0:07

Hey

0:09

everyone, welcome to the 436th

0:12

episode of the Internet of Things podcast.

0:14

This is your host, Stacey Higginbotham, and

0:16

your co-host,

0:17

Kevin Toffol. And

0:19

this week is the penultimate episode

0:22

of the podcast, and we have

0:24

still so much to talk about. We're

0:27

going to take a retrospective look at

0:30

Amazon's Echo and Madam

0:32

A because David Limp

0:35

is leaving. We're also going to be talking

0:38

about some improbable devices.

0:40

I don't know what to call these. The smart trash

0:42

can from one of the co-founders

0:45

of Nest. And finally, we're

0:47

going to see a smart door for Masonite that

0:49

we've talked about for, gosh, feels like three

0:51

years now. The FCC has

0:53

put out their request for comments on

0:55

the cybersecurity label, so we'll talk about that.

0:58

And Microsoft has announced

1:01

some vulnerabilities that could affect industrial

1:04

devices.

1:05

We also have big news on the Z-Wave front

1:08

with a secondary chip provider coming

1:10

on the market. And Kevin

1:12

reviewed the Homey Pro. So we're going to talk

1:15

about what is a very high-end

1:17

DIY smart home hub.

1:20

We're also going to hear from our

1:22

guest. This week's guest is actually

1:25

the founder and CTO of Trident

1:28

IoT, that brand new Z-Wave

1:30

chip company we're talking about. But

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2:37

Okay, Kevin. Big

2:40

news reported first by the Wall Street

2:42

Journal this week that David

2:45

Limp, who is retiring

2:47

before the end of this year, he is Amazon.com's

2:51

devices chief. And

2:53

he's one of a bunch of executives that have announced

2:55

their departures in the last year under

2:58

CEO Andy Jassy. And

3:01

Limp has been there a long time. He's

3:03

been at Amazon for 13 years.

3:05

He's actually, he's done

3:07

a lot. He's done the Fire TV,

3:09

he did the Echo devices, he

3:11

did the Fire Phone. Yeah,

3:14

well, you can't have hits all the time, you know. You

3:16

never bet a thousand. Well, and he did the

3:18

Amazon Halo and that was his.

3:21

Now, you know, people

3:23

will talk about kind of the failures.

3:26

And I do think it's, you

3:28

know, Jeff Bezos retired

3:31

as the CEO of Amazon two years

3:33

ago. And since

3:36

then, we've seen a lot, we've seen a lot, right?

3:38

We've seen a lot going

3:40

away. Yeah, we've seen a lot going

3:42

away. But it's also the economics

3:45

have been, I mean, there was the end of the, well,

3:47

I don't even know if we're gonna call it the end of the pandemic,

3:49

but the pandemic going into a softer

3:51

phase and people coming

3:54

out of their hidey holes, that changed

3:56

a lot of things. But also we've got an economic,

3:59

are we calling it a recession?

3:59

session yet? Not officially. Yeah.

4:03

But we're having some issues. So

4:06

amidst that, a bunch of tech companies have

4:08

been laying off workers. Amazon is no different.

4:10

They laid off 27,000 workers

4:14

and so far. And

4:16

we've seen like the head of the robotics

4:18

division has left. We saw Jamie Semenoff

4:20

from Ring. He went off to

4:22

do his own thing.

4:23

He's doing a company that

4:25

is doing services for apartment

4:28

buildings called Honest Day's

4:30

Work. Charlie Bell

4:32

left. He was in the cloud business. Anyway,

4:35

tons of people leave in Amazon. It feels

4:38

like the end of an era as it were.

4:41

But what I'd like to focus on

4:43

is less David Limp and

4:46

more on we're heading

4:48

into 10 years of Amazon's

4:50

Echo devices and Madame

4:53

A. The first one came out. It

4:55

was an invite only product. I got

4:57

mine in October of 2014,

5:00

I believe.

5:01

So we're nine years, but since we're

5:03

ending the podcast

5:05

soon, I wanted to talk about this

5:07

because I think David Limp leaving. We're not

5:09

going to come back in October of 2024 just to talk

5:12

about this. I mean, maybe, who knows

5:14

what happened. No, no, no. It's a good time

5:17

to talk about this because it does seem like the

5:19

end of an era because the voice

5:22

assistant

5:24

model has been around at least this long. And

5:27

we've seen a lot of changes and slowdowns

5:29

in the area. So I think the timing of David

5:31

Limp leaving actually makes for good

5:34

retrospective right now.

5:35

Yeah. Apple came out with Siri in 2012

5:37

and I don't know if y'all remember,

5:39

but Siri was Apple bought it, but yeah,

5:42

they bought it, but it was terrible.

5:46

And I think it was when the echo

5:48

came out, I bought it and I was really

5:51

excited about it. It was only $99 and

5:54

Kevin, you were, you're like, what the, what,

5:56

why would I want this?

5:57

I waited. Yeah. I waited until.

6:00

they added the smart home functionality

6:02

to it. And as soon as they did that, I

6:04

jumped on it. Yeah. Yeah. They didn't add smart home

6:06

functionality until March of the following

6:08

year. But even at that time

6:10

I was like, Oh my gosh, something I can talk to in

6:13

my house and I could play music. And

6:15

I think part of it was that at the time

6:17

I had a young child

6:19

who wanted to listen

6:21

to like Katy Perry songs. Baby shark

6:23

was not a thing then. Thank goodness. So

6:26

it was so great

6:28

for me because I had a home that was very

6:31

reliant on electronic services.

6:33

But I had people who didn't have phones that

6:36

wanted to access them.

6:37

Invoice let everybody who was in the home

6:40

access electronic services in a way

6:42

that was really compelling and easy. And

6:45

I think that was a great bet. And when they

6:47

added the smart home, because I had already

6:49

been adding a bunch of smart home devices

6:52

at that time, it also let my kid

6:54

do things like turn on lights, which

6:56

was pretty neat for them. So it just made

6:58

things accessible that historically

7:01

needed an app and it was kind of complex, so

7:03

it made things convenient and it made it accessible

7:05

to everyone in the home, no matter

7:08

if they wanted to look at the phone or even had

7:10

a phone or if they were a guest in my home. So

7:14

that was what was so compelling. And

7:17

the

7:18

problem is it seemed to spark

7:20

a lot of people. A lot of people got really interested

7:22

in this and they were like, yeah, I need smart lights so I

7:24

can tell madame eight to turn off my lights. Yeah,

7:26

that seems great. But it kind

7:28

of faltered. And I think the reason

7:30

it faltered, there's a bunch. And

7:33

I think we're actually still

7:35

dealing with the reasons it faltered 10 years

7:37

after we kind of launched the

7:40

next generation smartphone era

7:42

smart home. And a lot of people

7:44

don't understand what they can do with these devices.

7:48

So one of Amazon's big issues

7:50

with madame eight is that people

7:52

just use it to set timer and ask the weather and they can't make

7:54

money off of that. And I think that's partly

7:56

a function of voice and

7:59

what it's good at. But I think it's also because

8:01

a lot of people, they don't need to talk to

8:03

their house. They don't want to tell their ecobee

8:05

to turn the thermostat up.

8:07

And you hit upon another key theme that's

8:09

going to be throughout this whole conversation, or

8:11

maybe we'll tie it together at the end, and that

8:13

is making money.

8:15

Yeah, it doesn't make money. So the

8:18

other thing is that people struggled

8:20

with was interoperability.

8:23

They didn't know what worked with what. And we're

8:25

still dealing with that today, even though we have

8:27

matter and matter has

8:29

helped with provisioning. Provisioning was

8:31

always hard with the smart home. Like I remember,

8:33

you know, when you had the Z-Wave devices, you had

8:35

to like make sure it was deprovisioned from something

8:38

else. And

8:38

like it was hard and you had the soft APs.

8:41

You still have soft APs, but

8:43

it was hard. And then like ongoing

8:46

maintenance, once you stick something in your smart home, you

8:49

got to deal with it. Like for the rest of your life and

8:52

it's a pain. And then customers

8:54

are really increasingly realizing they don't

8:56

trust these devices. Like they bring

8:59

them into their homes and they don't trust their, that

9:01

their data is safe. They don't know if employees are

9:03

looking at their data. They don't know if somebody's

9:05

going to use this to hack their home. And

9:07

I think they don't trust things like business

9:10

models. Like a lot of this stuff

9:12

is getting into subscription business

9:14

models because that

9:15

makes sense for the smart home, but people don't,

9:18

they don't want to do that. They don't trust, they're pushing back

9:21

on it. And I don't think that's wrong of them,

9:23

but I think that makes it really hard to build

9:25

a business in this area.

9:27

I'm going to tack onto that again,

9:29

because we're talking about the money. Do you remember

9:32

when all of these companies

9:34

with their voice assistants basically

9:37

touted this as a next developer opportunity

9:39

for as like the next

9:40

app store? Yeah. Yeah.

9:43

That never happened. That never

9:45

happened. Let me, let me ask you this, cause I know

9:48

you've been using this for since 2014. How many

9:51

services or things did

9:53

you buy or subscribe

9:56

to, or do you still use that

9:58

cost you money with your Amazon?

9:59

echoes. I think

10:02

I bought one skill. I think

10:04

I bought like a $4.99

10:06

skill and that is it. So

10:09

yeah, they've made approximately,

10:11

well, if the hardware sold at a loss or

10:14

at break-even, they've made five bucks on

10:16

me. In

10:17

nine years. In nine years. I'm

10:20

definitely using a lot of compute power. Yeah.

10:23

My point is the way it was oversold

10:25

to developers, and I'm not saying they were

10:28

wrong to think that because I understood back

10:30

then and I still understand why they thought

10:32

that.

10:32

I mean, do you remember Dash services? So

10:34

you had the Dash button and the idea was you

10:36

could make it easier to buy more stuff. I

10:39

think part of that is again, that trust issue

10:41

in the subscription models. Like you

10:43

didn't trust that you were getting the best price

10:46

if you use something like that. Customers

10:48

have become much more

10:49

acutely aware of how they're being monetized

10:51

by these companies. And then

10:54

I would say like devices are

10:56

still siloed across these apps. So we

10:58

don't have a truly integrated smart home. I

11:00

don't see that coming anytime in the future, even

11:03

with matter.

11:04

People will buy a single device

11:07

to solve a use case. So like the ring video

11:10

doorbell, you'll buy that for like

11:12

your video doorbell or security or your ecobee

11:15

smart thermostat. But you know,

11:17

nothing's ever come together like it was supposed

11:19

to. And I don't see that happening. So

11:22

I feel like if,

11:23

you know, Madam A had become the

11:26

integrator of my smart home, that

11:29

would have worked, but that hasn't happened. And

11:31

again, I don't see it's going to happen because

11:33

it's too complicated for developers

11:36

to like work with every platform that's available.

11:39

The standard setting is not providing

11:42

enough services underneath. And

11:44

you know, David Limp oversaw like the acquisitions

11:47

of Blink and Ring and Eero

11:49

and those Ulta and iRobot,

11:52

which hasn't closed yet, but

11:54

might, I don't know. And ultimately,

11:58

I think we know that Amazon's

12:01

strategy here was to get people to

12:03

buy into this ecosystem so they would buy more

12:06

stuff from Amazon and be stickier

12:08

and better consumers that spent more money there.

12:11

And I think ultimately we decided that we

12:13

don't want to tie our household goods

12:15

to that

12:16

strategy. I think this is a rational

12:18

decision that consumers have made. And

12:20

I think ultimately

12:22

that has

12:24

influenced the way the smart home has developed

12:27

because Amazon was very much a leader in the

12:29

space. And Google still does… You can tell

12:31

that Google still doesn't know what

12:32

the heck they're doing here. They don't know what their strategy is here.

12:34

In Samsung's at least like

12:36

they at least have a devices business and

12:38

they don't want to like

12:40

monetize your data necessarily. They just want

12:42

to make all their devices work better together which

12:44

I think is actually a more consumer forward strategy

12:47

going in the future. They also

12:49

have a broader line of products under

12:51

their brand, right? TVs, appliances,

12:54

you know, the fridge, the washer, the dryer, etc. They

12:58

can make a lot of money there if they

13:00

make that an ecosystem. So Google

13:02

does not have that. Amazon does not have

13:04

that.

13:04

Yeah. And Apple's always kind of just… Doing

13:07

their own thing. I was going to say they kind of… There's

13:09

no way… Half curse

13:11

word there. They… I'm

13:14

trying to think of a non-crazy way to say or

13:17

a non-offensive way to say that but they

13:19

just didn't give it their all

13:19

I felt. They just kind of were like, eh. Yeah,

13:22

that's fair. Another curiosity

13:24

question for you. I don't know how much you do

13:26

or did use

13:27

Amazon to buy things but

13:29

do you think you bought more things from Amazon

13:32

because of your Echo? No, I actually buy

13:34

less because of my Echo because my Echo

13:36

really drove home how much Amazon

13:40

is trying to like… You

13:42

know, part of this is we

13:43

all became more aware of like dark patterns and

13:45

kind of business models behind all this. In

13:48

every time that Amazon's Echo

13:50

would be like, by the way, you can… I'd be

13:52

like, ah, I hate you. And I told my

13:54

husband to stop doing the subscriptions because we'd

13:56

get the stupid updates even

13:57

though I swear to God I turned them off like one

13:59

day. a year. So honestly,

14:02

it's made my entire Amazon experience

14:05

just gross feeling. Anyway. Yeah.

14:08

What's interesting to me is

14:10

there's always in my mind been a question of is

14:13

the voice part of these devices

14:15

an interface or a true

14:18

value add feature that you can make money. Nobody's

14:20

proven in 10 years that you can make money with

14:22

them. I think it's an interface. It's an interface.

14:25

And are you going to pay you

14:28

a general consumer going to pay for just

14:30

another way to access the

14:33

same things you can already access just in a slightly

14:35

easier way. And

14:37

yeah, people are because they're using

14:39

voice instead of say their phone to control devices

14:42

and such, but they're not willing to pay subscription

14:44

fees for that.

14:45

Yeah. I mean, maybe

14:47

if there was like a $3 a month smart

14:49

home package that gave me a voice interface and

14:51

interoperability, you know,

14:53

maybe I'd do that. The problem

14:56

is we can't get to something like that because the revenue

14:58

doesn't feel big enough to share. Although if they made

15:00

it easy

15:02

services revenue is once you build

15:04

it out,

15:05

you can maintain it pretty cheaply.

15:07

I feel like you could get pretty

15:09

good margins on it. And then, you

15:12

know, maybe you get 80 cents on my dollar

15:15

every month. And if you pop that

15:17

out to like, there's 150 million households in the US, if

15:21

you could compel like 50 million, that's

15:24

not bad money, but no one's

15:26

thinking like that.

15:28

Well, I mean, I'm trying to think of what smart home

15:30

service subscriptions people are

15:32

very willing to pay for these storage

15:34

for your cameras, monitored security.

15:37

Right. That's it.

15:38

Yeah. It monitored security is something we've

15:40

had forever. So exactly.

15:42

That's not new. Right. Right. And

15:44

the cameras, I mean, yes, essentially

15:47

it's just data storage. It's nothing new. It just

15:49

happens to be video data storage as opposed to some

15:51

other type of data storage.

15:52

Yeah. So this brings

15:54

us to our next story, which is the verge finally

15:57

posted a review of the mill.

15:59

This is Matt Rogers,

16:02

who was a co-founder of Nest. We

16:04

had him on the show talking when he announced the Mill

16:06

Kitchen Bin. This is

16:09

a composting bin that looks like a big trash can

16:11

that turns your food waste into chicken feed.

16:15

And what's interesting about it is

16:17

it's a subscription,

16:19

and it is an expensive subscription.

16:22

It is either $33 a month or $45 a month plus $75 for the bin delivery.

16:29

Not cheap. Yeah. So I

16:31

saw Slate did a review of this a

16:33

while back, and I think I put it in the newsletter. But

16:36

I really appreciated Jen Tuohy

16:39

over at The Verge. Her review is like,

16:41

look, is this cool? Yes.

16:44

Does this solve a problem? Yes.

16:47

Is it like the most complicated technological

16:49

way to do this? And is it possibly greenwashing because

16:51

you're shipping stuff back and forth? Probably.

16:54

But ultimately, she comes down and she's like, look, only rich

16:56

people are going to spend $33 a month to compost their

16:57

food. I

17:00

mean, where I live, we have to compost.

17:03

And I pay my transfer

17:06

company, my disposal company, $15 a month, or maybe

17:08

it's $20 a month now, for

17:10

composting. And this

17:14

is not something I would want or need. And I

17:17

don't know if

17:17

many people are like, I'm going to save the planet

17:20

at the price of like

17:21

two TV subscriptions a month.

17:24

Yeah, I don't I don't see it either. I appreciate

17:26

what they're trying to do here. I

17:29

don't know if it's the most effective way because

17:32

I think it's more effective to have like

17:34

a decentralized composting solution

17:36

like you have you guys on where you live.

17:39

It's gross, though.

17:40

I'm not going to lie. I understand that. No,

17:42

no question. I mean, but it doesn't matter.

17:45

It's going to be. It's not $33 a month gross. Right.

17:50

Right. And so what I'm saying is it logistically,

17:53

it's less expensive to do it locally.

17:55

So I don't know if this type

17:57

of solution is the best. It. works

18:00

as advertised. I mean, Jen clearly says

18:02

that and it doesn't smell, which

18:04

is great, but

18:06

I just don't think that sending

18:08

all the waste back is

18:11

the way to go. Yeah. Anyway, so,

18:13

and then in another, this

18:16

is not a new device. We've been talking about it for

18:19

a while. It was, well, we first

18:21

heard about it in 2021 and then

18:23

it was shown off in CES in 2022. This

18:26

is the Masonite M Power.

18:29

It's PWR door. And this

18:31

is a door that comes with a built-in smart lock

18:34

and a ring doorbell. So, and

18:37

there's LED lights around it. The key is it's a power

18:39

door. So you install this as part of a renovation

18:42

or a retrofit and you have to

18:44

have, you can pull power from like

18:46

your existing doorbell, but you pull power to

18:48

the door and then you slot

18:50

in your connected door lock and connected doorbell

18:53

camera into a

18:54

pre-established holes in the door

18:56

and they get their own power from

18:58

that. And then poof, you

19:00

have a smart door, but this is a $4,000 to $7,000

19:03

door and it's now for sale at Home Depot. Woo. I

19:11

do want to go to my Home Depot and just look at

19:13

it, but there's just no way that

19:16

I think most people would, I certainly wouldn't spend

19:19

at least $4,000 for an electrified door. So I can have the

19:23

doorbell and all that. I mean, it's great

19:25

concept to run power to the door and

19:28

then splice it off as needed to the components. That

19:30

makes total sense, but no.

19:32

Yeah. And look, I

19:35

have seen exterior doors and

19:37

you can pay up to like

19:39

thousands on a front door. It just depends

19:41

on like how fancy it is at the hardware

19:43

and all that stuff. And granted,

19:46

this is going to be a product for someone who is,

19:48

you know, looking at higher end doors, but

19:51

I don't think those people shop at Home Depot. Well,

19:54

in, in, I think what they're trying to do

19:56

is show off that this exists and then this

19:58

could be part of like a renovation.

19:59

And this

20:02

is an open question. And we still, I mean,

20:04

we had this question 10 years ago when we started doing

20:06

this and it's still to me open because we haven't solved

20:09

those issues we talked about at the beginning of the show around

20:12

like, why do you need this? How's it gonna be paid

20:14

for? What's happening with the data, the trust stuff? But

20:17

do people really want

20:20

smart homes as they stand today? And

20:23

I don't think they do.

20:25

I think it's gonna be too complicated

20:27

for people. I mean, right now, if

20:29

you get this door, do you have an app

20:31

for the door?

20:32

You have an app for the door, an app

20:34

for the lock and an app for the doorbell, they're

20:36

all separate. Exactly, my current front

20:38

door, I love it. And you know why? Because it opens,

20:40

it closes and doesn't have an app, much

20:42

less three. That's, I think,

20:45

yeah. All right, we're just done. I'm

20:48

done. This is... This

20:52

is probably part of the reason why we're

20:55

popping out of the show because it's frustrating

20:58

to cover something for so long and still

21:00

feel like

21:01

it isn't moving forward.

21:03

I just wanna point out, we didn't pick

21:05

these to illustrate why we think

21:07

the way we do and why we're taking a step back here. This

21:10

is all current news. Yeah. This

21:13

is just what's happening in the space and it's

21:16

been what's happening in the space and

21:17

yeah. So here's

21:20

where we are moving forward a little bit,

21:22

the cybersecurity label. And we've talked

21:25

about this a lot on the show because

21:27

I think it's important. This is where we actually are

21:29

like, oh crap, we were building all these

21:31

smart devices without thinking about security. And

21:34

then in 2016, 2017, we're like,

21:35

yeah, no,

21:37

we should really focus on that. We did. We

21:40

got a lot of new programs and things. And

21:42

now we're getting this cybersecurity label and

21:45

we talked about that. The FCC is gonna manage

21:47

it. And late last week, it was Thursday

21:49

when the other podcast went out, the

21:52

FCC released their notice of proposed

21:54

rulemaking. And so y'all have 30 days.

21:57

We'll link to it in the show notes, but y'all have 30 days

21:59

to...

21:59

basically comment on how

22:02

this voluntary cybersecurity labeling

22:05

program should work. Like what should be included?

22:08

It talks about like what they think they're going to include.

22:11

And this is a chance to be like, Hey,

22:15

what about privacy?

22:17

What kind of products and services should be

22:20

eligible? Should we include just

22:22

the hardware or all of the services?

22:25

I kind of thought that was already part of the NIST definition.

22:28

We talked about the NIST 8425 document.

22:30

Basically

22:33

they're saying everything in there is up for discussion.

22:36

So you can argue with the FCC

22:38

or you can say, I love it. You can talk

22:40

about what should be in the label.

22:42

How should it be managed? So all of that's

22:44

up for you. You've got 30 days, so

22:47

get to it.

22:49

And then there's going to be time for replies

22:51

and it'll be just

22:53

a grand old time. Yeah.

22:56

They actually, though, they say that after

22:58

the comment period is over, after

23:00

they decide to adopt this

23:02

or not, it could be up and running by the end of

23:05

next year, which is great. Yeah, we did know that. And

23:07

that is, that is good. Yeah. Okay.

23:10

So last week was black hat USA

23:12

and Defcon and we

23:15

got a bunch of fun hacks, exploits

23:18

news. We talked about the Chernobyl

23:20

thing last week.

23:22

The most recent one is Microsoft

23:24

basically disclosed that there are

23:27

about 15 very severe

23:29

vulnerabilities in a bunch

23:31

of power generation plants, factory

23:34

automation. This

23:36

is vulnerabilities affecting the code

23:39

SIS V3 software development

23:41

kit. And it's lets

23:44

people make their programmable logic

23:46

controllers compatible with.

23:50

This compatible with a standard

23:53

that lets you know what programming languages are

23:55

safe to use for industrial environments.

23:58

So basically. If

24:00

you're trying to, PLCs are

24:02

the computers that are historically

24:05

have been air gapped or less so now, but

24:07

they control like the heavy

24:09

machinery, like the centrifuges, the

24:12

steam traps, the whatever that is running

24:14

your plant. So Microsoft

24:16

is saying, look, these vulnerabilities

24:19

can allow a hacker to do a DDoS

24:21

attack against the software

24:23

and it would just shut everything down. Or it

24:26

could let people tamper with operations

24:29

or just

24:31

make the PLCs run differently.

24:33

So this

24:36

is like operational technology type of things.

24:38

Oh, it's totally OT. Anytime you hear PLC,

24:40

you're like, Oh, that's so OT.

24:42

And then Microsoft

24:44

notified code SIS and

24:46

they did release a patch. So

24:49

hopefully if you have

24:51

that, you have released your patch. But

24:54

big deal, hopefully fixed.

24:57

Please let it be fixed. If you think you might

25:00

not have fixed it because you're small and don't know, because

25:02

that's a very real thing. Like if you're a water,

25:04

a municipal water facility, maybe you

25:07

don't know. You

25:09

should go talk to code SIS or

25:12

micro somebody there should be monitoring the cyber.

25:14

Always monitor the cyber. Okay. Other

25:17

news Z wave, the mesh

25:20

networking standard for the smart home that's been around

25:22

since, well, the company that founded

25:24

it started in 1999, but you know,

25:26

it took them a while, but it's been around for like

25:28

two decades.

25:29

It was only made by one company for the

25:31

last two decades, but now

25:34

a new company called Trident IOT

25:36

has been formed. It was formed actually in April,

25:38

but they just came out of stealth mode announcing

25:41

that they are going to have new chips. They're

25:43

taping them out in September. They're going to be available

25:46

for sampling before the end of this year. And

25:49

this is big news because the Z wave market

25:51

has needed a secondary chip

25:52

or secondary source for a long

25:54

time. It's one of the big criticisms

25:57

I've heard against using Z wave. And

26:00

our guest is going to talk a lot about

26:02

it, but I did think it was a big enough

26:04

deal that Kevin and I should mention this because

26:07

with the matter standard, people were like,

26:09

oh, what do I do with Z-Wave?

26:11

And the answer is Z-Wave's not going away anytime soon.

26:14

Maybe less likely to go away now

26:16

that more people will be inclined to use it because

26:18

there are now multiple chip providers. And

26:21

they've got Z-Wave long range, which is the ability

26:23

to create this mesh network that uses Z-Wave, but

26:26

it can send data up to a mile, which is a big

26:28

deal for things like, oh, if you have a gate

26:30

at the end of your driveway, you could just control

26:33

it using Z-Wave wirelessly, which is pretty

26:35

neat. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I

26:37

first heard about this when I was at the parks meeting

26:39

in May and I talked to two customers

26:42

or potential customers of the company

26:45

and they were very excited and those companies

26:47

are in the security space. So

26:49

I think there's interest. Okay. Let's

26:51

talk about, oh, look,

26:54

it's a Z-Wave hub. It is.

26:56

Let's talk about the Homie Pro because

26:59

Kevin, you reviewed it. It is now available

27:01

in the US. We talked about it two weeks ago being available

27:04

and now we can tell you, is it worth the money?

27:06

It's $3.99 for this device. Kevin,

27:08

what do you think? Well, I start by saying

27:10

that you actually reviewed the less

27:13

expensive $69 Homie Bridge and

27:18

many of the same capabilities are here

27:20

in the bridge, between the bridge and the pro. You

27:23

get some more radios with the pro

27:25

and what you also get is more

27:28

devices that you can support being,

27:30

it was a $5. What

27:33

was the subscription for the Homie Bridge

27:35

after five devices? After

27:36

five devices, it was $2.99. Okay,

27:40

so $3 a month gets you

27:42

as many devices as you want after five. There's

27:44

no such limitation on the Homie Pro.

27:47

Another big difference here is there's far

27:49

more robust hardware in terms of compute,

27:52

storage and memory with the Homie

27:54

Pro. That's part of why you're looking

27:56

at a $399 price tag because

28:00

As much as possible this runs locally

28:03

and that's not the case with the bridge So

28:05

when you were reviewing the bridge if your internet service went out

28:08

you would have problems controlling your devices Whereas

28:11

here with the homey pro that I tested

28:13

I would not have that problem

28:15

So that is that is important. You

28:17

also get Upcoming matter

28:19

and thread support actually

28:21

has matter support now, but it's matter over Wi-Fi

28:24

only Thread support

28:26

is coming and it's expected in the

28:28

third quarter of this year, which I

28:30

guess we're kind of in now So that could be at any time,

28:32

but it's got it all it's got Wi-Fi

28:34

z-wave plus Zigbee Bluetooth infrared

28:37

So pretty much everything you need

28:40

either net as well with an adapter. That's $29

28:43

But does it again Wi-Fi so

28:45

you're good So

28:47

is it worth it if you think

28:49

something like the old wink hub

28:52

or the Samsung smart things hub? Was

28:55

worth having in your home. You wanted the privacy

28:57

and the local Aspect and

28:59

everything taking place in your home I'd

29:02

say potentially and I say that because

29:04

you need to ensure that your devices

29:06

will work with this and in my

29:08

case I've moved on from

29:11

z-wave and mostly and Zigbee I

29:13

mean, I know I still have Philips Hue which uses Zigbee

29:15

and the Philips Hue bridge, but I

29:17

had

29:17

problems With support

29:20

on my devices my Schlage door lock

29:22

did not work Although the homie

29:24

folks say it works for them every time but they have

29:26

had

29:27

people reporting. It's a problem my

29:29

ecobee thermostat I

29:31

have the newer model, which is at least a year old

29:33

now I'm around a year old you have to have

29:36

the ecobee light thermostat and the ecobee 3

29:38

sensors I have the newer ones so that didn't

29:41

work my nano leaves are matter

29:44

over thread that didn't work Wise

29:46

is not supported Eve again is

29:49

matter over thread

29:50

No good logic tech video doorbell

29:52

did not work so my

29:55

point is this it may have been a lack

29:57

of support for me, but

29:59

apps that do work worked

30:01

well. I mean, and if you have the apps that are

30:03

supported and they say they support about 50,000 devices,

30:07

then it may be worth it. In fact, it got

30:09

the Barb seal of approval in terms of the

30:11

interface. That's my wife. Barb

30:14

is my wife, not the interface.

30:15

I really enjoyed the interface

30:17

and the rules engine too. Now I know

30:20

not everybody wants to invest in that, but

30:22

like it's real powerful, but still

30:24

pretty simple to use.

30:26

It is, it is. They take like an if

30:28

this then that type of approach, but instead

30:30

of when this then that, they're like, if

30:33

this happens, do that. So I mean, same approach,

30:35

same concept, but you can also have else

30:37

conditions and you can have, they call

30:39

them flows, not routines or automations.

30:42

They call them flows and you can have flows, trigger other

30:44

flows, which is awesome. I

30:46

did some basic ones and they worked perfectly fine.

30:48

I mean, and I would expect it to. Again, it's all running

30:51

locally. So that is a

30:53

very positive thing. And they even, if you

30:55

want to get into it, you can get an API key and create

30:57

your own integrations or

31:00

functionality, which is fantastic. The

31:02

advanced flows where you can kind of diagram

31:04

things out, that's on the web app, which

31:07

is part of your purchase. You have

31:09

access to it. You just sign in on the web app and you can make

31:11

flows and they'll get sent down to your

31:13

device, which is really nice. It's a

31:15

nice device. Again, it was

31:18

not for me just because

31:20

of what I use.

31:22

And for me, when I tied the bridge, there

31:24

are actually fewer apps supported on the bridge because

31:26

you can actually, they let people

31:28

build their own apps or

31:31

drivers to control a device, much like

31:33

SmartThings used to. And I

31:35

don't know if Homey will continue that over time. And their

31:37

thinking is with the fancier Homey Pro, people

31:42

are more sophisticated and willing to like

31:45

troubleshoot a little bit more. So it's

31:47

possible that you could build your own or someone

31:49

else would eventually build something

31:50

to support your device. I

31:53

would say 75% of my devices were supported. And

31:56

like some of your stuff, like the Govee

31:59

Smart. The Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi kettle. I'm

32:01

like, oh, you know.

32:04

And part of it's also like, what do I need integrated

32:06

into my home? Like out

32:08

of all my devices, I feel like I have

32:11

my functional devices, like my oven,

32:15

you know, my June oven or like maybe

32:18

my nano leaf lights that are mostly just

32:20

decorative, not really functional.

32:21

And then I have my infrastructure devices and

32:24

I want my infrastructure devices to all work together.

32:26

But my decorative devices, I don't know if I care

32:28

so much about, right? But I don't know. Gotcha.

32:30

Gotcha. I mean, like I was kind of bummed out

32:33

because just the Govee just uses

32:35

Wi-Fi, but it didn't work, right? And

32:38

my garage door opener, they

32:40

do support Mirro's garage door openers,

32:43

but only it's like an older

32:45

model again. And the same with the Egovy, it's

32:47

an older model. And I'm

32:49

not sure why that is. I mean, I'm

32:51

sure they're working on it. I'm sure integration

32:54

will come along. But for

32:56

now, I

32:57

liken the whole product to Home Assistant

33:00

because it's very similar in terms of what

33:02

it can do and the ease of use. And I

33:04

say ease of use just from a general

33:07

usage standpoint. I don't mean writing your own integrations

33:09

because I know you can do that for Home Assistant as well.

33:12

But more things work for me right out of the box with

33:14

Home Assistant. It's far less expensive. Does

33:17

it look as nice? No, definitely not. But

33:19

at the end of the day, do I care about that? Nobody's going

33:21

to say, walk into my house and say, oh, what a lovely

33:24

home you have. Oh, and that's a beautiful smart home up

33:26

there.

33:27

I like it. I like pretty. I'm

33:30

like, thanks for taking the time. Yeah, no, and it

33:32

is pretty. It is. It's a round device

33:34

and it's got really nice LED lights to

33:37

show you status. They change colors underneath. It's like

33:39

a light ring underneath. And that is very

33:42

nice. But if it doesn't support

33:44

my devices, I don't care how nice it looks.

33:47

Again, that's just me.

33:48

Yeah. So yeah, if it supports

33:50

your device and you want to focus

33:52

on privacy and local control, this is a

33:54

good device for you. It's from a European company

33:56

that is very focused on privacy. So that

33:59

kind of gets to the end.

33:59

trust. They designed it

34:02

so the cost up front like

34:04

pays for running the device over time. So

34:06

it's not something that you'll be like, Oh

34:09

no, it's going out of business. They've really planned

34:11

ahead for this. So I

34:13

don't know, fingers crossed. All right. Now

34:16

it is time for the Internet of Things podcast

34:19

hotline, the segment of the show where

34:21

we hear from you. And

34:24

this week it's sponsored by Silicon Labs

34:26

and their Works With event, which is the

34:29

go-to IoT conference happening

34:33

next week with

34:35

four keynotes, five panels, and over 40

34:37

technical sessions on IoT. Works

34:40

With has something for everyone.

34:42

You can check out the two-day virtual agenda and

34:44

register for free at workswith.silabs.com.

34:49

Okay. If you

34:51

have anything to tell us, or you would like to be

34:53

entered to win, you will need

34:55

to call us at 512-623-7424. And to really be entered to win, you

34:57

need to call us before

35:04

midnight Eastern on the

35:07

21st. We've already heard from a lot of you saying

35:09

really nice things like how you'll miss

35:11

us and how we've been helpful. And we love

35:13

that. You can also tell

35:14

us that you won't miss us, but

35:16

then I don't know why you're listening to the show. But

35:19

to be entered to win, because we're going to announce our final winner

35:22

on the final podcast, which is next week's

35:24

show. You need to have called

35:26

us before midnight on

35:28

Monday, August 21st. So 512-623-7424. And you'll

35:35

be entered to win a Philips

35:38

Hue starter kit.

35:40

Yay. Those have been very popular.

35:43

So let's hear from this

35:45

week's caller. This

35:47

week's voicemail is from Scott and

35:49

he has such a cool use case. I'm really glad.

35:52

Let's hear it. Hi, Stacey

35:54

and Kevin. This is Scott from Chippewa, South

35:56

Dakota. And along

35:58

with teaching automation and

36:01

CAD over at the local technical college,

36:03

also doing a side business in woodworking.

36:06

And what I have right here is a kind

36:09

of a flared hollow log. It stands

36:12

about waist height. The opening

36:14

starts in the front about five, six inches

36:16

up and it makes a V that takes out about

36:18

a third and it's all charred nice

36:20

and inside and so on. And I'm going to put some epoxy

36:23

on it, but I want to make it into an accent

36:26

lamp. Now down where you'd

36:28

mount the lamp, I could make

36:30

out probably as big as a four inch

36:33

in diameter hole and mount a

36:35

light in there or fixture or something. There's

36:38

several different options. I mean, I've thought about

36:40

maybe like one of those kind of puck

36:42

shaped lights that replace the can lights, but

36:45

I guess you have a lot more experience

36:47

with smart lighting than I do. So

36:49

since I'm going to be selling this, I'll be looking for

36:51

something that has a little bit

36:54

more universality, I guess,

36:56

and be using different platforms, probably

36:58

something in colors because like my lead instructor

37:01

says, people love lights that are colored and dinky.

37:03

I'm just going to see if you

37:05

had some advice for me. So love your podcast,

37:08

been a long time listener and I'm

37:11

going to miss it to be honest with you. So good

37:13

luck in your future endeavors and have a great day.

37:16

Okay. I want one of these. Yeah.

37:18

I mean, I'm like, I love that you're

37:21

doing woodworking and you care about smart home stuff.

37:23

And I feel like we've actually answered a question about woodworking

37:25

and outfitting your garage, but

37:28

Scott, for this sort of thing, we were a little

37:31

confused about

37:32

what your design looks like. Like, do

37:35

you need a bulb or do you need like a

37:37

string of lights? And so

37:39

we're going to answer both because we're a little unsure

37:42

for the bulb. We thought wifi

37:44

is the best way to go because we still

37:46

don't have like great matter support

37:49

and everybody has wifi in

37:51

their home. That was our thinking since you want it to be

37:53

as universal as possible and a good

37:55

reputable brand for a wifi light bulb

37:58

is whiz. It's

37:59

actually signify, which makes Philips Hue, Wizz

38:02

is their lower end cheaper brand. And

38:05

you can buy a color bulb, and

38:07

you can actually buy some really cool like Edison style

38:09

bulbs that, some of the Edison bulbs go

38:12

full color, some of them don't, so you'll have to look for

38:14

that. But you can buy those for

38:16

like

38:16

a bulb for like 20 bucks. Some

38:19

of the Edison bulbs are like 30 bucks, but

38:21

they're not crazy expensive. And

38:23

they're gonna work with all the main platforms because

38:25

of the wifi. I would also throw

38:28

in, if that seems too expensive, the

38:30

Miros wifi bulbs, colored

38:33

bulbs are $28 for a pair. And

38:36

they also work with Apple, Amazon,

38:38

Google, and Samsung. Now,

38:40

you might be thinking of like kind

38:42

of the Twinkle, like the Christmas lights.

38:45

I couldn't figure this out. And I've seen some very cool

38:47

like wrapped wood lighting fixtures

38:49

where like it hangs over a table and it's

38:51

a big hunk of wood, and there's like kind of

38:54

strings of lights throughout it. If

38:56

that's what you're after, you can buy

38:58

an LED light strip. And depending

39:01

on your design, you might be able to hide the LED light

39:03

strip. Those are ugly. I don't like the way

39:05

they look like if you can see them, they're not

39:07

pretty. And there's a bunch of options

39:09

there that are wifi and work with lots of platforms,

39:12

including from Wizz and Miros and

39:14

Govee and lots of other places. But

39:16

there's not a lot of like Christmas

39:19

light style lights. Right? Wizz

39:21

does make some, they're outdoor, so

39:23

the bulbs are a little bit bigger, they're indoor outdoor,

39:25

and they do have separate individual

39:28

bulbs around the LEDs. The

39:31

other option is my favorite,

39:33

Twinklies. But those are

39:35

Bluetooth only and require you to have the

39:37

Twinklies app. And I'm not sure that's something

39:39

people are gonna be excited about.

39:41

But I did wanna mention those because

39:44

they look good,

39:46

they work really well, but you do have to be

39:48

within Bluetooth range of them to control

39:50

them. And they don't have like a lot of accessories

39:53

really, like a light switch kind of option

39:55

or anything like that. So that

39:57

was our thinking there for you.

39:59

hope it helps. All

40:02

right. If you would like us to

40:05

answer your question and tell you how cool

40:07

your project sounds, give us a call at 512-623-7424. Remember, before Monday,

40:09

August 21st

40:14

at midnight Eastern, and you'll be entered

40:16

to win the Philips Hue Smarter Set.

40:21

All right, that concludes the

40:23

new segment of the show, but please stay tuned for

40:25

our guest, the CTO

40:28

and founder of Trident IoT, Mariusz

40:31

Malkowski. Hey,

40:37

everyone. Welcome back to the Internet of Things Podcast.

40:40

This is your host, Stacey Higginbotham, and today's

40:42

guest is Mariusz Malkowski,

40:45

who is the co-founder and CTO

40:48

at Trident IoT.

40:50

Hey, Mariusz, how are you doing today?

40:53

Very good. How are you, Stacey? Excellent.

40:55

I am so glad to have you on the show because

40:58

I've been waiting for this news for quite some time,

41:00

and y'all are starting a Z-Wave

41:03

chip company. It's not just a Z-Wave

41:05

chip company, but we're going to talk about what

41:08

it is, why it's so exciting, and

41:10

the promise possibly

41:12

ahead for Z-Wave in the smart

41:14

home and maybe beyond. To

41:18

kick us off, why don't you tell us what

41:20

your goal is with Trident IoT?

41:23

That's a very good question, and we

41:26

are a technology company that's focused

41:29

on bringing more

41:31

excitement to the Z-Wave world as well

41:33

as supporting customers

41:35

to make a choice between all these different

41:38

IoT technologies that they have today.

41:40

You look at Zigbee, Thread, Matter,

41:42

depending on the market and or ecosystem,

41:45

somebody needs to go and pick. We believe

41:48

where through founders and through

41:51

engineers that we've hired so far are

41:53

very uniquely positioned to allow

41:55

our customers to build

41:58

great product. figure it

42:01

out what technology to use for connectivity,

42:04

will help them through the design

42:06

process, certification,

42:08

we are the first or we're the Z-Wave

42:11

certification house here in US. We

42:13

already certify for different products. We've

42:16

hired a number of engineers. We

42:18

believe we have the highest concentration

42:20

of the Z-Wave talent in the world. But

42:22

not only Z-Wave, we're also hiring engineers

42:25

that will be responsible for Zigbee,

42:28

Thread, Matter, and other IoT

42:30

protocols. Again, we'll

42:32

bring the customer all the way from the product

42:35

idea,

42:36

all the way down to fully developed

42:38

product that they can go and certify with

42:41

us and do it in record or

42:43

speed time. Well,

42:44

there's a lot to unpack here. Let's

42:46

start with the very beginning. Y'all

42:49

created this back in April, Trident

42:51

was created back in April. It is privately funded.

42:54

What caught my attention when I first heard about

42:56

it was, holy back girl, we

42:58

have been waiting for a secondary Z-Wave

43:01

chip company for decades.

43:03

Z-Wave has been in the market for years. It

43:06

was ZenSys and then a company called Sigma

43:08

Designs Purchase ZenSys. Then Silicon

43:10

Labs purchased Sigma Designs

43:13

back when Silicon Labs was like, hey, we're getting

43:15

all in on this IoT business. Before

43:18

the Silicon Labs deal, I had talked

43:20

to lots of companies who were building

43:23

connected devices. There was always some

43:25

hesitation around using Z-Wave because

43:27

there was only one chip provider. They

43:29

were worried that that provider would set

43:32

pricing that worked for them at front

43:34

and then maybe later didn't work for them. There

43:37

was concern. You never put all your eggs in one basket

43:39

if you can avoid it, right? When

43:42

Silicon Labs bought Sigma,

43:44

what was the thought in the Z-Wave community? What

43:47

did you all think was going to happen?

43:48

Oh, that's a very good question.

43:51

So in 2018,

43:53

when Silicon Labs bought

43:55

Z-Wave business unit from Sigma Designs,

43:58

the thought was that there were... develop that

44:00

they will continue what my

44:03

team and the sales team and the business

44:05

development team did over the years which

44:07

was supporting the customers, help them

44:09

design products, bring them to

44:12

market, help through certification, and

44:14

Silicon Labs did that. But maybe

44:16

with,

44:17

I would say, not enough attention to

44:20

the customer, right? So all

44:22

the bigger companies, obviously, they are not

44:24

as nimble and have

44:27

different business objectives. So they were growing

44:29

Z-Wave and the Z-Wave grew over the years,

44:31

but I think it could be much, much

44:34

bigger. It could grow much, much more. Obviously,

44:36

we had pandemic and other stuff in

44:38

between, so that didn't help. But the

44:40

idea was that Silicon Labs will grow Z-Wave

44:43

and it will open it up. And I think part

44:45

of it happened, right? If you look at everything

44:48

that's happened over the years since 2018.

44:51

Yeah, Silicon Labs did open it up.

44:53

So a couple years ago, the

44:56

Z-Wave Alliance, they turned it into

44:58

a standards development organization, which

45:01

you kind of explain the slow and gradual

45:03

opening up process with

45:05

Z-Wave.

45:07

Be more than happy to. So Z-Wave

45:09

was acquired in 2018 and

45:11

around 2020, if I'm

45:14

not mistaken, Z-Wave Alliance

45:16

was spun off out of Silicon Labs.

45:19

It was an independent organization

45:21

focused on driving the standard.

45:24

All the Z-Wave protocol specifications

45:27

were donated to Z-Wave Alliance.

45:29

So Z-Wave Alliance owned the spec, but

45:32

Z-Wave Alliance did own the source code

45:34

and tools and all that

45:36

fun stuff that makes it all work. So

45:40

in opening process

45:42

in 2022, Silicon Labs donated

45:44

all the source code for the Z-Wave

45:47

protocol and the technology to Z-Wave

45:49

Alliance. And Z-Wave Alliance now owns

45:52

complete specification as well as the implementation

45:55

of the Z-Wave protocol. And that made a huge

45:57

difference and it would enable companies like

45:59

Z-Wave. hours to say, hey, maybe

46:01

we should be the one bringing

46:04

in a second source. Because to your point, that

46:06

was always an obstacle. When

46:08

I worked with larger organizations before

46:10

in my census life, that would always

46:13

come up. Is there a second source? No,

46:15

not yet. And we were a small

46:18

standard back then, which

46:20

helped to drive interoperability. But

46:23

in terms of second source, really, there was

46:25

no good options. Now there is.

46:27

Well, soon there will be. So let's

46:29

talk about, so you're going to produce

46:32

a Z-Wave chip, and when should that

46:34

be out?

46:35

So we are in the design process right now. I'm

46:38

just going to throw out you a couple technical

46:40

terms. We're taping out in September, which

46:42

is six weeks from now. We're going

46:44

to have some engineering samples later on this

46:46

year. We're believed to be in production sometimes

46:49

in 2024, probably Q1, Q2-ish. So

46:54

rather soon from a silicon perspective.

46:56

Awesome. Yeah, no, that's great. And Silicon

46:59

Labs is still going to also produce

47:01

Z-Wave chips. Yes.

47:04

Absolutely. They're super excited

47:06

about us entering a space.

47:09

They're a great partner of ours today.

47:12

They welcome us as

47:15

a second source, as a development

47:17

house, as a certification house, as

47:19

somebody that can help them grow Z-Wave

47:23

technology. And let's say,

47:25

let's set some really big goals, maybe

47:27

double or quadruple the number of Z-Wave

47:29

devices being built over the next couple of years.

47:33

Nice. Okay. And

47:35

let's talk about Z-Wave itself, because this

47:37

is a beloved standard. It is a mesh network.

47:40

It competed most with Zigbee,

47:42

I would say. I actually still have

47:45

some Z-Wave gear in my house. It works really well.

47:47

And with Matter, a lot of people

47:49

were like, holy moly, Matter is going to be

47:52

built using Wi-Fi and Thread,

47:54

and Thread sits on top of the Zigbee

47:56

standard. So everyone was like, well, now Z-Wave

47:58

is totally gone. irrelevant. I would

48:00

like for you to make the case that

48:03

Z-Wave is not irrelevant and

48:05

help me understand why that isn't the case.

48:08

So, you know, I'm just going to start with we

48:11

welcome matter. Interappability

48:13

is something that we always try for at Z-Wave.

48:16

I believe we've done it really, really

48:19

well. But for the market

48:21

and the new standard to be accepted, you have to

48:23

have a leave no man behind thinking,

48:25

right? You have to embrace devices

48:28

that are already there. And there is quite a lot of Z-Wave

48:30

devices. There is quite a lot of Zigbee devices,

48:33

right? That needs to be bridged to matter

48:35

for that standard to be successful. And we,

48:38

as tried and will help in that, will

48:40

help in navigating that minefield

48:42

of should I design with Z-Wave,

48:44

should I design with Matter, how do

48:46

I bridge these technologies so

48:48

you can make that seamless customer

48:51

experience? Like

48:52

why would I want to use Z-Wave?

48:55

There is a number of reasons. One, interoperability.

48:58

I believe the Z-Wave is, I'm

49:01

not going to say the only standard that

49:03

achieved really good interoperability,

49:05

but not it's one of not that

49:07

many. Interoperability started with 2006

49:11

when the Z-Wave Alliance was formed. There

49:14

was a very stringent certification

49:16

process which allows customers

49:18

or device makers to build

49:20

devices that actually work together

49:23

across different brands and different

49:26

ecosystems, right? When a security

49:28

ecosystem, home automation ecosystem,

49:31

you know, do-it-yourself ecosystems.

49:34

The technology has been evolving.

49:37

The security is increasing.

49:39

The number of devices, especially

49:42

with Z-Wave long range, it has

49:44

risen from 232 to almost 4,000 devices.

49:48

It's an independent standard, a standard

49:51

driven by Z-Wave Alliance. So you will

49:53

see quite a lot of development in

49:56

around Z-Wave standard, especially

49:58

in around Z-Wave long range. range which

50:00

takes that

50:02

four-hop mesh

50:04

to totally new areas where these

50:06

devices could be built and

50:09

can work really very well, right?

50:11

Because we would go from 40 to 100 meters

50:14

to mile and a half range, which

50:16

is huge. And in

50:19

between, right, you can create

50:21

smaller networks and connect them over to Z-Wave

50:23

long-range and create really good experience

50:26

for the end-user.

50:28

Got it. And yeah, I am super excited

50:30

about Z-Wave long-range. It feels like,

50:32

ooh, we've got a lot of LP WANs. To add

50:35

an established

50:36

protocol that I'm used to dealing with would be kind

50:38

of nice. When it comes to your customers,

50:42

do you have any yet? Can we talk about if

50:44

you have them and if you do, what industries?

50:47

And then talk about how they're envisioning

50:50

using Z-Wave going forward. Is it just a continuation

50:53

and a bridge or are they going to build new things

50:55

using Z-Wave?

50:56

Very good question. I think I'm sure

50:59

they're going to build brand new things

51:01

with Z-Wave. Z-Wave long-range brings

51:03

a lot of new products to

51:06

market. It enables a lot

51:08

of new products that may not be necessarily

51:12

inside the home but also outside the home and

51:14

on premises. Things like gate

51:16

openers, things like sensors that you

51:18

can sprinkle all over your property. I

51:21

don't think I can talk about the specific customers

51:23

that we have right now but they're

51:25

already driving our product roadmap. We

51:27

had a number of conversations with these

51:30

customers when we laid out our

51:32

next short-term three to six

51:34

months roadmap and we already got

51:36

a lot of good feedback in

51:38

terms of where we should spend

51:41

our resources, where we should go and

51:43

hire, when we should go and partner

51:45

up with, especially on the Z-Wave site. So

51:48

you will see a lot of new products for a security

51:50

business. You will see a lot of new products

51:53

for MDUs and there

51:55

is quite a lot of products that need

51:57

to be brought after and later than greater

51:59

Z-Wave. So based on 500 series,

52:03

we'll have these customers to migrate to

52:06

Z-Wave Plus version 2 and Long-Range

52:09

and all these benefits that those technologies

52:12

bring to the market.

52:15

Do you think we'll ever

52:17

get to a single

52:19

or maybe two or three standards for

52:21

the smart home or

52:22

for smart buildings

52:25

and empty use? I feel like we just keep

52:27

adding more with matter

52:29

and I just don't know. And now I

52:32

feel like this could be a resurgence for Z-Wave

52:34

and I'm just tired.

52:36

So Z-Wave works, we know that,

52:38

right? Are we going to all settle on one?

52:41

Absolutely not. I don't think the world is built

52:43

that way. You look at phones, you

52:45

have Android lovers, you have the

52:47

iPhone lovers, there is not going to be

52:50

a single standard there. I don't think

52:52

there's going to be a single standard within

52:54

home automation.

52:56

I would accept two standards

52:57

in home automation. I'll

52:59

settle for one, I'll settle for two, but

53:01

what we're going to do as Trident is

53:03

we'll help you to navigate that. And as

53:06

a silicon company, one

53:08

of the roadmap items that we are working

53:10

very hard on is the multi-protocol

53:13

chips. So for the device

53:15

maker, they don't have to put five different radios,

53:18

they just have to put Trident

53:20

chip inside and now we can

53:22

switch between Z-Wave,

53:25

ZigBee, Matter, Thread,

53:27

you name it, what's out there. And

53:30

we'll do that either through developing our

53:32

own chips or partnering

53:34

it up with other silicon companies.

53:37

And is this why you've hired

53:39

experts in other IoT platforms?

53:42

Absolutely.

53:43

All right. And you guys are making, probably

53:46

because you're new, you're becoming

53:48

a type of chip company that I

53:50

feel like every chip company in the last decade

53:52

I've talked to is really focused on, which is, yes,

53:55

we have to produce silicon, that's what

53:57

we are, but they're also investing in the chip

53:59

company.

53:59

a lot in software because you have

54:02

to nowadays. And unfortunately,

54:04

they're not able to recoup that investment

54:06

in software, except just by

54:08

selling more chips. And it's a real tough position

54:11

for a lot of them. And y'all

54:13

seem to be

54:14

also focused on this. And as a new company,

54:17

can you kind of talk about how you

54:19

see your revenue mix and how you're trying to

54:21

design a silicon company

54:24

that also can do more

54:26

than just make money selling chips?

54:29

Correct. So there was

54:31

a lot of to unpack, right? I'm just going to

54:33

steal your face here. But I think

54:35

it's you touch on

54:37

a couple of very important things. We're not just

54:39

a silicon company, we're not just

54:42

going to say, hey, go and buy a chip and have

54:45

fun designing products based on that. We'll

54:47

create brand new suite

54:50

suite of both hardware development

54:52

tools as well as software development tools.

54:55

We will build those as most of

54:57

us are not only protocol developers,

54:59

but also device developers will

55:02

build those so they're easy to use.

55:05

We'll build those so you can start

55:08

with a given protocol and move

55:11

from here's an idea to a

55:13

full product in matter of couple weeks.

55:16

We will also help you to navigate

55:18

through all the certifications. So as I mentioned,

55:20

we are already Zwift certification house.

55:23

We are working with CSA on both

55:25

Zigbee and Matter certifications.

55:27

We are talking to other ecosystem

55:30

providers about certifying products for

55:32

their ecosystems and protocols.

55:34

So by doing all that, you know,

55:36

again, short in time to market easier

55:39

to use more products, better

55:41

design products.

55:43

And as you're focusing on

55:46

Z-Wave, and you've been doing this since

55:48

what was it 2005?

55:51

So you've been at this a while. Where does

55:54

Z-Wave need work? So if I'm looking

55:56

at the standard, it's good at a lot

55:58

of things. But where

55:59

you think, where will you be pushing the

56:02

standard in the years ahead?

56:04

So we're going to take the full advantage

56:06

of Z-Wave Long Range. We'll

56:09

work with other companies maybe

56:12

on designing it so it can hop

56:14

as well, so maybe serve different

56:17

applications, maybe a little bit farther

56:19

than just your typical outside of

56:21

the home, maybe more into communities. We're

56:23

going to look at different markets that

56:26

may require some protocol changes

56:28

like commercial MDUs

56:32

and such. We'll look at the security

56:35

because that's ever evolving,

56:37

right? So we'll spend quite a lot of time

56:40

working with Z-Wave Alliance and other standards

56:42

on security and then the way the things

56:44

are commissioned to the network so they're easier

56:47

to use.

56:48

Yes, I'm always like, is

56:50

the Z-Wave attached to something else? Why isn't it

56:52

connecting? Help me understand. It's

56:54

kind of a black box sometimes when you're provisioning

56:57

or you think you're provisioning but

56:59

you really need to be deprovisioning. So

57:01

okay, well, Mariusz, thank

57:03

you so much for

57:05

coming on the show this week. I really appreciate

57:07

it.

57:08

Thank you very much for giving me this platform.

57:10

We're going to do some amazing things.

57:12

There was a lot of things that we cannot talk

57:14

about yet but stay tuned.

57:18

Okay, so thanks everyone for listening

57:20

to this week's Internet of Things podcast. I really appreciate

57:23

it, as does Kevin. And if you

57:25

want to find out more information on the Internet of Things,

57:28

you can find it at my free weekly

57:31

newsletter that comes out every Friday. You can sign

57:34

up for that at www.staceyoniot.com

57:37

slash newsletter or you can

57:39

just visit the website for

57:43

all of those stories published a little

57:46

bit later. Thanks for listening

57:48

and have a great week!

58:00

Thank you.