Episode 136: Sony’s Aibo is back and Chamberlain’s CEO explains its moves

The best news of the week is that Sony is bringing back the Aibo robotic puppy. The bad news is that it will costs a pretty penny. Kevin Tofel and I discuss the pup, San Diego’s smart city efforts, the Apple HomePod, and funding for Ayla’s IoT platform as a service. I emailed companies to find out who has updated after KRACK and Kevin shares smart home data from Mozilla. Finally, we review the Amazon Echo Plus with ZigBee and Amazon Alexa’s new smart home interface.

The new Sony Aibo has OLED eyes and so many moving joints.

This week’s guest is JoAnna Sohovich, CEO of Chamberlain Group, who came on the show to explain where Chamberlain is heading with new commercial products, and its new subscription plan for IFTTT. Sohovich has been at Chamberlain for 20 months and in that time she’s focused on turning what was only a product business into a service business. Part of this is to better align with costs, but there is also a chance to boost margins by offering software features and integrations. We also hit on the future of smart home subscriptions. Enjoy the show!

Hosts: Stacey Higginbotham and Kevin Tofel
Guests: JoAnna Sohovich, CEO of Chamberlain Group
Sponsors: SAP and ADT

  • Bring on the monthly subscription fees
  • Ayla gets $60 million and a Chinese joint venture
  • Why you may not want to buy an Amazon Echo Plus
  • Why Chamberlain is charging $1 for monthly IFTTT access
  • Chamberlain’s plans for the commercial market

Episode 134: KRACKed security and a river of sensors

This week began with a bang as researchers disclosed a vulnerability in the Wi-Fi protocol that could cause problems for smart device owners. The details of the KRACK vulnerability can be found here, and a list of connected devices affected here. After that, we discuss Bluetooth issues and the trouble with most trackers. Kevin reviews the Sonos One and I review Alexa’s ability to tell different people apart. We also share some ideas from IFTTT to turn your smart home into a spookier one in time for Halloween. News from GE and Apple, an update on smart home device penetration and a spin out of Honeywell’s home division round out the show.

Find out what Kevin thought of the new Sonos One. Photo by Kevin Tofel.

After that I interview John Miri, who is the chief administrator for the LCRA in Austin, Texas. In his role, he oversees 275 sensors spread out over 800 miles of river in Texas. These sensors are part of a real-time flood reporting system that I was glued to during Hurricane Harvey. Curious about how it was managed, I asked Miri to discuss how the agency built it, how they keep it running and what data he’d like to see next. The biggest takeaway from the interview wasn’t that the IoT aspects were hard, but that the operations and maintenance were perhaps the most challenging. It’s a great interview for anyone who thinks IoT is a magic wand that will generate the data to solve your business problems.

Hosts: Stacey Higginbotham and Kevin Tofel
Guest: John Miri of the LCRA
Sponsors: Qualcomm and SAP

  • What to do after KRACK broke Wi-Fi security
  • Samsung’s global tracker is cool, but can it do this?
  • IFTTT wants to help you automate a haunted Halloween
  • Measuring floods in real-time is harder than you think
  • Anyone want to build a new radio network for the LCRA?