speaker 1: they go off, can say, hey, there's a fire in
Speaker 1: the kitchen. Right, it can specifically tell you where the
Speaker 1: alarm was triggered. A lot of smoke detector systems are
Speaker 1: wired together so that if one alarm is triggered trip
Speaker 1: they all they all beat, but they don't tell you
Speaker 1: which one it was that was set off. Right, So
Speaker 1: you have the information that you need in order to
Speaker 1: get out, but you might not have the information you
Speaker 1: need to maybe to get out very safely, or or
Speaker 1: to or to actually diffuse a situation before it gets
Speaker 1: you know, unmanageable, because it may be that there's something
Speaker 1: smoking that you can actually take care of and minimize
Speaker 1: the damage. But if you don't know where in the
Speaker 1: house that's singing place, obviously the most important thing for
Speaker 1: you to do is to get out safely, right clearly.
Speaker 1: So this would give you more information about that, and also,
Speaker 1: of course the carbon monoxide monitor, which is also very important. UM.
Speaker 1: It also will work wirelessly with Nest thermostats, so if
Speaker 1: the carbon monoxide A sensor picks up a concentration, it'll
Speaker 1: send a message to the Nest thermostat to say, hey,
Speaker 1: shut off the furnace because we have a leak somewhere
Speaker 1: or something's going on. Yeah, yeah, I really need stuff.
Speaker 1: And um these are less expensive than the Nest thermostats.
Speaker 1: The thermostats are two fifty. The smoke detectors are about
Speaker 1: I think one thirty to one fifty. As I recall,
Speaker 1: I didn't write it down in front of me, but
Speaker 1: I know it's right in that range because I was
Speaker 1: actually looking at it to um possibly replace my smoke detectors.
Speaker 1: But if I do that, I will have to buy
Speaker 1: five of them because I have five smoke detectors in
Speaker 1: my house. Anyone who follows me on Twitter saw that
Speaker 1: that terrible day when I got home and one of
Speaker 1: them was chirping, and the way my house is laid out,
Speaker 1: I could not tell which one it was, so I
Speaker 1: had to go out and get new batteries for all
Speaker 1: of my smoke detectors, but you should do anyway, but well, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but this would actually tell me what's going on. Also,
Speaker 1: it's designed to be very uh, very careful with power
Speaker 1: consumption and and the and it even says you wouldn't
Speaker 1: have to replace the batteries every single year, but it
Speaker 1: would give you an alert when it has to. In fact,
Speaker 1: it would send you a message on your phone so
Speaker 1: that you wouldn't have to sit there and listen to
Speaker 1: that chirp forever trying to figure out right. And if
Speaker 1: you're away from your house and you get that message,
Speaker 1: then you actually have the opportunity to go and buy
Speaker 1: a battery before you get back and realize that you
Speaker 1: need to go back out again. So very clever and
Speaker 1: uh yeah, it's it looks like it's a pretty neat product.
Speaker 1: You do have to replace it every seven years or
Speaker 1: so because the detectors will eventually wear out. It's a
Speaker 1: chemical based thing, I specifically the carbon monoxide sensors in particular,
Speaker 1: and that's that's that's typical. By the way, if you
Speaker 1: think that that's unusual, no, that's not unusual. For carbon
Speaker 1: monoxide detectors. You do have to replace those regularly because
Speaker 1: the sensors do wear out over time. UM, smoke detectors
Speaker 1: didn't last a little bit longer, but carbon monoxide and
Speaker 1: I think it's still recommended to replace your your smoke
Speaker 1: detectors once every ten years or so. Yeah, I'm I
Speaker 1: don't have the number in front of me, but I
Speaker 1: feel like UM. And all of these devices, by the way,
Speaker 1: do have activity detection like like motion and light sensors
Speaker 1: on them so that they know when you're coming to
Speaker 1: and fro rooms, so that they can all link up
Speaker 1: and decide, you know, figure out when someone is in
Speaker 1: there and whether or not they need to be activated
Speaker 1: for for the for the thermstat's sake, although the carbon
Speaker 1: monoxide and smoke detectors work together with the thermstats to
Speaker 1: help them cover more area. And they also have lights
Speaker 1: in them and will light up if you want them to,
Speaker 1: so that when you you can set it so like
Speaker 1: if it's in bedroom mode, it won't do that. So
Speaker 1: if it detects motion, it won't light up and wake
Speaker 1: you up, But if it's in a hallway and you
Speaker 1: walk out, it will end up acting like a little
Speaker 1: night light, which I thought was kind of cute too.
Speaker 1: And and the light changes color and we'll give you
Speaker 1: a warning. This is probably the thing I like the
Speaker 1: most about the smoke detector. So let's say it starts
Speaker 1: detecting a little bit of smoke and it's not enough
Speaker 1: for it to trigger a full warning yet, but it
Speaker 1: wants to alert you to this fact. It will give
Speaker 1: you an actual human voice, uh warning saying that there
Speaker 1: is detecting some smoke, and the little blue ring of
Speaker 1: light on the device will turn to yellow. And then
Speaker 1: if you go to it, and let's say you are
Speaker 1: like me and you're attempting to roast some veggies and
Speaker 1: you did not realize that you had a little bit
Speaker 1: of minced garlic on the burner or whatever, and that's
Speaker 1: the only reason there's any smoke at all. Uh. You
Speaker 1: can wave physically at the smoke detector and it will say, oh,
Speaker 1: false alarm. Well then never mind. It will shut itself off.
Speaker 1: It will never do the full blast alarm. So my
Speaker 1: dog would be so excited about that. Yes, yes, my
Speaker 1: dog too. Yeah. So the idea of being able to
Speaker 1: uh not have the typical response in the Strickland household
Speaker 1: where the alarm goes off and then the other person
Speaker 1: in the house helpfully chimes out, dinner must be ready.
Speaker 1: That would be nice. That's my life. We've got a
Speaker 1: bit more to say about the Nest, but first let's
Speaker 1: take another quick break. Okay, So it's and uh in
Speaker 1: there was some really big news, especially like we're recording
Speaker 1: this podcast on January. It was not very long ago
Speaker 1: at all when we heard the news that Google was
Speaker 1: acquiring Nest for the some of around three it depends
Speaker 1: upon who you ask. Some say three point two billions,
Speaker 1: some say three point one, some say three point five.
Speaker 1: But in excess of right, yeah, and I think that
Speaker 1: the official news might have broken on thet of January
Speaker 1: wearing that's yeah, not long at all, right, And and
Speaker 1: the thing is, the thing is that Fidel had had
Speaker 1: a meeting with them before Nest even launched. Um and
Speaker 1: then at the TED conference, uh he and Sergey Bryan
Speaker 1: had a big pow wow and they showed him a
Speaker 1: video and a prototype of the Nest and kind of
Speaker 1: got them pretty excited about it, like excited enough that
Speaker 1: in May of that year, Google led their first round
Speaker 1: of financing. I guess it was their second round of financing,
Speaker 1: but um and and would also lead their next round
Speaker 1: of financing the next year. So Google was involved early
Speaker 1: on and making sure that this company was going to
Speaker 1: get the funding it needed to do the work they
Speaker 1: were doing. And I mean, if you look at some
Speaker 1: of Google's other stuff that they're doing with the automos,
Speaker 1: driving is probably the easiest example, right, you can you
Speaker 1: can see that this sort of these algorithms and these
Speaker 1: products fit very well into this kind of integrated uh
Speaker 1: you know, using information in an actual, real world physical way. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And it's been such a big year for Google in
Speaker 1: terms of hardware. Um, you know, they they acquired Motorola
Speaker 1: for what like twelve point five billion dollars. They've been
Speaker 1: working so much with Chromebook. Uh. They they've been working
Speaker 1: with Glass. They've got a rumored smart watch project that
Speaker 1: that could be coming out this year. Although although rumored
Speaker 1: smart watch projects are pretty bountiful, three more watches on
Speaker 1: the way to me, So I'll get excited about that
Speaker 1: when I see a picture. I've got to watch problem, okay,
Speaker 1: I And I imagine that CS did not help that
Speaker 1: at all. It was okay, Yeah, I saw a lot
Speaker 1: of watches, but I thought, no, I think I've got
Speaker 1: that one covered with one exception, but we'll talk about
Speaker 1: that and to see it. Well, we have already talked
Speaker 1: about that the ce S podcast, we just haven't recorded
Speaker 1: it yet. Yes, they're publishing in opposite order. I think.
Speaker 1: So you guys out there have already heard me talk
Speaker 1: about it, but I have not, will have already talked
Speaker 1: about it yet. I think I need a diagram that
Speaker 1: sentence go on. Yes, um okay, and so so, both
Speaker 1: Google and Nest have have indicated that Nest is going
Speaker 1: to remain its own sort of independent thing, which you
Speaker 1: know that was that was one of the big concerns,
Speaker 1: right people where those knee jerk reactions as Google is
Speaker 1: going to purchase this company that does smoke detectors, does
Speaker 1: that mean that Google is going to change it in
Speaker 1: some way? Like is it going to no longer be
Speaker 1: the thing that we got excited about, right or are
Speaker 1: they going to make them work on some other projects
Speaker 1: instead of what they were originally created for? And they've
Speaker 1: said nope, that Google is mostly going to be providing
Speaker 1: you know the kind of money and infrastructure and marketing
Speaker 1: teams and tech resources that will let Nest be more
Speaker 1: themselves than they ever have been before. And other concerns
Speaker 1: like The other big one is that you could conceive
Speaker 1: of Nest devices gathering lots of different information like well,
Speaker 1: I mean, they do gather lots of different information. Um,
Speaker 1: and how that is going to be put to use
Speaker 1: is a pretty big and pretty fair, I think concern
Speaker 1: from the sectors right now. And Nest has already come
Speaker 1: out and said that they don't they don't plan on
Speaker 1: changing their privacy uh statements. Well, they said, and I
Speaker 1: quote from their blog, our privacy policy clearly limits the
Speaker 1: use of customer information to providing and improving Nests products
Speaker 1: and services. We've always taken privacy seriously and this will
Speaker 1: not change. Right, So the fact that they take privacy
Speaker 1: seriously won't change. They haven't said that their privacy policies
Speaker 1: won't change. Okay, fair enough if you're going to parse
Speaker 1: it to that level. But I think I think the
Speaker 1: main concern people had was, all right, so does this
Speaker 1: mean you're gonna send Google all this information about when
Speaker 1: I'm home, when I'm not home, how active I am,
Speaker 1: what I you know, whether or not you know how
Speaker 1: many people tend to be in my house and rooms
Speaker 1: I spend the most time in. It's all the information
Speaker 1: is going to go to Google and then I'm going
Speaker 1: to get directed advertising or worse because of this. And
Speaker 1: I think that was them saying like, that's not gonna happen.
Speaker 1: You're not gonna You're not going to have your your
Speaker 1: smoke detector and your thermostat tattling on you. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I could. I could certainly see One of
Speaker 1: the concerns that I that I've read about was that
Speaker 1: Google could sell your your energy usage data to providers
Speaker 1: to let them advertise to you more sadly. Um. And
Speaker 1: I can totally picture Google doing that. I mean maybe, yeah,
Speaker 1: kind of, I can see it happening. I mean, if
Speaker 1: let me put it to you this way, if that
Speaker 1: would mean at the end of the day that I
Speaker 1: actually had the opportunity to take advantage of genuinely good deals,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't necessarily be upset about that. Yeah. And and
Speaker 1: to be fair, and Nest already does have partnerships with
Speaker 1: energy providers. Um, I mean they are opt in, and
Speaker 1: but it's for you know, either free or discounted equipment
Speaker 1: or rates on energies. And I would hope they would
Speaker 1: remain an opt in approach. That would I always prefer
Speaker 1: opt in to opt out, because when you know that
Speaker 1: you can take advantage of the stuff, but you don't
Speaker 1: feel like that's a appropriate then you don't have to
Speaker 1: do anything. I hate systems where it just assumes that
Speaker 1: you are in whole hog and then you have to
Speaker 1: hunt through this labyrinthian system to find the one checkbox
Speaker 1: two un check so that you are looking at you
Speaker 1: Facebook so that you can so that you can get
Speaker 1: out of that system. So as long as it remains
Speaker 1: opt in, and of course that's a big if, right,
Speaker 1: I mean that's I like to wear rose colored glasses
Speaker 1: for this sort of stuff. But I am aware that
Speaker 1: sometimes companies make these changes. But as long as it
Speaker 1: remains opt in, I'm perfectly fine with us. But at
Speaker 1: any rate, anytime you're talking about any kind of ice
Speaker 1: that's collecting information in one way or another, how that
Speaker 1: data could eventually be used is always going to be
Speaker 1: a concern, exactly. Yeah. Um. One one other Google's Sway
Speaker 1: kind of concern is that it's going to is that
Speaker 1: it may become difficult to not have a nest installed
Speaker 1: in your house if they get enough contracts with enough
Speaker 1: HVACT providers and which you know they certainly have the
Speaker 1: the money and the marketing power to do then, um,
Speaker 1: you know, having having these providers, say, because you can
Speaker 1: buy a Nest retail, but you can also get it
Speaker 1: through whatever company you use to to heat and cool
Speaker 1: your home. And so people have expressed a concern that
Speaker 1: that it will be harder and harder to have a
Speaker 1: non smart thermostat in your house once these things really
Speaker 1: catch on and people figure out how much money and
Speaker 1: equipment wear and tear can be saved by installing them. Oh, sure,
Speaker 1: if you have a system that is dependent upon Nest thermostat.
Speaker 1: Not that there are such systems right now, because right
Speaker 1: now Nest is designed to work with anything to work
Speaker 1: with the pre existing systems. But down the line, let's
Speaker 1: say we go down five ten years, I could see
Speaker 1: that being a real issue, especially you're talking several generations
Speaker 1: down in the Nest product line. You could end up
Speaker 1: with a system that was optimized for a Nest and
Speaker 1: then yeah, you know, you might in theory be able
Speaker 1: to disc nect it and then put in a generic thermostat,
Speaker 1: but it might not work very well, kind of like
Speaker 1: the way Nest wasn't always compatible with everything that existed.
Speaker 1: Pregeneration too and yeah, I think that that's another another
Speaker 1: area where people are like, well, what if I don't
Speaker 1: want that much data collected about me? And what if
Speaker 1: I want a dumb thermostat and I and I don't
Speaker 1: think that. I mean, I think it's going to be
Speaker 1: at least a couple of minutes before anyone is forcing
Speaker 1: us all to have smart thermostats. But that when the
Speaker 1: day comes, you'll be used to it, so don't worry
Speaker 1: about it. And by then all of your data will
Speaker 1: be out already from everything else that we interact with,
Speaker 1: so our thermostat will be you know, it will mean nothing.
Speaker 1: But then, um, so let's talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: what actually makes it tick. Not that they tick, they
Speaker 1: don't tick. If if your nest is ticking, you might
Speaker 1: want to have that checked out. Now, the nest thermostat
Speaker 1: has multiple temperature sensors inside of it, and this is
Speaker 1: the idea of the multiple sensors is in order to
Speaker 1: get the most accurate reading on the temperature of the room, right,
Speaker 1: So these sensors are are designed so that they can
Speaker 1: very carefully calibrate the climate system so it meets exactly
Speaker 1: what it is that the thermostat has learned you like.
Speaker 1: So if it knows that I like the temperature of
Speaker 1: my house, especially say in my bedroom to be right
Speaker 1: around seventy degrees when I go to bed, it can
Speaker 1: uh start that up when it gets close to bedtime,
Speaker 1: and the rest of the time it may just be
Speaker 1: you know, kind of a warmer temperature or colder depending
Speaker 1: upon what time of year it is. Um and then uh.
Speaker 1: So that's the main sensor obviously for heat, but it
Speaker 1: also contains motion and light sensors, so it can detect
Speaker 1: when people are home, because if no one's home, then
Speaker 1: it can go into away mode right and Ottawa Way
Speaker 1: I think is what they call it. But anyway, the
Speaker 1: the idea is that it can then start to ramp
Speaker 1: down the the system so they're not putting out so
Speaker 1: not consuming so much energy. And it used to be
Speaker 1: that it would wait I think it was it was
Speaker 1: more than an hour or an hour plus something to
Speaker 1: before I would go into auta away. Now it's half
Speaker 1: an hour. Um they did a software update, so I
Speaker 1: think even generation one will do it in half an
Speaker 1: hour now. So if it doesn't detect any movement, and
Speaker 1: if especially if you have a pattern of leaving at
Speaker 1: around a certain time each day, it will go ahead
Speaker 1: and get and go into that away mode so that
Speaker 1: it doesn't waste energy. And then there are all these
Speaker 1: algorithms that has that uses an onboard computer. It's actually
Speaker 1: got a microprocessor. It's an arm based microprocessor, so similar
Speaker 1: to what you would find in a mobile phone or
Speaker 1: a tablet, uh. And it would run those algorithms to
Speaker 1: create those those patterns and the responses to the patterns
Speaker 1: so that it would start to control the system and
Speaker 1: make sure it was the most comfortable whenever you happen
Speaker 1: to be coming home. Um, and that would be and
Speaker 1: that's that learning behavior kind of thing that active change.
Speaker 1: And it has both RAM and ROM, so I mean
Speaker 1: it's it is like a little computer. It's like it's
Speaker 1: a tiny well mounted computer that knows what temperature you
Speaker 1: want it to be. Yep. It's got the Wi Fi
Speaker 1: chip obviously that allows it to connect to your home network.
Speaker 1: This is what allows you to operate it via an app. Right,
Speaker 1: although they also can connect wirelessly directly to each other
Speaker 1: without going through your home networks, so that if your
Speaker 1: power goes out, they can still talk to each other. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're not obviously if your power goes out, they are
Speaker 1: not going to be able to control system. But it
Speaker 1: means that in the in terms of the carbon, monoxide
Speaker 1: and smell detectors, that they will still operate, Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1: One of the cool things I actually looked at a
Speaker 1: tear down of a Nest thermostat, and there was They
Speaker 1: showed the battery inside the thermostat and a couple of
Speaker 1: cool things about it. One, the battery is there sort
Speaker 1: of to act kind of in the place of a capacitor. Now,
Speaker 1: a capacitor is designed to store energy and then release
Speaker 1: it all at once. The battery is not releasing it
Speaker 1: all at once. What's there to do is to supplement
Speaker 1: the electricity that the Nest dermostatic gets from your home,
Speaker 1: So you hardwire it to your home right so it's
Speaker 1: connected to your HVAC system that way and it draws
Speaker 1: power that way. But that power is not sufficient enough
Speaker 1: for it to do some of the ultra cool things
Speaker 1: the Nest does, like broadcast over WiFi or have that
Speaker 1: beautiful LCD screen which is I think four bit and
Speaker 1: three twenty by three twenty resolution. So you know, most
Speaker 1: thermostats don't have that. They don't need that much power,
Speaker 1: but this one does, so the battery provides that extra power.
Speaker 1: The cool thing about the tear down was they showed
Speaker 1: that not only is it a replaceable battery, but the
Speaker 1: directions on how to replace it are actually on the
Speaker 1: various cables that attached to the battery itself. It says
Speaker 1: pull this, push this, and so. Uh. The the it was,
Speaker 1: I fix it. That's a great website for anyone who
Speaker 1: likes tear downs. You should go check that out, but
Speaker 1: specifically to show how easy or difficult it is to
Speaker 1: take apart various pieces of equipment if you ever have
Speaker 1: to repair it. So it's really meant for repair Phoe.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not necessarily meant for the average person.
Speaker 1: But they said this is remarkable because not only is
Speaker 1: it easy to do, but they even include instructions on
Speaker 1: how to do it. It's very it's very repair friendly,
Speaker 1: which if you think back to the fact this guy's
Speaker 1: from Apple might shock you. That's some commentary. But they
Speaker 1: also have sensors that are humidity sensors, so that it
Speaker 1: can control a humidifier or de humidifier if that's part
Speaker 1: of your climate control system. I do not have one
Speaker 1: of those. Um also it can work with you know,
Speaker 1: you have you ever seen the systems that have uh
Speaker 1: heating elements underneath floors, so it can actually do radiant heating.
Speaker 1: It will heap the floor system they have. They'll work
Speaker 1: with the nest too. They have sensors that will work
Speaker 1: with that as well. Yes, that's pretty awesome and uh
Speaker 1: and it's also important because one of the drawbacks to
Speaker 1: those those systems. One thing is that they are really
Speaker 1: efficient and they're very quiet, but it takes a while
Speaker 1: for it to warm up a room, and they tend
Speaker 1: to kind of muck with regular thermostats. Thermostats really have
Speaker 1: trouble being able to detect whin a room is a
Speaker 1: comfortable temperature using this radiant heat technology. But the next
Speaker 1: one has a mode in it when you if you
Speaker 1: have that kind of system and you hook it up
Speaker 1: into the nest, it can take that into consideration and
Speaker 1: thus not be confused, so you don't end up with
Speaker 1: floors that are too warm to walk on, which would
Speaker 1: be bad. The floor is literally lava floor. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: it also is you know, it's it's got all the
Speaker 1: elements of your basic computer is really what is it?
Speaker 1: And it's a circular circuit board. So if you look
Speaker 1: at those tear downs, it is a thing of beauty.
Speaker 1: And in fact, I think on the I fix at
Speaker 1: one in particular, they say, you don't seem any circular
Speaker 1: circuit boards. This is pretty cool. That's that's really cute.
Speaker 1: That's that I mean, it's it's an optimization of the space,
Speaker 1: which is wonderful, but just that kind of design detail
Speaker 1: is wonderful. Yep, yep. So it's really an interesting product.
Speaker 1: It's one of those things where maybe eventually I will
Speaker 1: I'll go whole hog and and save up the money
Speaker 1: to refit my house because I would need to share
Speaker 1: I it would be a significant investment. You know, you're
Speaker 1: talking at that point for for me to replace the
Speaker 1: thermostats and the smoke detectors in my house. We're talking
Speaker 1: more than a thousand dollars. So that's not a small
Speaker 1: amount of money. It's certainly not. But you know, some
Speaker 1: of the cool stuff I talked about what some of
Speaker 1: those naysayers are talking about with with this entire Google deal,
Speaker 1: but some of the cool stuff that could go on,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, nest could potentially collaborate with your Google
Speaker 1: apps to automatically detect when you're on vacation or how
Speaker 1: long it takes you to get home from work, and uh,
Speaker 1: and an update its temperature preferences based on that, and
Speaker 1: it's temperature warm up and cool down. Yeah, I didn't
Speaker 1: even mention that the WiFi connectivity allows it to even
Speaker 1: figure out what the temperature is in your region, so
Speaker 1: that it can anticipate how hard it's going to have
Speaker 1: to work or how hard your HVAC system will have
Speaker 1: to work to camera act what and where the outside
Speaker 1: temperature happens to be. So here in Atlanta, for example,
Speaker 1: and say I don't know July, it would know that
Speaker 1: the temperature outside is surface of the sun. And therefore,
Speaker 1: if you are going to be home in forty five minutes,
Speaker 1: it might as well start cranking up the A C now,
Speaker 1: because that's how long it's going to take it for
Speaker 1: your house to be habitable by the time you get there.
Speaker 1: Also some commentary um Also, Nest employees could potentially start
Speaker 1: collaborating with with other Google departments and and working on
Speaker 1: on hardware, maybe maybe that elusive smart watch that we've
Speaker 1: been hearing about, or some of those automated cars or
Speaker 1: are personal robots that Google X has been talking. If
Speaker 1: I find out that the Google automated car gets a
Speaker 1: Nest climate control system in it, I'm just like, just
Speaker 1: just just sell it. Just let me buy one, or
Speaker 1: not even climate control. I mean, these are clearly incredibly
Speaker 1: um smart, savvy people who are working for Nest. They
Speaker 1: could they could work on any number of projects, and
Speaker 1: they could they could be I mean like, could Nest
Speaker 1: be Google's new smart home division? Yeah, no, it totally
Speaker 1: could be that. Now, you know, before we get all
Speaker 1: excited about that, let's keep in mind that Motorola has
Speaker 1: not exactly become Google's you know, mobile division, and in fact,
Speaker 1: there's some talk of Motorola spinning off and becoming its own,
Speaker 1: uh independent sub company. So you know, there's we're not
Speaker 1: we're not ready to prognosticate fully yet. It's too bad.
Speaker 1: I didn't make this one of my two thousand fourteen
Speaker 1: predictions that Google was going to buy Nest. I did
Speaker 1: not see that coming, and I don't think anybody saw
Speaker 1: this one coming, aside from maybe like Larry Page and
Speaker 1: maybe Fidel Yeah. I did make the joke on Twitter
Speaker 1: that if Google wanted, they could pay me three point
Speaker 1: one billion and I'd be happy, to manually change everyone's
Speaker 1: thermostatic for them whenever they liked. But they did not
Speaker 1: take me up on that, I'm sorry, which is too
Speaker 1: bad because then I could have afforded to get the
Speaker 1: Nest once put in my house. All right. Well, anyway,
Speaker 1: that wraps up our our discussion about Nest the company,
Speaker 1: the fact that it has entered into this new era.
Speaker 1: Uh and you know, we don't really know what that
Speaker 1: means yet. It could very well mean that we're going
Speaker 1: into an era where privacy becomes even a larger concern
Speaker 1: and that you know this, this could mean some dark
Speaker 1: stuff in the future. I'm hoping that that's not the case.
Speaker 1: I'm cautiously optimistic that we're going to see some really
Speaker 1: cool collaborations between Nest and Google come out of this,
Speaker 1: and hopefully the kind that will benefit us as consumers
Speaker 1: more so than say, any kind of advertiser. That wraps
Speaker 1: up this classic episode. Hope you guys enjoyed it. I
Speaker 1: look forward to hearing from you if you have any
Speaker 1: suggestions about future topics I should cover in tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: The best way to get in touch with me it's
Speaker 1: over on Twitter. We use the handle text stuff hs
Speaker 1: W and I'll talk to you again really soon. Text
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