The Internet of Things Podcast - Stacey On IoT

This week I was at CES, the huge consumer electronics trade show held in LAs Vegas. Kevin wisely stayed home, but monitored the news. It’s actually easier to do that from 2,000 miles away. There’s more news than we can cover in one show, but we started with the links between Ford and the Amazon Echo and all of the other tie ups with Alexa that were showed off at the event. We then move...

If you haven’t gone totally paper free on your bills yet, it’s highly likely that the envelope that arrives via the mail has been touched by a Pitney Bowes machine. Pitney Bowes is a $4 billion company that makes mail its business, and Roger Pilc, its chief innovation officer, came on the show this week to explain how it thinks about the Internet of things, how it works with startups a...

Just in case you open a few Christmas goodies in the coming days or decide to use the holidays as an excuse to set up a few connected devices, Kevin and I decided to offer the gift of our experience. We’ve condensed our stupid mistakes (like not reading the box for device compatibility) and more advanced tricks (like making sure all the devices are on the 2.4 gigahertz Wi-Fi network) into a...

Phillips caused a kerfuffle this week when it stopped supporting third-party light bulbs with its Philips Hue bridge and software. It has since reversed the decision after customers complained, but because the crazy time travel that Kevin and I undergo each week to bring the podcast to you had to record an update. However, the conversation about third-party support and standards still remains rele...

This week it seemed that many of my devices and some other people’s devices were experiencing some troubles. My Nest thermostat decided to roast my family in bed at night and it seemed I wasn’t alone. Kevin and I discussed Nest’s response as well as why switching to the Ecobee might require a little extra work on the part of a consumer as well. I also shared my disappointment wit...

Sure it’s a week after Thanksgiving, but we are all about Pi with this week’s episode. Yes, I went there! With the launch of the Raspberry Pi Zero, the cheapest Linux computer yet at $5, we invited Raspberry Pi founder Eben Upton on the show to discuss how Google’s Eric Schmidt helped inspire the cheaper computer, when it might be available to buy again and his ideas for connecte...

The holidays are rapidly approaching so as you’re prepping your Thanksgiving dinner or wallowing in that special feeling of torpor that only comes after downing three servings of stuffing and a piece of pumpkin pie, check out Kevin and my selections for holiday gifts. This week’s episode doesn’t have any guest so we could focus on the gadgets, but next week, the show will be back...

If you’ve learned anything from this podcast, you’ve probably learned that the smart home is pretty much a mess if you want everything to work together in some sort of seamless, easy-to-use way. Amazon’s Echo helps. HomeKit has a roadmap, but it’s still got a ways to go. This week, our guest Alex Capecelatro, CEO of Jstar, a company developing a voice-controlled artificial...

This week had so much connect home and internet of things news Kevin and I covered everything from a brand new way to turn your old smoke detectors into connected smoke detectors using a $35 battery replacement to new chip design from ARM that could make the Internet of things more secure. In the middle of all of that we talked about being able to buy the Amazon Echo in retail stores, the new Tag...

This week’s guest Rob Katcher is working with Wal-Mart to take a little of the pain out of grocery shopping with the Hiku connected fridge magnet. I chatted with Katcher to understand how he decided to create an entirely new category of device—a button that sticks to your fridge and lets you scan or tell it what you need. It then adds it to a shopping list that is available on a mobile app....

Does your office need more conference rooms? Or maybe there’s wasted space where the printer and several reams of paper sit. In this week’s podcast we discuss how companies can use connected sensors in their lights to make better decisions about their real estate while also saving money on their energy costs with Joe Costello, the CEO of Enlighted . Before we talk to Costello, Kevin To...

If you’ve ever wondered how to get started on a smart home of your own, Kevin Tofel and I share a few ways to get started, answering some questions about hubs outlets and how to think about buying connected gadgets for the first time. Those looking to start converting their home to a smart home could begin with something as simple as Smart blinds to revolutionize the way natural light is let...

Several HomeKit devices finally arrived in the house and were installed with relative ease. I had the Lutron bridge that had come out earlier this summer paired with two dimmer switches, a lamp module and my Nest thermostat, the new Philips Hue bridge that is HomeKit enabled paired to five Hue lights and a Schlage Sense lock installed on my back door. It was a good smattering of devices, but unfor...

This week the smart home got some new capabilities with Philips Hue announcing a new HomeKit enabled bridge that also will be upgraded to support the newly announced Nest Weave protocol. Kevin Tofel and I discuss both the new bridge and the new Nest Weave protocol and whether or not we want to keep investing in new gear to upgrade our networks. We also touch on the new cloud offerings announced by...

This week I invited my husband to replace Kevin Tofel (it’s only for this week, y’all) to get a viewpoint from someone who isn’t exactly enamored of the connected home. Andrew Allemann (my husband) talks about the devices he likes and the things he doesn’t. If you’re building a product,he’s worth listening to, although his complaints are probably familiar to any...

In episode 25 companies are spending billions trying to figuring out how to use wearables to help seniors age in place so we asked Philips Digital Health solutions’ Liat Ben-Zur on the show to discuss some of the things the health giant is doing to rethink medicine for a connected era. She discussed how the venerable Lifeline program must adapt and why today’s wearables aren’t pr...

Apple didn’t cover HomeKit in its massive event last week, but Kevin and spent a good chunk of time explaining what we we knew. Sadly, it’s not a lot, but it should be worth downloading iOS 9 and waiting a few more weeks. In enterprise news, we covered Salesforce’s IoT Cloud news , which will compete with IBM’s IoT foundation cloud. We also talked about a new access point f...

I hope you’re hungry for some smart kitchen news because this week I have smart home analyst and the host of The Smart Home Show podcast Michael Wolf coming on to discuss Amazon’s plans for the kitchen and some really awesome technology he’s seeing in that room of the house. Wolf, who is hosting a conference on the topic Nov. 5 (you can register using the code IOTPOD and get 15%...

This week has a bunch of updates on old favorites for the smart home with a third generation thermostat from Nest and a new home hub from SmartThings. We start the show with Kevin and I discussing the slimmer Nest thermostat with a bigger screen and software upgrades . Our decision? There is no need to upgrade, but the Nest is still a winner. We also review the reviews of the new router from Googl...

We connected our lights and locks to the Internet and frankly, we don’t seem to be much better off. In this week’s podcast I talk to Claire Rowland a user experience consultant and lead author of Designing Connected Products about why that is, and who actually is better off. We also discuss what she’s discovered about making friendlier designs and why she’s optimistic about...

Technical skills are important when it comes to deploying a new connected manufacturing plant or designing a just-in-time inventory management system. But equally important is developing a management culture that can really take advantage of the data transparency that connectivity can offer a business, according to this week’s guest on the IoT podcast. Satya Ramaswamy of Tata Consultancy Ser...

This week’s podcast explores how sausage gets made. Actually we explore how roast chickens, cookies and salmon get made. Ryan Baker is the research chef at June , a company making a $1,500 connected oven. When he’s not appearing on the IoT podcast he spends his days baking 15 batches of cookies or 20 batches of salmon trying to figure out how to train the artificial intelligence inside...

Forget about connecting your smart home, can you imagine the technical challenge of connecting a rhinoceros to the internet? That’s what a new anti-poaching organization called Protect has done with its effort to connect rhinos in South Africa to the internet as part of an anti-poaching effort. Kevin and I discuss the project on this week’s show, as well as the challenges of living wit...

This week we discuss what happens when you’re driving along in your automobile, and suddenly you’re not in control of the wheel, as happened to a Wired reporter . While, he was lucky, Kevin and I discuss the very real threat this can pose and what the industry and lawmakers propose we do about it. A great resource for the topic is I Am the Cavalry , which we have featured on Episode 2...

This week we don’t have a guest on the show, but we covered a lot of great stuff starting with the week’s news about The Thread Group releasing its code and Qualcomm joining the group touting the wireless protocol . We also spent a considerable amount of time covering Target’s new retail concept for the internet of things. The retailer has opened up a store in San Francisco that...