579 episodes
We opened the show this week giving our thoughts on the very sad news of Crestron founder George Feldstein's passing. George was a pioneer in the truest sense of the word. Through his work he did volumes to push the systems integration industry forward. Without his passion and diligent efforts it is hard to say what our industry would look like today. We want to extend our deepest condolences to his family.
This is an episode that we have been excited to bring you for quite some time. Ever since CEDIA 2014 there has been tremendous buzz in the industry surrounding the announcement of Crestron's new home automation platform Pyng. This product represents a major evolution for Crestron in that the entire system can be programmed and configured using only the app, no laptop necessary. The price point of the system is also garnering attention, coming in at a low starting point of only $599. This week we bring in Crestron Technology Manager Evan Ackmann to dive deep into the new offering, covering the key points and hoping to clear up some of the misconceptions around the product.
This week we are bringing you another news-only episode, and there was no shortage of big news to talk about. On the personal side of things Jason discusses the continual process of readying his home for the 'new addition'. That's right, if you haven't heard, Jason and his wife are getting ready to welcome to their first child (a baby girl) in a few short weeks from now! And like any true gadget geek, he's been looking for ways technology can help. In fact at the time of this posting he just finished installing a new Ecobee3 thermostat to help more accurately monitor the temperature in the nursery. We look forward to sharing his thoughts on the product in a future episode. Seth also has big news brewing with the pending purchase of a new home. In fact he's looking to make some HVAC-related upgrades of his own. Which led to a discussion of Ecovent, a previous show guest of ours, who is now taking pre-orders. Lots cooking on the home front! More to come, so stay tuned!
Another Apple event has come and gone. And sadly it's all quiet on the HomeKit Front. While many of their recent announcements are indeed exciting, new iPads, new iMacs, and new Mac Minis (finally!), we're not an Apple show, we're a home technology show. So we have to admit to being a bit bummed about the lack of public news since the initial announcement of HomeKit back at WWDC.
On this episode of HomeTech we were joined by Ted Schremp. Ted is the CEO Smarthome Ventures, the recently formed company behind the Peq Home Automation line of products. Peq is intriguing to us for a number of reasons, and we were very excited to welcome Ted onto the show to discuss.
This week we were excited to welcome Jamie Siminoff to the show. We have been working behind the scenes to get Jamie on for some time now. It had been proving difficult to make our schedules line up, and now we know why! Jamie and his team have been very busy.
Some last minute scheduling conflicts precluded us from having a guest on this week's show. But no matter! We instead took the opportunity to focus on a weekly smart home news wrap up.
As a listener you're no doubt aware of the pace at which the smart home landscape is evolving. It seems that literally every week there are new solutions coming to market. As we've discussed at length, the clear problem this creates is segmentation within the home (one app for the lights, another for the temperature, and so on). It will not come as news to you that this segmentation is problem that many players are looking to solve through the creation of so-called smart home hubs.
We were pleased to welcome Meg Trite with MaxMyTV onto this weeks show. The company came across our radar via a recent CEPro Article. We thought the product looked very interesting and invited Meg on for a conversation about their unique approach to home automation.
Whether you are an end user, DIY enthusiast, or smart home professional, the CEDIA EXPO in Denver is a show worth getting excited about! The HomeTech team will be in attendance at this years show. We thought we would take an opportunity in this episode to let you know what we will be looking for at the EXPO.
Whether you're selling a home or buying a home there's probably going to be some technology that gets left behind or comes with the new house. This week Seth and Jason chat about what to take and what to toss when moving a smart home.
If you are a fan of the HomeTech Podcast, and aren't familiar with Mike Wolf, you should be! Mike is a good friend of the show, and a great source of knowledge and insight when it comes to the smart home market. He is the founder and chief analyst at NextMarket Insights, a premier market research firm in the connected home space. As a fellow podcaster Mike hosts the NextMarket Podcast as well as the Smart Home Show, which both come highly recommended. Mike also runs the Technology.fm podcast collective, where we at HomeTech are honored to be listed.
On episode 27 of the HomeTech podcast we were joined by co-founder and CEO of Chui, Shaun Moore. Chui claims to be the "world's most intelligent doorbell". And after our conversation with Shaun, it would be hard to argue against their claim. The concept of a a smart, connected doorbell is not completely novel. There are a number of products on the market that can alert to you to someone being at your door, and send you alerts, notifications, and live streaming video based on this information. And while Chui can do all of this, what takes the product to the next level is it's facial recognition technology.
It is estimated by the EPA that up to 50% of landscape water usage in the US is wasted by over-watering. This means that on average Americans are spending roughly twice as much money to water their lawns as they should be. Perhaps even more disturbing though, is the fact that this wastage is taking place in the midst of major droughts throughout the country.
In broad terms, the smart home market can be divided somewhat cleanly into a few different camps. On one hand you've got the traditional dealer-installed technologies like Crestron, Savant, and Control4. On the other end of the spectrum you've got home automation-in-a-box solutions like SmartThings, Revolv, and the Staples Connect. But somewhere in the middle lies an entire community and ecosystem of products designed for the more hardcore hobbyist / enthusiast crowd, or as we like to call them 'prosumers'.
On this week's show Jason and Seth were pleased to welcome Macworld Senior Editor Chris Breen onto the show for a conversation all about Apple's entry into the Smart Home market with the HomeKit initiative.
On this week's show Jason and Seth discuss the weeks news in home technology and invent a new game based around the latest tech buzzwords.
On this week's episode Jason and Seth discuss the sales process related to buying a custom integrated system.
This week Jason and Seth discuss the news from the past few weeks and integrator's disgust of certain smart TV features.
On this week's episode we take a break from the news and discuss 5 really useful tips everyone should know before starting any home technology project. This list comes from our experiences working with customers on projects past and present.
