Episode 401: Two big smart home deals explained

Episode 401: Two big smart home deals explained

Author: Stacey Higginbotham, tech journalist December 8, 2022 Duration: 54:24

The end of the year is a busy time for M&A as companies rush to get deals done before the start of a new tax year, and this week the smart home sector saw Assa Abloy sell its Yale and August smart lock and some other brands to Fortune Brands for $800 million. We explain why the deal happened and why we can blame Matter and the DoJ for the sale. Then we discuss NRG Energy’s $2.8 billion planned acquisition of Vivint, and why it is a big signal for the future of energy management as part of the smart home.  Fundings also happen ahead of the new years, and Phlux Technologies, which makes infrared sensors and Reach, a company building wireless over-the-air power transmitters both scored venture capital this week. In smart home news, we discuss a new mixer from GE that’s super smart and super pricey, and Samsung’s plans for CES this year. In security news, there’s a new botnet out there to worry about. And for developers, there’s a new $200 kit from Swarm that provides satellite connectivity. Finally, we answer a listener question about Matter and local control.

The GE Profile mixer is smart, but expensive. Image courtesy of Crate and Barrel.

Our guest this week is Cathy Pearl, a conversation designer at Google and the author of the O’Reilly book Designing Voice User Interfaces. We discuss the history of voice interactions and what changed to make Amazon’s Alexa such an innovation. We also discuss how voice can help make technology less complicated, what type of conversations people want from a voice interface and how voice also drives accessibility. Then we discuss the ethics of creating voice companions for lonely people and a time that Pearl was stuck at an airport talking to a chatbot for 20 minutes. We then end after I ask if voice is going anywhere after the upheavals in Amazon’s Alexa business. Her answer will not surprise you. Enjoy the show.

Hosts: Stacey Higginbotham and Kevin Tofel
Guest: Cathy Pearl, a conversation designer at Google
Sponsors: Arm and Silicon Labs

  • Assa Abloy slams the door on Yale and August brands
  • Why NRG wants to buy Vivint
  • Using antimony to make more accurate LiDAR
  • How context dictates what we want to say and hear
  • Can digital assistants provide companionship?

The post Episode 401: Two big smart home deals explained appeared first on IoT Podcast - Internet of Things.


For anyone trying to make sense of a world where everything from your thermostat to a factory floor is getting smarter, The Internet of Things Podcast-Stacey On IoT offers essential context. Veteran tech journalist Stacey Higginbotham, who brings her experience from Fortune, and co-host Kevin Tofel break down the weekly flood of news, separating genuine innovation from mere hype. Their analysis spans the entire connected ecosystem, diving into the gadgets in our homes, the sensors transforming industrial workspaces, and the complex enterprise systems tying it all together. This isn't just theoretical; it's a practical guide to the business and technology decisions shaping our networked future. You'll hear from a range of voices that have built and critiqued this landscape, including pioneers like Vint Cerf, insightful commentators like Om Malik, and practitioners from companies such as Amazon, AT&T, and IBM Watson. Listening to this podcast provides a crucial framework for understanding the real-world implications of connectivity, whether you're an industry professional, a curious developer, or simply someone wondering how all these "smart" things actually work-and what they mean for privacy, security, and daily life. It's the clear-eyed conversation you need to navigate the ever-expanding Internet of Things.
Author: Language: en-us Episodes: 100

The Internet of Things Podcast - Stacey On IoT
Podcast Episodes
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Episode 393: Why Roku needs the smart home [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

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Episode 392: Matter is here. Now what? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

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Episode 391: Amazon’s turning Alexa into the brains of the home [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:07:57
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Episode 390: The FTC eyes Amazon’s iRobot buy [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:01:49
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Episode 389: Is Matter ready for its close up? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:02:05
I’m in Austin this week, for Silicon Labs’ Works With event, and while there I hosted a panel that provided a good sense of what is going to happen with the Matter smart home interoperability protocol. I think Kevin is a…
Episode 388: Insurers come for the smart home [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 55:21
This week launched with a bang for those interested in the role insurers might play in the smart home as State Farm agreed to make a 1.2 billion equity investment in security firm ADT. This follows on the heels of Google…
Episode 387: Is Kickstarter still relevant for smart devices? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 56:23
This week we start off talking about the Federal Trade Commission suing a data broker for sharing sensitive location data. It’s a topic we’re following closely, in part because location information can’t be anonymized ev…