The Internet of Things Podcast - Stacey On IoT

This week was a big one in the tech ecosystem with Microsoft and Google both hosting their big developer conferences. Microsoft’s featured a lot more IoT . Google shared a few updates for its Google Home and, prior to the show, made its Android Things operating system available. In Alexa news, Microsoft showed off its integration between Cortana and Amazon’s digital assistant , and Ama...

This week Kevin and I discuss Amazon’s big security install reveal and how it made us feel. Plus, a smart home executive leaves Amazon and Facebook’s rumored smart speaker makes another appearance. China is taking surveillance even further and Kevin and I share our thoughts on the state of the smart home , and failed projects. In our news tidbits we cover a possible new SmartThings hub...

This week’s show finds me in Sweden pondering Alexa Blueprints , the Amazon Echo for kids and Amazon’s smart robot plans . Kevin and I talked about all of that, before showcasing new research for IoT out of Carnegie Mellon , the University of Washington , and Princeton . Two senators proposed a social media data sharing law that appears to ignore the IoT, Comcast reported growth in hom...

This week’s show is all about Microsoft’s new IoT security product , Azure Sphere. Kevin and I start with that, before talking about a new checklist from the Online Trust Alliance explaining how to secure your enterprise IoT gear. We then discuss acquisitions such as Nice buying a 75% stake in home security startup abode , Lutron buying professional lighting company Ketra , and the pos...

Microsoft plans to spend $5 billion on the internet of things , and it’s more than the usual shell game that big firms play with these sorts of announcements. We discuss its plans on this week’s podcast. We also talk about Qualcomm’s new vision chips for edge devices , what it means that apps are disappearing from the Apple Watch and Kevin’s thoughts on getting Alexa or Goo...

Intel said it would sell its nine-year-old IoT acquisition Wind River to private equity firm TPG this week. We explain why, and offer some context on the deal. Driven by Spotify’s public listing, I suggest how it can improve its service for the IoT, and then Kevin and I debate what we’d like to see in robots. Kevin shares a smart radon detector . News bits include stories about Google...

We discuss two big news issues this week with the first being Foxconn’s offer to buy Belkin for $866 million. The deal would include the Wemo line of smart home devices and the Phyn leak detection joint venture. After that, data, privacy and surveillance rule the show in light of Facebook’s decision to delay its smart home speaker device . Before we lose hope in IoT entirely, Kevin bri...

Like the rest of the tech media, Kevin and I kick off the show with a discussion about data collection and privacy in light of the allegations against Cambridge Analytica. It’s a stark reminder on what can be gleaned from your information as well as how much of your data is being gathered without your knowledge or real consent. We also talk about smart home lock in , Alexa’s new &#8220...

We have reached the purported end of Broadcom’s bid for Qualcomm, so Kevin and I finally shared our thoughts on the topic. After that we discussed a murder that was solved using evidence from connected devices, Google Routines and Strava’s privacy clean up . We used the SmartThings outage to discuss whether or not we need a hub in the smart home before hitting an array of new devices,...

The tech titans are feuding again , and this time it means you can no longer buy Google’s Nest gear on Amazon’s online store. Kevin and I dissect the fight and speculate where it could lead. We also hit on funding for Ecobee , Alexa’s creepy laugh , and I ponder buying Delta’s pricey new Alexa-enabled faucet . Kevin shares his thoughts on the Raven dashboard camera , a new...

The big news from this week has been Amazon’s proposed acquisition of Ring for $1 billion or more. Kevin and I explain the deal and share our concerns before turning to the issue of smarter cameras including the recently reviewed Google Clip . From there we discuss news from Mobile World Congress and then dig into financings , Google winning over a former Alexa exec , the death of Staples Co...

Every week we talk about Alexa, and this week’s story is about Amazon showing Alexa off at the annual Toy Fair in New York City. I went there three years ago to explore tech in toys and didn’t find much. It seems that things haven’t changed much. The Alexa implementations aren’t that exciting. We also talked about letting Amazon invest in your startup , awesome new sensors...

The big news this week is in machine learning chips. ARM announced a new architecture for machine learning called Trillium , and said it would license an object detection design and one that could handle some basic training at the edge. Amazon, too, is building a chip for its edge devices and machine learning will certainly have a part to play. Meanwhile, we cover Intel’s smart glasses , Kev...

There was a lot of smart home related news this week as Mozilla launched IoT gateway software , Apple’s HomePod reviews came out and Nest was folded into Google . Kevin and I discuss all of that, plus Netgear spinning out its Arlo home camera business and offering a 20 percent stake in an IPO, Amazon’s creepy wristband patent , Alexa at the Superbowl and some feature changes in popular...

We kick off the podcast this week with a discussion of the unintended costs of combining user data, namely the story that Strava had unintentionally outed clandestine U.S. military bases around the world with the publication of its user heat map. Kevin Tofel and I then test text delivery from the Amazon Echo and talk about new features and numbers on the big voice platforms. After that we touch on...

The Apple HomePod goes on sale this week and Kevin is getting one for the show. We’re not sure if you should yet. We discuss that, and our respective Google Home experiments in this week’s show. We also cover Ring raising money at a big valuation, layoffs in consumer IoT , and trouble at SigFox and other low power wide area networks. Kevin also bought a hearable , Comcast reported its...

At CES I made the decision to traumatize my family and swap out the Amazon Echo for the Google Home despite Wi-Fi challenges . We kick off this week’s show explaining why, and discussing some new tricks the Home has. From there, we hit the partnership between Maersk and IBM to create a digitized supply chain using the blockchain. Then we talk about a startup that might help with that effort...

CES is full of stories if you know where to look. This year we had to look beyond companies putting Alexa in everything from toilets to toothbrushes. If you did, you could find out all kinds of fascinating things, such as the big opportunities in the enterprise internet of things or what Comcast is doing with its purchase of Stringify. While roaming the halls of the Las Vegas Convention Center and...

This week. the Internet of Things Podcast crew (Kevin and I) went to CES to discover that the consumer electronics industry was ALL OVER the internet of things. We talked about the big trends and news, such as Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant starring in everything, the concept of a smart bathroom and Samsung’s really big play in the connected home. We also talk about Ring’s latest la...

This week Kevin and I talked about the death of an expensive smart lock, Amazon buying a security company , and spent a lot of time wondering what the heck is going on with Google’s IoT cloud platform . We also wondered what the ad strategy for voice UIs will be given the news that Amazon is talking to consumer product brands about advertisements. Our news wrap-up includes  voice computing f...

Once again it’s time for the holiday episode of the Internet of Things Podcast, where Kevin and I gather weeks ahead of the show’s air date to predict what we think will happen next year. We kick it off with our disappointments from 2017, such as very limited (at best) presence detection in the home and a lack of flexible cellular plans for IoT devices. From there we shared our predict...

This week’s episode starts out with a pretty grim perspective, with Kevin Tofel and I discussing what the end of net neutrality means for the internet of things. We then talk about facial recognition technology in the U.S. and in China . We try  to lighten the mood with discussion of the IOTA blockchain for the internet of things, a $99 doorbell , the reviews of the Amazon Echo Spot , and ne...

We begin this week with another cautionary tale about bricked connected devices. This week it’s an automotive product called Mojio . From there I discuss the things I recently learned about building wireless networks in industrial settings while Kevin talks about how much money connected plants can save . We then get super nerdy on innovations in low-power chips before dipping into a lot of...

Last week Amazon made a slew of IoT announcements at its annual user conference, bringing established functions into general availability and surprising us with the launch of Amazon’s Free RTOS after it hired the man responsible for the most popular embedded OS for microcontrollers. It also introduced Alexa for business . Kevin and I share our thoughts on that and also discussed Microsoft&#8...

This week we kick off the show with a bit about voice such as Google getting better at understanding your commands, the ability to talk to Waze and notifications coming to the Amazon Echo . We also touch on China’s plans to create standards for the smart home, including a preference for NB-IoT over Wi-Fi. Weather reporting gets more accurate without sensors and Kevin and I discuss the end of...