GE expanded its smart shade line

At CES in January, I saw an early demo of GE’s new smart shades that work with Matter over Thread. At the time, they were shipping the shades in a limited number of sizes and fabric types. Those shades aren’t going away, but they are also adding a 3% solar fabric and expanding to more custom sizes. Their website now refers to these as the “Standard” and “Custom” lines, with “Custom” added last week.

I haven’t tried these shades myself, but the standard ones I saw looked very good. If you’re in the market for new smart shades, I’d recommend checking out GE Lighting as you consider your options. The shades are keeping their existing starting price of $299 per window.

Apple Pro and Tell Experience this week

Apple is holding another event, I mean, experience. This time it’s in LA on Tuesday and looks to have a creative pro theme. Rumors point to updated MacBook Pros with touchscreens and a new iPad mini with an OLED display. A new iPad mini could be the ultimate smart home display if you want a more customizable control panel than Apple HomeView.

HomePod mini 2 hits stores

On Friday, HomePod mini 2 is expected to be available in stores. I’m excited to play with this new Apple speaker and share more. It sounded great in my impressions at the Welcome Home experience. We’ll have to see how it stacks up in the real world. I’m very excited that you will be able to pair two of these directly with a Mac as your system audio.

On the channel

Last week we had a live stream on Thursday, and that’s about it. I am hard at work on a number of new videos, but none of them are ready to publish yet. I also launched my merch store on my YouTube page with some cool new T-shirts and mugs.

I hope you have a great rest of your Sunday,

Eric