Unify Conference

The CSA is the organization behind the Matter, Aliro, and Zigbee smart home standards. This week, I attended their first-ever Unify Conference in Austin, TX, where they announced Matter 1.6 and several other updates. It was a great time to see some of my creator friends and friends in the industry. With Apple barely supporting Matter 1.4, these updates are unlikely to change your smart home setup for at least a year. It’s hard to see practical content coming from this conference right away, but I’m sure you’ll see it tie into some upcoming projects I’m working on. I recorded a lot of video footage while I was there.

Apple Price Increases Imminent

Tim Cook gave an interview to the Wall Street Journal last week about how Apple will need to raise prices on its devices. No clear price increases are in effect yet as I write this on Saturday, but if you need a new Mac, iPad, or iPhone, get it now. Mark Gurman speculated that this price hike is coming very soon. I think the most striking idea is from Tim Cook at the end of the WSJ article:

“This is a hundred-year flood,” said Cook. “I’ve never seen anything like it in any area in over 40 years.”

Thread Tools App

Have you ever wondered what the network of Thread devices looks like in your home? The Thread Group has a new app in public beta that lets you see this and try to diagnose signal quality issues. They plan to open-source the app, and I would like to see them ship it to Apple’s App Store rather than just keep it as a beta. The app is very technical, leaves a lot to be desired in terms of design and UX, and is clearly built with some kind of cross-platform development tool. All that said, it can still be a useful view of your Thread network. If you want to get in now, you can join the TestFlight beta for iOS or Android Beta Test.

The Schedule

Last week I didn’t have a live stream since I was traveling. It was otherwise locks on my channel with a video on the SwitchBot Lock Vision Pro and a short about the upcoming Schlage Sense Pro I saw at the Unify Conference.

This week should be back to the normal live stream, along with Prime Day coverage!

Happy Father's Day to all my fellow dads out there.

I hope you have a great rest of your Sunday,

Eric