Cables, Cameras, and WiFi: The Ultimate Home Tech Guide

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Foreign it's around the House.

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ch means if you're paying for: 1200

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So you're screwed basically on getting fast, faster speeds at it.

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So run the house shows brought to you by Pyramid Heating and Cooling.

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This is around the house.

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Welcome to the Round the House show, the next generation of home improvement.

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I'm Eric G.

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Thanks for joining me today.

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If you want to find out more about us, head over to our website which we have a brand new one coming very soon@aroundthehouse online.com now today we are brought to you of course by our friends at Monument Grills.

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If you're looking for that brand new barbecue for spring, you don't want to fire that one from last fall.

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some of my best tech tips for: 2025

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We all have issues.

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Things are getting smarter.

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Our appliances, we're seeing AI stuff out there.

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We're streaming more and using less cable TV and that puts a drain on our smart home system.

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So today I thought let's talk about my tips for getting that dialed in and what you can do to make it better.

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going to be game changing for: 2025

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So here's the thing.

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The first thing I want to start out with, let's make sure you're getting what you're paying for from your Internet service provider.

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Now no one is policing it but yourself.

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You could be paying for gig Service in getting 200Mbps instead of a thousand that you're paying for.

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So that's the difference.

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So you want to make sure that you're getting what you pay for.

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So that's the thing.

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So the first thing I want you to do is jump onto one of the speed test and just check your phone, your computer and see what you're getting there.

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Now this is not the test that we're going to do, but just look up Speed Test if your Internet service provider has one.

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I don't use it because I don't trust it.

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So I like using Speed Test or any one of the different ones out there.

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I just don't trust sometimes that the ISPs are giving you exactly what you're getting.

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They could be rounding those numbers a little bit, if you know what I mean.

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So check that out and verify that with your bill.

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Now, the big thing is, if you can do it to something that is hardwired into your modem or your router, right where it comes into your house, the faster speed you're going to go.

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Now, some computers, some phones, depending on what you've got, have a limit.

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If you've got high speed, you might be buying more speed than what your machine is capable of.

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So you want to make sure.

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Because if you've got an older laptop that you're using, plugging right into the router, it might only go so fast, and it'll hit a limit, and that's as fast as it goes.

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It's like keeping a car in low gear and driving it down the road.

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It'll only go so fast, so you need to make sure that.

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But take a look at the speed test and see what it's doing.

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My tip usually is if you've got a regular modem out there, reset it, restart it once a month to let it reboot so it can communicate back and do any updates or things like that.

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Now, if you've got a regular bot modem that you got, that's one thing.

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Now, if you're using it from an Internet service provider like Xfinity or something like that, you can go in and reset that from your phone itself or log in and do it.

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So it's just depending on what service you're using.

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But I say reset that once a month.

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And then if you're not getting the speeds you're seeing by making sure everything's connected upright, call your service provider and get them to come out and take a look and say, hey, I'm not getting what I should be getting, what I'm paying for.

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Can you come take a look?

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I'm Comcast, Xfinity.

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They are really good to me, but I usually have them out once a month because I have trees, we have squirrels, we have a lot of things Mother Nature throws at those cables that come in inside of my house.

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And once or twice I gotta come in and here's the Thing, this is another thing.

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If you're buying it from a cable company, they are not proactive on getting you the updated equipment.

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Great example.

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My mom's house in eastern Washington in the Tri Cities.

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This is for all of you people over there in Kona country on the radio.

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My friends at 610kona, if you are getting it from Charter, guess what, here's the thing.

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They are one of the most difficult companies to work through.

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I have been working for probably six months trying to get my mom's stuff upgraded.

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She has 15 year old equipment.

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Is she getting what she's paying for?

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No.

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Are they super hard to deal with?

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Absolutely.

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And the speeds are archaically slow.

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So we are still in the process of working on getting that fixed with those guys.

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Now if I was with another company, it's a phone call away, I can set it up and two days later they're out here swapping stuff out, making sure I'm good.

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We built that house 15 years ago and I don't think she got new equipment then.

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So that kind of tells you how that goes.

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That could be 20 year old equipment.

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And when they got the new equipment, it was used from another company because you could see the cigarette smoke and the dirt inside when you looked in the fan hole for the boxes, for the cable boxes.

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Her remote is what I had 25 years ago with what back then was Comcast.

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So anyway, be on top of these guys, you probably, if you're paying for a modem, if you haven't had somebody out there for two or three years, I bet you there's a new one.

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And one of the ways you can do this is go take a look, see what you've got online.

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If you look at their modems and their pictures and it looks nothing like what you have, you're probably due for an upgrade.

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And because they want to keep you, the chances of charging you anything for that is really big.

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So that's the key right there.

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Takes a little time to get on the phone, send an email, however they want you to communicate with them.

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But these are great ways to make sure.

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And then here's the other thing.

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Throw in your neighbor's number for their address and see what you're paying.

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A lot of these companies with cable and Internet are lowering their prices because people are bailing.

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By the hundreds of thousands of people buying cable tv, a lot of people are streaming.

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So you're seeing this go away.

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So they are trying their best to keep people signed up.

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So give a call, say, hey, I'm Thinking about canceling.

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What do you guys got?

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You could drop your bill 50, 75 bucks a month because all of a sudden they've got faster speeds for lower dollars and a better cable plan for you.

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Now they still have to pay for all these cable plans, the companies that they're dealing with, but really they're trying to keep you on there.

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So see what the bundling can do.

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For me at the time, I added a phone line that I've never used.

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I've never hooked a phone up into it in years, but it was cheaper that way because I got another discount so they could say, oh, we have this many phone lines, I didn't care.

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It's coming in digitally over my, you know, over it anyway.

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So it didn't matter to me.

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So that saves me a little bit of money.

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So get creative.

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See what you can do to save your money around your house.

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Sometimes guys, it's going to take a service call once a year to get people out there to take a look at it.

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But really finding out what you're getting, comparing it to what you're paying for and get them to go.

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That way when you're watching the football games and all the other stuff that you're streaming, you get it at full capacity.

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Because I tell you what, there's nothing more frustrating than streaming Amazon or something like that and having that thing spooling, cutting out and you're trying to stream in a provider like that.

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Now sometimes it's Amazon, don't get me wrong, but a lot of times it's your network that's doing it.

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And if you've got four people in the house streaming or you got a lot of things going on, this can be an issue.

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So the first thing is just figuring out what you're paying for and make sure you're getting it because there's nobody out there policing.

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Let's do a little housekeeping here before we go out to break.

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So that way you know how to get a hold of us here at around the House show.

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Now you can find us over to roundthe house online.com and that's our website.

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Got a new one coming up here any second now.

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So you'll see the new one coming up.

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A lot more information, a lot of great content coming up there as well as make sure you follow us on social media.

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We got a brand new YouTube channel that's up that's been going and we're, we've reinvigorated that with videos coming up.

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This is where we're having a Lot of fun social media, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, lots of new stuff coming up there.

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And next week while I am at the International Builder Show, I have got some amazing interviews, some great stuff coming up.

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We'll be putting that stuff up on social media over the next coming weeks.

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I'm on the hunt for some of the best products in the world for your house and it's going to be all right there.

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And in future episodes of the radio show and podcast around the House.

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We'll be right back after these important messages.

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Don't change that tile.

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We're just getting started.

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Welcome back to the around the House show, the next generation of home improvement.

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I'm Eric Garrett.

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Thanks for joining the adventure.

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he best my best tech tips for: 2025

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And don't forget, this hour is brought to you by our friends at Monument Grills.

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that new awesome barbecue for: 2025

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We've been talking about tech tips.

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We were just talking about making sure you're getting what you pay for your Internet service provider out there and making sure that is dialed in.

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Now the next thing is once you've got that figured out and you've got the best service that you're paying for, next is to figure out how you're going to get it around your house.

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For many people there are things that are in your way when you put your router in.

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Nobody really thinks about many times if, if you're smarter than most than you are.

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But nobody thinks where they put that router.

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And it's always wherever the cable or the connection was next to where it comes into the house.

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But people don't think about it.

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But there's a lot of things that get in the way of routers.

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Exterior walls, concrete staircases, metal like appliances and H vac like your heating and cooling system that's in a hallway, water heaters, all of these things, even foil backed insulation that you saw in the 70s and 80s, that is all stuff that gets in the way of that signal.

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And the best way to get it is not adding those little pod things that are out there.

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But these are the bigger ones.

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This is called a mesh WI fi system.

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So what they are, it's like usually two or three boxes and I say get some big ones if you're gonna ever use WI fi outside of the house.

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So if you like streaming the music out by the pool, if you like barbecuing outside and listen to tunes.

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Or you've got an outdoor kitchen with a TV that you've got a Roku box on.

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This is where it makes a difference.

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So I get a big system and then I place those at all the corners of the house.

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Because what they do is they're little mini transmitters.

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So your WI fi goes out, it grabs that signal, grabs to one and it beams it out.

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And those are like basically three other antennas.

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So you've got your router, which is your Internet coming into the house, and then you've got these other boxes around.

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And so you can put those on the second floor, on the other side of the fireplace, on the other side of the laundry room.

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So you get basically five bars wherever you go, which is pretty cool.

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You can get five bars everywhere.

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So that really helps you.

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And if you've got a bigger piece of property, you can get the Internet a little farther out.

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You can go out to your fence line and you can really do stuff.

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And it makes a lot of sense.

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And especially with today's cars, if you've got a brand new vehicle, it does over the air updates and it wants your WI fi so it can sit there and get the latest update, upgrade, whatever.

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It'll actually log in and update that while you're sitting there parked overnight.

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That happens.

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It's a computer.

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So these are things that can really help you out and make that work.

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Especially when you're seeing other vehicles out there that are just getting smarter and smarter.

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Now, little soapbox on that.

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In my opinion, these are cars that are not gonna be your collector's cars ever.

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Only because they're gonna be much more like your phone.

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Four years, five years down the road, they are grossly outdated.

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The batteries aren't working.

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These are getting to be more smart home device than they are classic car potential.

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But that's just the days we're in.

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Now think about that.

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The other recommended recommendation that I have is I don't recommend putting any of these mesh WI fi hubs in your bedroom.

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Here's why.

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Now I can jump on and take a look and look at government studies.

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And they say, oh, now WI fi, that frequency, that radiation that's coming off, that microwave radiation is perfectly safe.

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But there's plenty of studies out there that question that.

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And I am not a scientist, I am not an expert on it, but I say, hey, let's maybe not put that on your nightstand.

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Let's play it a little safe, Maybe put it in the couple rooms over.

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You'll get good WI fi, but you maybe don't need to be broadcasting right next to your head for eight hours at night if you're getting a good night's sleep.

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And I think that's where we can be a little safer with this.

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You're not gonna.

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Here's the thing.

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If you're like, I don't have WI fi in my house.

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Everybody does.

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I mean your neighbors have it.

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It's.

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You're not going in the dark on this one.

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There's really no way to stop that easel.

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So that's a tough one.

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But I wouldn't put it next to your, next to your head, next to your bedroom, next to the bedrooms in your house.

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Find some other locations so you're not just transmitting right next to your head.

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So that's the next one.

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So really making sure you have that WI fi mesh system and you get the latest and greatest one, the fastest you can get, it'll last you a number of years.

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I'm on year four on mine, I think Year four, it's doing great.

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I bought way ahead of its time and I'm getting.

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It's still performing with my high speed system.

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No problem.

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If I jump up one more, I'll have to upgrade it.

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But they're just a few hundred bucks on Amazon so it's not really a big deal.

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Now the next thing I want to talk about here, which is important is my rule of cable it when you can.

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I have cables because we're standing out here right now, not in the radio station.

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We are in my garage studio where I do the show and I also do my around the house Northwest TV show when I do my in studio stuff.

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So that is in my studio.

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So what did I do?

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I ran cable all the way out here because my house built in the 70s, that's foil backed insulation and it's pretty tough on my Internet signal.

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So that's the first thing.

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Second of all, I'm out here doing video conferences, interviews, things like that.

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I have got to have something reliable.

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Now, all cables are not made the same.

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If you've got an older home and it's all cabled up, you go, oh, that's cool, it's 20 years old.

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But I got cable, I'll use it.

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Here's the problem.

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ich is really common in early: 2000

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Here's the problem.

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Cat 5 cable only runs a hundred megabits per second.

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That's a problem, especially where in my plan that I'm buying.

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I'm running: 1200

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So yeah, it will run things, but it's not going to be fast.

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So that cable to me has a lot less value because it's just not a good enough cable.

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And that's the old Cat 5.

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Now the next one up is the 6A it runs.

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This is where we start getting into the good cat.

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It runs or supports 10 gigabit for a full 328ft.

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Now that's something to think about.

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Most homes don't need 328ft.

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But if you're doing an office or running it out to a garage or your shop, 328ft is the max.

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That'll run without having problems.

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And that's 10 gigabit.

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Considering like I'm running 1.2, that does great.

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Now here's the difference.

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When you get up to like Cat 8, for instance, Cat 8 is for is faster over shorter distances.

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So it'll do 40 gigapit per second up to 78ft and 25 gigabit per second up to 100ft.

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So that's where that makes a difference.

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It speeds it up.

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But at 100ft it drops back to what Cat 6A is at 10 gigabits per second.

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So what that means is if you're running your whole house, as long as your short runs, you're good.

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But once you get over 100ft, you're paying way more for cable they're not getting any use out of.

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So anything above a hundred, you're not.

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You're just going back to the Cat 6A.

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So it's not going to help you.

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But when in doubt, cable.

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With the best cable you can afford, one of the biggest issues you'll run into.

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We're going to talk about this when we come back.

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It's an important one because we're running out of time in this segment around the house.

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Be right back.

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I'll tell you one of the things that are slowing things down just as soon as we return.

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Don't go anywhere.

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Welcome back to the around the House show, the next generation of home improvement.

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I'm Eric G.

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This hour is brought to you by our friends at Monument Grills.

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e about my best tech tips for: 2025

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I was talking about how when I've been doing remodeling projects around my house, I've been pre wiring things like around the front door and all this Stuff here.

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When I had the front siding off the house, my office was up against that.

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So I went through and pre wired for that so I could get the cable there.

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And it made it a lot easier by doing that Cat 6A cable around the whole place.

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So that way my garage to my office was connected, which really sped my stuff up and that made it a lot easier.

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Now, one thing I want to talk about here real quick that we didn't talk about is the difference between cable and fiber optic.

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And then I'm going to get into one of the reasons why people are getting slow speeds.

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And it's something they might not have thought about.

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But here's the thing.

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When you're talking fiber optic, it is fast.

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Generally speaking, the upload speed and download speed are the same.

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So when you're downloading something, watching a movie, it's fast.

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And if you're uploading stuff like files, video files, audio files, or you're on a conference call, it's fast as well.

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And that's a big deal.

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Now, cable has been a slower speed where you had the fast download, but the slow upload.

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Now here's where the difference is.

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And really Comcast Xfinity is the only one out there that's been doing this that I'm aware of.

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But instead of them going to fiber, they had these millions of miles around the US of cable.

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They have figured out technology to make it so they can download and upload at the same speed.

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And they're doing that right now across the country, doing upgrades, putting systems in, and you'll see them.

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And when they hit your neighborhood, all of a sudden you'll have faster upload speeds.

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So that's a big deal.

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But they're working that across the country and so that is cool.

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Other companies though, have really got some issues out there, especially some of the other smaller cable.

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That can be a pretty significant thing if you're working from home or if you're a heavy user like gaming, things like that.

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So something to consider.

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Now, the one thing that people forget probably the most is if they have some wired connection, there's that ethernet switch, the port where maybe you've got one coming in, and then there's that box there.

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And you've got one going out to your cable box out of that, it's maybe going to.

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Maybe it's going to your Roku box, maybe it's going to your desktop computer, maybe it's going to some other things in your house that are smart home devices.

Speaker A: 00:26:34

ch means if you're paying for: 1200

Speaker A: 00:26:54

So you're screwed basically on getting faster speeds out of it.

Speaker A: 00:26:58

So in that case, you might need to jump on, do an upgrade.

Speaker A: 00:27:01

I did it at my house because I realized that I'm like, oh, there's my bottleneck.

Speaker A: 00:27:05

Where's my bottleneck?

Speaker A: 00:27:06

Yes, it is this switch.

Speaker A: 00:27:10

So I went back and upgraded those to 25 or 2.5 actually.

Speaker A: 00:27:16

And that way plenty fast for what I'm doing and it'll just give me a quicker, easier way to go.

Speaker A: 00:27:24

And if you have something that is smart and managed, make sure when you set it up that you don't leave the default passwords or anything on it.

Speaker A: 00:27:33

Go in, set it up correctly, get into the app, log in and make sure it's secure.

Speaker A: 00:27:38

Because so many times people never do that.

Speaker A: 00:27:41

They plug it in and go and don't realize and then they have to go in and you've given someone some access into to control of your system.

Speaker A: 00:27:48

So just take some time and make sure you get that dialed in.

Speaker A: 00:27:51

And that's a big one right there.

Speaker A: 00:27:53

So getting that fixed is really a big deal.

Speaker A: 00:27:56

And that way you're going to have it, you're going to be looking really good.

Speaker A: 00:28:00

And here's another thing too.

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I want to talk about this for a few minutes.

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Some of my favorite smart home tech out there that can really help around your house.

Speaker A: 00:28:09

And this is one that AYA is airing on Saturday today on my around the house Northwest television show.

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And I love smart home products and I like it when I get them before they're released to the public.

Speaker A: 00:28:24

So this is now gonna be for sale on Amazon here and I can put the link up on the around the house Facebook page for you.

Speaker A: 00:28:33

It should be on sale by then.

Speaker A: 00:28:35

I'll put it up there.

Speaker A: 00:28:36

It is so cool on what this does.

Speaker A: 00:28:40

So this is a brand new camera that I just absolutely love.

Speaker A: 00:28:45

And cameras for inside, outside you go, ah, it's just a camera.

Speaker A: 00:28:49

It's just a camera.

Speaker A: 00:28:50

I put this one in.

Speaker A: 00:28:52

It's super quick and easy and it's made by my friends at Akora.

Speaker A: 00:28:57

And this is a brand new one that just came out.

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It is sexy.

Speaker A: 00:29:01

So this is the Akora 4 megapixel camera hub.

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It's their G5 Pro Poe.

Speaker A: 00:29:10

So that's power Over Ethernet so it has true color night vision.

Speaker A: 00:29:15

I was looking at it when it was dark outside and it was like it was daylight on the camera.

Speaker A: 00:29:20

Super beautiful.

Speaker A: 00:29:22

It is outdoor, works with Apple HomeKit Secure Video.

Speaker A: 00:29:27

It's also a thread border router, local detection and so it works for thread.

Speaker A: 00:29:32

Zigbee supports Alexa, Google SmartThings and all of that.

Speaker A: 00:29:37

So here's the cool thing.

Speaker A: 00:29:38

So it's super high def for camera like this.

Speaker A: 00:29:41

So it's 4 megapixel HD true color night vision and it's got 133 degree field of view and it has got the 1.1.8 sensor and it has got a huge large aperture so it is a great camera.

Speaker A: 00:29:59

,: 3000

Speaker A: 00:30:06

It is really cool.

Speaker A: 00:30:08

It does not have infrared light but it is a great camera for that.

Speaker A: 00:30:12

Now it also has local AI visual and abnormal sound detection.

Speaker A: 00:30:16

So it's got neural processing unit and it really supports seven types of visual detection and four types of abnormal sound detection.

Speaker A: 00:30:24

It can recognize faces, individual vehicles, animals, people and can distinguish if they are lingering.

Speaker A: 00:30:31

It also supports lens obstruction detection and package detection.

Speaker A: 00:30:36

So it can detect babies crying, alarm sounds, barking, coughing and it enables you to record key events and trigger automations even during an Internet outage.

Speaker A: 00:30:48

So that's what's cool with this.

Speaker A: 00:30:50

So it's also a hub and matter bridge so it really acts with your working out with stuff.

Speaker A: 00:30:55

If you've got ZigBee devices or Thread it really is awesome.

Speaker A: 00:30:59

So it'll connect up to 80 A Cora Zigbee sub devices and 40 thread sub devices.

Speaker A: 00:31:04

This is just the next level of camera out there.

Speaker A: 00:31:08

So pretty exciting stuff.

Speaker A: 00:31:10

So it really lets you do a lot with it.

Speaker A: 00:31:13

And where it's power over Ethernet, they make two models, they make one that's just a wifi one and they make this one here.

Speaker A: 00:31:19

If you buy a basically a router that is made for a POE it actually sends the power down the category Sarah 8 cable all the way down to the camera.

Speaker A: 00:31:34

So you are really cool with this and I'm excited for it because it's going to be something that is a game changer for stuff out there and I'm really excited to see how well it does.

Speaker A: 00:31:45

Pricing is not released yet but it will be coming very shortly.

Speaker A: 00:31:52

And the one thing I like about ACORA is that these guys really take the time to build quality stuff that is affordable and that's the fun part to me about it is that they really make this work.

Speaker A: 00:32:08

What I do know though is this is going to be under 200 bucks a camera.

Speaker A: 00:32:13

So from my understanding, I think you're going to be about 199 for the POE and 179 for the WI fi.

Speaker A: 00:32:21

So that is a heck of a deal for that high powered of a camera.

Speaker A: 00:32:27

So that's really exciting to me to see that going out there.

Speaker A: 00:32:30

And that'll be available on Saturday here for everybody out there.

Speaker A: 00:32:33

And I'll put the Amazon link up there.

Speaker A: 00:32:35

You can buy it off their website as well.

Speaker A: 00:32:36

But Amazon's a great way to go because you can get it pretty quickly anywhere with that.

Speaker A: 00:32:41

So something cool to check out something new and upcoming that is very exciting for me on new products.

Speaker A: 00:32:48

Now the next one I want to talk about here, we're gonna have to go out to break here in a second.

Speaker A: 00:32:52

But I think one of the smartest things out there and it's something that I that with our energy rates going up higher and higher, there's something we should be doing for really all of our homes so we can find out what are we paying.

Speaker A: 00:33:06

Do you know where your money is going for your energy that you're spending that electricity?

Speaker A: 00:33:14

You can have something that monitors at 247 so you can see exactly what's costing you money and where your dollars are going.

Speaker A: 00:33:20

smartest home tech stuff for: 2025

Speaker A: 00:33:29

So change that.

Speaker A: 00:35:01

Welcome back to the around the House show, the next generation of home improvement.

Speaker A: 00:35:05

I am Eric G.

Speaker A: 00:35:05

This hour is brought to you by our friends at Money McGrills.

Speaker A: 00:35:08

Check them out at monument grills.com and if you want to find out more about us, join us in our around the house nation closed group.

Speaker A: 00:35:15

Join us on social media.

Speaker A: 00:35:17

Make sure you follow our YouTube channel where I put up videos and a lot of the interviews that we do now are going up on there so you can see the full interview in video form.

Speaker A: 00:35:29

And if you're catching us on the radio, you can listen to us on YouTube there as well.

Speaker A: 00:35:33

We've got it up on YouTube podcasts.

Speaker A: 00:35:35

There's a lot of different things happening on that channel and we've got a lot of little shorts.

Speaker A: 00:35:39

Some of that stuff that never made it on the air is over there.

Speaker A: 00:35:43

And because with the radio show we are limited to what an hour is and many times we talk for an hour and there's 15 or 20 minutes that don't make it into the show.

Speaker A: 00:35:54

But it's riveting, great information that you miss.

Speaker A: 00:35:57

So you can do that or join the around the House Insider.

Speaker A: 00:36:00

That's four bucks a month.

Speaker A: 00:36:01

We give you a ten day free trial so you can try it out.

Speaker A: 00:36:04

And we've got almost a thousand episodes over there.

Speaker A: 00:36:08

I think we're actually over a thousand episodes now.

Speaker A: 00:36:10

And that way you can check all of the back catalog on that, which is pretty cool.

Speaker A: 00:36:15

And you can see where we've gone, what we've talked about in some interesting interviews with people, even some that are no longer with us, that are great, riveting interviews.

Speaker A: 00:36:25

So check it out over there.

Speaker A: 00:36:26

We were talking about smart home stuff here for your home that I like.

Speaker A: 00:36:29

And this is one that is changing brands because they teamed up.

Speaker A: 00:36:33

But check out the Weiser Energy Smart Home Monitor.

Speaker A: 00:36:37

Now you can buy this at Home Depot.

Speaker A: 00:36:39

A lot of places you can buy it.

Speaker A: 00:36:41

And this is made by Sense.

Speaker A: 00:36:45

So Sense is the company that I went out and visited in Boston a number of years ago and they have been making home energy monitoring equipment for a long time.

Speaker A: 00:36:55

Square D ended up coming in with them and invested in them.

Speaker A: 00:36:58

And so now at Home Depot you can buy the Weiser Energy Smart Home Monitor, which is basically a sense unit.

Speaker A: 00:37:04

But this is the one that Square D is actually putting these in some of their newer panels now, especially when they're solar compatible, so they can work with that.

Speaker A: 00:37:11

But this stuff is cool.

Speaker A: 00:37:12

It integrates with Alexa, Google, Philips, Hue, Werner, Insight, lot more.

Speaker A: 00:37:18

So basically you just install it in your electric electrical panel.

Speaker A: 00:37:21

It's very easy to use.

Speaker A: 00:37:24

Now here's what's super cool about this.

Speaker A: 00:37:28

When you look at this product, you go, okay, it's no big deal.

Speaker A: 00:37:31

I can jump on the app and take a look at it and it tells me what my energy usage is right now in the moment.

Speaker A: 00:37:41

And I can look and say, where is that money going?

Speaker A: 00:37:43

What is it doing?

Speaker A: 00:37:45

Where am I spending this money?

Speaker A: 00:37:47

And that app is absolutely amazing.

Speaker A: 00:37:50

I can see that my one of my coffee makers on, I can see when the refrigerator inside of the refrigerator, my garage here kicks on.

Speaker A: 00:37:57

I can see exactly what my power usage is and I can compare month to month and go, huh, that's a problem.

Speaker A: 00:38:04

What's going on there?

Speaker A: 00:38:05

And it's really a smart way to track all of that energy usage.

Speaker A: 00:38:10

And that to me is super smart.

Speaker A: 00:38:12

And I can tell you where I'm wasting money.

Speaker A: 00:38:15

So that's a big one right there.

Speaker A: 00:38:16

Especially when you've got an AC unit running, things like that.

Speaker A: 00:38:20

There's a lot of little things you can do.

Speaker A: 00:38:22

It's very smart.

Speaker A: 00:38:23

And if you've got like a heat pump, you can actually go over and put special lugs on that heat pump circuit.

Speaker A: 00:38:30

It'll monitor it specially for it so it'll know what's going on with that.

Speaker A: 00:38:34

And what it does is how it reads your energy usage is everything that's plugged into an outlet.

Speaker A: 00:38:40

When it fires up, it makes a little bit of background noise in that system.

Speaker A: 00:38:44

It reads it.

Speaker A: 00:38:45

It uses learning AI and goes, hey, that's the dryer.

Speaker A: 00:38:49

Hey, that's the dishwasher.

Speaker A: 00:38:50

Because the dishwasher makes this noise and it learns what all the products are and then it tells you, hey, we found this.

Speaker A: 00:38:56

I found your bidet toilet seat because it's heating water right now.

Speaker A: 00:39:00

These are all things that can really tell you where you're using your money and what is your hot tub running.

Speaker A: 00:39:04

You.

Speaker A: 00:39:05

What is this?

Speaker A: 00:39:05

So it's really smart way to go.

Speaker A: 00:39:07

Take a look at it.

Speaker A: 00:39:08

It is awesome.

Speaker A: 00:39:09

Now, one of my favorite ones here is also, and this is something that could be free to you and I always like talking about it and I will not miss it on the smart home stuff.

Speaker A: 00:39:20

This is ting fire.

Speaker A: 00:39:22

You probably, if you're a longtime listener, bear with me.

Speaker A: 00:39:25

We got a lot of new people following us right now.

Speaker A: 00:39:28

This is a $99 unit.

Speaker A: 00:39:31

It's a ting sensor with fire protection service.

Speaker A: 00:39:34

99 bucks and it gives you service for one year.

Speaker A: 00:39:38

This monitors your entire electrical system into your house, all the way to the transformer.

Speaker A: 00:39:44

Whether it's underground or a poll, this tells you what's going on and it also gives you $1,000 repair credit for ting identified hazards.

Speaker A: 00:39:55

Here's the trick.

Speaker A: 00:39:57

All you do is plug it into an outlet, jump on the app, hook it up to your wi fi and it's monitoring.

Speaker A: 00:40:04

Now here's the better trick.

Speaker A: 00:40:06

Your insurance company might send it to you for free.

Speaker A: 00:40:11

How cool is that?

Speaker A: 00:40:13

So ask your insurance company and see if they will send you a ting fire unit.

Speaker A: 00:40:19

Most electrical fires start from a hidden hazard in your home.

Speaker A: 00:40:25

And in about every 10 minutes an electrical fire strikes.

Speaker A: 00:40:29

And of course, that can be pretty ugly.

Speaker A: 00:40:32

This is designed, it prevents four out of five electrical fires.

Speaker A: 00:40:38

Now, if you're sitting there putting up that brand new TV and go drill through some conduit, it's not going to stop that.

Speaker A: 00:40:46

Or a lightning strike to the house that causes an electrical fire, it's not going to stop that.

Speaker A: 00:40:51

But all of the bad connections Shorts, all of those things that start small.

Speaker A: 00:40:57

It's pretty cool.

Speaker A: 00:40:59

So IT leverages advanced AI to analyze about 30 million electrical signals per second, enabling detection and unmatched precision.

Speaker A: 00:41:07

And checking that out takes you two minutes to set it up, ready to go.

Speaker A: 00:41:11

It'll tell you what your voltage is coming into the house.

Speaker A: 00:41:14

You can see if you've got a low voltage situation.

Speaker A: 00:41:16

So if you've got a bad outlet to even somebody overpowering, potentially a power strip, it can catch all that stuff.

Speaker A: 00:41:25

And it also gives you some live grid events and grid fault protection.

Speaker A: 00:41:31

So now utilities can better monitor what's going on as well.

Speaker A: 00:41:36

So it'll tell them if there's grid arcing, failing transformers, power outages, power surges, power brownouts, all of those things.

Speaker A: 00:41:45

Those guys can tell.

Speaker A: 00:41:47

And so it's really cool about saving your house and using smart home tech.

Speaker A: 00:41:52

And that is exciting to me.

Speaker A: 00:41:54

Now, guys, I like to test products out here.

Speaker A: 00:41:58

I love smart home stuff.

Speaker A: 00:42:00

Many times people make the cut, sometimes other brands don't.

Speaker A: 00:42:06

And I was really excited.

Speaker A: 00:42:07

And I'm going to make probably this company mad by talking about it, but I think we need to talk about the stuff that doesn't make the cut with this show.

Speaker A: 00:42:15

And I'm not trying to throw anybody under the bus, but it's not just a simple issue.

Speaker A: 00:42:20

And I really like the products that Nanoleaf has been building out there.

Speaker A: 00:42:25

But my problem has been reliability.

Speaker A: 00:42:29

I was given two sets of string lights to test out for my backyard outdoor patio string lights, put them up, went through about four months and one of the sets stopped working.

Speaker A: 00:42:42

I emailed them, went through the process.

Speaker A: 00:42:46

Now this was November before Thanksgiving.

Speaker A: 00:42:51

It took me all the way up to the first week of February, going back and forth with emails to customer service just to get replacements.

Speaker A: 00:43:03

And instead of me sending me the entire set out, just another box, they sent out part of the string light.

Speaker A: 00:43:11

And after November to February of trying to troubleshoot this, they should have just turned around and sent me another set.

Speaker A: 00:43:19

It's a hundred dollar set.

Speaker A: 00:43:20

It's not that crazy, but I'm thinking about that.

Speaker A: 00:43:23

And I wasn't pulling the, hey, I'm Eric G.

Speaker A: 00:43:25

From around the house.

Speaker A: 00:43:26

I was just dealing with customer service because I want to see how this works.

Speaker A: 00:43:30

I went back and forth, basically four months with customer service and they send me out a third of the pieces of a regular set and I plug it in and it doesn't fix it.

Speaker A: 00:43:44

And you want to see frustrating.

Speaker A: 00:43:45

I'm sorry, that is the most frustrating customer service experience I'VE had.

Speaker A: 00:43:50

I had to do video.

Speaker A: 00:43:52

I showed them what was going on.

Speaker A: 00:43:54

They still didn't understand it.

Speaker A: 00:43:56

They said, plug in this, Swap pieces on it.

Speaker A: 00:43:59

It was not the light string, I thought, but they sent me the light string.

Speaker A: 00:44:04

Come to find out, it was the whole set.

Speaker A: 00:44:07

Not only the controller was faulty, but these couple extension sets that went with it.

Speaker A: 00:44:12

And so finally, I just took the new piece they sent, plugged it into the old controller, and had to basically redo all the lights.

Speaker A: 00:44:19

So I'm missing about a third of the lights out there.

Speaker A: 00:44:22

But their customer service was the most painful, lengthy problem.

Speaker A: 00:44:28

Now, many other companies I work with, if I have a problem, man, it's out the door, and I've got it in days.

Speaker A: 00:44:34

These guys took four months and didn't resolve the problem, and I'm done with them.

Speaker A: 00:44:40

They've sent me a lot of great products.

Speaker A: 00:44:41

They tested out good.

Speaker A: 00:44:42

I did this backlight TV set that was awesome.

Speaker A: 00:44:45

That kind of gave you this mood thing behind it, plugged it.

Speaker A: 00:44:48

I installed it correctly on the back of my LG tv.

Speaker A: 00:44:52

And what happens a month or two later?

Speaker A: 00:44:54

The glue dries out, it starts falling off and hanging, and it looks hokey.

Speaker A: 00:44:58

If I'd have paid 100 bucks for that set, I'd been pretty upset.

Speaker A: 00:45:01

But then I had to go through the same customer service set to get there, and it was rough.

Speaker A: 00:45:07

It was rough.

Speaker A: 00:45:09

So I hope companies like that figure out, even though I obviously they're overseas, that they need to get that stuff hammered out and fixed, because that is a serious customer service issue that they need to get taken care of.

Speaker A: 00:45:21

All right, guys, that's the end of the show of this hour of around the House.

Speaker A: 00:45:25

Make sure you catch all the around the house shows on your favorite radio station, on the talk media network, or, of course, streaming online or at around the House.

Speaker A: 00:45:34

Online, you can catch it.

Speaker A: 00:45:35

Or your favorite podcast player.

Speaker A: 00:45:37

I'm Eric G.

Speaker A: 00:45:38

Thanks for tuning in to around the House.