Your smart home questions, answered

26:45You can just use a motion-activated faucet. So unless you're willing to switch voice assistants, I'm afraid you're not going to find a solution here. And I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Yeah. No, I think that's good advice. And I do think the idea of sort of how smart is it useful to be is forever a great question in a smart home, right? So like wave activated one, good idea. Do you need to jump through all the hoops required to do the next step? Maybe not. I don't find myself using that feature much. And it's complicated nomenclature again. And I haven't tried it since I've been using the newer voice assistants.

27:26But it's like, hey, ask Moen to dispense one cup of hot water at 85 degrees. But one feature I do really like about the Moen is it has a freeze feature. And this is one reason, especially if you live in a very cold climate, that it would be worth maybe even putting these in all your rooms if you can, all your bathrooms and kitchens. is as soon as the temperature drops below a certain level, it will just automatically trickle water out of your taps for you. Oh, that's handy. That is handy. Sometime a fun smart home thing we should do is all of the unknown, unseen, really useful smart home things.

28:12Because I think going all the way back to the Nest, the idea of this is a thing that you are not going to have to baby, but what it's going to do is actually use power at the cheapest times to use power is like perfect smart home. Right. Like, I think we should eventually get to the point where the answer to why do I need smart home stuff is because it is completely invisible to you and just does things that are cheaper and safer and better and easier. And you don't have to worry about them anymore. And I think sometime we're going to do the most boring Vergecast episode in history that is just about all the useful smart home stuff that you will never, ever see again and is useful nonetheless.

28:45That I mean, that the functional side of the smart home really is where the value lies outside of the kind of fun gadgets. But yeah, it's not the sexy side, that's for sure. But it's the side that could save you a lot of money in the long run. Yeah, indeed. I mean, that was the whole case for The Nest, right? It was like, this thing will pay for itself over time. And that was a pretty true story in a lot of ways. Yeah. All right, we're going to take a break, and then we're going to come back. And we have maybe the question I'm personally most excited about to do next. We'll be right back. Support for this show comes from The Home Depot.

29:17This holiday season, take advantage of savings on the wide selection of top smart home security products at The Home Depot. The Home Depot has everything you need to make your home smarter with the latest technology and products that let you control and automate your home. And with brands you trust like Ring, Blink, Google, and more available in-store and online, often available with same day or next day shipping. So you can protect your peace of mind whether you're away or at home this season. The Home Depot, smart homes start here. all right we're back time for more smart home hotline questions uh jan here is one i've been thinking a lot about uh and a thing we've we've sort of talked loosely about before but we're just going to get into it right now this question comes from ollie who says i'm curious about starter packs for smart homes i have basically nothing save a homepod mini can i buy like two or three smart bulbs and do some magic without anything else what else could i get without a big infrastructure investment.

30:15I only want the gadgets. I love this question so much. And I think I don't I think there are probably a lot of ways into this, but I think a useful place to start is like, I don't want to plug anything new into my router. I don't want to buy any more equipment. I don't want to put a raspberry pie in a closet anywhere. What what is the like, what is the most sort of off the shelf? Like if I'm just a person who wants to start doing some smart home things, do we have good ways into it without doing a bunch of sort of extra infrastructure investment well yeah especially as he already has a homepod mini that definitely helps um because most of most systems require some kind of hub or controller in the home right um and the home or a nest something or in this case a homepod mini yeah yes that's fair um or like a bridge and that's even with Matter, that's something that we're still going to need.

31:12But because he has the HomePod Mini, he can easily buy smart lights. That is, you know, smart lights are like the gateway drug to the smart home. It's the type of device that you don't really realize. You sort of think, why do I need smart lights? I can just flip a light switch. But once you have them, you don't want to go back. This is like my family. My husband is on record as not being a huge fan of the smart home. But we will go to a hotel and he'll be in bed and he'll be like, hey, turn off the lights. It's not going to work here. Do you just lie there next to him in bed and just laugh?

31:54So, yes, that and they're so easy. All you need to do with the HomePod Mini, you can just pick up smart bulbs. they will connect directly to the HomePod Mini. You don't even need to download separate apps or anything, and you can have smart lighting. If you want to get fancy with your smart lighting, and it does sound like he might want to get a bit fancy because he says he wants the gadgets, you might want to then download the app for the smart light bulbs so that can give you a bit more control, especially if you want color changing. I did actually bring some show and tell. So these are the newest Hue smart bulbs.

32:29Okay. I was just about to ask, is Hue still the kind of, if you don't have any follow-up questions, you just want some smart lights, buy Hue lights? It's like the safest option. The caveat always used to be you need the bridge, which is a pain, and that's sticking something in your router. But these are the new line of Hue lights that work over the thread. So you can now just pair this directly with Apple Home without using a bridge. You could also do that with Alexa using Bluetooth prior. But now with Thread, you're able to pair this directly to Apple Home, which you didn't used to be able to do without the bridge.

33:07And these are their new essentials bulbs, which are much less expensive. I think for a four pack, it's$60. It's a lot less expensive. It's a lot less expensive. They're not as like they don't have as strong color like CRI and they don't get as bright. but for just some fun color-changing lights, something like these new Hue Essential bulbs. These are 60 watt, so 800 lumen, not super, super bright. If you want to go super bright, there are other options. Like there's a brand called Lincoln, L-I-N-K-I-N-D. They have a ton of matter lights. Govi, if you want some really fun stuff, because they're the ones with the crazy light shows that you can do.

33:55because, you know, if you want, that's the fun part about smart lighting if you're using color. And Govee also has some really fun, like, smart lamps. So if you don't necessarily want to stick a smart light bulb into your existing lamps, you can sort of buy light strips or smart lamps to sort of for fun. I think the Govee JBL speaker is a really fun device that we reviewed recently. That's a smart light that will connect to matter and add a little fun gadget niceness to your home. And then motion sensors would be another thing that you might want to add because that is where smart lighting kind of feels quite magical when you just walk into a room and the lights turn on as long as it's when you wanted them to turn on.

34:41But so in terms of a starter kit, though, and for fun stuff, I mean, we just talked about how there's the boring stuff like the locks and the thermostats and the leak detectors and such. But for the fun stuff that's kind of wow visitors and guests, then the lighting is definitely where it's at. Also, smart plugs so you can automate things in your home. That's always fun, like a coffee machine. Smart shades are another kind of fun wow factor. Those you generally need. Smart shades is a good one. Yeah, smart shades. And there's a really nice convenience in your home. You won't, again, it's one of those things until you have it, it doesn't really sound that much, doesn't sound like that necessary.

35:28But it also can save energy. It helps with lighting throughout the day. There's a lot of real benefits to smart shades. Robot vacuums would be the other kind of fun one. I know it sounds fun, but they are. So and especially if you now with Matter, you can connect several brands to Apple Home. So he'd be able to control everything using one app, which is nice. And then smart locks, smart video doorbells are also those would be all things I would sort of consider as part of like if I want to get started with a smart home. Those are sort of the key elements that people would probably want to add.

36:09And then a thermostat, if you're in like a home where you can install your own thermostat, that's not always possible for some people. I think my read of things is that lights is definitely the one to start with. That seems true. Like if you just want to do a thing in your smart home that is fun and useful, lights is probably the place to start. I think I'm starting to realize like smart plugs might be the next one. That actually there's a sneaky number of things you can do just by having a pretty useful smart plug. And then I think after that, like sort of the floodgates open. But in terms of just like, I just want to do a couple of things and make my house more fun.

36:46It seems like lights and plugs, I think, are the place to start. Definitely. And they're easy. They're inexpensive. And then if you get kind of excited and like them, then like you say, you've got sort of a foundation and you can start doing more. I mean, with plugs as well, like things like fans, space heaters, for safety elements. I always used to plug my hair devices, hair irons and curling irons and things into smart plugs so that I'd make sure they turned off. Because you can set them to turn off like 30 minutes after something turned on, which is a really neat feature. Space heaters, that's another good example.

37:23Oh, that's a good one. Because then you don't have to worry about having left it on and burning your house down. Yep. I have a space heater that lives right here next to me for like seven months out of the year. That more times than I'm proud of, I have like woken up in bed at like two o 'clock in the morning being like, oh, my God, the space heater is still on. Did I leave it on? And I have to just run downstairs to turn it off and make sure I didn't burn the house down. Yeah. That's a good one. All right. Let's move on to the next one. Another very straightforward gadget recommendation. This is from Cameron.

37:54Cameron. I'm sorry for butchering your name. But it says, good morning. this is morning good morning jen uh i had a smart home question uh the nest protect has been discontinued with first alert supposedly filling the smart smoke detector gap have you reviewed and or used the first alert solution it's gotten mixed reviews uh any help would be appreciated what do we do with smart smoke detectors jen this fits theoretically perfectly into the like deeply unsexy but very valuable smart home gadget right i am on the record many times of saying i I think this is actually one of the most valuable smart home devices you can have.

38:29So there have been some sort of innovations in this space where you don't necessarily need a smart smoke alarm to know that your alarms are going off at home. There's like smart smoke alarm listeners. Smart speakers can listen for your smoke alarms now. Like a HomePod mini will send me an alert when I'm away if one of my smoke alarms goes off. Oh, that's clever. Which is neat. But ultimately, if you want to know for sure whether it's a smoke alarm going off versus just some other noise that your smart speaker thinks is a smoke alarm, which has happened a few times to me, smart smoke alarms just make an awful lot of sense.

39:02Because if no one hears your smoke alarm, they are not going to help you save your home from burning down unless you have a professionally monitored security system. So you want to know when your smoke alarms are going off if you're not home. I was at Disney once and my neighbor called me and said, your smoke alarms are going off. And it's like, ah, if I'd had a smart smoke alarm at the time, I did, but I'm not going to say which one it was because it didn't work. But anyway, she had heard that my alarm's going off. But, you know, you want to know if you're not at home and your smoke alarms are going off.

39:36So the Nest Protect was one of the best smart home gadgets ever made. And I don't think you'll find many people that disagree with me on that. And based on my inbox since Nest, Google discontinued it. Many people are very sad about the fact that it has gone away. And it was, they never really did much with it. They didn't, it had a second generation because the first generation got in trouble for being, do you remember you could wave to silence it? And that was considered not smart because people often wave when they're worried or upset. Oh no, the house is on fire! And the smoke alarm would stop.

40:19Anyway, so they had a second generation after that, but since then it's never really been updated. And then for some reason, Google decided to get rid of it. They discontinued it this year and they only last 10 years. That's a sort of federal law, I think, about smoke alarms with sealed batteries. So everyone's slowly dying that they bought in the last six or seven years after they first came out. Mine gave up the ghost in August, my last one. I was very sad because what was so great about it was it was a smoke alarm. Smoke alarms are boring. You're moving into a new home, David, you are going to have to buy new smoke alarms for every room in your home.

41:01They're ugly. They're annoying. You have to stick them somewhere that kind of is quite obvious.

41:11So comparatively. They had this lovely what was called path light feature. So when you walk under them at night, you'd get this gentle glow that just kind of lit up your hallway or whichever room you were in. And they had this lovely method of being able to alert you to the smoke alarm going off before they started blaring. It would just be heads up, there's smoke in the living room. And so you could get the app out. Anyway. Well, this is good. Now that we've suitably made everybody feel bad about these things being gone uh is there any good replacements no yeah really well so this is the most google thing ever they're like we made a product everybody loves and has come to rely on literally to stay alive and then we've taken it away yeah thanks google i know so what happened was they partnered google partnered with first alert um which was the company that used so they actually released a smart smoke alarm many years ago called the OneLink brand.

42:10So you had the OneLink smart smoke alarms. They worked with Apple Home and Alexa. One of them actually had an Amazon Assistant built in. So it was a speaker and a smoke alarm on your ceiling and you could play music and podcasts through your smoke alarm. That was a bit of an over-engineered piece of tech. I'm not going to lie. But those were all being discontinued and Google partnered with First Alert and they've released a product that's similar to the Nest Protect, but it doesn't have the path light, which is probably the feature people enjoyed the most. It's also quite expensive,$129, which is a lot for a smoke alarm, considering you can pick one up for about$40 at Home Depot.

42:52It doesn't have presence sensing, which the Nest Protect did, but it does have a neat feature where you can just swap out your old one, your old Nest, and leave the mounting plate up there and just stick the new First Alert. but I think it's called the SC5 is the brand. You can just stick it back on the existing mounting plates. So they've taken that annoying step of having to drill holes in your ceiling out, but it doesn't replace the Protect in the same way. It does have the heads-up early warning, and I have tested that, and it hasn't worked for me. Oh, dear. That's a bit, yeah, they've sent me a new one because they thought mine might be faulty.

43:32I would get an alert in the app, but I didn't actually get the audible noise, which is what you want. The voice that says, heads up, the smoke levels are rising. Do something before the alarm goes off. It does have the feature that can trigger a live feed from your Google Nest Cams, though, which is nice. So if you connect it to your Google Home, Smart Home, and you have any Google Nest Cams, if the smoke alarms go off, it automatically will start recording footage in your home. so you can check in and see what's going on. That's a good idea. But it only works with Google. It doesn't work with any other smart home platform, which, to be fair, the Nest only worked with Google.

44:12So that's not a difference there. But then there are a couple other options out there. The Kiddy, which is the other big brand in the smoke alarm space, they have released one that works with Ring. But it's hardwired only, whereas the Google, the first alert one, you can do battery or hardwired, which is what the Protect also did. And then there's a sort of left of field company that came out with an alarm earlier this year called the Place Alarm. I wrote about this on the site. It's a company called Gentex, who you've probably never heard of. They're actually responsible for the Homelink system in cars.

44:50Oh, sure. Okay. And they also developed the first ever dual cell photoelectric spark alarm. So they know their stuff and they have all the same features that were in the Protect. So I was really excited about those. It has the nightlight. It also has, they've added indoor air quality monitoring, gas detection, white noise. So you can put one of these in your baby's room and it will be a white noise machine. And one that has a camera. So you could actually use it like as a nursery cam, a nanny cam. Wait, Jen, this is such a good idea. It is quite a good idea. I had literally never heard of this until just now.

45:28This is such a good idea. It's like a thing in a prominent place that you have all over your house anyway. And to put all of that stuff, that makes perfect sense to me. It is. It's an interesting product. The camera... Does it cost 9 ,000? Like, is this so... Just put me out of my misery now. Does this thing cost so much money I can't possibly... No, actually, no, sorry. That's for the base model, maving up to 300 for the camera. But you have the camera, the white noise machine, indoor air quality, temperature monitoring, all of the things that you would potentially want to know about in like a baby's room.

46:01So yeah, it's good. The place idea is they have like four different models for different places in your home. So they have one for the kitchen that has gas detection as well. They have the one for the nursery. Then they have one with heat detection for like your garage. and that one also has a camera in it, I think. So yeah, it's an interesting company. This seems good. What's wrong with this? I'm into this. Well, it's only hardwired. That is a problem for a lot of people because unless you have newer homes, most old homes aren't hardwired for smoke alarms. It also does not work with any smart home platforms.

46:39So you're just going to be using it through the app and for things like viewing the video feed. But it has the nightlight, and you can also customize the colors of the nightlight, which is nice. They did say that they are working on smart home integrations and actually looking into Matter as well when Matter gets certified for this. So I think that's… Aren't we all, Jen? Aren't we all? You know what I mean? That is one to definitely consider. Because the most important thing about a smart smoke alarm isn't necessarily setting up automations with it, right? You don't need your smoke alarm. Yeah, I actually don't hate the idea of it as like a mostly self-contained thing.

47:18Like it just has a job to do inside of my house. Yes. And I actually don't mind that. As long as you have the app so that you then get alerts when you're away from home. That's the key. But it does have a motion sensor and a humidity and temperature sensor in. So in theory, you could use, if you did pair it with a smart home, you could use those as sensors in your home. I mentioned earlier with smart lighting, you know, having motion sensors is great. where an obvious place to have motion sensors in your home is on the ceiling because that's where it's going to pick up the motion when you're walking around the house.

47:49So if you could, it would be nice if it integrated with a smart home, but it's not essential. And as it has built in cameras, the feature of the Nest Protect that triggered the Google Nest cameras, well, that's kind of moot because it's got a camera built in. But you also might not want a camera in your smoke alarm. So they have the option without too. So yeah, this is a good option, but it's not an S protect replacement if you want to use it with Google Home. Yeah, I really I love the smart home trend of the sort of sneaky gadget that they're like, OK, it's like the lamps that Ikea has been working on that are also Sonos speakers.

48:25Like those lamps, for some reason, are always hideous. They've just made a series of really incredibly ugly lamps. But they made one that was just like the speaker rectangle that you could just put into a bookshelf and it would look like a speaker or it would look like books, but it was a speaker. And I'm like, yes, hide smart home stuff in my house. And I think there's so much cool potential there. Actually, that was unintentionally a perfect segue to the next question. I did not do this on purpose. I'm not actually this good at my job. But the next question we got comes from B. And the question is just I love this question.

48:57Is it better to buy the device that doesn't function as well, but looks great in the house or buy the device that is stellar, but looks insane to normal people? this is a question close to my heart this is your life what where do you land um well i just have to make a note that ikea did discontinue those sonos speakers david i'm sorry i know it's true it's because they were so ugly if they had made them non-hideous it would have been fine and they would have sold lots of them that's true no um this is and this kind of goes to your point that there are The idea of putting multiple functions into one device that looks good is appealing in the smart home.

49:35But I've rarely seen anyone successfully pull it off. It is something that a lot of companies have tried. But to the point of, is it better to buy a device that doesn't function as well, but looks good versus looks insane? Most smart home gear really does look quite insane. I'm not going to lie. And this has sort of been like a personal crusade of mine. When I talk to companies, like, just make it look nice. This is something that's coming into people's homes. Too much of this tech is developed by tech companies, not home design companies. This is why IKEA has actually been somewhat successful in the smart home space, because they've actually managed to come up with a few products that look decent and have smart features.

50:22But they haven't gone as far into that yet as I was hoping. I mean, they at one point were developing a lot of furniture with like built in charging and sensors, but then they kind of start with all of that. Yeah, it's it's tough. I think it's it's that I think this goes back to the original question about integration. So the high end systems look really nice, but they don't have all the whiz bang features. So, for example, like door locks right now, I've tested some smart locks that you kind of wave to open or use facial recognition. They have all these really kind of cool high tech features, but they look like a piece of Star Trek equipment on your front door.

51:05And that's an issue, especially if you don't live alone. And spousal approval factor can be a real issue in the smart home. So Google has done a really good job here. I mean, a lot of their products are designed to fit into people's homes. Maybe people who live in California, predominantly. But, you know, they have options with nice colors and tones and fabric and touches. So like the smart speakers, the Google smart speakers, definitely the original ones looked a lot better than most of the Echo Show devices and the Echo smart speakers. Their doorbells, they have different colors. They just released a lock, a smart lock that they're working with Yale on that also isn't just a slab of black plastic on the door.

51:51So there are some people, some companies that are doing a good job here. And then the legacy companies that are creating products for the smart home, like Moen and Cola with faucets, Schlage and Quickset with door locks. they have they've been keeping a little bit you know they they have a little nicer design aesthetic but overall yeah if you want the whiz bang features you want the facial recognition or the palm to wave to unlock or you want um they know sort of high-tech um air purifier like i've been testing an air purifier from dreamy that looks like a dalek in my house do you remember dalek from Doctor Who.

52:34It has a giant head that moves around and follows me and directs air at me, like fresh air. But it's big and gold and giant. And it's like half the size of my daughter. It's like, this is not something I want to put in my home permanently. I want nice things in my home. I actually, I land on the side of like, I think if you have to pick, like, if the question is, should you pick the one that works well or the one that looks good, you should pick the one that works well. But I think, I mean, don't buy a gadget that sucks, right? Like if you want something pretty, just buy the pretty thing. But I do think there's a spectrum of like, I think it's easier to get nicer looking things that don't do as much.

53:19Like you can buy a, locks are a really good example, right? That's the thing. I'm like, go with the stuff. Don't get all the features. Just get something that looks good and does the thing you need it to do. You don't need all the other, necessarily need all the fancy gadget stuff. Yeah, that's right. I think to me, like you mentioned door locks. To me, that's the perfect example. Get the door lock that does the least and looks the most like a door lock. And I think you will, in most situations, end up happier than getting the one with all of the wild features that, like you said, looks like a Star Trek gadget.

53:49Exactly. Yes, but my main takeaway here is I want gadget companies to start making better looking tech, please. Yes. Yes, that's how you're going to, that's the number one issue outside of like interoperability, I would say, about smart home tech is it doesn't look good. We need more. We need more good looking tech, please. 100 % agree. All right. We need to take one more quick break. We'll be right back. Support for this show comes from The Home Depot. This holiday season, you can take advantage of holiday savings on a wide selection of top smart home security products from the brands you can trust.

54:26and you can do it at the Home Depot. The Home Depot has everything you need to make your home smarter with the latest technology and products that let you control and automate your home. So you can protect your peace of mind whether you're away or at home this season. The Home Depot, smart homes start here.

54:45All right, we're back. I just want to do one more question and we're going to kind of in a certain way end where we started. This is the other most popular question and I think is like just directionally fascinating. And I would boil all of these questions down to one that we got from Matthew, which says, how much do you value committing to a single ecosystem? With multiple ecosystems, do you juggle apps or try to unify with something like Home Assistant? And then there's another one. Again, we got a lot of this same question. Another one from, I believe it's Rogin. I'm sorry if I'm pronouncing that wrong.

55:19Who says, at what point will the AI and ad field options brought forth by the big companies drive people to prefer something open source like Home Assistant? And the spirit behind all of these questions, I think, is so interesting, which is like this. We're clearly in a middle space of the smart home where you can see what a lot of the stuff is going to look like, but a lot of it is messy. A lot of it is unfinished. Am I stupid to cast in with one of these in-progress platforms, or should I just go to what might sort of feel like the correct ultimate end of it, which is just that I do it myself as something like Home Assistant.

55:52And there are a lot of big Home Assistant fans at The Verge. You, I think, included. We've had Paulus on the show from Home Assistant. We're all fans, but I think this question of should I play the platform game or should I just build the thing myself from the jump is a really interesting one. What do you think? So it depends on your level of commitment. I mean, I really like what Home Assistant does, but it is a bigger investment of your time. It's got a lot easier than it was originally, for sure, but it is still, it doesn't have the polish and the usability of most of the sort of big name platforms.

56:36But I think there's a core misconception with this question about committing to a single ecosystem that, well, it's not a misconception, but there has been a change in that you used to have to pick your platform and you used to have to choose just HomeKit devices or just devices that worked with Alexa. But with Matter, you can choose a platform and if you buy Matter devices and you decide I don't like this platform or this platform starts charging me a monthly fee so just to turn my lights on or to change my thermostat, then you can just take your devices to another platform. And this is - Sure, but we're in like the slow march of that happening.

57:14Yeah. That's not yet true. Like right now, if you're like, I want to do a lot of stuff in the smart home, you are going to have to pick a platform. Yes. And if you at this stage, you are quite limited by the platform that you choose. So, for example, my home, I run on multiple platforms to get the functionality that I want. You can do that. And then you can use a platform like Home Assistant to tie it all together. I wouldn't necessarily. So one of the things that Paulus often says, and I think he probably even said this when we talked to him on the show, is that Home Assistant is no one's first smart home platform, but it's what they kind of graduate to once they hit the limitations of the other platforms, because you can do so much more with Home Assistant.

58:01It's a much more powerful system. But for just basic, like you just want your lights to turn on or you want to have your door lock at a certain time of night and your thermostat to adjust, you can use one of these platforms, a single ecosystem, quite easily. And it's a much better experience using one platform than it is using five different apps. That's the real frustration I think that a lot of people have. And I think there are very few, we live in a little tech bubble. There are very few people that actually use these smart home platforms. I think a lot of people that have smart devices have these sort of, they picked up a ring doorbell because they wanted to check on their packages.

58:42They got a MyQ garage door opener so they could close their garage door. They got some Philips Hue smart light bulbs and they control them with three different apps. And they don't put it all together. Yes, it's a folder full of apps, not a unifying system. I 100 % agree. And that's frustrating. Bad outcome, but I do think that is where we currently are for most people. Yes, we are. So, yeah, I mean, I do think there is value in committing to a single ecosystem. I think it will make your life a lot easier. But it does seem like what you would say is the thing you should absolutely 100 % commit to right now is matter, right?

59:14Like if you're starting from nothing, you should not buy non-matter products. I completely agree. Okay. That's what you're saying, right? I'm putting words into your mouth, David. it's a it's a nightmare that i just said that sentence out loud but it does seem like i do think like we're still in a moment where you can build something really haphazard if you want to yeah but the the even if it's not all there yet the only future-proof thing you can do is buy matter right now that is yes very much so um or some sort of local control so if you if you have if there's a device you want that doesn't exist in the matter ecosystem look for it to work over Z-Wave or Zigbee and not necessarily be reliant on the cloud or Bluetooth even so that you have that option for local control.

1:00:02And then to the point about the AI and ad-filled options, which is definitely feels like there's sort of reached a peak in the last few weeks. We had the Samsung bringing ads to its fridges and the Echo shows beginning to show a lot of ads. I do think that we are getting to a tipping point that I'm concerned that it is going to really turn a lot of people away from the smart home. The AI side of things has so much potential, I believe, in the smart home. And I do think I want to see companies explore this and implement interesting solutions to make the smart home easier, to do things like the boring smart home stuff, like managing your energy use, making sure your water systems aren't freezing, you know, all that sort of, as you said earlier, the home running on itself, running on its own for you so that you don't have to worry about it.

1:01:04That is something that AI could definitely help us do. But the way too many companies are approaching it now is, oh, we have finally figured out a way to monetize the smart home without selling hardware. Because hardware is hard. And the software has, you know, a lot of these companies like Google and Apple and to some extent Amazon, they know software. They want to do that. They don't want to do the hardware as much. And this is a way they can see to get some value. Because to date, I don't think really any company has really cracked the business model of the smart home, other than these high-end systems that charge a lot of money that we talked about at the beginning.

1:01:48And, you know, the beauty of the DIY smart home is that you spend the money up front. You have these great gadgets. They get better over time, hopefully, with updates. but now we're starting to see this walk back with companies starting to charge more even google home is now more expensive to use with its new ai features you have to pay more and we're seeing this across the board and the subscription creep and the advertising creep is going to be a real turnoff for a lot of people and i think mean that the smart home just is going to stall out again unless we can find a better solution here. Isn't it amazing how much the advice is just build good products people like?

1:02:34Yeah. Listen up, smart home manufacturers. Build good products people like, and maybe it'll be fine. Yes, I know. I mean, the smart home business model has been a tough one. I've talked to a lot of manufacturers, and they're like, the recurring revenue, but you need to offer value with your recurring revenue. If you offer a subscription, fine, but don't offer a subscription for basic features. Offer a subscription for something that I might want to pay for. But I want to be able to turn on my thermostat without paying you. Yeah, no, I'm with it. All right, and I have now said nice things about Matter, which means we have to stop here because horrible things are about to start happening.

1:03:13This has been great. Thank you to everybody who sent emails and hit us up on social and called the hotline. As always, the email is vergecastatheverge.com. The hotline is 866-VERGE-11. You can find Jen on social. You can find me on social. We're everywhere. Jen, thank you for doing this. We're going to come back next week. We got way more stuff to talk about and you are going to solve my specific problems because I host this show and I get to make people do whatever I want. But thank you, Jen. This was really fun. I appreciate it. You're welcome. Always, always a fun time with you, David. Appreciate it.

1:03:42I should say before we go to thank you to everybody who sent in questions, everybody who called. Keep the stuff coming because we're going to do this show next week all about my stuff. But if you have other questions that we can answer in the course of talking about how to smarten up your house, I'd love to hear from you. 866-VERGE-11 is the hotline. Vergecast at theverge.com is the email. Get at us. The Vergecast is a Verge production and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. The show is produced by Eric Gomez, Brandon Kiefer, and Travis Larchuk. I will be back with Neelai on Friday to talk about all of the news of the week because stuff just keeps happening.

1:04:14We have a lot of AI news. We have a lot of interesting AI policy news to talk about. All kinds of stuff going on. We will get to all of it. We will see you then. Back in the morning.

1:04:51So you can protect your peace of mind, whether you're away or at home this season. The Home Depot. Smart homes start here.