That Time We Talked About the Best Innovations of the Decade

This is episode number 70 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 Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. We're glad that you guys could join us in, uh, for the first episode of 2020.

2020.

Happy the New Year's.

Yeah. It's here.

How's your 2020 been so far, Kev?

Well, we're not very far in. Yeah. Um, but so far so good.

Yeah.

Yeah, man, I had a, I had like a week off, week, week and a half really.

Yeah.

Where I got to go spend time with family and just kind of be away for a little bit.

And we've been kicking it easy over here at the Homeowner Show.

Yeah.

So we're ready to, you know, kick 2020's rear.

That's right. Hey, we did good in 2019, I think. I mean, our goals, we like we busted those wide open.

Yeah. Yeah, we we we I think I think we we set our sights a little low.

I don't know if that was just conservative on our part or if it was just stupid on our part or if we were just unexpectedly surprised.

I don't know. Yeah. So well, I mean, really, the the big thank you goes out to everyone listening right now. Thank you guys.

That's right.

You guys made 2019 an incredible year for the Homeowner Show. It was it was awesome. That's right.

And we hope 2020 is even better. So keep subscribing. and, you know, tell your friends about us.

Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, I— the crazy statistic I heard, I guess it was yesterday, was like we're closer to 2050 than we are to 1990.

That's weird.

That's a weird one. That's weird for 2 knuckleheads that grew up with Kurt Cobain and—

oh yeah, all that. Yeah, yeah. I mean, to think that, that 2019 was Great year, blah, blah, blah. But to think that we're at the end of a decade.

I'm actually confused by that. Is 2020 the last year of the decade, or is it the first year of the decade?

There's so much debate. Here's the deal. Nobody in their right mind thinks that when you talk about the '20s, that you start with '21.

Right.

Nobody thinks that, right?

Nobody thinks that.

Nobody thinks that.

But it makes sense.

It does make sense.

Mathematically.

Yeah, but it does.

Since I'm a mathematician.

It does make sense because you don't count zero, right? But zero also means nothing. So there's one somewhere.

So we're in the year of nothing, of two nothings.

Some people would argue. I think they're wrong. I think logically speaking, whether you, whatever argument you're gonna fall on, whatever side you're gonna fall on, at the end of the day, Everybody thinks that the '20s are gonna include 2020.

Okay.

Like, the '90s include 1990, don't they?

I don't know.

I think they do. I don't think anybody includes— I don't think anybody includes the year 2000 in the '90s.

Okay, wait, wait, who was president in 1990?

Uh, that would have been George Bush.

George Bush?

Yeah.

So I think it's still technically part of the '80s. He's part of that regime, man. Yeah, but, but We didn't, we didn't, we didn't fully kick into the '90s until Clinton got in office.

Yeah, well, you're not helping my argument. You're not helping me at all.

I'm only attributing the '90s to the Clintons. That's it. Okay, okay, they can have it.

It's definitely theirs. Definitely theirs. As a guy that lived in Arkansas for 10 years, it's definitely theirs.

That's all I want them to have. Yeah, okay.

No, I, I, I just, I don't know. Either way, I feel like 2020 feels different than— we're no longer in the teens.

It does feel like we've turned a corner.

I, I think so. I think so.

Yeah. So did you do anything fun for the, uh, for the New Year's? You know, shoot off some fireworks?

No.

You got all your fingers?

I'm not a fireworks guy.

No?

I love watching fireworks.

You like watching fireworks? Yes.

And my favorite fireworks of all time is Disney, right? Like, they do it so well.

Oh yeah.

Um, anybody can do it that well nightly. Every night. Every night.

Yeah.

Um, then they're— they've just— they take the cake as far as I'm concerned. But, um, that, that's not to take away from any specific fireworks that do it on occasion. Disney just does it best all the time, right? Uh, so I enjoy watching it. I don't mind doing fireworks, but honestly, I know this sounds— this is gonna sound real petty to me, uh, for me probably, but like They're expensive to go do. To do fireworks right, you can easily spend $300, $400 on fireworks.

Oh yeah.

And I, I'm just not— I don't care that much, right? I would rather someone else blow their money and let me watch you have fun.

Yeah.

But to answer your question, we did something fun with just some friends It was awesome because we, you know, we've got small kids, you've got small kids. Yeah, your kid— one of your kids is not so small anymore, but, um, you've got small children and you understand that like waiting up till midnight is really almost impossible. Yeah, for kids. And so—

Did you guys do an early night countdown?

We did. Yeah, we did a 6 to 8 party with a bunch of friends with— have, have kids similar age. Um, and at like 7:30 we did a countdown. We did like, like these, these poppers, you know, you like twist in like streamers, out everywhere. And, um, yeah, it was perfect. So it was over at 8 o'clock, we were at home, my kids were in bed by 9.

And so it was a Happy New Year.

It was a Happy New Year. My wife and I sat down and watched a couple of shows, and we were, we were in bed early. So, uh, you know, I don't know, the older I get, I, I'm thinking it's not even just the older I get, I think it's— I've still got young kids and they're still gonna wake up at 6:30 in the morning no matter what.

Yeah.

I don't wanna go to bed at 1 o'clock.

Man, I watch guys older than me and like guys and gals older than me, like, and you see some of this stuff on social media, they're like posting pictures from like the night last night, you know, they're out for New Year's, they're at like some club or some bar or some restaurant or, you know, some party.

Yeah.

And like, I'm not that old, man, but I'm just looking at that going, that just looks exhausting.

Yeah, it's not as fun as it used to be.

Well, like, one, it was never really that fun to me when I was younger anyway.

Yeah.

Um, and maybe that's just my personality. I'm not, I'm, I'm not a big party dude.

Sure.

Um, I like a good time.

Yeah.

I'm just not a big party guy.

Well, I don't know.

Like, that whole scene just has not really ever appealed to me. I like, I, I get it if that's your thing. Like, some people's just like They like to be in big groups. They like to be dancing. They like loud music.

Not you. Well, and, and I guess part of me, I've always kind of felt like New Year's— I know this is gonna sound really dumb, and I'm fine with it sounding dumb, but I feel like there's part of me that's like somewhat anticlimactic.

Uh-huh.

And we spent all night waiting for the one to drop.

That one moment.

That one moment. And then it drops. 1, 0. Ah, Happy New Year! Everybody's leaving. Yeah, I want to go home. And now we got to dodge all the crazies out there. Yeah, you know, because they've been drinking too much.

And the funny part for us, man, is with like— we had, uh, we had just gotten back. Was it— I think we'd just gotten back from a trip. Yeah, we'd just gotten back from a trip, and so we were at home. And so we— I think we did like 3 different Netflix countdowns.

Okay.

Yeah. And like, the funny part to me Is like, I remember as a kid, like it was really frustrating that my parents wouldn't let me stay up till midnight.

Yeah.

Like my kids, like they have no concept of that.

No.

It's like, okay, it's time to countdown.

Yeah.

Like it's the new year.

Yeah.

And then we're gonna do it again.

Yeah.

Let's do the new year again.

It's really funny that you say that because, but before, before the age of the internet and really the age of, of streaming videos.

Yeah.

We didn't have the option to, to play something early.

Yeah.

You know, we— it was— you waited till midnight. That's what you did.

Who, who was the guy that always— who's the guy that always did the ball drop in, in New York?

That—

what was that show?

Oh, I can see his face.

Yeah.

What? You really gonna do this to me right now?

I'm doing it to me too, cuz I can't remember.

Man, we're, uh, um—

Cuz it's somebody else now.

Yeah, it was, uh, Dick, um, what's his name?

Again, this is why I asked.

Dude, surely his name is Dick. I think his name is Dick something.

I'll tell you what, why don't you Google it?

I'm doing it right now.

I'm gonna tell the people. So I— we just got back from this really incredible trip. Um, we took—

Dick Clark.

Dick Clark. There you go.

I was not wrong.

Did you Google it?

I did.

All right.

I mean, that—

yeah, because like, it's like Carson Daly or something like this doing it now, right?

Yeah, of, of course it's the same, right?

No, playing the part as Dick Clark, not the same.

You are not Dick Clark.

Yeah, so I mean, but, but that— my point in bringing that up was like, that's what everybody would tune into. Yeah, right. I mean, that's— you're gonna watch that show if you're watching something and not at a party, right, to see, you know, New Year's. Which was weird because, again, because we're in different time zones.

Right, and so they did it over and over.

So it was really only relevant if you lived on the East Coast.

Exactly, that's true.

So yeah, cheers to you, West Coast.

Congratulations.

Suck it up for the next 2 hours or whatever it is.

That's right. People in California are like—

They're all flipping the bird at Ben Franklin.

Yeah. Well, it was fun. It was fun. Did y'all do anything special?

Well, yeah, we— that we— well, it wasn't actually on New Year's Eve, but we, we took a trip down to, uh, to Moody Gardens.

Okay.

So we spent a couple days down there with the kids.

Yeah.

Um, and which, if you're not from Texas or know the Galveston area, Moody Gardens is really cool. It's, um, I don't really know how to describe it. It's not a theme park, um, because there's not really any rides, right? But there's 3 separate pyramids on Galveston Island, and as well as a resort there.

It's just, it's an experiential place.

Yeah. And so one, one pyramid is a rainforest, one pyramid is an aquarium, and one pyramid is what they call Discovery. And they just have rotating attractions going through there. There was a 3D, I think when we were there, called 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Oh. Um, which was really cool. It was an interactive 3D ride. kind of thing.

Okay.

Um, it was very Disney-esque. It was very Disney-esque. It wasn't, it wasn't like on— well, I don't want to like—

the scale wasn't the same.

I don't, I don't want to like, you know, feel like I'm dissing Moody Gardens because it was a really cool attraction.

Um, but it's hard to beat Disney.

Their rainforest and their aquarium attractions are on point.

Okay.

Very, very cool.

Yeah.

I mean, it probably takes I mean, you could probably spend a good 2 hours walking through the Rainforest Pyramid.

Nice.

Easy. And not have seen everything.

Okay.

And it's, what's cool about it is it's multi-leveled. So there's actually like 3 stories that you get to walk through. So, and they actually have like different animals based on what canopy they would live in.

Oh, nice. In the rainforest. That makes sense.

But there, it's the other thing that's kind of interesting is like they're all free roaming. So like you could stumble upon a monkey and he'd just be like walking across your path and like swinging from a vine or, and like they're just out in the open. The only thing they didn't have out in the open was the bats. Oh, they had them kind of contained with some netting and things like that.

I'm thankful for that.

I am too. Um, bats are creepy.

They're disgusting.

Very useful and helpful. Sure. Great for our environment. I don't want them flapping around my head.

They only come out at night.

Well, these dudes are pretty active during the day, let me tell you. Um, and they had 3 different kinds. They even had vampire bats.

Oh, nice.

Yeah, they're like— they were behind glass, but yeah, they were there.

Those things are creepy.

So, so if— I mean, if you ever want to take like a cool trip, like, and you're not from Texas, Moody Gardens is a cool place to go. I mean, like, and you could spend— you could spend 2 or 3 days there, and, you know, I think, I think 3 days you could see everything pretty well. But they had this really cool, and let me say, especially in the wintertime, for the holiday season, they have an ice tent. And they bring in these ice sculptors from China. And it's a tent. And I say a tent, that's probably not a great way to describe it. It's what it looks like. The interior of the tent, they have these massive

industrial coolers and they keep the tent at 9 degrees on the inside.

That's cold.

Yeah. And it's because they have these massive ice sculptures that they have to keep frozen throughout the holiday season for people to come through and see them. And like, when I say ice sculptures, uh, they're like 25 feet high.

What?

Some of them, yeah. And like, we're talking like the Eiffel Tower.

Oh my goodness.

Arc de Triomphe, the Alamo. I mean, like, they did the entire Mount Rushmore. They did— I mean, like, it's all kinds of stuff. And then there's like the— right in the middle of the room is the Eiffel Tower, and there's this huge ice column wall that part of it is like the Great Wall of China and then some other stuff, but they use it as a platform that they form a queue and then there's these 3 ice slides you can go down.

Oh, nice.

So I got a great video of my dad going down the slide.

I saw that. Yeah, I saw it.

So did— if you, if you go on, I think I'll post it up on our Facebook page. If, if you do, you got to turn the volume on though.

Okay.

Because at the end He gets, he gets to the bottom of the slide and like there's— it's like, it's like him and my daughter and my mom. And when he wins the race and he gets— when he gets up, he goes, fat guys go fast. And if you don't have the audio on, you can't hear it.

Dad's not fat, but he's a large man.

He's a large man.

Yeah.

So it was, yeah, it was, it was a great moment in movie history right there. Yeah. So we, we had a really good time, but the, the The part about that trip that was pretty crazy is on the property, part of the package that we bought is access to the ropes course, which is this— I think it's either 4 or 5 stories. I think it's 5 stories.

Okay.

Of multi-level ropes course that you can go through. And surprisingly, my oldest daughter, I mean, like just had like no trouble. I mean, and she's usually pretty skittish about stuff, but I mean, like I think she rationalized the harness and the system and all this kind of stuff. And she, I mean, she just worked it like a machine.

Awesome.

My middle son though, uh, he did good on the first level and he did good on the second level, but he started watching his sister and he's trying to keep up. He got to the third level and he, he kind of freaked out.

Oh, really?

And, uh, got stuck in the middle of one of these things and like would not let go. And so I was doing this thing with them and I had to go out onto one of the, on the 3rd story and get him off.

Oh man.

And he's kind of flipping out.

Yeah.

Like in panic mode at this point. And he's kind of grabbing, and you know, it's kind of like when they're training you to be a lifeguard, they're like, if the person's flipping out, you know, let 'em flip out.

Yeah, save yourself.

Save yourself.

Yeah.

And my son was kind of flipping out.

Okay.

And, but like, it wasn't a situation where I could let him you know, do that.

Yeah.

So I kind of, we, we, we got him, we got him to the other side and we, I kind of walked him through his options at that point because he'd worked himself into a situation where, uh, it was gonna be a while before he could get back to the stairs to get down.

Okay.

And so we're gonna have to do a couple obstacles in order to get there. So I, I kind of walked him through his options.

Yeah.

And said, well, we're here.

Yeah.

Here's your options. Which one do you want to take? And, you know, it always surprises me when people who are in high anxiety situations, they tend to pick the one that is not the shortest path. And I was like, are you sure that's the way you want to go?

Yeah.

Yeah, Dad.

It's a long way, but it's easier.

And I was like, I'm going to do it with you. Yeah. But whatever way you pick, that's the one we're going to do. And as long as you decide, And I think, I think having some control over that helped.

Okay.

But like, man, my daughter went up to like the 5th story and was like just hanging out like on a rope. And I was like, nope, I'm out.

Were you ever nervous with her being that high?

And no, because the harnesses are super safe.

Yeah, they are.

Um, but my wife was not having it.

Oh, she was having a hard time.

She left.

I'm out.

Can't even watch. I was proud of her. I mean, like, she, And well, here's the other thing is like my youngest was too short.

Okay.

To get on. They had, they had one for little kids.

Well, she's your monkey.

And, but she had little patience for that. I mean, like it was, it was like 12 inches off the ground.

Okay.

Yeah. And, and so she went over and scolded the man guarding the gate. And, and he's like telling her, he's like, you can't reach the ropes. And she's like, yeah, but you gotta give me a chance. Oh, I can do it.

I'm sure she could too.

And this is like a 4-year-old, like rationalizing with an adult. And he's like, I don't know what to say to her. And I was like, I don't know what to tell you, man.

She's your monkey though.

Just tell her no.

Yeah, just tell her no. Does it— how well does that work for you, Craig?

I tell her no, it doesn't mean she listens to me. No.

Well, she sure is a cute monkey though.

She's a good one.

Yeah.

So sure. Anyway, we're, we're, uh, we're embarking on a 2-part series here because we got a little inspired by the, by the turn of the decade.

Yeah, whether you determine that's this year or next year, that's right, we're doing it this year. We don't That's right.

So it could be next year, but we're gonna do it a year early.

Or it could be this year and we're doing it right on time.

Right on time. That's right.

Yeah, we kind of wanted to talk about like what, what are the types of things that have happened over the last 10 years, right, in, in home, you just the way you interact with the way you live in your home that have been maybe the greatest innovations in our opinion.

Yeah.

And, and each one of us have come up with 3. We don't know the other person's.

We haven't, we haven't shared.

No.

But we, we talked about the topic.

That's right.

We're like, let's come up with 3 and we're gonna talk about them. That's right.

And, and we, we referenced a video on, on YouTube. We're gonna link it up in the show notes.

Yeah. So, so, so this episode we're gonna talk about the, the 3 best ones over the last several years.

Yeah.

And then Part B of this episode, which is going to come out next week, we're going to talk about our 3 predictions for what we think are going to be the next big innovations happening on the home front.

Right.

So, but yeah, so I sent you this video from, and it's no big secret here on The Homeowner Show that Kevin and I have an affection for all things Disney.

Yep.

And so I sent him this video from 2007 from Epcot. Um, and I've— what's, what's the name of that attraction that I sent you?

Well, okay, so, so in Epcot they have Innoventions East and West.

Well, they used to.

They used to. I mean, they're, they're taking it all away and things are changing and I have emotions about it, but—

It's gone now. Like, it's—

Yeah, it's gone, but it's all changing.

Because it's like fully under construction right now, right? It is. Yeah. Okay.

But, but back— this video is from 2007.

Which doesn't feel that long ago.

It—

But for, for reference, you were telling me this earlier, what, what came out in 2007? 2007?

The iPhone.

The iPhone. Yeah, like that was the first iteration of the iPhone. Exactly. Number 10 now, or no, we're actually going 11 or 11 and 12.

Yeah. And, and, and yeah, so, but that's multiple years, right? So that have gone by. So, so this is, um, so, so they had Innoventions East and West, and so this would have been in Innoventions East, is the one that this was actually in.

The one, the video we're referencing.

The video we're referencing. So you walk in there And they had this exhibit. Um, I say it's an exhibit, but it's also an attraction.

Um, didn't they call them like pavilions?

Yeah, yeah, different, yeah, different things like that. And, and Disney has always, since the inception of Disneyland, Walt was big on having sponsored attractions, right? And he had to, he had to, I mean, in order to fund Disneyland, right?

Yeah.

And there's still sponsored attractions. Yeah. But there, it feels different than it used to, probably, because usually you had sponsored attractions, there were e-tickets and all these sorts of things. We don't have quite the same system, but, um, in Inventions East, there was a couple of pretty cool things. Um, and that's where Body Wars was.

Yes.

You remember Body Wars?

I do remember, but that was one of my favorite rides.

Body Wars.

I heard somebody refer to it the other day as the grossest Disney attraction ever.

I'm fine with that.

And I'm okay with that. It was still cool.

It was kind of gross. I'm not gonna give— that's true. But it was cool. Um, but way past Body Wars, uh, came this thing that they did for— I don't know how long they did it, maybe a year or two.

I think there were several iterations of this.

Okay, yeah. Um, I, I remember seeing it probably around 2006 or 2007. This video specifically was 2007, and it's called the House of Innovations, right? No, House of Inventions.

House of Inventions, okay.

Or maybe Innovations. I don't remember.

You can look it up.

I'm gonna look it up right now. It's House of Innovations is what it's called.

Okay.

But basically what they did is they, they built a home inside and it was all about technology, right? And all of the newest, latest, greatest pieces of technology that you could put into your home that were available at that moment.

Right.

That you could go buy, put into your home, and make your house a lot smarter.

Right.

And so it's really bizarre.

Well, like, and that was the thing is like, when I'm watching that video, that term never came up.

No, the smart, smart technology was not the phrase.

So I think, I think the phrase that they would use then is like technologically advanced.

Yes.

You know, that would be more of the—

yeah. And what's bizarre is so many of the things that they discussed you and I have in our home today.

Yes.

So many of them. I mean, like, like the— when you watch this video, the very first thing they do is they pull out basically what's an iPad.

Uh-huh. And which hadn't come out yet.

No, not even— no, it was not a thing. The iPhone was a big predecessor to the iPad, obviously. Um, but basically they had this touchscreen pad that automated everything in their home, and they turn on a video camera outside of the home. They're like, check this out. And people are like, ooh, ah, yeah, it's amazing, you know, like, I can't believe we can see ourselves right now on this video camera.

So, and again, it's going to be important for us to link up the video so people know. It's, it's like a 20-minute video to do the whole walkthrough.

Yes.

Of— and it's, it's a pretty good video showing, you know, like what this attraction would have been like. Um, but there were, there were a couple of things that you and I were both like, well, that never really happened. Yeah, because that's— that just looks terrible. Yeah. So one of them being this video globe.

Yeah, that was weird.

That was a weird one.

Yeah, it was like— it was like in the bedroom scene of what you would assume was like a teenager's bedroom, right?

Right.

And there was this globe that illuminated. Yes. And it was a video and you could like interact with the globe.

Right.

I've never seen that.

I've never— and like, because it's just not— nobody's interested in that.

No.

So for whatever reason, the other one that I thought was kind of interesting, and I was interested in this one because I was like, that actually seems like something that people would like, was the, the speaker system. Yeah.

The wall speaker.

Yeah. That they, they, they said they had a multi-speaker fully immersive sound wall system.

Yeah, so basically what you did is you put this speaker— it was the size of maybe a Coke can.

Yeah, right.

You put it on the interior of your wall and it made your whole wall, uh, uh, speaker, right?

And like, so from the video, I mean, like, it sounded pretty good.

Okay, so what's really interesting is I have a speaker that basically you can put on a Styrofoam, uh, ice chest, and it makes the whole Styrofoam ice chest a speaker.

Yeah.

So it's a similar technology, right? Um, but a different scale.

Okay.

One of the ones that was interesting to me was they had the oven. So the oven was like—

That was kind of an interesting one. Yeah, it was a different loading system for the oven.

Yes, it was. So it was like at eye level. And so it kind of got it up out of the way, right, of, of everything else in the, in the house and, and above the cabinets and all that kind of stuff, or the countertops, I should say. And the bottom of the oven lowered, right? And you could, you know, set stuff onto the oven.

Which actually makes a lot of sense.

It does. And then it raised itself up.

I'm surprised that one didn't, didn't take off as well. I think that's more because of like the way that kitchens are designed more than the practicality of the actual, like, appliance.

Yeah, you're— that's probably it. But either way, it was a— it was an interesting idea that never really caught on.

Yeah.

So, uh, but that was kind of the inspiration of our— of our podcast tonight.

Yeah.

Or today. And, and so what we're gonna do— Craig and I each came up with 3. He's fairly confident that we did not come up with the same ones.

I'm, I'm I'm almost willing to put money on it.

Oh, really?

Yeah. Not real money.

Monopoly money?

Sure.

Okay. Monopoly money.

Or life money.

Or life. Okay. I actually like life better than Monopoly. Um, so we're gonna go through our top 3 things, uh, that we think in the past few years at least have been some of the greatest innovations in the home that have transformed some of the technological advances that have happened in the home. So, um, So yeah, let's just go down our— start with the first one. These are in no order necessarily of which one we think are best, are they?

Oh, mine are in order.

They are?

Oh, absolutely.

From number 3 down to number 1?

Yeah.

Okay. All right, you go first. Number 3.

Well, if mine are in order, why should I have to go first?

Well, because I gotta figure out what mine— my order is now. I don't know, you gotta figure it out.

All right, so my, my, my number 3 So like, I'm gonna save up my, my best one for the end.

This is the, the worst of your best.

The worst of the worst of the best. Sure. Yeah. So my number 3 is actually IFTTT.

Okay.

Yeah. I think that's actually been like one of the most impressive innovations, uh, in, in the last several years.

Yeah. So if you—

and it's just an app.

Yeah, but lots of different things incorporate this technology.

It's kind of a cheater answer, honestly.

Yeah, so if you don't— I mean, if you're a regular listener, you probably know what IFTTT is. If you don't, it stands for If This Then That. So basically, you've got a device that says, if this happens, then I want you to do this. So the easiest example is if you've got a smart thermostat and you open your front door, it says, if you open your front door, then change the thermostat, right? If, if this happens, then do this, basically, right?

So yeah, and then, and so I, I use this app. I mean, I— what I like about it is that I don't use it a lot, okay? And, and for someone like me, I like setting up things that I don't have to touch that I— it doesn't require my brain in order to operate them.

Yeah.

And so like IFTTT is a beautiful app for me because it just constantly automates things for me all the time.

Yeah.

And, and so like one of the big ones that I constantly tell people about is like, look, I have IFTTT, uh, documenting when I leave my house, when I come back to my house.

Yeah.

This is critical information sometimes, you know, and and like I don't know like because I don't always think to like write on my calendar where I'm going to be, but like here is here is a physical document that I have existing in my Google Drive that tells me every time I've left my home, every time I get back to my home, and that information is accessible only by me. Yeah, you know, and so if I ever if someone ever asks me, well, where were you on da da da da da da da da? Well, I can tell them when I was at home.

Yeah.

Yeah, you know, sure. And between what hours?

Yeah.

And it's all on a spreadsheet.

Yeah.

That is, to my knowledge, um, still active.

Yeah, yeah. No, there's, there's some really cool things you can do with this technology.

So that's— And that's just, that's just like one, that's just one, one example. I mean, but I, I put my, my thermostat is operated by IFTTT. I mean, through, you know, some things like that. Um, so there's, there's, it's, it's a very, very cool app and it's constantly growing as to what it can actually do.

It's powerful. I guess that's one of the things that I, that I like about it is it is so powerful. You can do a lot of things with it and it makes a lot of sense. I'm glad it's out there.

And was it on your list?

No. Haha.

So far.

All right, so my number 3.

Yeah, let's watch. What's your number?

My number 3 is Remort Remote door access.

OK.

Smart locks.

Yeah.

To me, it's totally transformed the ability for me to access my house. My kids love it because they don't have to have a key to get into the house. I don't have to give them a key.

So, they're not technically latchkey kids.

Correct. But seriously, I don't have to give them something they're probably just going to lose.

Right.

Right? I mean, they know what the code is to my house. I can give them a separate code if I want to. I know every single time my door is unlocked and whenever it's closed. Right now, I'm not at home, but if someone were to walk into my front door and unlock it or lock it, I would know, because I would get a push notification to my phone saying, someone has used this code to get into your home. You, as the person that does my pest control. If I wanted you in my house, which you don't do that at my house, you don't come in my house to do pest control, but if you did,

right, all I'd have to do is give you a code and I could say from this time to this time Craig has access to my house, after that he doesn't. And I can secure things that way. Um, I know who's in my house and who's not, and for me that's big. The other thing that's really nice is that whenever I pull into my driveway, um, all I got to do, my watch tells me, hey, it looks like you're home. you like to run the automation? I say yes, and my door unlocks.

I think this could be kind of fun for like teenage kids, like if you gave them a code that only worked in the morning and the evening, so that way if they skipped school, they couldn't get in the house.

They're not coming home.

Yeah, yeah, but you didn't tell them that, right?

But, but I'll tell you this, like right now, if, if someone goes in or out of my door I know because we always keep our doors locked. Yeah, even during the day we keep our doors locked, and part of it is so that we know whenever someone's coming in or going out. So I like that. I like that I don't have to worry about a key. I mean, I don't have a house key on my key ring. I don't have to worry about it.

Um, which, I mean, this was, this was actually one of the things from that 2007 video. It was on there, the SmartLex, and they were thumbprints.

They were thumbprints, and they— those do exist. And they're great, they work, they're even better than they used to be, um, they're fast, um, but I, I specifically chose not to go with one of those even though they're available. Uh, I specifically chose not to go that route, but they had smart door locks on, on the front door of that, yeah, House of Inventions, and I loved it.

Yeah, it's cool.

It was. All right, number 2.

Number 2. So this This one's very similar to my number 3.

Okay.

But it's, so basically it's device integration.

Okay.

And you could probably categorize this under the Internet of Things, but I don't, I think most people thought that as we grew technologically, devices were going to become more and more specific to their brand. And what we've seen is the exact opposite for the most part.

Yeah.

You know, and so it's, it's, it's not really cool if your device can't work with Apple, Google, and, you know, whatever. Like it, your device is more valuable the more platforms it can interact with.

Right. Right.

And so this, this integration of technology is amazing.

People working together.

Yes.

To figure out a way to make it cross-platform.

Yeah, you know, and begrudgingly though, I think sometimes—

I would assume so. I mean, you take Apple for example, they're very, very tight on what they allow to have their technology, right? But they've obviously become more and more acceptable to many things because a lot of things useful with Apple HomeKit, for example.

Right. Well, I'll tell you a big one that just happened recently is Amazon's Alexa devices now have access to your Apple Music library.

That's bizarre.

That's incredible.

I know.

I mean, like—

Well, because what you've got is you've got a Google device and an Apple device talking to each other.

Right. Well, and not only that, I mean, you have people like me who've been using iTunes for the better part of 10 years that have massive libraries that they haven't able to use if they're using those Amazon devices, which are pretty cool devices.

They are.

And a lot cheaper than the Apple devices.

They are.

So for Apple to concede and allow Amazon to have access to that is incredible.

Well, and you've got Amazon Prime as an app on, on, uh, Apple TV.

Yep.

Yeah, that, that in and of itself as well. I mean, those— the, the cross-platform capability that we're experiencing is only good for the user.

I mean, honestly, here's the way it feels like to me. It's almost as if I can now use Chrysler parts in a GM vehicle.

Yeah.

Is what it feels like.

OK. Yeah.

I mean, that's kind of the experience that I'm feeling right now. It's like, OK, I don't need to worry about that as much anymore because all these guys are figuring out that it's actually better to work together than it is to create these separate universes in which you, you're not ever really happy, right? But now I can kind of pick and choose the different things that I want, and everybody gets better.

They fit my lifestyle, right, and my budget.

And, and like, here's, here's the thing is like, I think a lot of people are in this, in this category now, and, or maybe it's just me, but I don't think so because the advertising weighs this out, is that when I go to buy something and it's internet-based or technology-based or any of those kinds of things, if you flip the box around and it only says iPhone compatible or Apple compatible and it doesn't say Google or Alexa compatible or any of those other kinds of things, it really seems like an inferior device.

Sure.

Whereas when I pick I flip that box around and it says Apple, Google, Amazon compatible, that seems like a device that's really been put through the wringer, that really has its stuff together, and is going to be a good device no matter what platform I'm operating on. I'd be happy if there was 4 or 5 other platforms because it really just seems to be improving the technology that we're receiving in our homes.

I agree.

So I agree, it's, it's an— I mean, like, I mean, like, economically, it's an incredible breakthrough that we've had where these, these guys are not allowing other people to have access to their corporate technology.

Sure. So it's all— it's only good for the consumer.

Yeah, massive, massive breakthrough.

Yeah. So, uh, for me, my second one is security cameras. Accessible, wireless, affordable security cameras. And, and here's why I'm, I'm putting this on my list. Which, by the way, this was also on the video that we're going to be linking up.

Yeah.

There was the security camera. We kind of referenced that earlier. Um, and we live in a different age. We live in a weird age. I mean, you know, the— okay, so there's always kind of been the, you know, the ding-dong people that come and, you know, they ring your doorbell and run, right? Um, but But that's all nice and fun and ahahaha, that was funny, right? But I mean, we're living in an age where there's so much technology in everything that we do that people are— they have a different desire to break into vehicles. They have a different desire to break into homes. People are having hundreds and thousands of dollars worth of things delivered on their doorstep by Amazon and by Walmart and by other

companies that the postman just delivers to the front door, and it's like Christmas.

Yeah.

If you go up and you steal someone's stuff, well, now I can put a wireless device in a very conspicuous place and And now I have full access to someone who's at my door and what they look like, maybe a license plate, all kinds of information that is admissible if need be.

Yeah.

Right? And now with, like, especially with Ring, with the Ring doorbell, um, which I'm kind of lumping that in, I'm getting a little bit of a twofer on this one, um, the Ring doorbell—

I think it counts.

Yeah.

They've expanded their services to home security.

Right. Their whole deal is video doorbells. It's the idea of, I can see who's at my door. Now, there's such a network of people that if there's a burglar out there or someone who's out vandalizing or whatever it is that they're doing, it goes on their network and people can identify people and say, I know who that is. My footage puts them at this this place, my footage puts them at this place, and all of a sudden our ability to catch criminals is completely different.

Yeah.

Not only that, my ability to know that my house is safe based on the footage that I can see is completely different than it used to be. And so for me, um, this idea of, of having security in my home, it just changes my ability to sleep at night. If I'm gone for a week or even for a couple of nights and my kids are at home with my wife, I just feel differently safe, you know, when I've got a security camera outside my door or in my house or wherever, being able to say, look, I know someone was either in my house or not in my house.

So that's a good one too. Yeah, I actually considered putting that on my list.

Okay.

Yeah, but you knew I would put it on mine, so you didn't. So, uh, sorry, my number 1.

Okay, here we go.

My Amazon Prime.

Amazon Prime.

Yeah, I, you know, Amazon's— this has just like been a crazy thing that's occurred because I can remember, uh, man, back in like 2001 ordering textbooks off of Amazon.

Oh man.

And, and like, but like knowing that they were solely a used book company.

That's all they were.

That's it.

That's it.

And like, you think from like 2001, I mean, like, in like, in a short, a short amount of time, and it may not have been 2001, but I mean, I think they, they ramped it up around 2001, 2002.

It was in the early 2000s.

Yeah, so I was in college, let's put it that way. Um, to now where when I go to customers' houses, if there's not an Amazon package on the doorstep, it is a rarity.

I bet.

Um, and so it has completely revolutionized the way that people shop for their homes, the way that people update their homes, um, and just, and just the way that people interact with their homes.

Yeah, I would agree.

Um, it's just, I mean, it's a whole— and, and so, you know, you, you think about, and, and, and we're having to do this even in our business because, you know, for the longest time now, it's always, it's been about SEO, search engine optimization. If you're not addressing that, your business is just not gonna be doing well. You need to be taking care of that. Well, now, if you're not addressing voice command issues for people to find you searchable on those kinds of devices, you're gonna be falling behind in the next several years because Amazon Prime has changed the way that people interact with their homes.

Yeah.

And like, I was, So my uncle is a professional Santa Claus.

OK.

And he was actually on Good Morning America a couple of weeks ago.

Really?

Because there was a picture of him floating around of this little girl who inadvertently ordered like $400 worth of merchandise off of Amazon.

Oh, nice.

Through a voice-activated device. And it's because they're making it that simple to interact in your home with purchasing, integration, automation, all these kinds of things.

Yeah.

Um, and I just, I mean, just like crazy, for instance, man, I was, I was telling my mom about this the other night that, you know, like my kids love having those devices that Amazon produces read them bedtime stories.

Yeah.

And they're pretty good at it.

Yeah.

And so my son was getting ready to go spend the night over at his cousin's house, and he was coming down the stairs. He was in his PJs and his sneakers. He's getting ready to go out the door. And he had, he had an Echo Dot in his hand. And I said, what are you doing, man? Because he's got one in his room. And he goes, I'm taking Alexa with me. And I'm like, why? He goes, because she plays my rain noises and reads my bedtime story. And I was like, this kid is not growing up like I grew up.

No, he does not get it.

That was not on my radar.

Oh man.

I mean, it's just like, it's bizarre. It's bizarro land. But, but it's also something that's become so normal.

Yeah. Oh yeah.

You know, and so like Amazon, Amazon Prime, I mean, you like, I, I forget what, I think it costs like $100 a year now. Yeah, right.

It's affordable. Right.

And so like for that, you, and like, I can remember when it was like reasonable for your package to arrive in 14 days.

Sure.

You know?

And now how often, I was thinking about this as you were talking, How often do you just get pissed off anytime you got to pay for shipping?

Yes.

Or if it doesn't arrive within a week, you're talking like—

2 days. If it doesn't arrive in 2 days.

Yeah, because it's like 5 to 7 days. I gotta wait 5 to 7 days? I'm going to Amazon to figure out where— how I can get it cheaper and faster. Right.

And if it, if it is 5 to 7 days, I mean, like, people are almost more willing to like actually go to box stores, which heaven forbid.

Oh. I have to actually travel somewhere and get out of my car and walk in.

Which, I get it. I don't want to do it either.

I don't either.

I hate shopping.

Not only that, one of the things that has really changed our ability to shop with Amazon is the reviews. I can instantly tell whether or not something is good or not based on how many reviews it has and how many star ratings it has.

Which, by the way, items with bad reviews are my absolute favorite.

Yes, have you ever gone to read Fred's book?

It's better than any novel I've ever read in my entire life.

It's fun.

Sit down, J.K.

Yeah, exactly.

You got nothing on this guy from Missouri.

No, he's pissed because he got something in the mail that was packaged in a blue box instead of a brown box. And now he's giving this manufacturer—

And I am prepared to hear all about it.

Oh man, it's so comical. But, but you're— I mean, you bring up a really, really good point, and that is that not only have they changed the way we shop, they've changed our expectations of shopping.

Yes.

I mean, and it's not just— it's not just shopping. And they're into video and movies. And now, I mean, have you, have you seen that they're into live TV now?

Yeah, well, specifically sports.

Yeah, live sports. Specifically, this last year, Thursday Night Football, NFL football, you could watch on Amazon Prime if you owned it.

They're doing some MLB, too, aren't they?

Yeah, well, they're going to. It's just amazing how big of a conglomerate Amazon has become. They've become a force to be reckoned with. Every day I see an Amazon vehicle. Yeah, every day. And the way that they are doing business has completely transformed the way we interact with everything.

Yeah, I mean, like, it would almost be comical for us not to mention them.

I would agree.

I mean, like, I mean, like, for something that has completely changed American economics. Yeah.

Yep.

So yeah.

Awesome.

Number 1, that's mine.

All right, your number 1 is that. Well, I'm, I'm, I'm kind of playing off of that a little bit.

All right.

Um, because one of their devices is included in mine, and that is just smart home hubs.

Okay.

Okay, so home automation that is made available through things like an Amazon Echo or Dot that, you know, Alexa devices, right? Apple HomeKit, Google Home.

You're not including the Apple HomePod?

No. Nobody includes the Apple HomePod. Just HomeKit.

I've heard it sounds pretty good.

I'm sure it does. It costs like a million dollars, and Siri does the same thing.

I think it's like $250.

$200, I think. It's the same amount. Yeah, whenever you can buy an Alexa Dot for like $25.

Yeah.

Um, but the, the thing that I love—

like, the new ones actually sound pretty good.

Yeah, the speakers are really, really good on them. Um, but the thing that I love about these things is they've changed the way we interact with our home.

Okay.

I mean, the, the fact that I can, I can hook one of these up in every single room The fact that I can tell my device to change my thermostat and it will, I don't have to get up and change my thermostat. The fact that I can have it turn on lights, I can have it lock my doors.

The light one has been a big game changer for me.

Yeah.

That's been a fun one.

Okay.

But that's even, I mean, like for us, I mean, that's even one hub interacting with another hub.

Yeah. Yeah, which is, which, I mean, you can have one in one room and one in another room and they talk to each other.

Yeah.

And so, you know, the way that, that this is integrated— so again, this is something that was, um, a little bit foreshadowed in, in this video as well that we, that we're going to link up here.

Yeah.

From Disney. They had something similar, it was Microsoft-based that they used, but it was slow.

Yeah.

I don't know that it was clunky. It probably was.

I think that's the thing that I think that's an important aspect of people to point out to people. If you're going to watch this video that we're linking up to, is like how slow it seems for a lot of these things to engage.

Yeah. And so one of the things you don't notice, because I, I went through the House of Inventions, you did too.

Yeah.

What you don't notice is they would give this thing a command and then they would explain it.

Yeah.

Before they gave another command. And I think part of that was because it was catching up.

Yeah.

You know, now you don't have to do that. I mean, as soon as you, you ask Siri to do something, as soon as you ask Alexa to do something, as soon as you ask Google to do something, it does it.

Yeah.

It's fast. And what I think, what I think, you know, I'm not doing any foreshadowing here of our next episode, but what I think we're gonna find is that this technology is just gonna continue to take off and is gonna become better, more personal. You know, I think back to one of my favorite shows growing up was Knight Rider, right?

Yeah.

I mean, KITT— the way KITT responded to what Michael told him to do was amazing. And, and we thought, oh, it's never gonna happen, but it's happening. Yeah, it's absolutely happening. I think it's gonna get better, it's gonna get smarter, it's gonna get faster.

Fun trivia, did you know that KITT was actually Mr. Feeny?

No.

It's the same dude. Dude, it'll mess with your brain if you go back and watch it now. It's the same guy. From Boy Meets World?

Oh, I'm thinking about it in my head right now. I know exactly who Mr. Feeny is. Don't— please don't put that on me. Of course I know who Mr. Feeny is. Um, I, I'm gonna have to go listen to it, but I, I can hear it in my head.

It's the truth.

I can hear it in my head. Now I'm thinking about Topanga.

I just broke— okay, I just broke Kevin, guys.

You broke me. All right, um, no, I don't know, man. The, the way, the way that these things have allowed things like IFTTT to influence our lives, even, you know, you talked about Amazon Prime, um, they allow people into your home in different ways. I mean, yeah, this— these are these central hubs that make so many things in your house work and make them function. And, you know, a lot of these things can function independently without having any of these devices, uh, but including them changes the experience completely.

Yeah.

So I, I love them. I think that they've completely changed so many people's lives. Um, the thing that I find hilarious— I find it hilarious— and my mom yells at Alexa, she's like, Alexa, Alexa, turn off the timer! I said turn off the timer! You know, and it's like, Mom, you realize Alexa does a lot more than sets a timer, right?

Yeah.

That's all she uses it for.

That's all she uses it for.

No, but, but then she yells at it, and I'm like, Mom, you gotta, you gotta be gentle with her.

Yeah.

You know, don't yell at her. She doesn't like that. And she— my mom's like, well, she didn't listen to me. That's funny.

My wife has started calling Alexa names, like, to her face.

Oh, how does she like that?

She handles it well. Does she?

Yeah. Okay, that's good.

She apologizes most of the time, mostly with, I'm sorry you feel that way.

Which isn't really an apology.

She never holds a grudge.

Oh, that's fantastic. Well, so there's our top, our top. Go through your, through your top 3 again.

Yeah, and we, we'd love to hear from you guys. What do you— I mean, because you might be listening to our list like, that you, you missed some big ones.

Sure.

What's your list?

We probably did.

Let us, let us know. Yeah, we want to hear your list.

Yep.

We won't shame you.

Nope. So from the top or bottom to top, mine were remote door access, so smart locks, right? And then wireless security cameras and home automation, home automation devices like Alexa, HomeKit.

Yeah.

And Google. What were yours?

Mine was IFTTT, integration between devices, like companies integrating their, you know, allowing access to those technologies. And then Amazon Prime.

Yep, absolutely. Good stuff.

Yeah, all good. So let us know what yours were.

Yeah.

At least what was your number one from the last decade or so?

What's that thing that you think, man, if I didn't have this, life would not be the same?

So, and then tune in next week for Kevin and Craig's predictions.

That will probably come true.

Absolutely. Yeah, because I mean, like, we know what we're talking about.

We're like The Simpsons when it comes to predictions.

The Nostradamus of the home.

Oh yeah, good stuff. If you haven't already, subscribe, do all that kind of stuff. Thanks for listening.

Clickety-click on the like button. That's right, send us reviews.

Let's make 2020 great together.

Yes, absolutely.

And yeah, thanks for listening. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks for downloading. Continue to do so. We're here every Tuesday. And until next week, we'll see you later. See ya.