tvOS 18.1 Gets New Watch List, Apple's Secret Thread Radios, & More New Smart Home Devices Launch
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Welcome, everybody to another exciting episode of home kit insider. You've got me. Your host has always Andrew o. hara. And IT was an exciting a week this week because we had several apple products being announced.

IT was an entire week of mac focused events, and that's in the news we're going to get to IT. But first, let's jump ate into things with a small week in tvo s eighteen point one. So this has been talked about during the data process, and I never even saw anything mentioned after the launch of a TV eighteen point one.

But of course, our friend signal judge did note this if he posted up on twitter that apple has launched the new watch list. So there is a difference between the watch list and the continue watching up next feed. So if you use apples TV APP, you might know a little bit about what i'm talking about, but not see the freezing is still a little confusing.

So here's here's the kind of the difference of what's going on your watch list is things that you want to watch that you haven't started yet, right? Could be a movie, A T V show like that looks good. I'm going to add you to my watch list so that everything that you have not started, once you start that IT goes into your up next q side, uh, everything else that you are watching.

So you'll have a combination, I guess, then I even said that wrong IT is so confusing, but you're up next. Q has everything you've started watching as well as the things that you haven't watched yet. So if that makes sense, watch list is haven't started up next to continue watching.

That is new things plus existing things are already watching. Just merging them all together into one feed IT does make a confusing for sure. When you see and want to see what apples, you know, promoting a new show, there is a new movie. You search for whatever there's that add to watch this button, so can sit there.

So we basic when you go, you sit down for the you want to watch something, you can just go straight, the watch less and take something knew that you were waiting to do and IT doesn't get buried in your up next q if you ever done that, i've definitely added like a movie to my up next q and then IT gets buried between the thirty shows were watching, and I forget about IT until later. So this gives you a way to have some separation between them. Of course, this Carries over to the other versions of the TV APP as well.

So whether you're on makos ipos or IOS, now lets go have and revisit those new max that launched this week. There was A A whole bunch of them. We're going to leave the actual analysis and and m four chips in all of that over for the apple insider podcast.

West and William and everyone SE, they can handle those. But I want to type by something that I think is very interesting. Once again, apple has snuck in thread radios into its systems without nary a mention to anyone, right?

So this has been happening for a while. Apple has multiple machines that IT has put the red radios in. And now that is including the new mac mini.

And i'm going to assume the mac numerals lows follows that same suit. But this was just confirmed for the mac mini. So now the new mac mini has the read in IT. This has been happening for a while. It's in the the huzhou listening and room room ipad pro with the m four, the ipad air with the m to the macbook air fifteen and the macbook pro fourteen inch with the m three series um that fourteen and six sententia course and in the m three imac all has read radios built into them.

And now the new winds due to so I think this is super interesting and why apple is doing that, why including the red or radios, just for the fun of IT and not even mentioning IT, my thought here is apple is trying to lay the groundwork because we heard from companies like nor leave, they're bringing there those new lights that they had recently launched in walmer. And we actually had a listener reach a haze. Is nana going away from thread? No, they are not going away from thread.

But no one really knows what that is and and has necessarily the devices in the home to make thread useful. So what I see here is apple hooding at the red in people's homes, without them necessary realizing IT and then being able to turn that on. And all the sounds like, k, you already have thread devices in your home, your home proud.

Apple TV r to do IT. Your mac can as well. And that goes to your ipad with apples publicly, said IT, for the iphone.

And they just enabled a direct to device, a communication with IOS eighteen, I believe, for the red radios. So apples been doing a lot of of with the red building that out. So what what I hope is going to happen is apple is going to launch a new smart home device.

Know what has been recently described about the the way as one of those of vintage IMAX had come up the round base, the metal ARM than a screen on the, I love that design like a lot. So i'd be super happy to see apple bringing that back for its smart display thing. You'd be very cool and and Rachel at the same time.

So sounds like apple could like launch that include that thread stuff and really push the smart home narrative and that they're going to add all these you know new device that they're going support, matter support, all that kind of stuff ends ago. Also the same time, we can just turn on their radios for any product that you bought the last like two years, three years, whatever he has been at this point. So my personal theory that i'm going to stick with, we'll see if IT hands out.

But that is what i'm really hoping, hoping happens here. But we will see soon enough because this sound like twenty twenty five is going to be the year of the apple smart home. Outside of apple's own news, we leave a bunch of other news for the week, starting with life fax.

Life x is joining the many other companies in launching permanent outdoor lights. We've seen these from basically all of the companies now, like any big player in the smart lighting space has a set of these lights. And so far, they've all been very good.

A few that I have tested out personally, I have the gov. Ones that are matter enabled on the answer of my house. These sound like they are just as adequate of a solution.

So they are matter over wifi. So they still matter. Sport will shown on the home map all of that IT is a thirty light strand, which is about fifty feet.

They are also, which I I do like if they're doing this, they've broken IT down into two strings in the box. So there is one that is twenty five for IT, another that is twenty five foot. So if you have like a split house or something that that makes sense, you can actually use one of the extensions.

There are two ten foot extension cables in the box. You could gap these to hit different parts of your house depending on the structure. There's so much variation in the sizes of homes that I think IT really makes sense to do something like this. So I think that's really interesting how they did that.

But if for the lank early lights, IT can be expanded up to one hundred and twenty lights or two hundred feet, so two hundred feet of coverage, if you max this out with additional extensions, sticky go adhesives, so you can just press them on. I went with the sticky go like style heaves. Most of just contained three adhesive.

As long is like a slightly warm day. You don't want to put up on its cold because then nothing will stick, but as long as decently warm day, right? Those, if he said, will stick on there, but if you prefer, you can go a more permanent option and go with screws.

They include little clips and screws in the box, so you could do that instead online. Not too bad. Not too bad at all.

These are available through home, deeper s you can eat and possible, go into a storm, picks up two hundred box. These are, I think, cheaper. And the golby ones were when I got a mine.

But it's definitely a shorter strain that when I am currently working with at our house. Next in the news, rise, rise makes those really cool, smart gardens. They have their new rise at garden three.

And I want to tell you all the cool things about IT. But I can, because I can not find actual P. R. On this.

So the last pr that rise gardens had put out was in jane or two and twenty three when they launched their current or or the last jen rise garden system. And I was great. I really, really like working incredibly well.

I've got won. I used IT. Its its awesome. They launched their new rise guard and three and assign from some musical changes. I can't quite tell what was changed. I'd love if they had a breakdown of differences between like, the rise garden they had before and the new rise garden three, but I just can't find anything.

The bigger thing I can navy guess is that a little more modular, but IT was modular before you could go with a one, two or three level system, and you can do that here too. So not quite sure how how they really differ in terms of features. I don't think anyone is going to go buy a new one because they are still fairly expensive.

But a couple things I did notice is before the body of IT was wood, and then the shells themselves, as were metal. Now the shells, and like the extensions, all that is medal. So that would arms that one of the size that's gone.

But they still captured this sustainable building. The wood IT now just makes up the covered on the bottom. This I appreciate, because on mine, the door, like I I can't feel to describe IT exactly, but think piece in metal, right? And if you pull from the top of this, a magnet, IT is wiggles a little bit.

And if that super study, so I I can see these wooden doors as being a little bit more rigid and opening, closing and feeling a bit more solid. But IT still looks really nice. You get the White one with like that wood on the water.

I think that looks are really great and it's going to fit into a lot of homes, but you grow produce year around. They have really explained of their seed offerings. So there are stroppy peppers from types of pepper's taliban s and and bell peppers.

There are flowers that you can go with. There's a huge variety of things you can pick up here, and they have really improved those offerings. We can also like start your own seas.

We're going in the winter right now, but going the spring, you can use this a kind of start in your garden and then transfer the outside too. So to really cool to do that. So they ve got a lot of perks here on these things.

My favor is using them for letters and just having fresh salad perpetual. And then you can keep peeling the back and they keep growing again. Eventually these guys started over because the the roots, anything get a little unwhipped, but it's a great way to keep fresh products for salad and other new smaller vegetables.

But there's a lot of variation in these things. They also are doing a launch pro. This is nothing they reach out to me about, but they are twenty five percent off during this, a launch window links on the show notes.

But they got through their site as well as amazon in different purchase options, including a subscribe plan with more perpetual plans and everything like that. So you guys, do you neck the news? Cozy home.

Air vent. I'm prety excited about this one. And I, one hundred percent will be picking up one. This is kind of what we have talked about the podcast, a wildlife, which is a smart air vent that can help improve airflow to a room.

So if you have a room in your home, there's a little bit towards, like the outskirt of something has a bad circulation for your atx system. This replaces your event and uses things to pull air into the room, whether it's cool air or warm air. So you're not getting you know enough movement in your temperature.

This is going to help that by pulling IT through your age vx system into that room. Now there is a bunch that do this. Flair is one of the big ones. But the new one from code home is the first one that I have have seen that actually supports apple home.

I'm not sure if this is exactly apple home orm matter, but i'm prety sure is that like the advertiser with the home map and they abt has has saying home kit, I believe at home kit native with an option for matter. Maybe i've seen a couple website say matter, but I don't seen anything on their website saying matter. So a little up in the air, but Frankly, IT worked with home kid.

That's all I really care about. Like firmed, there is not a big level of control here. If you can't set at temperature, anything in apple home, but you can least turn in, on and off and control the air speed and all that, I think that is still fantastic.

Tic, they say the fans, that a sixty five one thousand hour rating. I did some math that gives you about seven and a half years of use if you ran this fully twenty four, seven, of course, you shouldn't need to do that. You can set up some simple automation that will disable this when you leave and turn on when you come home.

Or even using an automation is to turn on when you are in the room, turned off when you're outside of the room. Well, may be part of a bedtime seen to cool IT or warm IT at night when you're going to bed anything like that. This is a personal problem for me, but these are just like you're standard in floor events, also in wall vends.

But IT doesn't work specifically well for people who have the in the baseball events. If you have seen those that they're at, they're at that like thirty degree angle. Yeah, these don't work for those, but have a plan. I'm going to take this. I'm going to make a simple wooden box that's going to close.

I'm going to get some extra baseboard trim and put IT around that and just bit IT ready in nicer, neat around the edge of this thing so that it's basically keeping the same angle of the air vent that was there before. But give me this air flows. So i'm picking one of these up.

I think this going to fix the problem that I have had in our one home office that gets very chilly and then never gets warm. IT doesn't fix the windows that I probably still need to replace, but at least IT help with the terrible airflow in that room. So this is an instant buy for me.

There are a hundred of box, which I I don't know. Maybe if we're looking at like the pure technology aspect of this of literally just a fan that turns on and off, maybe is on the high side, but consider that there's nothing else like that is like this and works specifically for apple users. I'm okay.

Hang that little bit extra money. So this is a win to me tapio. So the tp link brand at tapper is coming out with a new I R repeater that works with matter. I always confused how tp links brands go because there's like the castle line that had like a couple homecare products and there's the apple line that also has something similar going on.

So I still don't know the distinction between the two of them, but this falls under the tapper brand and essentially allow you to control any irr device inside of the home map, thanks to matter. So these could be ac units, they could be fans, they could be old school tvs. Personally, I have a dicing that these are useful force.

So why I can alter this in, you are able to use, like the remote to turn on and off, the and up and down, temperature up and down. So even for heating, you can programme that to use this thing. That way you can still send all those irr commands, but you can do is using your voice.

You can do IT using any scenes, automation and anything like best. You can turn older. I R based devices in the smart home devices. wonderful.

I know that everyone has a lot of I R devices still floating around their homes, but if you do something like this is going to prove to be quite useful. So like I said, IT works via matter. There are others on the market. So you can, we talked about one from nature to a japan company.

Look at a stone that was the nano remote lapis something along who is kind of fair call, but there is a little little rock thing that you held in your hand are not held in your hand as just looking at my hand, but put on your counter. And IT looks a bit more natural and the brand nature and doesn't stick out too much. This looks more like a smart homey type device against it's White in black and let's got a White base court at the back black glossy top to IT.

So I don't love the look here. It's fine. It's what IT is.

We're going to go with IT. Crazing doesn't seem too bad, but we're converting from japan. I believe this is only appropriate.

I have not gone any pr for this yet. So this is still early. This is irony. Know this was officially announced, but IT is after the order is the h one ten tap O H one ten. Amazon says this is shipping on november twenty seconds.

So a good two weeks, two and half weeks or so from now, this thing could be going out. If I get additional information, i'd be happy to cover every guys going to parkas in the future episode. And okay, let's wrap this thing up.

Bring in home with a listener question. So we had someone right in. This is, I don't know this is a real name or twitter name, but A F good enough. I don't want to make fun of a name because the name is a name, but I couldn't tell if, like I was a sap good enough, asset is good enough or this is a real named, but that thank you for writing.

And regardless, and we're going to talk about smart home backing queens because we haven't in a little bit, we've been in this holding pattern waiting for apple to get to formally adopted. Apple said he was coming and I was eighteen, but even eighteen point one came out. And apple didn't even include IT in the very remote release notes that focus on everything else i'd come out now we made a testing eighteen point two, and we still don't have anything official.

They have not confirmed where they are with these rollouts, and i'm not quite sure why LED to a lot of speculation on podcast like this. But because of that, we've been just waiting because there's there's third parties that are involved in launching robotic vacuum cleaners that are going to work with matter. And they announced IT like robot VC, a robot rock.

Sorry, robot rock actually was certified. They were the very first one to have a certified robotic back with nearly that S A pro xb all try something like that and it's not released yet like the update isn't out yet for the vacuum cleaner or necessarily home kit. So if this is weird back and fourth in that we've been playing, but that i'll come into picture here in a second so asp road in and saying that they have not kept up with robotic vacuum cleaners in moms because they had met in the market until now, which is cool.

I get when you talk about these a lot of the show and if you're on the mark for one, you really care about these little new ones, differences between all of the ones and have been launching and were Frankly going going to get a bunch more, i'm sure. And like two months here when we get into see, yes um but they're looking for one and they're giving me a list of criteria. So they're looking for one that will clean hard floors as awesome rugs.

They don't have any pets. Just a message children are they would love to be able to hook IT up to the water line and drain so they never have to refill or empty IT. Uh, they also have home kit and matter as a priority.

They don't care. There's much about the manufacturers as long as they support homecare, but they also looking for one that is in the budget range. So is there anything out there is going to meet those needs? Well, the thing is in the short term, very few options.

The reason why I say in the short term is because matter is going to be new to robotic backing cleaners. So we're not going to have a ton of these out of the gateway. Everyone is still struggling to figure this out.

Everyone has like announced, but no one has launched IT ecospaces robo rock. And many, many others have just kind of waffled on where support of this is. And I think that when when this is fully finalized and we actually see products shipping with matter, I think it's going to be on a flagship units like they're not going to prioritize this new technology on an entry level button.

So I think if you if the budget and home kit argento be your two top priorities and two must, i'm not sure you're going to find an exact option, let alone with your other criteria, that at least my god, right now. So a couple of things that you can kind of work with here. You IT give up, give up a little bit.

Maybe if we don't find one that can next into your system and has kind of matter support, there's an option there that can that I can recommend that would be a switch bott and is kind of maybe where I will go entirely with my recommendation so you can get a version of the switch pot like they have some basic ones that don't have the whole all in one situation. So I think the there's like the k ten, k ten plus as ten, you could go with one of their other versions and they do have matter support, but it's like on and off. So it's that fool matter support.

They're kind of building IT in as like back doring IT in turning on as a switch. So it's a little just an on and off switch to running your vacuum. So yes, IT works with matter, but it's only on and off.

So I know people use the switch bot products for that. And you can do that like right now today that you'll work for you. But I also know to try is really good about supporting matter, so I can see them adding more verb support to their more affordable options, just VS software updates to improve the matter support that they already have.

That is an option to go with the cheaper. And they have one that is around like five hundred box or so that would do hard, hard floors and rugs. The only problem is it's not going to connect directly to your drainage system. That is a again, a higher end feature that can be hard to fine on an entry level model. So switchboard does have their actual floor cleaning robot, s ten, that is twelve hundred books.

So it's crazy, but they do have four hundred hundred coupon on and right now, so I bring IT down to eight hundred, still expensive, but you're going to get matter, you're gonna get the drain hookup in the water hook up so you going to take care of all of that. And it's gonna you matter, apple home, everything like that to go through. So that's probably your most affordable option right now that I know of that I can give you some flexibility there and check off almost everything on your list except for the budget Price.

The other options, if you're not as worried about Price. Again, I know that a big hanging up for people, but if if we're looking for a little bit outside of Price, I would go with the flagship from more barrock and ecospaces. Those two are going to be your biggest heavy hitters, the S A.

Max of the ultra one that I had mentioned. That is the one that I personally use for the most part, and I think does a fantastic job. They do have one that has water hook up in everything, so you can go that out.

Never have to worry about IT. Very simple to do. I love those options, actually really going jump back around, but going back to which, but I really like how they did.

There's we talked about like their humidifier they had before, where you could actually have IT bring the water you with your robot back and sit in the corner and do its thing. And then when your humid of fire runs low, your vacuum can wake up, go to its docking station, pick up water and bring IT over to your humidifier. Like that is fantastic ticking.

You're also getting the matter and the home can support. So that's really cool. It's honestly get me head tilting a little bit at picking one of those things up instead of the robo rock wine because I love how that works.

You also don't have to have a tony room. Sounds like you might at room, but like the water stations can be very small thing. You like tuck underneath the counter.

He barely have to see him tap in to like a sink and a drain in your in your bathroom can just go right in there, go underneath your, not a desk with your counter, whatever you have in your bathroom, fill up and then leave. So there are little IT more out of the way that way, too. So there are some options, but nothing's gna hit all of those boxes.

It's crazy time at all. These like home innovations that I have been debating, I who are building a new country like dining room situation, and I really have been toying with, actually building in my robotic vacation cleaner into our dining room. Cabinets like this can be a coffee knock in the middle, stored for potton hands down the left into a more cabinet on the right. And I really, really, really, and thinking about magneto cubby to house the robotic backing cleaner. And i'm i'm trying to debate this is a good idea or not because i'd have to build IT in a way that wouldn't look weird, right, if I had to come in and out.

But then there was also a little bit modular if I decide to kick robot rocks at the side and switch to switch pot or if I want IT, like the new deb stuff is a very cool to a space which over the ecolab, but there's also dreamy and the uv wine, like i'm can't testing these things out, so I don't want to commit fully to building something in place and not being able to swap IT out. But these are of the constant home renovation battles, and I know people deal with i'm really excited to talk you guys about the new bed that i'm making, Harrison, and i'm just starting IT. So I don't want to over spoil everything that i've been working on, but this is probably one of my favorite projects that i've done a long time.

And i'm super, super excited to show you the video that I did to go along with IT of making this thing from a sketch on the ipad to real life. And it's kind of amazing how a lot of this technology has helped that come along and then some of the smarts that onna go inside of IT. So stay tuned for that a forthcoming episode.

Thank you, everybody, for hanging out this we little, little light episode. Des had to hear me banter with myself, so hope that was okay. So if you have all could do me, just a big salad that would helpme out immensely. Give this podcast a five star rating, and whatever your podcast player or choice is, spotify youtube podcast, h apple podcast, all of them even watch the video version of that to me, looking at a camera, you can go to youtube, dot coma slash home, kid insider and watch IT there. Others SE.

If you have have questioned, or you guess they will see on future robes of the show, you can go head and drop me a line over on twitter and under coro is you or angered apple insider that come or really like comment on the video over on youtube? Othe wise they do. How can you ask the next episode?