Superbowl, Pop Music, Wild Pig Hunt and the Magic of Smart Lighting

This is episode number 276 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Haggett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. We're so glad that you could join us for another live episode. Here in the studio. What's going on, Kev?

Oh man, it's late tonight. A little late. It's a little late. It's all right. It's all right. We got nothing better to do.

We're men. We can handle it.

Yes, it's fine.

Everything's good. Some facsimile thereof.

We're at least here.

Yeah.

Yeah. We're one bourbon Craig in, I think.

One bourbon.

Yep.

Yeah. One. The bar is empty. So that's all you're getting.

That's all we got. How you doing?

I'll do what I can, people. Doing good, man. So we— everybody survived. Which Super Bowl was this last night?

58.

58.

And I must say, uh-huh, it's very happy with the outcome.

Okay.

I mean, here's the deal. Everybody knows that I'm a big Taylor Swift fan.

Well, that obviously, but what's your favorite song? I know you have one.

I don't know her songs, man. I don't know her songs.

You're lying.

No, I really don't. Like, if you— let's see. The, the only song that even comes to my mind is the, is the, the lyric that says, you know, he— I wear short skirts.

Uh-huh.

He wear— I don't even know how it goes. Yeah, something about high heels.

Okay. You don't know Shake It Off?

Oh, I know Shake It Off now that you say it. See, you know more than I do. I don't, I don't.

I just don't deny it.

I, if I'd— I wouldn't deny it either if I knew some songs. I just don't.

I think it's the whole reason you were there.

No, it really is not. I'm a Cowboys fan, obviously. I mean, I've been a Cowboys fan, like 'em or hate 'em, it doesn't really matter. Most people hate 'em. It's fine. But—

I don't hate 'em. They just stink.

No, they're so bad. It's so bad. But—

I don't have to watch and I just hear everybody, like, I live in Texas.

Sure.

And like every weekend when they don't win, like the senior pastor at our church, he's a massive Cowboys fan.

Okay.

And he's been in a bad mood most of the year.

Yeah.

I'm just happy football season's over.

Yeah.

Get out of lamentations.

Well, baseball season's back, so that's a good thing. But I, I mean, the thing is, I mean, I'm a Texas Tech fan. I'm gonna wear my, my Tech pullover tonight. And everybody that's a Tech fan is a Chiefs fan.

Sure.

Because Patrick Mahomes was amazing at Tech.

Right.

And he's amazing now. So it's, it's fun to get to see a kid that you've watched kind of come up through the ranks doing really, really well. You know?

I mean, did they win like a significant game when, when he was at Tech?

No, no, because I mean, they're, they're Tech football, right? They're not good. I mean, they were, they did some of the best. I think they got up like some of, some of the years that he was playing, I think they got up to like number 2 or 3. Like they, they actually really got way up in the rankings, but then it, you know, whenever it mattered—

It petered out.

Yeah. And their defense was always really, really bad. The thing about Mahomes is he has such a strong arm that, I mean, you, I mean, the receivers were good during his time at Tech, but like, you gotta have some strong hands to catch those balls that he throws. He's just got a strong arm.

There's a fly.

Speaking of strong, that fly is gonna take one of us away.

Dude, that, that thing has been eating some creatine.

No doubt. It's over there right now.

Is it? Right there.

It's on that little— I don't know what it is— by the book.

By the book. Hang on.

Yeah, it's black on black. You see it?

No, but— oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, come on. Oh, Craig. That's all right. Everybody's watching you because I've got it on you. Watch. Pick it up. Pick it up, Dad. That's fine.

He'll come back and I'll be ready for him.

I mean, he's big, but he's slow. You know how that goes?

Yeah.

I had that. I had a guy that worked with me at a, at a previous location and he's an older guy and he goes, man, whenever I was, when I was in high school, I played football. He said, I never was really very good, but I sure was slow. And I laughed. I laughed. And I, that was one of the funniest things I ever heard in my life. Well, but so anyway, I was glad to, here, here's the deal. Uh-huh. I'm happy to have someone besides Brady.

Okay.

Which I'm fine with Brady. Like, I'm not like a hater of Tom Brady. But he's out. He's out. But I'm happy to have somebody else come along and do what he's done.

Okay.

And, you know, in 5 years, Mahomes has won 3 Super Bowls.

That's impressive.

It's super impressive.

Yeah.

And back to back, which is super impressive as well. Brady didn't do back-to-back. In fact, first year in 19 years a back-to-back Super Bowl has been won. And so it's a big deal as far as that goes. But you get— he, he gets that dynasty tag, right? At 3 of 5, that's a dynasty tag. So, you know, there's only like 4 dynasty tags.

Is that 3 of 5 appearances or 3 out of the last 5?

It's 3 wins out of the last 5.

So he's been to the Super Bowl 5 times.

He's been—

That's what I'm asking.

No, I know.

So 3 out of the last 5 Super Bowls, he's won them.

Right.

Okay. Super. That's still super impressive.

It's unbelievably impressive. And so, you know, Aikman did it, you know, Brady did it, Mahomes did it, and there's somebody else I don't remember.

Would it have been—

Maybe.

49ers.

Montana.

Montana.

Maybe. I don't know. I don't remember. I don't remember, but I don't know. I mean, it's, it's a pretty— it's just an impressive thing, right? And so it's fun to watch. I mean, I, you know, I'm, I'm a Chiefs fan by default. I, I know, I know a lot of people hate winners.

Sure.

You know, they do. They're easy to hate, right? But I don't know, it's kind of fun.

Winning?

Winning's fun. Winning is super fun. Like, so, someone's— so Ryan Lowe's playing baseball, right? And someone was like, well, he's gonna have fun no matter what. And I was like, yeah, but he'll have a lot more fun if he wins. Winning's just fun.

Look, so my son just stepped up to 12U baseball.

Oh yeah.

So, and he is still—

That's a big jump.

He's still currently 10 years old.

Right.

So he turns 11 in 8 days.

Okay.

That being said, he is a shrimp.

Oh.

Compared to most of the boys on his team.

Well, of course. They're almost 2 years older than him.

Most of them I'm talking to are 13. And like the disparity between a 10-year-old and a 13-year-old.

It's not even close.

So here's the, here's the killer, man. There's a 14-year-old on our team.

What?

He is 6'2.

What?

I am not kidding.

Is he any good?

Yeah.

Oh, that's awesome.

Like he, he look, who was, who was the tall lanky pitcher in the MLB?

Oh, yeah.

For years and years and years.

Of course. I just lost his name. He hit a bird and killed him.

The Tampa Bay guy.

Oh, Tampa Bay? No, he played for the Diamondbacks.

Diamondbacks.

Diamondbacks. You're right. Randy Johnson.

Randy. He looks like Randy Johnson, man.

Really?

Yes. I mean, like, he could probably grow the mustache, but school's still making him shave.

Dude, if he's a pitcher, he's halfway to the mound before that one's complete. He doesn't want to pitch.

What?

He doesn't want to pitch. What does he do?

He plays outfield. He wants—

Gosh.

Because he can throw the ball a fricking mile.

I'm sure he can.

He's halfway to like— Yeah, yeah, yeah.

His arm's halfway to the plate.

And he's like a sweet kid.

Yeah, of course.

But like, he's taller than me.

That's crazy.

And I'm like, I can't coach you.

What are you doing here? Do you know you're supposed to be in high school? Well, he is in high school, but I guess—

Is he in high school? No, he's in 8th grade.

Oh geez. Well, he has to be 13. Yeah.

He's 14.

Oh, he's 14, but he could be in high school.

I mean, I guess he could be in high school. That'd be weird.

14-year-old, 13-year-olds can go. I mean, really, you turn 14 whenever you're 18.

Well, like, look, man, if you're in 9th grade and you're willing to get on a baseball team with like 10 and 11-year-olds.

Yeah.

No, I'm sorry.

Yeah.

He's gotta be an 8th grader.

Of course. Of course. So he, he was held back.

I don't know. Would it matter?

No.

I mean, oh, it would.

It would.

It absolutely would. If he was on schedule, he'd be 6 foot.

No, but that's the thing. Like if his parents knew he was gonna be that tall, uh-huh, holding him back absolutely would help.

Sure.

Because now he's gonna be that a year older whenever, if he's playing basketball for sure. Right? Yeah. He'll be a year older, be that much bigger, that much stronger.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely would matter.

It would matter. Yeah. I don't know that they knew. I mean, like, I don't know.

How do you know?

I don't, I don't know.

Well, I mean, I'll tell you this. I know my son won't be. I know a few things.

That ain't happening.

That ain't happening.

And if it does, you have some conversations to have.

Yeah, we gonna have to have some real hard conversations. Ones I really don't wanna have.

So I, so I had my own Super Bowl.

Okay.

It was celebrated privately by myself.

By you?

That's right.

You didn't know there was an actual football game?

I knew that there was a football game and I intentionally avoided it.

Man, I don't understand people like you. I just don't get it.

Well, and my brother-in-law and sister-in-law throw a massive Super Bowl party every year.

Oh, really?

So there's bounce houses and they buy, They rent like one of those game trucks for like the kids to play video games in the whole time. It's a huge deal.

What?

And I love them.

Of course.

I hate going.

I can see that.

Yeah, it's just not my scene.

Like, well, I mean, at that point, so there's—

Like, I'm expected to know things about something I care zero. For those of you that haven't watched the show that much, I could care less about professional sports.

Yeah.

I like sports.

Right.

I like playing sports. I like being outdoors. I like doing things.

Sure.

I could care less about professional sports.

Specifically.

I don't get into it because I don't want people to feel bad about watching professional sports because I don't think there's anything wrong with you doing it.

Right.

It's just not for me.

Not your thing.

And, but if you want me to get into it, I'll be happy to get into it. I just, it's just, I, yeah.

I mean, here's the thing though. Like when you go to— I even felt this way a little bit last night. Like when you go to parties where there's 25, 30 people there, it's a big deal. Kids running around everywhere. Like it's almost hard to watch a game. Yeah, because there's so much going on. And and I'll tell you this: if you were to ask me what my favorite Super Bowl commercial was, you know what I'd say? I have no idea. Yeah, I didn't watch any of those commercials.

I wouldn't know because I didn't see any of it.

I mean, I know that, but I mean, like, it's just he's gonna.

I know I'm gonna get him.

He go. Oh, almost had him.

He did.

Everybody listening is like, what is happening?

It's a fly.

Oh my gosh! He's like dive bobbing me over here.

Dude, he's so slow.

He's so slow.

I think if I got up— oh, there's 2 of them.

Oh geez.

What is going on?

Is he reproducing that quickly?

I don't know.

I've been calling him a he. I don't know.

That is aggressive breeding.

It is. I don't know what's going on. All right, well, tell us what you did on your own private island.

So I went hunting.

Okay.

Yeah. So I have, I have a client that has hired me to get rid of wild pigs on their property.

Oh, hired.

Yeah.

Like you're, you're okay. Most people pay to go hunting.

Yes. You're getting paid to hunt.

To go hunt.

Yes.

Okay. That's a gig.

It is a gig.

How do you do that?

Well, you gotta be very skilled. At what?

They hired you. Well, tell me what happened.

Well, so what, what it is, is some wild pigs. This is a commercial piece of property.

Okay.

And they have been tearing stuff up. They're, they're, they're very destructive.

Yeah.

And I will say this, I haven't read the article yet. There's an article that just came out this last week about maybe we need to hang out on the idea or hang back on the idea of hunting wild pigs year-round.

Really?

Yeah, there— and I need to go through and I apologize, I have not read the article. It's going to make the case that they're actually very beneficial to the environment. Where, like, I'm just gonna be honest, they're very destructive.

They are.

Very, very destructive. Yes.

And they come in herds. Are they a herd? I don't know. Herd of pigs?

I don't know what they're—

Is it a gaggle?

What a group of pigs is called. A herd is probably—

A murder?

Like, no, murder of crows.

Yeah, it's a murder of crows.

Murder.

But pigs are like, they come in groups.

Yeah.

And they're huge.

Well, not, I mean, like, it's not that they come in herds, I mean, which, I'm just going to look this up real quick. Herd of pigs.

I want to know. We got to know.

A group of pigs is called a drift or drove.

Oh. There you go. All right.

A drove of pigs.

They drove me crazy.

Yeah. Well, and so like they, they, I mean, like this, this is like actually measurable. Like they cause millions of dollars worth of damage to property.

Right.

And as well as other things, but this is wild pigs. This isn't domestic pigs. And there's a big difference. Oh, a huge difference. And I think we've talked about this on the show before, like if you release a domestic pig into the wild and they catch up with a drove of pigs, they will turn into a wild pig.

Of course.

Like physiological changes. So anyway, I was out during pretty much the entirety of the Super Bowl out at this property hunting pigs. I was, I think I was out there for like 4, 4 and a half hours.

Geez.

And it was getting close to sundown and I don't like hunting after sundown, even though like some of the best pig hunting does happen after sundown.

Okay.

It's just, to me, it's just not safe.

Yeah. Who knows what could happen? Yeah. Because even if, if something happens to you, right. Well, I mean, then what?

Well, and it's like the way that you do that is you use night vision and thermals.

Sure.

And I like, I, I'm sure it's reliable. I'm sure there's guys who are really good at it. I'm not comfortable with it.

Yeah.

So it was getting to be like 6 o'clock and I was like, I'm not going to see anything. And I've been out there many times and seen, I've seen 2 pigs before and the 2 I saw before were like at 120 yards. And they weren't— they didn't stop. And so I didn't have like a clean shot on them.

That's a long way.

I didn't want to scare them off.

120s.

I mean, I probably could have made the shot, but I just didn't want to take the, the risk of like missing and then scaring them away for like a week.

Sure.

Anyway, I was, I was sitting there and I was just like, man, I'm not gonna see anything. I can go home and have kind of a relaxing evening. So I was packing up my gear and I was in a stand and I got up to leave, and as I turned to my left, I was like That's kind of a big black thing in the brush over there. Well, these pigs had kind of snuck up beside me and I had never even saw them, heard them. I don't even know where they came from. And they, like I say, beside me, they were like 70 yards away.

Okay.

And I say they, because I inevitably end up finding out that it's they, but I just see one and then another one.

Okay.

Big black ones. And I'm like, okay. Those are those are big pigs. I can take a shot at that. And so she's sitting there, and I get her in my sights. I take the shot, and she starts squealing like crazy, which is what they do when you hit them. All right, squeal like crazy. And as soon as I hit her, man, I see the grass just go nuts.

Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba.

Something starts moving, running across the field, and it's running away from me. And usually what I do is I rechamber my rifle in case I need to take another shot.

Yeah.

Well, so many of them took off, it just sort of like startled me.

Sure.

And I didn't think to like reload my gun. And like 8 of them take off across the field that I did— I hadn't even seen.

Oh my.

I just saw the big black one. And like all of a sudden I'm seeing brown and like striped ones and like they're moving through the grass like crazy. And I'm like, okay, I'm gonna get a bead on one of y'all. You're already scared. Right. I'll see if I can hit another one of you. I got one of them in my sights and I pulled the trigger and realized I had not reloaded my gun. And I was like, I just, I just missed out on another good opportunity.

Right.

So I was like, all right, I got to go find this big one that I just shot. And so I have to like walk through like 6 inches of water.

Oh, geez.

The whole way there.

And like, it had just rained.

Well, it had just rained and pigs get in a wallow, man, and they don't care. It's just muddy, nasty.

Yep.

And that's exactly where she was.

Of course.

So I get over there and she wasn't too hard to find. She's like a 120-pound pig.

Okay.

And well, what I realized is when I walk up on her, I was like, hey, there's, there's 2 dead pigs here.

What?

And I was like, what? I took one shot.

You got both of them?

I got both of them.

Are you— who are you, MacGyver?

I don't know, man. Like, and the other one was like, the other one was like a piglet.

Oh, okay.

So there's a— I mean, like, not to be like dark and like weird about it, but like most likely what happened was, is I, I, I— because I saw the shot where I hit her and I probably, I probably broke her spine. And I think the other one was nursing.

Oh, okay.

And it ricocheted off the spine and shot him through the head.

That's what you call luck right there, man. That's some big luck. It was big luck.

And I—

Do it again.

Yeah, we'll see. We'll see.

But I mean, he goes back. There's— okay, there's, there's a drove of them.

Oh yeah.

A drove of— and most of the time they come in droves.

Yes.

This is working.

Or drove. Drift or drove.

They come in droves.

They drift in the drove. They were drinking.

They drift toward you.

They drove you.

Those pigs were drunk.

They were drunk.

But I mean, I mean, a lot of times they're together, right?

Oh yeah. They're always together.

So you can get both of them.

Like even as they ran away, man, they stayed, they stayed completely together.

Right. Yeah. So, well, they drifted together anyway.

It was a, it was, it was a fun, successful night for me. Yeah.

So, so, so now what do you do with the, with the pigs? Do you leave 'em there?

Those I did.

Yeah. I mean, I mean, it's late, but I mean, Well, they're not good for anything.

Oh no, they're good to eat.

You can eat 'em?

Well, yes, you can. Absolutely, you can.

Okay.

Those, I mean, here's, here's the thing. She was too big.

Okay.

To drag through the mud.

Oh yeah.

And the muck and the mire.

Sure.

To do anything with.

Right.

I also know that there's coyotes and buzzards around there.

They're gonna take care of it.

Is, is that— I'm not, I'm just not concerned about it. So.

All right. Yeah.

Now, if I get one where I can actually like get to it, I'm not having to stand in like 4 inches of water. I probably would drag them off and gut them and clean them and then take them to the processor.

Okay.

For sure.

Yeah.

So, I mean, I wish that one had been to where I could like actually get it out of there. Yeah, it wasn't.

Okay.

No.

Well, that's still impressive.

So.

All right. Well, I'll give you, I'll give you that.

Thank you.

That was impressive. So what else is going on? We have— I feel like there's a lot we can talk about.

Well, we— I mean, we, we needed to talk about this Lutron switch. You put one in your house.

Yeah, before we do that, you know what we need to do?

Oh, thank our sponsor.

We do. We need to thank our sponsor. You know, we are so thankful for Lone Star Appliance Repair.

They're the best.

They really are. I, you know, I've recently— I've talked to quite a few people that have issues, and they're— more people are going the repair route.

I mean, Oh, for sure.

Which is, which is smart right now because the way everything costs is so expensive to do anything. It's expensive to eat, it's expensive to buy gas, it's expensive to do everything. So repairing your appliances is smarter than just going out and buying new ones if it can be repaired.

Yeah. And so, well, let me, let me say this. I was, I was in a client's house today and she was telling me she, she had bought this house less than a year ago.

Okay.

And I was checking some stuff out for her and I was looking at the dishwasher and she goes, well, you can look in there, but that thing hadn't worked since I moved in.

What?

And I was like, what are you talking about? And she goes, yeah, the inspector that I paid to check this house out told me that there was nothing wrong with the dishwasher, but it hasn't worked since I moved in.

All right.

And I said, well, have you gotten anybody to look at it? And she's like, no, I just use it for a drying rack and I just, I just don't know what to do. And I was like, well, you don't need to buy a new one. Just, I mean, just call Call, call Lone Star Appliance Repair. Like, yeah, just have 'em look at it and let you, right, tell you what it's gonna take to repair it. I guarantee you it's gonna be cheaper than buying a new one.

Of course.

And then you could have it actually have a dishwasher.

Right. And she was like, why not?

And, and her response to that was like, oh my gosh, thank you so much. I don't, I don't feel comfortable calling someone without actually knowing that someone else has used them before. Well, so here's Kevin and I. Yeah. Telling you like, look, I've, I've used them at my house.

Yeah.

Many times.

Right.

And they've always treated me fairly. They've always given me a fair price and they've actually got my appliances back up and running again.

Yeah. So they're great.

Yeah.

I mean, they do a great job.

Just give them a call.

Yeah. Give them a call. I mean, their phone number is 936-647-2364. You can call them and also text them.

Yep.

That same number, 936-647-2364. Really, really great people. So, I mean, if you need anything, Call them. They also have maintenance options and other things that they can help you with. You can go to their website and learn more about that if you want to. But we're really thankful for their sponsorship and support them and tell them that you heard about them on the Homeowner Show.

Fo' sho'.

All right. So getting into the Lutron stuff, we actually just had someone mention that he's an advanced Lutron programmer.

No.

Yeah, and he programmed their lighting and shades for many, many years.

See, the shade stuff—

Yeah, the shades are cool.

I wanna check those out, man. They haven't sent us those yet, and I wanna see what they're like, because apparently that's like the crème de la crème of the Lutron system.

Yeah, and I would be happy to put those in our house. The only— holy crap, this thing is gonna die. But I couldn't get up. Oh my goodness, this flies. Sorry, Lutron. If you're, if you're watching this online, you're getting a kick. The, the shades, the only thing that I will say about them is that they're not cheap. I mean, you know, we— they're—

Oh, it's the most expensive thing that they have.

Well, of course, and for a reason. I mean, it's not a light bulb, it's not a switch, it's a— it's, it's shades. It's pretty amazing. But yeah, so very, very cool. Joshua Juarez is his name.

Oh, okay. He's the programmer.

But so we, we kind of had a relationship with Lutron.

Wait, is that—

wait, hang on a while now.

I'm gonna go over and check that out because I think that's a— I think I know that guy.

What? All right, maybe you do, maybe you do. But here's the deal. So we, we've been kind of partners with them a little bit, and they, they send us stuff that we've, we've given out over the years. As, as like gifts and prizes.

That's Josh Jones, True Texas Solar.

Oh, well, there you go.

He's supposed to be coming on the show soon.

Really? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

Super cool.

Well, he just said their energy savings is substantial. They, they actually reduce heat.

He said he would know.

He would know. So what, what they've done is they've, they've, they've given us some stuff to review. One of the things that they've given us that is just super, super cool is their Casseta line. Their Casseta is kind of their top of the line switches. Yep. They're smart switches. There's a lot of things that these things do. Now you kind of have to have a hub in order for them to work. So you get the hub, you can actually buy a whole kit.

Well, let me, let me address that real quick because I was, I was actually at a friend's house the other day and he had, uh, what's the ones that we, we reviewed before that don't require the hub?

Oh, you know what I'm talking about? Yes, yes, yes.

Anyway, look, don't— we don't need to mention it.

It doesn't matter.

They've never sent us anything.

That's right.

Um, anyway, there, there are plenty of switches and plug adapters and things like that.

Yeah.

That don't require a hub.

Right.

Here's the issue with those is each one of those takes away from the bandwidth on your Wi-Fi.

Mm-hmm.

Because it's, each one of those is now connected as a device to your Wi-Fi.

Right.

When you use a hub system like Lutron, it's a one signal that controls everything that then runs through the hub. So you're not actually diminishing your internet speed or anything else on your network.

Yeah.

On your, on, yeah, your bandwidth on your network.

Right.

To, and so like you're, you're going to continue to have the same power or you're going to have more power than you would if you use a system that each device connected to the Wi-Fi.

Right.

There are benefits to the other system. This one is just going to help maintain bandwidth on your network.

Sure.

So, sorry, go ahead.

So no, that's good. So you can buy a kit. It comes with the, you know, the switch and the hub and all, you know, the whole nine yards. But man, these things are so cool. They're— let's just talk about a couple of things you do. I mean, there's a lot of things you might expect. You can turn them on and off with, with the app. All right. You might expect that, but you can also set scenes. Very cool. So like, you know, maybe you're sitting down to watch a movie and you like, you have a perfect lighting setting. You can switch it out to that. You can make a scene for it. You can have at a certain time of day, you can have like at

maybe, I don't know, 7:30 at night, the lights dim, you know?

Right.

I mean, a lot of people, whenever the sun goes down, they don't need all the light in their house. They want to kind of start winding down. You can do that kind of thing. But there's a couple other things that I think are really, really cool. One of them is you can do geofencing with it. So whenever you leave, they'll— the lights will turn off, right? Even if you forgot to do it yourself. That's right. Or if you're coming home and you want the lights on whenever you come into your house, which I'll tell you, I mean, even as a dude, look, I don't like walking into a dark house.

Sure.

I mean, I'm not scared of the dark, but I still don't want to walk into a dark house. Who knows? My kids leave dog toys everywhere, leave their toys everywhere. Like, I don't want to trip over stuff.

Why are you only buying your kids dog toys?

Well, that's a whole nother conversation. Okay. It has to do with discipline. But beyond that, I, I, you know, I, I like walking into a house that has some lights on. So you can geofence it to where, if you don't know what that means, basically you can put a, a virtual bubble around your house and whenever you enter that bubble, yeah, you're inside the geofence. Whenever you, it's, it's a fence, right?

Right.

Whenever you leave it, you're outside and, and your, your system can do various things based on that, right? Yeah.

I mean, and I think I've talked about this on the show, I actually use the If This Then That app with a geofence to create a personal log of when I— it's, it's, it's an ongoing spreadsheet that I've had for the last 4 years of when I enter and leave my property.

That'll be really helpful when your daughter starts driving.

Don't think I'm not gonna put one on her.

Exactly. So there's another probably One of the coolest things it does though is, I mean, I've got a specific scenario in my house where there's one light switch in my living room, right? But it's not near the door. It is near a door, but it's not near the door.

Right.

And so if you walk in the back door of my house, you can't turn the light on in the living room, which you walk in the living room, right? But with this system, you can literally put a wireless switch on the wall and you can mount it on the wall with the switch plate and everything to where it looks like a regular outlet switch. And you can have a whole separate, you know, it's a remote, it's basically what it is, that you can put anywhere in your house. And so they've got this wire—

You're talking about the Picos or the—

Yes.

Okay.

But you take those Picos and you can literally mount 'em on the wall.

Yes.

with a whole, like—

They come with a plate.

They do.

They snap in and you can take 'em out too.

That's exactly right. It's like a remote, yeah. Yeah, the one we have is portable. We carry it with us and, you know, I say carry it with us, we'll put it on the couch and, you know, change the lighting.

Yeah, that's what ours stays like on the coffee table.

Right.

Yeah.

Right, but you can't, like, if you have a scenario where you need a 3-way switch, you can 3-way switch your house without wiring.

Well, I think that's the new addition to these switches because I think previously their assumption was I was like, it's a smart switch. Why would you need a 3-way?

Right.

So we'll just eliminate the 3-way and give you a Pico. Now you can actually put in, and I think the reason that they ended up doing this is because people were, what's the word I'm looking for? They were repurposing their existing electrical wiring.

Okay.

And they were like, okay, so like, what do I do with this thing now? Right, there used to be a switch because it was a 3-way, but now you're telling me I don't need the 3-way because I can use the Pico. but now I've got to put the Pico and like do like a light switch cover, right? Or like a plate cover to like cover up the wiring that was there before. So like they were like, okay, fine, we'll just, we'll just give you the option to 3-way, right, these switches. And so now you can.

Now you can, which previously, I mean, you think about this. So if you don't know what a 3-way switch is, it's basically, many, many of you have them in your home. It's where you can turn the light on and off in one location of the room, and another location of the room you can also turn the light on or off.

Yeah, which creates a weird upside down—

It does. And for those of you that are anal like me, it drives you nuts if one of them's up and one of them's down.

Yes.

Turn those things around. Make them both down or both up, whatever. But, but that's what a 3-way switch is. Think about it. If you have a, a smart switch like this one, they've got dimmers on them, right? Okay, so quite literally the dimmer goes from the bottom, which is off, to the top, which is all the way on, and you know, you've got that spectrum in between, right? Well, what are you gonna do with that if you've got multiple locations with a 3-way switch? It doesn't work very well. It, it's backwards, it's upside down, it's The 3-way switch doesn't work very well in that situation. Lutron's figured it out.

Yeah.

And they figured out how to take a dimmer switch that had— that's a smart switch and make it work with a 3-way.

3-way.

Yeah. And, and it's— the cool thing is it's always up or always down, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

I mean, it's just— it's a, it's a really, really cool thing. So I, I don't know another system out there that does this.

I don't either.

So super, super cool.

Yeah. Kudos to them for, for knocking it out of the park on this one.

And the thing I like about it is they've thought, they've thought ahead. They've gone, okay, what are the problems that people have? They're not just trying to sell you a product, they're trying to solve problems, right? And I love that. And they've got a lot of problem-solving systems. Yeah, a lot of them.

Well, and I know this is becoming less and less like as a rarity, but it, it is cool that it also works with LEDs.

Oh yeah. So, well, and yeah, and yeah, a lot of them do these days. But I will tell you, having tried multiples, many of them don't work well.

No.

And, and it's not the bulb's fault, it's the switch's fault.

Because I often, I often blame the purchaser.

Most of the time. But like, here, here's the thing. There are, there are bulbs that they will dim fully up and down, but what happens with most of these switches is you have to have a certain level of resistance in the switch to get to dim correctly.

Right.

And so they get down to about 20% resistance and they just, they just shut off.

Click off. Yeah.

They shut— so you only get about 80% and you can only turn it down to a certain level and it's not always that, that dim and it just shuts off.

Yeah.

So if you've got a system like like Lutron's, and they're, they're all over the place, but you can buy them almost anywhere. If you got a system like Lutron's, theirs will dim fully and their resistance levels are a little bit better.

Yeah. And correct me if I'm wrong, like the switches will still work even if you don't have the hub?

Oh yeah, they will.

Yeah. You just can't control them wirelessly or through the app.

Through the app. Right. That's the big deal.

So, I mean, like there's still a fully functional switch.

Yeah.

Which is cool.

It is.

Yeah.

No, it absolutely is.

So I will, Little story time. I actually installed a smart switch in our— my wife and I's bedroom.

Okay.

And again, this is my house.

It's weird. It's just—

should put that out there. Like, I didn't design it, I just bought it. I don't have buyer's remorse. It's just fair to recognize that things were not done with a clear mind. Little Lone Star action going on.

That's right.

So there was a switch in our bedroom and I wanted— and I had put in recessed halogens throughout our bedroom.

Yeah.

And I wanted to put them on a smart switch so I could turn them up or down from bed.

Sure.

And so I installed it and shortly after installing it realized that now I cannot turn on the lights in my closet Or in my bathroom without turning on the lights in my bedroom.

Oh, weird.

And I should have realized this when I pulled out the complete rat's nest of wire from that plug recess.

So there is a way to wire it correctly.

Yes.

You just didn't know what it was.

I had no frickin clue.

No. And you probably forgot to take a picture before you—

I don't know that that would have helped.

It's too much wiring.

Yes.

Oh, if you're gonna take— now you've said before on this show, yes, electrical is the one thing.

Not my thing.

Yeah, not your thing. But like, if you're—

If it's a simple switch, yeah, I'm good.

Yeah. If it's a plug, probably fine.

Now we start getting into 3-way, 4-way even, I could probably figure it out. But like, if there's other stuff— so here's what happened, man, is We realized that, that what came through that— what do you call those things? The boxes that are behind the switches? Do you know?

The, the receptacle box?

Receptacle. Thank you. Okay. In the receptacle, like everything that was connected to our bedroom was wired through that switch.

Okay. They all came to there.

That was the central.

Okay.

So like there, there was a GFI in my bathroom that just ceased to work.

Huh. That's not good.

And like, I couldn't turn on the lights in my bathroom unless the lights in my bedroom were on.

That's horrible.

And I couldn't turn on the lights in my closet unless the lights in my bedroom were on, which, look, I think for most people that's not a big deal.

It kind of is.

But like my wife and I, there are days—

Different schedules.

Different schedules, man. And it's like sometimes I'm getting up way earlier. Look, if I'm like, okay, if I'm going hunting, yeah, I'm getting up at like 2 or 3 in the morning.

Right.

And going on down the road, I need to turn on the lights in the closet. I need to turn on the lights in my bathroom.

Right.

I can't do that.

No.

Until I was, I finally got frustrated and I called—

It's a good story.

I called my buddy John over at Y Electric and I was like, look, man, and like this, this will tell you everything you need to know. I was like, look, I've had a problem with the switch for at least a year.

Oh gosh. You lived with it like that for a year?

Oh yeah.

Oh my.

Oh yeah. And I was like, look, man, I haven't— there's a GFI switch in my bathroom I haven't been able to use for more than a year. I haven't been able to turn on the lights in my bathroom in the morning for over a year.

Are you using like the— are you using like the light on your camera?

Like your phone? Sometimes. There's— okay, so there are other lights in my bathroom. They're just not as good as the main light. Okay.

All right.

That's— So I have lights I can turn on. It just like—

They're like behind you.

It would be dangerous to shave. Okay. Like, I couldn't turn that light on.

I don't have that problem.

That's right. So, and I'm telling everyone this because like, look, when you hire a professional, yes, this is when you get to realize what your time and your money are worth. Because I called John, John Wagner over at Y Electric, and I said, John, I need you to come out. I need you to fix the switch.

Right.

I'm done. Like, I haven't opened it. Since I've messed it up, the GFI is not working, the bathroom lights aren't working, the laundry room lights aren't working, the closet lights aren't working. Like, everything comes through this receptacle. I know I screwed it up. I'm sorry. Please come fix it. He goes, I got you, bud. It's $150 an hour. Shouldn't be a big deal. And I said, you haven't been to my house, man.

Yeah, you have no idea.

Like, and he goes, don't worry about it. So he comes out in under an hour.

Oh.

Everything is perfect.

Okay.

Perfect.

That's beautiful.

Like, my wife could not be happier. It's, it's the best $150 I've ever spent in a long time.

Wow.

Just to have the electricity working properly in my bedroom. And so—

Happy wife?

Yeah, dude, I'm happy. Forget her. Look, I, I say that to say this. Like, one, electricity is nothing to mess around with.

No, you got to be careful.

2, like, if you don't know what you're doing, like, one, educate yourself or hire a professional. Yeah, look, at the end, at the end of the day—

I don't have anything in my hand. I'm so glad it's not your game.

At the end of the day, Having a professional come in and knock it out in an hour is better than you wrestling with it for 6.

Oh yeah. And, and, and you don't know, bad things can happen. I mean, when you start messing with stuff, and here's the thing, and it may not even be like you getting shocked, it may not be your own physical problem, but it could be your house's physical problem, right? I mean, you could set your house on fire if you rewire things incorrectly and then turn a switch on.

Yeah.

It mean— and you may not even know it to begin with. It may not get hot immediately. It could be—

It could be weeks.

It could be weeks. It could be— it may be that one time that you leave and you're rushing out the door and, oh man, it's an LED light. It doesn't matter. I'm gonna leave it on. You walk out and your house catches on fire.

Right. And that can happen.

For sure. I'm not trying to foreshadow. I'm just saying like, yeah. There's things you don't want to mess with. Yeah. Call the professional. $150, dude, that's nothing. Nothing in comparison to what it could be. Yeah, for sure.

I'm not saying that $150 isn't a lot of money.

Oh no, it is.

I mean, that's groceries. That's, I mean, that's several things.

And there are people out there going, $150? Like, an electrician used to only cost $50 an hour. Well, we're not $50 an hour anymore.

Right.

It costs money.

Right. Well, and you get, you get what you pay for.

Look, You do.

$50 an hour electrician, he probably would have fixed it in 3.

Oh yeah, same amount of money, he's in your house and maybe he did it right.

And I'm frustrated because he's been there 3 hours.

Just come on, man, it's one switch.

Yeah, you can do this. I believe in you. I believe in you.

So I, I will tell you this. So our friend Joshua Juarez, your friend actually, he, he mentioned, and, and I've seen this on their website, we just have not had any of them to, to test. I would be happy, Lutron, if you want to send some to me. I will install these and I will check it out. But he said the Lutron Radio RA and the Homework and, and Ketra series takes lighting to a whole level, whole different level of capabilities. So like, the cassette is great, Once you get into some of these others, you can go on their website and look at it. Like the Radio RA, like they've got all types of like settings. The colors that you can put into their switches, like they're very vast. But

it's— they— you can program things.

Oh yeah.

In certain ways. And then you get into the Homeworks scenario and all of a sudden now you can use like— you can use like an iPad with like crazy amount of control of what you can do with your system. You can program—

Talk about changing like the lighting colors.

Yeah, you can do all kinds of stuff. And then, and then you— it'll also integrate with your shades. It'll integrate with like— your controls can be like super crazy. Like you can have all like a hub pad, like a pad on your wall somewhere that you can like control all the lights through the whole house with it, you know. Like literally you can do one of those deals where it's like Walking out the door, you press the off button and every light in the house goes off. You know, like different weird scenarios like that.

I've actually done that. I've done that with the, the Amazon Alexa stuff.

Yeah.

Because you can connect, you can connect to the Caseta with all that. And a lot of times I'll be walking out of the house and I, I'm not going to say her name because she— we actually have one in here, but I'll tell her to turn all the lights off in the house. Yeah. And I didn't want to say that out loud because it would just do it.

Oh, it will, huh?

That's right.

Well, he— that's one of the other things he said is he said you can also control lamps and the Caseta system with Alexa.

Yeah.

So if you've got Alexa already, then you can, you can tell it to do, uh, all kinds of things. So, you know, Lutron is, is out there doing amazing things. And so if, if you really want to dive in further Go to their website at lutron.com. You can find all their stuff at Home Depot and, and Lowe's. And they're, you know, if you want some of their higher-end stuff, you may have to go some to like some professional lighting stores.

And yeah, I don't think any of the stores actually carry any of the shades or anything like that.

Yeah, but you can get them online. You can order them online, different things like that. So definitely check them out.

I think, I think the reason is, is because they're all custom, right?

And you need someone to— for many of— much of it, you need someone to program. It for you. Now you don't have to have someone program for you, but like you might need a professional.

Yeah.

Install some of it, uh, especially whenever you get into some of these systems like your house where it's like, eh, it's a little different. A little different.

This house is a little shady.

It's a little shady. I need the shades. It's a different type of shady.

Which I, I will say that's, that's one of the weird things about my house. Not, not—

What's that?

Is that like you don't really need like curtains and shades. In my house.

Well, you do have windows.

I have windows.

But they're on actual floors.

Well, like, your weird floors. On the, on the first floor, most every single window that we have has at least a 6-foot covering outside of it.

Sometimes 8-foot.

Yeah.

Because it's got a big porch.

Big wraparound porch.

That's covered.

So, and then when you get up to the second and the third floor, Like you have a lot of tree coverage. And, and so like the sun, and then the way that the sun moves, it moves sideways over the house. And so like it never really comes in through any of the windows except for my son's bedroom window on the third floor. And that's really the only window that we have any issues with.

Which, you know, it's pros and cons, right?

Yeah.

I mean, definitely. But whenever you've got good shade, there's a lot of, there's a lot of benefit. There's also the issue of now you gotta turn on lights.

You gotta turn on lights.

You kinda, you gotta have your lights. And, and that's whenever, that's really whenever the, the setting of like certain times a day can make a big difference.

Yeah.

You know, so pretty cool.

I wonder if you, if you could do a setting that would follow the—

Yes.

Sunset.

Yes.

In fact— So like as the sun goes down, the dimmer comes up. Yes.

So, so Casseta actually does that. They have, they have what they call sunset tracker.

Oh, that's cool.

And so, yeah, so at certain times of night, I, I'm not sure if it dims. I'm not sure how— I, I need to check this setting because I don't— I haven't used it, so I'm not exactly sure what it does. I will, I will check on it and I'll, I'll report back. But basically it tracks the, the sun, and whenever, like If you need lights on in a certain area, it'll, it'll know when the sun's going down, so the lights will come on.

Okay.

And, and vice versa, if the lights are on, they'll go off. So it's, it's called Sunset Tracker, and it's something that they do that's, you know, very specific.

I'm sure it accounts for daylight savings.

Oh, of course it does. Yeah, it's hooked into the internet.

Look, man, if you go hunting, you know what time sundown is every day.

Yes, you do. Yes, you do.

I will tell you also, if you go camping, you know what time sunrise is.

Yeah, you know what time sunrise is. And when it gets dark, it's kind of like, I'm ready for bed.

It's time to go to bed.

Time to go to bed. It's weird how that works. You know, when you got lights, you stay up forever. That's right.

Created a lot of irresponsibility.

Except now it's late. Yeah, it's gotten late. Is there anything else we need to cover?

No, we can save it for another episode.

All right, we will do that. Well, thank you everyone for joining us this evening. Some of you will hear this probably a week from now. But those of you listening live, thanks for being with us. We appreciate you very, very much. Uh, if you have not already, please like, subscribe, go on our YouTube channel and our Facebook. We are putting out tons of content, uh, really, really good stuff. So thank you for joining us. Go leave us a 5-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts. Tell your friends about us. Until next time, we'll see you later.

See ya.