Pitchforks on Standby

What we cover

• Inovelli’s mmWave presence sensing switch, its built in room automation, and the importance of carefully tuned detection zones.
• Apple’s “Welcome Home” event recap: new HomeView smart display, the HomePod mini 2, Apple TV 4K, and the tradeoffs of a tightly controlled home ecosystem.
• Enshittification Watch: Schneider’s purchase of Shelly, Jasco’s purchase of Zooz, plus licensing changes at Bitwarden and Dockhand.
• Adam’s Starlink Mini for travel and backup internet, including its low cost standby option and the debate over satellite broadband’s role.

First up, Geoff tells us about the Inovelli mmWave switch, which builds a presence sensor right into a smart switch. We get into how well it detects still people, the quirk of it seeing through drywall, and how to use a zone map to minimize unwanted detections. We also cover why a switch is often a poor place for a presence sensor, the steep price, and where a dedicated sensor may be a better buy.

Next, the crew breaks down Apple’s smart home event. We talk about the new home display hub, its multi-user switching, and the baffling lack of third-party apps. We also look at the pricey new Apple TV 4K and debate whether HomePods hold up as a stereo or surround setup, with Stephen and Alex making strong cases against, and a side trip into Sonos networking woes.

Then we head to Enshitification Watch. Geoff shares his worries about Schneider Electric’s purchase of Shelly and Jasco’s purchase of Zooz, backed by some painful camera-replacement pricing and a great Zooz support story. We also cover Bitwarden’s move to a commercial license for its released apps and Dockhand’s license changes, with a firm “pitchforks down, but keep them handy” verdict. Along the way, Alex runs into an uncannily human AI phone agent at an HVAC company.

Finally, Adam explains why he bought a Starlink Mini for travel in an RV, with a $149 dish and a $10 per month standby plan making it tempting as an occasional connection or backup. The hosts discuss where satellite internet genuinely helps, from remote travel to outages that take down wired and cellular networks, while Geoff argues it should complement rather than replace reliable wired broadband.

Tags: smart home, Home Assistant, Inovelli, mmWave, Apple, HomeView, smart speakers, Shelly, Zooz, Bitwarden, Dockhand, Starlink, broadband

Links

• Presence sensing and smart switches

• Inovelli mmWave Visualizer - https://github.com/nickduvall921/mmwave_vis
• Inovelli mmWave Switches - https://inovelli.com/collections/smart-home/Presence

• Apple Smart Home Event

• Apple HomeView - https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/10/meet-apple-homeview-a-new-way-to-enjoy-entertainment-and-manage-the-home/
• HomePod mini 2 - https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/10/apple-announces-the-next-generation-of-homepod-mini/
• Apple TV 4K - https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/10/apple-unveils-the-new-apple-tv-4k/

• Licensing and acquisitions

• Schneider Electric Buying Shelly - https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/schneider-agrees-takeover-bid-shelly-70-per-share-2026-09-24/
• Jasco Buying Zooz - https://byjasco.com/pages/jasco-acquires-zooz
• Bitwarden published version update - https://community.bitwarden.com/t/published-version-update-in-app-stores/102750
• Dockhand licensing changes - https://noted.lol/dockhand-license-changes/

• Starlink Mini

• Starlink Mini price drop - https://www.rvmobileinternet.com/starlink-mini-drops-to-its-lowest-price-yet-at-just-149/

• 45 Drives Creator Summit - https://www.45drives.com/creator-summit/#about

Transcript

Alex: The great clear out continues. This is in fact going to be the very last thing that I record in this studio, give or take, forever. And as part of that, I’ve been clearing out closets and cupboards and drawers and stuff. And I found an old Inovelli switch, which Jeff, you are now the benefactor of. 00:00

Geoff: I am. I wouldn’t actually call this one old. This was actually one of their newer millimeter wave ones that they kind of were working on ever since. You guys remember that video Linus did about the whole GE switches he put in his house? 00:20

Alex: Yeah. 00:32

Adam: Oh yeah. 00:33

Geoff: And they didn’t really work. And he was like, I really want millimeter wave in all my switches. And Inovelli came to the rescue. Yeah, so it was one of these. So it’s the Inovelli millimeter blue is that you sent me. 00:33

Alex: So 00:43

Geoff: Yeah. 00:43

Alex: how does that differ from just a normal Inovelli blue switch, which is like Zigbee? 00:43

Geoff: So they have a Zigbee and they have a Z-Wave model. The difference is it has built into the actual switch a millimeter wave presence sensor. So you’re all familiar with like the FP1, the FP2, Apollo’s got one, everything, presence has got one. Basically, they’re really good at detecting still objects, or at least more still objects. I mean, you’re still moving everybody, but it can detect like a person sitting there and breathing. 00:49

Alex: You’re right. 01:14

Geoff: And- 01:15

Alex: I remember reading somewhere that people use them to detect when they’re in bed, when they’re awake versus when they’re asleep because they’re that sensitive at like just 01:15

Geoff: Yes. 01:24

Alex: when you breathe. It’s crazy. 01:24

Geoff: Yes. They’re 01:25

Geoff: also really good because they can go through walls, which is a problem we’ll talk about in a minute. So I don’t really find a switch to be the best spot to put one of these generally, because if you think about it, a switch is not always in the spot where it’s going to be looking at a room and have the best detection area. You kind of want to be able to like you know, more closely attune where they’re going to be pointing. But I do have one spot where it made a lot of sense in my powder room, because my wife is like, the only room in the house that didn’t have smart switches was the powder room. My kids always left the lights and the fan going. And my wife is like, I am sick of this. I want a switch in there that is smart so you can turn it off. 01:27

Alex: Hold on. 02:06

Geoff: First 02:08

Alex: Your 02:08

Geoff: row 02:08

Alex: wife 02:08

Geoff: problems. 02:08

Alex: asked you for more smart home stuff? Dude. 02:09

Geoff: Oh, my wife is all over the smart 02:13

Alex: Marry 02:14

Geoff: home. Like 02:14

Alex: that woman. 02:15

Geoff: she when 02:15

Adam: That’s just, 02:16

Alex: Yeah. 02:17

Geoff: when 02:17

Adam: you know what 02:17

Geoff: things 02:18

Adam: that brought 02:18

Geoff: don’t 02:18

Adam: to mind? 02:18

Geoff: work, she gets really mad at me. She’s like she hasn’t turned a light switch on in like four years because she walks into a room and the lights turn on. 02:18

Adam: This 02:26

Geoff: That’s 02:26

Adam: is what 02:26

Geoff: the 02:26

Adam: instantly, 02:26

Geoff: kind of. 02:26

Adam: instantly popped in my head. I’ve got a golden ticket. 02:27

Stephen: I’m still blown away by the fact you have a powder room. 02:33

Alex: I thought you were going to say wife 02:37

Geoff: A bathroom. 02:38

Alex: for a second, which would have been rude. 02:38

Geoff: Bathroom. 02:40

Stephen: No, no, 02:40

Geoff: Bathroom. 02:41

Stephen: he seems like a nice fellow. 02:41

Geoff: So anyway, I have a great spot for it because I had tried one of the usual IR motion switch things, and they worked pretty well. But every now and then, you’re sitting there for a while. For whatever reason, the light turns off. A little annoying. So I put these millimeter wave switch in, and… Two things immediately jumped out to me. One, it’s really cool because I can actually have the switch turn on based on the switch detecting motion. I don’t have to go through Home Assistant. It can figure out, okay, there’s a person in here. I’m going to turn the light on. And then when the person is gone, it turns the light off. No automations required. Kind of 02:43

Alex: Built 03:21

Geoff: nice. 03:21

Alex: into the switch, that is nice. 03:22

Geoff: Built into the switch itself, yeah. And then secondly, obviously being, as I said, it can go through drywall. So I realized when I went out to my garage, the light was still turning on when I was next to my refrigerator in the garage. I’m like, well, that’s a small 03:23

Alex: It 03:37

Geoff: problem. 03:37

Alex: It can see through drywall? 03:37

Geoff: They can see through drywall. 03:40

Alex: Wow. 03:41

Adam: Not creepy at all. 03:42

Geoff: No, 03:44

Alex: Hmm. 03:44

Geoff: no, which I’ve actually used to my advantage in certain spots. Like I’ve got another bathroom down here in the basement. I’m looking at where I’ve actually positioned one of them to point through the wall. So there’s nothing in the bathroom showing there’s a motion sensor, but the lights 03:44

Alex: Oh, 03:57

Geoff: turn 03:57

Alex: you 03:57

Geoff: on 03:57

Alex: could 03:57

Geoff: automatically. 03:57

Alex: play some hijinks with that at Halloween. 03:57

Geoff: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. But to configure it, obviously it can detect a whole large room. Like I think I can do like 10 feet away from the sensor. I don’t need that. I don’t want to be detecting, you know, in my garage having the bathroom light turn on. So I found, I’ll have a link to it in the show notes, that someone came up with a way of seeing on like a, you know, on a map where, you know, where it detects targets. 04:00

Geoff: And then you can kind of customize the zone that it detects motion in. And so I was able to, you know, reduce down to just my bathroom and not outside and do a little bit of a, I think they call it an interference zone, which basically is a, if there is motion in here, don’t worry about it. Like kind of, you know, ignore it. And I’ve got it pretty much dialed in at this point. Light turns on when you go in, light turns off and it’s pretty nice. 04:24

Stephen: Is this represented by like a heat map sort of looking 04:51

Geoff: No, 04:54

Stephen: situation? 04:54

Geoff: it’s a dot. It’s actually a dot with a line showing when the movement 04:55

Stephen: Okay. 04:58

Geoff: goes. 04:59

Stephen: All right. 05:00

Alex: Easy to configure, 05:00

Geoff: Switch… 05:01

Alex: would you recommend this to anybody? 05:01

Geoff: The switch? Yes, with the caveats I said earlier of one, it’s not always going to work everywhere because you need to actually make sure your switch is in a good spot. And two… They pricey. They are $100 for the Zigbee model and $115 for the Z-Wave. I said Zigbee is the $100, 05:06

Alex: For 05:25

Geoff: Z-Wave 05:25

Alex: one switch, 05:25

Adam: For 05:25

Geoff: is $115 05:25

Adam: one? 05:26

Geoff: for 05:26

Adam: Oof. 05:26

Alex: for one switch. 05:26

Geoff: one switch. 05:27

Alex: Bear in 05:29

Geoff: Yeah. 05:29

Alex: mind, just the Zigbee one is what, like 60? 05:30

Geoff: I think 05:34

Alex: Give 05:34

Geoff: so. 05:35

Alex: or take. 05:35

Geoff: When I first got them, they were like $40, but I think they’ve gone up because of tariffs and everything. 05:35

Alex: Yeah. 05:39

Geoff: So yeah. 05:39

Stephen: Is it matter? Hmm. 05:41

Geoff: They do make Matter switches, but not the presence sensing one. So, yeah, I would recommend it if you have money to spend and have the perfect deployment spot for it. But otherwise, I think the FP300 from Aqara, the Everything Presence 1, the Apollo stuff, you’re probably going to get better bang for your buck with one of those. 05:44

Alex: Speaking of spending money, or should I say burning money and setting it on fire, Apple had a smart home event this week. 06:10

Stephen: Okay. Do any of you use Apple Home? Like the actual integration for controlling home things on your phone. We don’t have to ask Jeff. He doesn’t use the 06:17

Adam: I do. 06:26

Stephen: Apple. 06:26

Alex: I think my Ecobee thermostat’s a HomeKit, technically, and bridged into Home Assistant that way. 06:27

Geoff: Yes, 06:32

Alex: technically. 06:32

Geoff: I do. I have some stuff with HomeKit through Home Assistant. I do not actually use HomeKit, obviously, on my phone. 06:33

Adam: I’ve never used, um, never use it specifically with any sort of bridging like that, but I actually have a cool little device, the old school way, which is called the Starling Home Hub. Have 06:40

Stephen: The Home 06:50

Adam: you 06:51

Stephen: Hub, 06:51

Adam: heard of 06:51

Stephen: yep. 06:51

Adam: it? 06:51

Stephen: Yeah, I have one of those, yep. 06:51

Adam: Works a treat. Um, 06:53

Stephen: Yeah, it’s pretty good for a period of time when you couldn’t move things that were, say, like Google Nest 06:54

Adam: Mm-hmm. 07:00

Stephen: onto your Apple ecosystem. They worked pretty well, honestly. And the developers were really good about updates. I have, I think, like a first-generation one, and it continues to get updates. Works great. 07:00

Geoff: Well, I think the first thing we maybe want to talk about is the HomeView, which is their Google Nest Hub. Are they still calling it the Nest Hub or is it back to Google? Whatever Google is calling it. The little display you put on your bedside table or in your kitchen that you can have show pictures and stuff like that. 07:13

Adam: I think 07:30

Alex: That’s 07:30

Adam: it 07:30

Alex: what 07:30

Adam: is 07:30

Alex: they 07:30

Adam: the 07:30

Alex: should 07:30

Adam: nest 07:30

Alex: call 07:30

Adam: hub 07:30

Alex: it. The Google show pictures and stuff like that screen thing. 07:31

Adam: kitchen screen. 07:36

Geoff: I mean, it kind of is 07:37

Alex: Yeah. 07:38

Geoff: that. 07:38

Alex: Yeah. 07:39

Stephen: Do any of you have the other devices, like a Google Nest Hub? Is that a thing in any of your homes? 07:40

Alex: It used to be. I think I sold them all at the garage sale last year. I haven’t 07:45

Stephen: OK. 07:49

Adam: I have 07:49

Alex: missed them. 07:50

Adam: all kinds of the speakers. I will say on the Google 07:51

Geoff: I 07:53

Adam: stuff, 07:53

Geoff: have this. 07:53

Adam: the, 07:53

Geoff: Yeah, I have the speakers and I have two of the smaller ones by my bedside table because they actually make pretty decent alarm clocks with the screen turns to like a dim when the light gets too dark at night, which 07:54

Stephen: I 08:06

Geoff: is 08:07

Stephen: get 08:07

Geoff: kind 08:07

Stephen: you. 08:07

Geoff: of a nice thing. And then I have one in the kitchen because it makes it very easy to see, you know, timers and stuff like that. That’s very easy to see visually, you know, chicken timer, pasta timer, whatever 08:07

Stephen: Yeah. 08:16

Geoff: timers you set. Honestly, I only use it for the timers. I don’t really use it for anything 08:16

Alex: Right. 08:21

Geoff: else at this point. 08:21

Stephen: No, that’s fair. I’ve asked a couple of my friends about the HomeView device in particular, obviously with the little screen, right? And everyone’s like, I don’t understand why you’d use that. You either have an iPad sitting around already or who really needs a screen sitting there. But I actually think I might pick one of these up. First off, you can control audio on it, which is pretty 08:23

Alex: Mm-hmm. 08:45

Stephen: handy. I’d love to have a display that shows the album art for whatever is currently playing through my stereo. But the other thing that I thought it would be really awesome for is that you can do FaceTime on it. And my child really likes FaceTiming his grandmother. 08:45

Adam: Yep. 09:01

Geoff: You know, 09:02

Stephen: So he would be able to actually just go over to it and call his grandmother. I thought it would be a great little device for that. Mind you, it’s not super inexpensive, but honestly, it has a little speaker in it and whatnot. And my wife could use it in the kitchen for music or something. 09:02

Geoff: I actually – Google had that calling feature back when it was Duo. Google changes names all the time. But the Home Hub Max could actually do video chats over Google Duo. And I used it for the same thing. My kids would love calling grandparents while we were cooking or whatever. And then Google killed it 09:20

Adam: Yep. 09:42

Stephen: Yeah, 09:42

Geoff: because 09:42

Stephen: that 09:42

Geoff: Google 09:42

Stephen: is a bit of a shame. 09:42

Geoff: kills things. 09:43

Adam: Not just for kids, you know, my mom, I actually put the home hub at her house cause it was so simple to use for that Duo setup. And so I would use it to call her and she would just have it sitting there and it was so like mom friendly. So it 09:44

Geoff: Yeah. 09:58

Adam: was a pretty, pretty cool device 09:58

Alex: It’s a good 09:59

Adam: actually. 10:00

Alex: thing to have in the Apple ecosystem. I don’t particularly see a huge use case for me personally, but I could see a point in my life where I might have thought I had one of those use cases, but having used the Google stuff for a while, and then eventually it just turns into a fancy timer setter. But there are a few things about this that I think it’s worth talking about. FaceTime is good. Smart home control is good. Showing a family calendar, also good. But they’ve added multi-user switching, which they won’t do to the iPad, like fast user switching, because this is a device going in a very potentially busy area like the kitchen. And it will look at things like your Apple Watch and whether your phone was unlocked recently. So it’s not like full face ID. But the idea being that you couldn’t hold a picture up if my phone’s 20 miles away. You couldn’t hold my picture up to the screen and pretend it’s me because it’s clever enough to figure that out. But there’s no apps. This is the real killer for me with this thing. There is no third party apps. And I cannot believe this device in 2026, nearly 2027, is launching without app support. Like, come on. 10:00

Stephen: Have they said that they’re not going to do that and it’s only going to be first party? Cause that was the thing I haven’t found out yet. 11:09

Alex: Yeah, there’s been no, there’s been no statements. So at this point, I suppose we just assume that means maybe never sometimes. 11:13

Stephen: That’s so weird, right? Because they have it on the watch. Like I can have Spotify on my little, my watch and it’s not an issue because this thing just looks like a huge version 11:21

Alex: Right. 11:29

Stephen: of the watch interface, right? 11:29

Alex: This is an ecosystem stickiness device. That’s the entire 11:31

Adam: That’s 11:36

Alex: purpose 11:36

Geoff: Absolutely. 11:36

Adam: all it 11:36

Alex: of 11:36

Adam: is. 11:36

Alex: it. 11:36

Adam: It’s 11:36

Geoff: Absolutely. 11:37

Alex: So 11:38

Stephen: Yeah. 11:38

Alex: they want to get you an Apple 11:38

Adam: not 11:39

Alex: Music, 11:39

Adam: exciting. Yeah. 11:39

Alex: Apple TV Fitness. 11:41

Stephen: Yeah. 11:44

Geoff: I mean, 11:44

Stephen: If they 11:45

Geoff: not so 11:45

Stephen: lock 11:45

Geoff: much 11:45

Stephen: it 11:45

Geoff: the 11:45

Stephen: down 11:45

Geoff: TV 11:45

Stephen: to. 11:45

Geoff: because the 11:45

Stephen: If they 11:47

Geoff: square. 11:47

Stephen: lock it down to only Apple first party things, I don’t know that I’d pick one up, but. If they open it up to Spotify and whatnot, I would definitely opt in. The one weird thing that I noticed while looking at the pricing and whatnot is that the version that sits on your counter has obviously like a little mini subwoofer or like a bass speaker to it, right? And then obviously the other speakers are in the device itself. It looks much like an iPad in that sense. But they also offer a wall mount version. And I think you have to buy the mount separate. But it’s the same price, but it’s missing the bass. 11:48

Alex: And the power adapter. And you can buy a PoE adapter as well for the wall-mounted one. So it’s worse in almost every single way, apart from the fact it’s mounted on a wall, which is kind of cool. But then just buy an old iPad for that. You know what I mean? Like, 12:22

Adam: That’s kind of what I was thinking for the kids. 12:35

Alex: yeah. 12:37

Adam: Honestly, 12:37

Stephen: Yeah. 12:37

Adam: like you’re 12:37

Geoff: I just… 12:37

Adam: going to have to set your kid right in front of the thing because they’re not going to carry it around. 12:38

Alex: And I tell you, at 12:42

Adam: So 12:43

Alex: 300 bucks, 12:43

Adam: it’s, 12:43

Alex: it’s in a tough price point because a new iPad starts right around 350 on sale. You can get them for a bit less than that sometimes too, you know? So it’s tricky. 12:44

Adam: Maybe they’ll surprise us though. Maybe they’ll surprise us. I mean, the, um, the Duo has the pencil functionality. It’s got some of that overlap with the iPad and this was just announced. Maybe they’ll, maybe there it’s a new era for Apple. Maybe possibly. 12:53

Alex: They should have announced a wall mount for the Duo, a dock for the Duo. That’s where you store your Duo when you 13:07

Adam: Much 13:14

Alex: get home. 13:14

Adam: better idea 13:14

Geoff: Put 13:15

Adam: sold. 13:15

Geoff: your $2,000 Duo on the wall. Absolutely. Yeah, 13:15

Alex: alongside all of your brand new smart accessories that they announced with LG as well, and the Schneider Electric Group. That’s the same people that just bought Shelly, right? Is that a coincidence? 13:19

Geoff: we’ll talk about that a little bit. We’ll talk about the Schneider a little 13:28

Alex: Yeah, 13:31

Geoff: bit later. I 13:31

Alex: okay. 13:31

Geoff: have thoughts on that. 13:32

Alex: Well, LG, you know, famous for being a very privacy-respecting company, partnering with Apple is an interesting choice, given privacy is iPhone. But it’s just interesting that Apple’s bothering to enter the smart home game with a coherent suite of products here. 13:32

Geoff: And cameras, like security cameras too. 13:50

Alex: It must be lucrative if they’re willing to get in there with Tim Apple and Mr. Turnus doing what he does now. It must be a lucrative market. 13:53

Adam: I would have enjoyed something novel. That’s the only thing with these announcements. I’m like seeing it, seeing it, seeing it, seeing it. Yeah. Okay, cool. Now you guys are in the game, I guess. 14:04

Alex: Same with the HomePod Mini 2 and the new Apple TV 4K. The Apple TV is worth a mention because it got a huge price hike over 14:14

Geoff: Oh, 14:21

Alex: the last 12 months. 14:21

Geoff: oh. 14:22

Stephen: And it only does 4K60. 14:23

Adam: Oh, no way. 14:27

Alex: Hmm, 14:28

Geoff: Ouch. 14:28

Adam: That 14:29

Alex: yeah. 14:29

Adam: sucks. 14:29

Alex: So 300 bucks gets you 4K60. I mean, look, everything’s going up in price. The Nvidia Shield just went up in price as well. That’s now 300 bucks. It 14:30

Geoff: Which is ridiculous, 14:39

Alex: was 14:39

Geoff: by the way. 14:40

Alex: $100, $100 increase. I mean, it is ridiculous, but the price of RAM is ridiculous. Thanks to Nvidia. 14:40

Geoff: Fair. 14:47

Adam: Mm-hmm. 14:48

Geoff: Fair. 14:49

Alex: The irony there is not lost on me. But the new Apple TV 4K is kind of not very interesting to me. 14:49

Geoff: Does the fact that you can use the HomePods, like the Minis and the actual other ones, like in a surround sound system at all appealing to you guys? 14:58

Stephen: That is the worst idea ever, 15:06

Geoff: Okay. 15:08

Stephen: honestly. That is holy shit. Okay, so I can just imagine this. You’ve come home after a long day, perhaps maybe even a long week, and maybe this is the time where you put your little one down for sleep, and they actually went to sleep on time. It’s like 7, 8, 30, something like that, and you and your wife want to watch your favorite show. you start watching it and you’re like, wow, that’s kind of strange. Audio is only coming from the front left speaker. And then you’re going to start, I don’t know, resetting multiple devices to try to get things to sync. Holy sweet Jesus. It’s going to like, it’s going to work at the front and it’s going to be like a two second delay in the back. And what are you going to do? Just like start restarting your little speakers? No, this is the dumbest thing ever. Like, no, 15:08

Adam: Wait 15:50

Stephen: sorry. 15:50

Adam: a second. 15:50

Alex: Tell us 15:50

Adam: Come 15:51

Alex: what you really 15:51

Adam: on. 15:51

Alex: think, Stephen. 15:51

Adam: That’s well, and 15:51

Stephen: Holy 15:53

Adam: it’s so 15:53

Stephen: God. 15:53

Adam: extreme. This is not new because Sonos has been doing this for a long 15:53

Geoff: Yes. 15:57

Adam: time. Why do you think Apple can’t get in on that game? 15:57

Stephen: I wouldn’t do it with Sonos either. I didn’t. 16:00

Adam: Okay. I’ve never experienced what you just described and I’ve been using Sonos for a long time. 16:03

Alex: Cable better 16:08

Stephen: oh man 16:08

Alex: is my experience. 16:09

Stephen: cable better uh honestly uh since you mentioned Sonos because i didn’t but you brought it up uh the the amount of F-wordery that I have gone through to troubleshoot their stupid networking stack, I would never touch one of their products ever again, seriously. If you have one device on wifi connect, but the rest are magically on your ethernet cables, which you should be doing anyway, They’ll just drop out. If you leave their, what do you call it, their, oh, they have a special word for the SonosNet thing that they do where they connect to each other on a Unifi network, it’ll create network loops and STP will turn off the ports connecting your devices, which you should know because someone just spent a whole bunch of money on Unifi gear, which I’m sure I’m not going to bring up again. But anyway, no, seriously, it’s the worst. Anyway, so yes, everyone listening and watching just use speakers with cables. 16:10

Alex: Spicy Steven tonight. 17:09

Adam: So 17:10

Alex: I 17:10

Adam: I’d 17:10

Alex: like it. 17:10

Adam: just like to say NDLS will totally solve your Sonos problems. You look him up, he loves 17:11

Stephen: Yeah, 17:17

Adam: it. 17:17

Stephen: I love it. So good. 17:18

Geoff: And also for the record, I have had absolutely none of those problems with my Sonos speakers. So 17:20

Adam: No, me neither. 17:24

Geoff: your mileage may vary. 17:25

Alex: Yeah, maybe your Wi-Fi just sucks, Steven. 17:27

Stephen: No, I think it’s because restaurants like to have like 20 or 30 of these Sonos devices. 17:30

Alex: Yeah, 17:35

Geoff: Okay. 17:35

Adam: Okay. 17:35

Geoff: That’s 17:35

Alex: coupled 17:36

Geoff: fair. 17:36

Alex: with 200 people 17:36

Geoff: That’s, 17:37Alex: and all their Wi-Fi interference and phones. Yeah. 17:37

Stephen: Yep, 100%. 17:39

Adam: Yeah, 17:41

Geoff: Yeah, 17:41

Adam: I have 17:42

Geoff: fair. 17:42

Adam: a living room setup. There is no issue like this. 17:42

Alex: Yeah, I used the Apple HomePod. So when we thought we were going to leave this house for the first time, probably about a year ago, actually, I had three or four months where we were bare bones with a crappy Roku TV and an Apple HomePod, which, by the way, sounds amazing for what it is. But compared to a pair of KEF floor standing speakers that I’m used to sounds like absolute ass in a 17:46

Adam: Mm-hmm. 18:14

Alex: living room setup. They are just not, they’re just not good enough. And I would say that anybody probably listening to this show probably cares a little bit about audio. Maybe do yourself a favor. Don’t get sucked in. Don’t, don’t think you’re gonna do this and be genuinely happy with the result because you probably won’t be. It’s my experience. 18:14

Geoff: Meh. 18:35

Stephen: Is your experience mini or the normal size one? 18:36

Alex: I tried pairing two minis as a stereo pair and was obviously disappointed. So I went to the single big HomePod and was still disappointed. So 18:38

Stephen: I assume it gave you a little bit more bottom end, but that was about 18:50

Alex: yeah, 18:53

Stephen: it. 18:53

Alex: pretty much. And the weird thing is, is it gets lost in the entertainment center because of the fact it’s got the 360 speaker array and it kind of starts cancelling 18:53

Stephen: Right. 19:00

Alex: itself out and 19:00

Stephen: I’ve thought that these things would probably be much like the small Sonos that you can get. Very good for like an office where you have like one or two just kind of around because they’re background 19:03

Alex: You just 19:12

Stephen: music. 19:12

Alex: want noise Yeah 19:12

Stephen: You just want noise. Right. Yeah. So I think that they shine in that situation, but absolutely like sitting down to listen to music in any sort 19:14

Alex: Yeah. 19:21

Stephen: of enjoyable way, just not a 19:21

Alex: They 19:24

Stephen: thing. 19:24

Alex: are great. We have the big HomePod and a couple of minis around the house. When you’re cleaning and going from room to room and you don’t really care about the fidelity whatsoever, great. Just give me the noise, like you said. But in any kind of remotely critical listening environment with dialogue, with music, with sound effects, they’re just not it, chief. 19:24

Adam: But for podcasts in the shower, podcasts 19:45

Alex: Yeah. 19:47

Adam: uh, podcasts in the shower, stuff like that, 19:48

Alex: Yeah. 19:50

Adam: you know, like you were saying, if 19:51

Stephen: Yeah. 19:52

Adam: you’re cleaning 19:52

Alex: Yeah. 19:52

Adam: there, they are really handy. 19:53

Geoff: I have a bunch of the Google Homes and I kind of use them for audio around the house audio. Yeah. Again, same kind of thing. 19:56

Alex: Now, we mentioned it briefly in the last segment, but Schneider have bought the Shelly Group. How do we feel about 20:03

Geoff: Yeah. 20:11

Alex: that? 20:11

Geoff: Oh, I have thoughts. 20:14

Alex: Oh, good, because Jasco have also just announced they’ve bought Zooz as well. 20:15

Alex: Who are these companies, 20:21

Geoff: Okay. 20:22

Alex: Jeff, Jasco and Schneider, and why should we be unhappy about this? 20:22

Geoff: I’m gonna say this is in Shittification Watch, because nothing at this point has happened yet. 20:27

Alex: We need a jingle for that. 20:32

Geoff: But I can see things maybe on the wall. So Schneider is, I think, a French company, Schneider Electric, and they bought Shelly, as Alex said. My experience with them has mostly been in the work world. But to give you an example of the kind of shenanigans they pull, we have a bunch of security cameras in our office building and they need to be replaced. Do you want to know how much Schneider costs to replace a camera? 20:35

Stephen: Have a good idea. 21:03

Alex: per camera 21:04

Geoff: Per camera. 21:05

Alex: oh well if you’re if you’re talking hold on let’s get the parameters of this right so are we talking call out fee blah blah blah are we just talking straight up one camera bop done it’s gotta be cool 21:07

Geoff: I’m talking replacing a whole camera set. Doesn’t matter to them. They charge the same price. 21:20

Alex: for one camera let’s say a thousand bucks 21:23

Adam: I was going to say two. 21:28

Geoff: Multiply by 10, Alex. 21:30

Adam: Whoa. 21:31

Alex: no 21:33

Adam: No way. 21:34

Geoff: Yes, yes way. 21:34

Alex: Oh, I’m in the wrong business. 21:36

Adam: Right? 21:38

Geoff: Yeah, 21:39

Adam: Are 21:40

Geoff: I 21:40

Adam: they 21:40

Geoff: told 21:40

Adam: hiring? 21:40

Geoff: my boss, 21:40

Adam: No. 21:40

Geoff: I was like, you pay me for two of those cameras, I’ll do the entire 21:41

Alex: So 21:45

Geoff: building. 21:45

Alex: wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. The Ethernet’s already run. The power’s already run. All they’re doing is showing up and screwing a camera into the roof and plugging it in and hooking it up to the NVR. 21:46

Geoff: In 21:57

Stephen: Yeah. 21:57

Geoff: my office, no, they have to do a little bit more, but they would charge still about the same ballpark for the cameras, yes. 21:57

Stephen: And they have a super special NVR. It’s not just like 22:04

Geoff: Oh, yes. 22:07

Stephen: a normal NVR. 22:07

Alex: Okay. 22:08

Geoff: Oh, yes. 22:09

Alex: So they are one 22:09

Geoff: So 22:10

Alex: of those ones you need to bend over and lube up before you call them, 22:10

Geoff: correct. 22:14

Alex: right? 22:14

Stephen: It doesn’t provide lube. That’s an optional extra that 22:15

Alex: Okay, 22:17

Stephen: you have to 22:18

Alex: it’s 22:18

Stephen: license. 22:18

Alex: that kind of deal. 22:18

Adam: That’s another thousand. 22:19

Alex: Ah. 22:21

Geoff: So my concern with them buying Shelly is they clearly steer towards the high end commercial line. I would be worried if I was I don’t use Shelly stuff personally, but if I did use them, I’d be worried that they are clearly going to start pivoting away from the home market 22:21

Alex: Hmm 22:38

Geoff: towards this high end commercial, high-end business market. And yes, everything’s local that Shelly does, but something to be on the alert of Shelly may not be Shelly for a whole lot longer. 22:39

Alex: Got to create that shareholder value, huh? 22:53

Geoff: something like that moving on to Jasco buying Zooz this so we’re recording on Wednesday this just got announced yesterday on Tuesday so my very first smart switch actually was a Jasco you know GE by Jasco Z-Wave switch and they worked okay i had a bunch of them in my old house but i suffered what became lovingly known as the click of death where you go to turn the switch on you hear a little click nothing happens. Turn it off, click, nothing happens. And sometimes it will go click, click, click, click, click, click, click forever until you cut the power to it. They apparently had a bad capacitor in these that would go bad and just the entire thing would go kaput. So that’s been my experience with Jasco. 22:56

Alex: You just need to hit it with a hammer, I think, like a starter motor or something. 23:41

Stephen: Well, maybe if they’re bought out by another company, it’ll get better. 23:45

Geoff: Well, no, no, no. Jasco was the one buying Zooz and Zooz I love. I have 23:48

Stephen: Oh. 23:52

Geoff: 80% of the switches in this house are Zooz. They are my go-to. Like you can usually find their switches on sale for 25, 30 bucks. I know we’re talking about Inovelli being 30. These guys are the more – what I love about them is they are – budget friendly, but they still have all the kind of features that you really care about. They don’t have all the flashy stuff like, you know, an LED strip along the side and all the different parameters, but it comes to like what you actually care about in a Switch, they have. 23:53

Alex: So what do you do at this point? You know the inevitable is coming. Maybe it’s in one year, maybe 24:23

Adam: Hmm. 24:27

Alex: it’s in five. 24:27

Adam: I don’t think 24:29

Geoff: I’m 24:29

Adam: that’s 24:30

Geoff: hoping 24:30

Adam: fair. 24:30

Geoff: with Zooz, it’s not so much. I’m hoping this is more of a they needed to expand and they couldn’t quite get there and maybe Jasco has the reach to do that. Hence why this is watch, not warning, not, you know, rip everything out of your walls. But 24:30

Alex: So you’re not going to stock up with half 24:44

Geoff: I’m 24:45

Alex: a dozen spares, huh? 24:45

Geoff: tempted to. Next time there’s a sale, I might just buy a bunch of backups. 24:48

Alex: Yeah. 24:52

Adam: Nothing wrong with hedging. There’s nothing wrong with hedging, but 24:53

Geoff: No. 24:55

Adam: to be fair, you know, companies make acquisitions like this too. And sometimes they do actually understand the value proposition of what they’ve purchased and they leave some independence there. So 24:56

Alex: It’s interesting. 25:07

Adam: to be determined. 25:07

Alex: Yeah, I mean, the thing is about companies, though, is that they have a soul. And you see it all the time is that the products that companies make This isn’t necessarily an argument against acquisitions, because they’re not always 100% bad. But it does change the DNA of the company in a meaningful way, which over time, of course, will change the decisions that they make and change the ways in which they put out products. So I suppose when I say the inevitable, it’s tempting to go down the shittification. Oh, they’re going to put things around a paywall or just make the product worse. That might not happen, but they’re going to be different products regardless. 25:08

Adam: Fair. 25:45

Geoff: And I loved about, one thing I love about Zooz was their customer service was absolutely, and still is absolutely incredible. Like my first experience with them, I was having trouble wiring in like a three-way switch where I couldn’t quite figure out the wiring. I sent them a picture of the wires. I said, you know, here’s what I figured out what these, you know, these all do. On a Sunday afternoon, about three hours after I emailed, I got back a detailed annotated picture of this wire to this, 25:45

Alex: Cool. 26:09

Geoff: this wire to that, that wire to this. I fell in love with the company at that point forever. I’m like, you emailed me on a Sunday with complete working instructions of what to do. Love you. 26:09

Adam: This 26:20

Geoff: is a good example 26:20

Adam: of the power of support, by the way, which 26:22

Alex: Oh, 26:24

Adam: is something that 26:24

Alex: here we go. I 26:24

Adam: I preach all the time. Come on. Wait, wait. This is not me wearing my work support hat. 26:25

Alex: was 26:31

Adam: I 26:32

Alex: going to 26:32

Adam: experienced 26:32

Alex: say you’re literally 26:32

Adam: this myself. 26:32

Alex: wearing a work hat right now, dude. 26:33

Adam: This is not me. I’m covering… For those listening, I’m now covering the Unraid symbol on my hat as I make this statement. I truly in my heart believe that it’s a differentiating factor and I will make purchasing decisions and have a level of loyalty specific to the support experience. For real. And also, on the other side of that coin, there’s Comcast. And that’s where the polar opposite experience 26:36

Alex: So I’m making a bunch of phone calls at the minute, you know, dealing with companies and shipping things and blah, blah, blah. And I called an HVAC company this morning and I thought I was talking to a real person. 27:09

Geoff: Oh God, they’re so 27:22

Adam: Ooh, 27:23

Geoff: good. 27:23

Alex: And they 27:24

Adam: it’s 27:24

Alex: have 27:24

Adam: getting creepy. 27:24

Alex: fake call center noise piped in in the background. They have just a hint of fake intonation to the point where you’re like, this person could just be really socially awkward. And it really, I mean, even like I said, you know, while we’re moving to England and blah, blah, blah. And it goes, oh, well, congratulations on your move and blah, blah, blah. And I’m like, thank you. And it was like, you’re welcome. And I genuinely didn’t realize for over a minute I wasn’t talking to a human. It was incredibly 27:25

Adam: Can I ask you a question? I 27:56

Alex: scary 27:57

Adam: have a question. 27:58

Alex: and impressive. Yes, please. 27:59

Adam: Was this Pioneer? Was that the company by chance? 28:01

Alex: No, this was a heating and cooling HVAC company. 28:03

Adam: Yeah. It’s a Pioneer heating and cooling. Anyways, that’s a company out here. The reason I asked that is because I had the exact same experience with specifically an HVAC company in it. And I think they’re called Pioneer out here in Knoxville, Tennessee. And it 28:07

Geoff: I think it’s 28:22

Adam: creeped 28:22

Geoff: just 28:22

Adam: the shit 28:23

Alex: Yeah. 28:23

Adam: out of me. Pardon my French. But I was just like… By the time I figured it out and we were in some like interesting weird loop, it was it was so creepy how the intonation was perfect and the the gaps for breathing sounds and all of these things. 28:23

Alex: It was fast 28:38

Adam: It’s 28:39

Alex: too. I mean, 28:39

Adam: it’s uncanny. 28:40

Alex: there was, yeah, uncanny is the best word for it. There were just moments where I’m like, first of all, I was creeped out once I realized what was going on. But then I actually just sat back with my tech hat on going, this is impressively good. Like, how are they doing this? So, you know, just… 28:41

Stephen: But how did that make you feel as a customer? 29:00

Alex: Well, when the real person then called me back anyway, 20 minutes later, I said, hey, are you a real person? And they went, yes. And I said, prove it. I said, what happened at the weekend with the weather in this zip code? And they could tell me. And I was like, good. Thank you for confirming. I did not appreciate being tricked 20 minutes ago. Please feed that back to your superiors because I don’t want this to become the norm. It’s obviously going to happen. because call centers are expensive compared to that, I guess. But anyway, topic 29:03

Geoff: Yeah. 29:35

Alex: digression. 29:36

Geoff: Do we want to talk about more in Shittification real quick? Because there were two more things I saw that 29:38

Alex: Yes. 29:41

Geoff: had 29:42

Alex: Well, 29:42

Geoff: people up in arms. 29:42

Alex: on the list of Shittification Watch is Bitwarden, it would seem. 29:43

Geoff: Yeah. Yeah. So they announced that they are moving their extensions and apps that they’re releasing to a commercial license, not the open source license. 29:48

Alex: Mm-hmm. 29:59

Geoff: They’re still going to develop the open source plugins and everything there, but the ones they release are no longer going to be open source. Now, that is also in addition to, we talked previously on an episode about private equity buying them and And the possible issues there. So, again, I still have my pitchfork down because I don’t think they haven’t closed sourced everything. You can still fork it all. 29:59

Alex: You’ve gone out 30:22

Geoff: But 30:23

Alex: to 30:23

Geoff: we 30:23

Alex: the 30:23

Geoff: all 30:23

Alex: shed 30:24

Geoff: need 30:24

Alex: and 30:24

Geoff: to 30:24

Alex: have 30:24

Geoff: be 30:24

Alex: a 30:24

Geoff: aware. 30:24

Alex: look and checked it’s still there, though, right? 30:24

Geoff: Pretty 30:27

Alex: Yeah, 30:27

Geoff: much. 30:27

Alex: you know 30:28

Geoff: Pretty 30:28

Alex: where it 30:28

Geoff: much. 30:28

Alex: is. You’re ready. 30:28

Geoff: I mean, I think that if Bitwarden did do something because it’s been open source, there will be forks in days. Like, I don’t think 30:30

Alex: These 30:37

Geoff: it’s 30:37

Alex: days, 30:37

Geoff: going to be too 30:37

Alex: yeah. 30:38

Geoff: long. 30:38

Alex: Yeah, yeah. What 30:39

Adam: Mm-hmm. 30:39

Alex: even is software these days? So you can’t abuse that position as a software maker anymore. 30:40

Geoff: Yeah. And then the other one I saw, I think we’ll talk about quickly is, you know, Dockhand for, you know, we talked about, I think this one a little while ago because when Portainer did their in-shittification thing, Dockhand we talked about because I use that one as my Docker management tool. They did some finagling with their license that made people a little bit unhappy. Again, they still say you can run it for free. You know, you don’t have to pay a license, don’t have to do anything, but another one to keep your pitchfork down, people. You don’t have to go crazy, but Keep your eye on it. Okay. 30:45

Adam: Keep the pitchfork in your hand, though, at the ready. Just don’t 31:17

Geoff: Yes. 31:21

Adam: raise it yet. 31:21

Geoff: Yes. Because everyone was up in arms saying, I’m going to switch immediately. I’m like, they haven’t done anything yet. 31:22

Alex: But 31:28

Geoff: Yet. 31:28

Alex: there’s still time. Talking of things there’s still time about, there’s still time to subscribe to our Patreon. Let’s do a little bit of housekeeping whilst we’re here. So you can find the show, obviously, at bitflip.show. We’re on Mastodon, and all this stuff will be in the show notes linked down below. You can send us an email over at contact at bitflip.show. Your support 31:28

Alex: genuinely makes this show possible. As I said last episode, thanks to our patrons, we are now no longer paying for our editor out of our own pocket. And that is just… I don’t know. It’s a, it’s a really nice milestone. Like the show is, is like, it’s, it’s not losing money every time we get on air, which is, which is really, really nice. A big thank you to our terabyte supporter, Maurizio Badoet Mask. He is the recipient of my Bambu Lab X1C, which I just sold, which I was very sad to sell because it’s an amazing machine. But anyway, big thank you to Maurizio. And if you’re listening, dude, which I know you are, I’ll miss your friendship. And thanks for the last few years of friendship in Raleigh. And yeah, You can find more about the show, like I say, bitflip.show. 31:46

Geoff: You also can see our YouTube channel, you know, which we’ll have linked down below as well. And just, you know, I don’t think we haven’t really talked about what the Patreon benefits are, but one, you know, support us. But then two, we do do some after show stuff. We’re going to try and do that a little bit, maybe a little bit more regularly. But we did one last episode. We talked about TinyBox and going to Hogwarts and all sorts of fun things. It was a good time. So if you’re a patron, you can get that by linking to your account and doing all that stuff. So 32:29

Alex: And just remember, 32:55

Geoff: just one of the benefits we offer. 32:56

Alex: over the next couple of months, honestly, through Thanksgiving and Christmas, there’ll be some disruption to our schedule. Obviously, I’m emigrating, so all bets are off as to whether I’ll be on the shows or not. But we’ll find a way to put something out. These three lads will have you covered. So yeah, just keep subscribed to our RSS feed and however you get your podcasts. 32:57

Geoff: Now, Stephen, we were talking in the pre-show. You have some thoughts about Adam’s decision about 33:21

Adam: Oh, my 33:26

Geoff: internet? 33:27

Adam: God. Oh, my God. Here we 33:27

Stephen: I 33:29

Adam: go. 33:29

Stephen: do. And so on our magical document here, it says that Adam’s supposed to be talking about Starlink Mini. Many of you might not know this, but Adam has always had the rubbish internet. When we try to record these podcasts, he often has… latency that is measured in three digits instead of two. And while it doesn’t always pose a problem, it sometimes really does, because when we do our four count, his lag’s like three seconds behind ours. But I notice here that he wants to do Starlink Mini as a thing, but he had previously posted an image with a very fast speed test, I think somewhere along the lines of like three gigabit, And yet in this show, he wants to talk about a Starlink Mini. So I’m really curious what he’s going to bring up here. And then I’ll berate him a little bit about his Unifi stack as he goes. But Adam, could you tell me what you want to talk about with your Starlink Mini? 33:29

Adam: I totally can do that. And I just want to let the audience know that he’s so salty about this because he’s one of these creepers. I shared an image and he magnified everything to the nth degree. Ooh, ooh, ooh, look at that port. Ooh, that’s a 25 gig port. And then he’s been on a tear all afternoon about my terrible life choices. Yeah. 34:25

Stephen: I didn’t say it was a terrible life choice. I also enjoy things with many, many horsepowers that I don’t need. 34:48

Alex: How are you talking to us right now, Adam? 34:53

Adam: I am currently over my T-Mobile 5G home internet connection 34:56

Alex: Okay. 35:01

Adam: still because… 35:01

Alex: And you have 35:02

Adam: Yes. 35:03

Alex: a cable, a wire running direct from your house to some kind of exchange, a literal cable. 35:03

Adam: I do 35:13

Alex: And you’re 35:13

Adam: as of 35:13

Alex: choosing, 35:13

Adam: last weekend. 35:14

Alex: yeah, and you’re choosing to use 5G 35:15

Adam: Okay. 35:17

Alex: to talk to us. With your latency, you 35:17

Stephen: last 35:19

Alex: sat right 35:19

Stephen: weekend 35:19

Alex: now at 127 milliseconds compared 35:19

Adam: It 35:22

Alex: to the 35:22

Adam: is. 35:22

Alex: rest of 35:22

Adam: Yours 35:22

Alex: us. 35:22

Geoff: Versus 35:23

Adam: is 122, so… 35:23

Geoff: the rest are all looking 30, 40. Yes. 35:23

Stephen: i was giving you the benefit of the doubt i thought that you had just had this like installed like yesterday and you’re like you know life 35:26

Adam: No. 35:31

Stephen: is busy i just haven’t had a chance to do you’ve 35:31

Adam: Sunday. 35:33

Stephen: had this since last week 35:33

Adam: No, since it’s Sunday. 35:35

Stephen: oh 35:36

Adam: But 35:36

Stephen: sunday 35:36

Alex: what are you even 35:37

Adam: yeah. 35:37

Alex: doing Adam basically is what we’re saying 35:37

Adam: what am 35:39

Stephen: what 35:40

Adam: I 35:40

Stephen: are 35:40

Adam: doing 35:40

Stephen: you doing 35:40

Adam: with 35:40

Stephen: with 35:40

Adam: my 35:40

Stephen: your 35:40

Adam: life 35:40

Stephen: life man 35:40

Adam: guys? I don’t know. I could have done the simple thing and just hooked it up to my existing stack, but I have had these beautiful Unifi switches sitting in the corner for a very long time. And I’m like, okay, we’re just doing it. And, um, then I didn’t get through all of that work. And so I had a, I have a very messy rack that I shared a picture of. 35:41

Alex: The next thing that 35:59

Adam: Um, 36:00

Alex: Stephen’s been chewing you out about is that you’ve got some SFP28 capable switches, right? 36:00

Adam: Correct. Which 36:06

Alex: 25 gig, in other 36:07Adam: upsets 36:08

Alex: words. 36:08

Adam: him for some upsets him for some reason. I’m not sure why exactly. But my plan for this for this stack and I will have more. We’ll talk about this in future shows. I’ll share additional images and stuff as we go. And I’ll share this with the patrons as well is I’m going to wire this whole house, the fiber and cat six in every room. We’re going to have cameras. We’re going to have all the smart devices out the wazoo here. So that is the ultimate plan. And this was just phase one was getting this stuff set up. So I do have a decently fast internet connection downstairs now that I have to complete the setup of. Um, and I’m still keeping the, the 5g cause it’s an amazing backup. Honestly, this latency aside, I was so surprised at how well this works actually. Um, 36:08

Stephen: Couldn’t you just use like a Starlink Mini for a backup WAN? 36:58

Adam: oh, you know, you know that you mentioned that? So I will tell you this. First of all, understand that the Starlink Mini was not purchased for usage in the home, really. I have been living the tech nomad life lately. I was over in Portugal for the last episode that I was on and brought my recording gear and such. And in December, I’m going to be gone for another month. So I’ll be in California and And we have a very good friend who is lending us his giant RV for the month. So we’ll be traveling up and down the coast and staying by the beach, et cetera, but still got to pay them bills. And so I need to work. And so I was looking at options for internet access and the mini was its lowest price that I’ve ever seen. It was 149 purchase outright. And they have for the Roam plan, which is the plan that’s built for travel such as this, Uh, they have a standby mode for that, which is $10 a month. And I’m like, you know, at a certain point, it’s kind of just worth it to have the thing for occasional trips, travel, camping, et cetera, et cetera, for $10 a month. That’s my feeling. But the reason that I put it on the show this week is that I wanted to get your guys’ opinion. Like, does that make sense? Is there just to have it as a backup, um, have a second WAN connection for those who don’t have one? I’m not sure if you do, Jeff. Um, 37:01

Geoff: Well, I’m going to I’ll start off with the I don’t necessarily I don’t necessarily like Starlink, but I have more ethical concerns than I do technical. I think it’s great for what it offers. My problem with it gets more into the politics of I don’t like the fact that. CEO has basically been able to usurp all the broadband money for the United States by saying, oh, I can give broadband to everybody really, really cheaply. It’s not going to scale that much. It’s not you’re going to have latency. You can’t have enough satellites up in the air to give coverage for everybody. They’ve already started running into problems. And it’s great for the I’m off in the sticks and I have no cell reception and I need something. It does not replace your home internet and nor should it. You should have a wire because a wire is going to be more reliable. It’s going to be faster. It’s going to have better latency. It’s just going to be better. And you won’t be, you know, blocking the sky and having junk all up in there that, you know, you have to worry about when you’re launching rockets and you have to worry about deorbiting and you have to worry about astronomy. I could go on, but 38:26

Adam: Yeah, 39:36

Geoff: that’s my take. 39:37

Adam: I think your take on the issues external to the service itself are totally valid. But I have used the service before and it’s pretty freaking awesome, 39:37

Alex: I mean, 39:49

Adam: honestly. And 39:49

Alex: if you’re in the middle 39:50

Adam: it’s 39:50

Alex: of Death 39:50

Adam: very… 39:50

Alex: Valley in a van, you ain’t got too many 39:51

Adam: No, 39:53

Alex: options, 39:54

Adam: no, 39:54

Alex: you know? It’s 39:54

Adam: no. Wait, wait. That’s the extreme. There’s plenty of places throughout this country you can drive to that aren’t going to have… 39:55

Alex: true. 40:01

Adam: good broadband options you don’t have to go to the middle of nowhere to find that just to be clear 40:02

Alex: Yep. 40:07

Adam: so this is like a game changer for so many people who are stuck out in these locations and there’s just literally nothing better than uh terrible um i don’t even know if they have what is it they probably have like HughesNet and stuff like that as the alternative 40:07

Alex: Yeah, it’s 40:23

Adam: so 40:24

Geoff: Yeah, 40:24

Alex: way 40:24

Adam: yeah 40:24

Alex: better 40:24

Geoff: but 40:24

Alex: than that. 40:24

Geoff: the answer is to let’s spend the money – again, we’re getting into politics now, but let’s spend the money and run better lines so that way those people have better internet. I agree that they should have better internet. I just don’t think Starlink is going to scale to solve all the internet problems in the country. I think it does what it does best, being that – rural, remote, I really, you know, the person who’s up a mountain and, you know, can’t get internet run to them easily. The one person up a mountain where it’s going to cost $5 million to run the line up there. Yeah, Starlink makes sense for them. 40:26

Adam: Maritime, too. If you’re on the ocean, like it’s a 40:58

Geoff: Oh, yeah. 41:01

Adam: pretty amazing option for that. But speaking of like the congestion in the skies and the lack of competition, Amazon’s all over the news right now with their Project Kuiper, I think it’s called, 41:01

Geoff: Yes. 41:10

Adam: which 41:10

Geoff: Yes. 41:10

Adam: is their their constellation that they’re going to be serving up Internet over. And I believe they’re touting 400 megabit down. I don’t know what the upload. I’ve not seen the upload specs, but. It’s interesting. At least there’s some other competition in the space. I know that does not solve the issue of low orbit falling out of space and obscuring the sky for astronomy and such. But yeah, removing those factors like it, I find it to be a pretty compelling service. 41:10

Stephen: Do you want the MSP hat, Stephen, to talk about your situation? 41:40

Geoff: Please. 41:43

Adam: Sure. Sure. 41:44

Stephen: Because, I mean, I don’t love the company either. But so up here, we, I think actually last winter or the winter before, we had a ridiculous ice storm that took down tons of trees and tons of hydro lines and whatnot. And many people were without wired internet because, you know, a lot of that infrastructure is not necessarily underground. Sometimes it’s above ground. And so anyone that had Starlink literally still had internet so long as they had power, be that from a a generator or batteries or whatever, but they still had a means to get out to the internet. It was so bad that cellular devices weren’t actually able to get online. That was completely down and out because it took down towers, right? So if you just have a dish and you go and set it outside when it’s not, you know, a horrible storm, you’ll get internet and it works pretty quick. I would say for the price that they’re asking and they let you to put it on like a $10 a month standby, I think that’s pretty good. And from a business perspective, it actually does make up a very good backup internet. There’s a lot of companies that rely on internet for their payments and everything else. And so if they don’t have a backup, And they lose money. So to your point of do you think that this is a good thing? Yeah, I think it’s a great thing. I think that their technology is pretty wild. The whole thing with the deorbiting thing is by design and which in itself is kind of interesting. But yeah, I don’t know. I think you should go for it. 41:45

Adam: And I’ll report back. I’ll let you guys know how this works in my little adventure there for the month. And I will actually be recording via this setup. So it might be interesting. I’m going to try to, by the way, for our patrons, I’m going to try to take more video behind the scenes. I have a pretty cool little gimbal camera and… I’m going to have to learn to edit. So bear with me. But I have some cool stuff from Portugal too. I’m calling it the Linux in the Azores adventure that I still need to put together and share with everybody. 43:19

Stephen: You should do some behind the scenes Unifi setup where we see that you plug in exactly one SFP plus into that gigantic switch when you could just be plugging it into the switch on the bottom of the picture. But I’d love to see that adventure. 43:51

Adam: What you 44:05

Geoff: I’d love 44:06

Adam: don’t 44:06

Geoff: to see 44:06

Adam: understand, 44:06

Geoff: things actually 44:06

Adam: Steven, 44:06

Geoff: plugged in. 44:07

Adam: I bought those just to beat you. That’s what 44:08

Stephen: I 44:10

Adam: I’m 44:10

Stephen: know. 44:10

Adam: doing. I’m never going 44:11

Stephen: Yeah. 44:11

Adam: to use it. 44:11

Alex: It clearly 44:12

Adam: I’m 44:12

Alex: works. 44:12

Adam: just going to 44:12

Stephen: Yeah. 44:13

Adam: show you this. And I’m going to start hanging cables all over it just now. 44:13

Stephen: I don’t doubt it. 44:16

Adam: One more thing about the mini and that standby mode. Standby does not mean off. It actually still will let you do, I think it’s 500 kilobyte internet transfers. So that’s enough for you to do text messages and such with your phone if you’re out in the middle of nowhere in 44:19

Stephen: Really? 44:33

Adam: an emergency. 44:33

Stephen: That’s pretty good. 44:34

Adam: Yeah. So 44:35

Geoff: Interesting. 44:36

Adam: pretty cool. And the thing is legit tiny 44:36

Alex: It’s really 44:38

Adam: and 44:39

Alex: small. 44:39

Adam: it comes with a 44:39

Alex: Well, 44:40

Adam: carrying 44:41

Alex: it’s like 44:41

Adam: case 44:41

Alex: the size 44:41

Adam: and everything 44:41

Alex: maybe 44:41

Adam: for 44:42

Alex: of 44:42

Adam: travel. 44:42

Alex: a, you know, a wadger paper, like a rebar paper, but like this thick. It’s pretty amazing. 44:42

Adam: Mm-hmm. 44:49

Alex: I’d be curious to see how you manage things like bandwidth, because we last summer went and stayed in an RV just south of you, Adam, actually, for a couple of days. One of the listeners actually let me stay in his RV, which is lovely. And I took the Starlink Mini I’d bought for our potential road trip adventures with me then. And I was very impressed with the performance, generally speaking. But the one thing I couldn’t get a handle on was how to tell my laptop that the data pipe was smaller than it was used to or something I was used to. It was going and trying and syncing and doing a bunch of stuff. And like iCloud Drive was doing all of its nonsense and stuff like that. So I’d be curious to hear how you kind of get on with that. 44:49

Adam: Yeah, I’ll share all the details, all the 45:32

Alex: Huge Linux. 45:35

Adam: switch to Linux. 45:35

Alex: Yeah. 45:36

Adam: Well, there is a 45:37

Stephen: Use Linux. 45:37

Geoff: Yes. 45:38

Stephen: Don’t 45:39

Adam: there 45:39

Stephen: use 45:39

Adam: is 45:39

Stephen: your Mac. 45:39

Adam: there is a 45:40

Geoff: And 45:40

Adam: Framework 45:40

Geoff: yet, wait, wait, 45:40

Adam: Pro. 45:41

Geoff: for those listening, we had some technical issues with the mic and he was berating me for running Linux. So, you know, he’s definitely talking on both ends of his mouth here. I’m just going to point out. 45:41

Adam: By he means Stephen, 45:51

Alex: Yes. 45:52

Adam: let’s just 45:52

Geoff: Yes. 45:53

Adam: be 45:53

Geoff: Sorry. 45:53

Adam: very 45:53

Stephen: Whoa, 45:53

Adam: clear. 45:54

Stephen: whoa. 45:54

Alex: Yeah. 45:54

Geoff: We’re all a little spicy tonight, it seems like. 45:55

Alex: Yeah, right. Well, we probably better get out of here, haven’t we? And, you know, like I say, the next couple of months for me is just moving to England. It’s going to be crazy. I am going to be, this is a shameless self plug, selling a bunch of stuff like a TV, a UPS, a couple of cars. If you’re in the Raleigh area and any of that sounds interesting, send me a DM on Discord and we’ll talk. I’ll give you a good price, I promise. These gentlemen will all attest 45:58

Adam: Another. 46:24

Alex: because they’ve all had something. 46:25

Adam: Yes. 46:27

Geoff: Mm-hmm. 46:27

Stephen: It’s 46:28

Adam: Yes. 46:28

Stephen: true 46:28

Adam: There’s 46:28

Geoff: He is fair. 46:29

Adam: a very nice PDU that I purchased. That’s 46:30

Alex: Yeah, 46:32

Adam: that’s going 46:32

Alex: finally 46:33

Adam: in 46:33

Alex: getting 46:33

Adam: said 46:33

Alex: used. 46:33

Adam: rack 46:33

Alex: You bought 46:33

Adam: downstairs. 46:34

Alex: that a year ago. 46:34

Adam: I know. 46:35

Alex: Yeah. 46:35

Adam: Another plug, just if people want to actually meet Alex and I, we’re going to be in North Carolina in Wilmington next week. 46:37

Alex: Yeah, as you listen, 46:45

Adam: The 46:45

Alex: it’s 46:45

Adam: Creator 46:46

Alex: probably 46:46

Adam: Summit. 46:46

Alex: very, very soon after this episode at the Creator Summit 46:46

Geoff: Yes. 46:49

Alex: for 45 Drives and Unraid. We’ve got an event together and it’s going to be a fun time. Yeah. 46:49

Geoff: So as Alex said, let’s get out of here. So I think we’ll sign off now, but thank you all for listening. 46:55

Alex: Have a lovely 47:01

Geoff: I’ve been. 47:02

Alex: time-appropriate time of day, everybody. Bye-bye. 47:03

Stephen: And again, I’ve been Steven. 47:09

Adam: And I’ve been Adam. 47:11

Geoff: And I’ve been Jeff. 47:12

Adam: And he’s been Alex. 47:13

Stephen: He is Alex. Bye. 47:14