Category Archives: Digital Lifestyle

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February 14, 2021

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Google Home vs. Nest Audio: which sounds better?

It goes without saying that the Nest Audio wins this contest hands down. But perhaps it’s not clear just how much better the sound is out of the Nest Audio.

Granted, the Home was released a veritable lifetime ago as far as consumer electronics aging goes. But if you’re sitting on a Google Home or two you’re probably not worried about the age of the device – I mean, it still works and it’s still updated – but rather whether there’s any reason to spend the money to treat your space (and ears) to a sonic upgrade. Basically – is there a reason to upgrade?

Well… yes. Now, full disclosure: I’m not one to upgrade my technology just for the sake of upgrading. There has to be a compelling, useful feature that the upgrade presents that the current device – or devices – does not. And even then the actual decision may be delayed just to make sure I’m not spending impulsively.

So in the case of the Home, it became clear that its audio just wasn’t matching the mid-range and high-range clarity of the Home Max or even the Home Hub Max. This became more obvious as I’ve recently started doing more listening on speaker groups, mostly listening to radio or music on all of the speakers on the main floor. The Home’s deficiencies were on display as I moved throughout the house.

Even so, at CAD$129 it didn’t seem to make sense to upgrade. I can’t believe that I’ve become a deal-seeker, but why not? It also helps to curb impulse buying if one at least waits for products to go on sale, so that’s what I did. And at CAD$99 the Nest Audio is more compelling, coming in at the same price as the Home was when I initially bought in if I recall correctly.

Ok great – but what are my impressions?

Well, first of all I was surprised by two things: the weight of the Nest Audio (considerably heavier than the Home) and the size (smaller than I was expecting, at roughly the same height as the Home). Then once the device was configured and I sent audio to the speaker group, I was again surprised: was the bass I was hearing coming all the way from the Home Max on the other side of the house, or was this little Nest Audio really hitting these impressive lows???

It was the latter. The Nest Audio represents a significant leap in audio quality over the Home. Like, night and day. It’s much clearer over the entire frequency range, and it actually produces discernible, clear and meaningful bass frequencies. Now, it does seem a little quieter than the Home, which seems to be the trend with all of these speaker upgrades that I’ve written about. But the sound is so much better at reasonable listening levels that I really do have to recommend the Nest Audio to anybody who has been holding on to their Homes for a number of years.

Which doesn’t mean that you should get rid of the Homes. Redeploy them if you can, or gift to somebody who’s new to the Google ecosystem or somebody who could use some more sources of audio. The Home is still capable and as I said earlier it is still supported. But if you have particular areas that can benefit from better audio – larger rooms, or primary listening areas – then go for the upgrade.

Now I just have to resist the temptation to upgrade my two remaining Homes before the sale ends 🙂

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December 15, 2020

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Wear (OS) have you been?

So way back in 2014 or 2015 (or 2016?) I decided to dive into wearables with the original Moto 360. It wasn’t a straightforward decision mind you; I had a number of mechanical watches that I liked to wear so the biggest conundrum was what to do with those watches – and the fashion options that they posed – if I went with the smartwatch.

Truthfully the two really are mutually exclusive. If you opt for a smartwatch it necessarily means that there are “smart” features that you want to use which would be unavailable to you when wearing a traditional watch. It really seemed like a one-or-the-other lifestyle choice.

I got around the problem at the time by thinking more about how I’d use those “smart” features. And it dawned on me that in pre-COVID times I would be sitting at my work desk Monday to Friday with my phone on said desk and within easy reach. If I wanted to check an incoming notification the phone would be right there, so there really was no need be notified on my wrist as well. And since this was before heart rate monitors and step counters, it really did come down to whether or not I was going to receive notifications on my wrist

BUT – on the weekends and on some evenings after work it made sense to receive notifications on my wrist, because my phone might be in my pocket where I either might not feel the vibration alert or might be otherwise engaged and unable to easily fish the phone out of my pocket. Given that I’ve culled my notifications down to only those that are most important (no Facebook or Twitter notifications here folks), having a smartwatch at those times actually seemed like a very good idea.

So that was it then. I wore the 360 on the weekends and stuck with my traditional watches while at work.

And this mostly worked. Eventually the 360 died – somewhat as a result of this schedule, but that’s neither here nor there – and I opted not to renew my membership in the wearables club.

Why?

Recall that the 360 was among the first group of Android smartwatches. And there were warts. Performance, battery life (both for the watch and the phone), occasional disconnects – those things weighed on the experience to the point that I couldn’t justifying dropping hundreds of dollars again.

That all changed a couple of weeks ago.

I’ve started seeing more and more people sporting smartwatches – both of the Apple and Android variety. I don’t tend to follow trends, but it had become clear that wearables were no longer a trend and had become much more mainstream. And I had kept abreast of developments in the Android Wear world – now called “Wear OS” – and the various hardware options.

In particular the Fossil watches had been getting good reviews for their performance – thanks to their generous memory – and all-day battery life. Sooo… I decided to wade back in once Fossil held their latest Black Friday sale.

And can I just say – I’m impressed!

It may be the perfect combination of great battery life on my phone (which is also fairly new) and on the watch but I can honestly say that I’m not experiencing any negatives after 2 weeks of sporting the Gen 5 Carlyle HR. I also imagine that COVID has contributed to the experience – imagine that – since all of my mechanical watches have dead batteries and going to a jeweller is both a safety issue and seems strangely antiquated.

I’m not one to use apps apps apps on my wearable, so it’s no surprise that battery is good. To me a watch needs to be a watch first, so to that end I’ve enabled the always-on display and actually disabled lift-to-wake and tap-to-wake. AOD takes a hit on battery, but turning off the digitizer and the sensors seems to counter that – so that I recently got 1.5 days at of regular use and threw the watch back on the charger after another 0.5 days in time-only mode. The battery wasn’t exhausted, but I did want the smart features back.

And let’s not even talk about the convenience of Google Pay on the wrist when going through a drive thru. And adding heart rate info to my fitness data is also a plus.

Yes, I’m very happy with the Gen 5 Carlyle. So much so that I’ve already ponied up for additional watch bands. I can see now why these things are becoming more and more mainstream. They serve their primary purpose as a watch, and when used properly they actually serve the additional purpose of simplifying your digital lifestyle. Win-win in my book.

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May 23, 2020

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Google Home vs. Nest Home Hub Max: which sounds better?

A little while back we added a Nest Home Hub Max to our collection of smart home devices. The Hub Max was intended to replace a Home that we use in the kitchen. And given the wife’s preference to blast music on that device, I attempted to do my due diligence in researching the topic:

“Does the Nest Home Hub Max sound better than the Google Home?”

But the answers weren’t forthcoming. Given that one device has a display and the other does not, perhaps it’s the case that the two devices are not often cross-shopped. Regardless, I took the plunge and thought I’d return the Hub Max if it performed poorly.

Before going any further it might do you some good to read about ten paragraphs into this post, where I talk briefly about my experience with replacing a Sony mini bookshelf system with a Vizio SP-70 Crave Pro speaker. Here’s the main takeaway:

Crave Pro […] the music reproduction was something altogether different from the Sony.  Again, the Sony is louder and has boomier bass.  But… but… does that make the Sony better?  Because, truthfully, the Pro actually has a wider soundstage and richer bass at moderate listening levels.  It can’t get as loud as the Sony while maintaining the same composure that the Sony can, but… it can get loud enough

Thing is – my experience with the Nest Home Hub Max and Google Home was altogether similar.

The Home seems to go louder than the Hub Max – but, the Hub Max has a much more pleasing sound. Its bass is richer compared to the Home, while the latter’s is more boomy. And, likely due to the inclusion of the two front-firing midrange/highrange speakers, the mids and highs are reproduced more faithfully on the Hub Max – even when the music is played louder.

My impression has only improved over time, much as it did with the Vizio vs. the Sony. And as with that latter comparison, it has become apparent – again – that music doesn’t need to be cranked to be properly enjoyed.

If only the wife felt the same. Nonetheless, I’ve tried to tune the bass and treble settings so that when she does (frequently) crank the volume past 7, the sound at least holds together as well as can be expected for a speaker of this size.

So there you have it. If you’re looking for better sound, you’ll be happy with the Hub Max. If you absolutely need that boomy bass and are looking to go as loud as possible – stick with the Home.

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May 6, 2020

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IPv4, IPv6, NAT NVI, and Google Cast – this fortnight in my world

Yes, it’s been a whirlwind 2 weeks!

First things first – I hope that you and your family are safe, happy and healthy.   I have many thoughts concerning the various trials that we are currently facing – but for now I’ll keep things light and let you know about the fun time I’ve had with protocols, address translation, address prefixes, Apache configs… ya, it’s been fun.

So this all started out with a desire to up my Internet bandwidth game in the hopes of going IPTV.  The idea was to finally ditch coaxial cables and to take advantage of better pricing.

I’ve always run my own router, relegating the ISP-provided equipment to a simple bridging configuration.  However, I’ve been tied to Cisco (!) routers since beyond time, as we use Cisco equipment at work and I like the flexibility – and familiarity – that the equipment affords.  The problem has been that Cisco equipment has tended to have lower overall throughput than the typical router you’d find on a shelf at Best Buy, while costing way more.

And the truth is that my Cisco config is somewhat more complex than a typical home router config.  Sooo…. I stuck with my trusty 881 until I decided to pull the trigger on a 921-4P.  The 921 gave me my full 150Mbps of downstream bandwidth – and then some – so I was in position to go the IPTV route.

That is, until SARS-CoV-2 hit and no self-install option was put forward for Digital TV customers to upgrade to IPTV.

Truthfully it may be a “blessing” in disguise, as I’ve read mixed reviews concerning the reliability of my provider’s IPTV offering.  Most reviews are positive, but the last thing I need is for the WAF to drop due to inconsistent viewings of Island Life on HGTV.

But hey, at least my downloads became about 3x faster!

Switching gears.  The next challenge was to revisit something that had been a thorn in my side for a long time.  See, your typical Best Buy router may do something called NAT Hairpinning, which allows clients on the LAN to access local servers that have been given an address translation on the WAN side.  Basically, you access a machine on the LAN using its translated public IP address.  Cisco routers can do this as well using something called a NAT Virtual Interface – NAT NVI, or just NVI – but it saps performance.  My 150Mbps (sometimes as high as 250Mbps+) dropped to under 100Mbps when running NAT NVI.

Why bother with NAT NVI in the first place?  The truth is that I’ve been making do without it for a number of years now.  I run my own internal DNS server which means that I can answer all DNS queries with the inside IP address.  Why bother?

Google Nest Hub and Nest Hub Max, that’s why.  We have a number of Google Assistant-enabled smart devices in our home, and for whatever reason Google has sought fit to have these devices try 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 for DNS resolution before trying whatever DNS server you’ve assigned via DHCP.  I’ve worked around this in the past by blocking access to Google’s public DNS servers, but Google got really crafty with the Nest Hub and Nest Hub Max and they started resorting to using DNS-over-TCP (encrypted DNS), and I think they even use the IPv6 addresses for their public DNS servers if IPv6 is enabled.

But wait – why is this a problem at all???  Who cares what DNS servers those devices use?

I care friend.  I care.

Actually, my Cast receiver app cares.  The one I’ve written about ad naseum on this very blog.  The one that’s hosted on my LAN and only really of use on my LAN.  The one that allows me to throw my music around the house in whatever manner I see fit, rather than relying on Google Play Music, Google Flavour-Of-The-Month Music Streaming Service, or YouTube “Do you want to keep listening?” Music.

Running said Cast app requires that the Assistant and Cast devices connect to a server on my LAN.  This requires that they resolve the URL registered with my app to an address on my LAN.  This requires that they use the DNS servers on my LAN.  If they don’t/can’t/won’t do this – like, oh, our Nest Hub friends don’t/can’t/won’t – then I can no longer cast my music to said devices.

So that was the dilemma.

And I’ll say again – this all worked with NAT NVI.  But I wasn’t willing to take the throughput hit.  It just didn’t seem right.

Also – congrats for making it this far.

You may be wondering: “How does IPv6 fit into all of this?”  Well, IPv6 is something I had ZERO experience with prior to 2-3 weeks ago.  But now?  Hey, I’m running dual-stack my friend!  IPv4 and IPv6 are in the house!  I even rely on IPv6 as a solution to my Google Cast woes while still running traditional NAT and getting back my 150Mbps+ downstream goodness!

Here’s how it works:

I gave up (mostly) on trying to manage DNS for Google’s devices.  If they want to use Google’s public DNS servers, they can use Google’s public DNS servers.  In exchange, they have to resolve my receiver app’s URL using IPv6.  In a nutshell: I changed the receiver app’s URL to one that only resolves to an AAAA (IPv6) record externally.  Internally (on my LAN), that same URL resolves to an RFC1918 IPv4 address.  If a dual-stack device attempts to resolve the URL using a public DNS server, it will get the IPv6 address.  If it resolves using my internal DNS servers it will get the private IPv4 address.

The reason why this works is that IPv6 was designed so that NAT would not be required.  The idea is that every device on the planet can have a unique, publicly-routable IPv6 address.  Since NAT is no longer part of the equation for an IPv6 host, a Nest Hub Max that resolves my receiver URL to an IPv6 address will simply connect directly to the server’s IPv6 interface on my LAN.  A device that resolves the IPv4 address will do the same, using the server’s IPv4 interface.

And any device that resolves the URL externally will hit the router (firewall) and go no further.

Seriously.  That’s it.  It’s crazy how simple it is.

Obviously the implementation is more complex than it seems.  My public IPv4 and IPv6 allocations are dynamic.  I’ve had a solution in place for some time to handle changes to my IPv4 public IP (nothing magical there, just look up Dynamic DNS for more info) but I had to figure out how to deal with changes to my IPv6 address.  This also meant that I had to do some reading to understand how IPv6 works.  As it turns out, my ISP gives me a /64 IPv6 prefix.  This is combined with another unique 64-bit address to form the entire 128-bit IPv6 address for a particular host.  The 64-bit host portion doesn’t change, so I only need to routinely check the IPv6 prefix and update my dynamic DNS entry when the prefix changes.

Things got even more complex because Apache needs to understand if a client is on the LAN or coming in from the WAN.  This also necessitated upgrading my Apache server – which also became a good time to move it to another virtual machine.  I won’t get into how I accomplished everything but suffice it to say that it was the most straightforward problem to solve in this entire mess.

So there you have it.  Check back with me in a couple of weeks to see if everything is still working.

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October 21, 2013

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More [home automation]… more more more!

(trying to conjure my best Agent Smith voice)

The never-ending journey continues.  First there was music.  Then came cameras.  Finally, a thermostat.  And now… [drumroll] Lights, camera, action!

No… literally: lights, cameras, actions!

That’s right, I’ve finally added lights to my little home automation system, courtesy of Belkin’s WeMo line of WiFi-connected peripherals.  Specifically, I’ve got a Smart Switch and a Light Switch, with potentially more to come (and definitely more to come if Belkin introduces a 3-way Light Switch)

The upshot: welcome-home lighting!  Among other things obviously…

I won’t get into the current use of the Smart Switch, but the Light Switch is currently connected to my front porch lights, and the most useful rule that I’ve coded into the automation system is intended to turn on those lights if somebody is enroute after sunset.  This will happen even if, for example, one spouse is driving home while the other is already at home.  As the coming-home logic is already a staple of the home automation system, the real challenge was getting the system to actually communicate with the Belkin gear.

To that end you can follow some of the discussion in my Twitter feed – but honestly there’s not much there.  Ultimately I went with the Python ouimeaux library – after much gnashing of teeth given my Windows environment rather than the favoured Linux environment – and it was Job Done(tm).

So all credit to Radio Thermostat and Belkin for your cloud services and mobile apps, but… I’m a control freak; I’ll take a RESTful API over a mobile app any day.  (And I’ll take your devices too, of course!)

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April 17, 2013

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Here’s to you HP Touchpad

The (self-given) gift that keeps on giving?

Once upon a time, I brought home a shiny, almost-firesale-priced 16GB HP Touchpad, with the desire to get in on the tablet game and, hopefully, have a useful media-consumption device that anybody in the family could use.  I went through a WebOS phase, believing that it Kept It Simple Stupid(tm) while also allowing functionality approximating that of a true multi-user implementation.  And indeed, the little-tablet-that-could saw its fair share of Castle and Young and the Resless (the former for me, the latter for the significant other).

And as support waned for WebOS, I tinkered with Android – and Android eventually preempted WebOS, the latter of which saw its use decline drastically once an issue popped up that made it inconvenient to apply community homebrew patches and updates.

But the device soldiered on, and it continued to be a media-consumption device – although my heart-of-hearts still yearned for a true multi-user solution, particularly one that would allow me to move seamlessly between my personal Android phone and the Android tablet.

Said Android version was pegged at 4.0 for  many months, until the plunge was made to install 4.1 – if only to gain some speed and newness, if not multi-user capability.  Ultimately 4.2 was the goal, and with it the realization of true multi-user support.

Meanwhile, other factors conspired to reduce the Touchpad’s daily handling; it became more relegated to spending its days basking in the electric warmth of its Touchstone charging base.  The onslaught of Plex and Roku spelled the introduction of have-it-your-way TV consumption, enabling dead-simple large-screen (and small-screen) viewing as well as the ability to resume playback across multiple devices.  But even Plex and Roku had to play second-fiddle to the ever-increasing demands of two active and highly-inquisitive young boys.

So what of the Touchpad today, and the myth of one needing a tablet?

Well… I’ve never believed that one needs a tablet, but I’ve always believed that there is real utility in the device.  And despite the explosion in phone screen sizes in the past year – such that even yours truly will likely go 5″+ on my next phone upgrade – my experience with the Touchpad has spoiled me.  When at home, there is simply no doubt in my mind that a larger tablet can offer a more immersive, more productive and rewarding experience than a smartphone.  And to substantiate that claim, I recently played with a Nexus 7 for the second time in my life, except this time I came away thinking that nothing short of a 10″ display (or perhaps 8″…) makes any sense.  The Nexus 7 quite literally felt like a phone – and worse yet, one with a horribly-large bezel.

(can I just say that there are way too many hyphens in this post…)

What I like about the Touchpad – and probably any other 10″ tablet – is that it is big.  And again, given that my idea of the ideal tablet use-case is for media consumption in the home, mobility does not enter the equation.  Would a 12″ tablet be better?  Perhaps, but a 10″ is Good Enough(tm) while a 7″ – in my mind – is Too Little, Too Late(tm).

So with the kids in bed and Plex/Roku beckoning, what sort of media consumption can a tablet really provide in my household?

Not a difficult question to answer – the portable kind.  But more importantly, there’s enough of an overlap between a tablet and smartphone – in concept and software – that all of the things I use my smartphone for at home can easily be done on the tablet, and with a larger screen to boot.  The benefits are twofold; again, the larger screen – and critically, the abundant battery that doesn’t need to be sufficiently charged if I need to go on the road for some unknown reason.

Basically, I can put down the phone (or more likely, slip it in my pocket) and do everything on the tablet instead.  My digital existence is “in the cloud” (both private and public), and the holdouts are being likewise relegated.  This allows choice – and boy do I love Choice(tm) – with the decision being completely dependent on which device I feel like using rather than what tasks I want to perform.

This is what multi-user enables.  I am the only person who uses my phone, but the tablet is intended for anybody in the family.  Even if WebOS had a wicked-awesome Plex client, the card-stacking metaphor that I invented previously would not allow for the seamless shift between personal smartphone and family tablet… when it came time to access my digital existence.

Sooooo…. more than a year after being welcomed into my home, the trusty old Touchpad is finally starting to fulfill its destiny.  It’s now sporting an alpha 4.2 ROM – and with it, true multi-user capability.  It’s a liberating experience; yesterday evening, my smartphone was at 99% charge by bedtime simply because it had been on the charging pad all evening, yet I read more Pocket(tm)’d articles, flipped through more Distro mags and trundled through more videos in my Youtube subscriptions than on any evening in recent memory.  And in a counter-intuitive twist, I fully expect that that level of consumption will not continue; not because the “fad” will wear off, but rather, because there are no barriers to getting that stuff done.  There are no battery concerns, there’s no weird logging-in to be done (aside from selecting my user profile on the lockscreen and unlocking with my preferred security method).  There’s no pressure; there’s just this relaxing knowledge that the decision to do that stuff is based solely on Time and Desire; once those technology-unladen conditions are met, I can wash dishes and watch Top Shelf, or lean against a wall and thumb through mail, or recline on the couch and catch The Daily Show.

Or I can defer to another day or time, knowing how easy the decision will be to choose the Right Device(tm) for the Right Time(tm).


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February 2, 2013

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Blackberry will be a strong 3rd, and it won’t matter

So the company once known as “Research in Motion” has finally played its hand, and the reviews are mixed.

Personally, I side with Goldman Sachs and I’ve tweeted as much – I truly believe that Blackberry will be a strong 3rd in the smartphone market.  And I’m going to attempt to explain why.

When people think of RIM and its long slide from #1 in its industry, they instinctively think of Nortel – another Canadian tech darling that rode at the top of its industry, but now exists as a small part of a larger patent portfolio.  Management issues aside, both companies found themselves in a position of increased competition and eventually lost much of their perceived relevance.

Yet, I still believe strongly in Blackberry’s prospects – on the mobility side at least.  Part of that is of their own doing, the rest is a function of their industry.

Industry first.  Blackberry’s competition consists of Android, iPhone and Windows Phone.  And while you can argue the finer points of who has executed most impressively with respect to O/S, ecosystem and application offerings, you can’t deny that each company manufacturers a smartphone experience that is starkly different from the others.  Apple’s iOS devices offer a curated, walled garden.  Windows Phone, a less-curated walled garden but a very polarizing user interface with strict design guidelines.  Android represents the wild-west of the smartphone industry; no restrictions, and vendor-specific customizations.

Each platform offers a modern version of a smartphone operating system.  Each platform is supported by an application and media ecosystem – arguably of differing sizes and content quality, but the infrastructure is there.  So on the face of it, you have four competing products and solutions, all of which represent the state of the art in the smartphone space, all of which offer distinctive user experiences.

That being said, Blackberry no longer needs to compete on specifications alone, or price alone.  They’ve differentiated sufficiently on standout, unique features – Blackberry Hub, Blackberry Balance, Blackberry Peek, an interesting take on the homescreen – that they have a compelling offering in BB10.  Note that I’m not saying that these are good features; just different.

That’s the industry that Blackberry is playing in.  And it’s fortunate that they’re not aiming to take on iPhone or Android, because they honestly have no chance of gaining any signficant market share from those competitors.  However I do believe that they stand a very strong chance of stealing market share from Windows Phone – and that comes down to the Blackberry name and legacy.

My evidence is subjective.  iPhone and Android are considered the gold standards when it comes to smartphones and app stores, yet I’m still surprised that I continue to see people clinging to their older Blackberry devices.  Meanwhile, Microsoft has a 1 1/2 year head-start on Blackberry yet they’ve failed to establish themselves as a bona-fide 3rd.

What is it about Blackberry that inspires so much loyalty?

I don’t have the answer, and while I’m under no allusion that the suggestion of loyalty  is enough to bring the masses flocking, I can’t deny that there’s something compelling about the Waterloo-based company’s iconic products.  I never see a Windows Mobile phone in public – why so many BB7 (and older) devices?

But the real question is – is it enough to convert BB7 (and older) users to BB10?  Will that be enough to pull Blackberry out of its slump?  Will users that have eschewed iOS and Android for Windows Phone, instead jump ship again to BB10?

Realistically, the long-term prospects for the company are still questionable.  And unfortunately, it does appear to be a result of the amount of time that it took for RIM to finally get its act together.  While I have no doubt that BB10 can trounce Windows Phone in the smartphone marketplace, the real truth is that Microsoft is quite happy to lose money on Windows Phone if necessary in order to push its presence in that space – with the intention of promoting its vertically-integrated solutions.  Blackberry, meanwhile, has no worthwhile consumer business outside of Blackberry mobile phones – in that respect it’s truly make-or-break on BB10.  Meanwhile, their enterprise business is not the behemoth it once was:

  • It has come under intense competitive pressure due to the BYOD movement
  • It has been scrutinized due to recent service outages
  • It doesn’t have the same brand loyalty that exists in the consumer market

Consider the news of changes to service fees, and it becomes more obvious that Blackberry’s traditional revenue streams are drying up as a result of the industry shifting more towards generic, data-centric service plans.  I imagine they’ll even have an increasingly-tough time hocking their BES software, despite the ability to manage iPhone and Android devices, as any potential customer must realize the obvious conflict of interest: that Blackberry would rather you use their software to manage their devices while they also collect on BES service plans.  Why go with Blackberry’s enterprise software if alternatives exist from vendors with no vested interest in the end-user devices they purport to manage?  Who wants to hitch their wagon to the horse that left them behind the pack for such a long time?

Okay, so why is Blackberry a “buy”?  And why do I agree with Goldman Sachs?

Because the company still has value.  And having brought their consumer side out of the doldrums, they have arguably more value than they did 12 months ago.  They’ll probably see mildy-impressive sales of BB10 devices after launch.  They will inevitably report strong earnings for a quarter or two, perhaps longer.  They’ll beat expectations.  And around the same time they’ll plateau as they struggle to gain more market share.  They may divest Enterprise.  There may be more layoffs.  And their rating will change to “sell”, and investors will make their quick buck.  What of Blackberry after that?  Who Knows(tm).

Which brings us to the second part of this article’s title.  Blackberry will be a strong 3rd, but they’ll either maintain that position as a smaller, more streamlined version of their current selves or – more likely – they will attain that position and then find themselves in the same boat as Palm in the not-too-distant future.  There simply isn’t enough market share to support their continued existence as the RIM we’ve always known.  Even if Apple releases a new iPhone with the same stale iOS, it will only take them one product cycle to rectify that problem.  Microsoft will not go away and will not concede significant market share.  Android will not cede market share, particularly as Google continues to push its software and hardware agenda.

I simply don’t see the version of reality playing out that has Blackberry being a content, distant third in the smartphone space, gaining no significant market share while giving investors a continuing return on their investment.  And that’s a shame, because I truly believe that Blackberry is an innovative company with a compelling legacy and the technical know-how to create good devices.

Ultimately, we’ll see if I’m wrong.  Considering that I’m no expert in this field, I can naively hope that I will be wrong.

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October 15, 2012

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Does Google really have tablet woes?

There seems to be much discussion concerning Google and its apparent failure in the tablet market.  If I understand, the suggestion is that Google has failed to execute correctly; it simply hasn’t put enough effort into pushing the idea of an Android tablet so much as it has pushed the idea of Android mobile devices. The Nexus 7 is widely regarded as Google’s first (and only) success in the tablet space, despite being preceded by a number of retail devices and one major OS revision.

And it would seem that time isn’t on Google’s side either, what with the impending release of Microsoft’s Windows 8 RT tablets.  Microsoft has been courting the tablet space for a number of years now, and their inability to make deep inroads was as much due to Windows itself as it was to a lackluster consumer demand.

But with Apple proving that tablets are now in demand, and Microsoft having an established user base on the desktop that seems primed to jump into mobile, is Google destined to be a distant third in the tablet space?  Have they gotten it wrong while Apple has run with the crown and Microsoft has finally gotten it right

I think there’s more at play here.  I’ve talked about it here, and others have talked about it too – that is, the question of whether people really need a tablet.  Tablets have – and still do – sit somewhere between the uber-personal smartphone and the uber-productive laptop/desktop.  They’re an interesting media consumption device, and Apple successfully capitalized on its existing media ecosystem by introducing another client that was less personal, less presumptuous and more convenient than the existing alternatives.

And yet we’re seeing a shift in the tablet space.  Like it or not, tablets are approaching the smartphone in size and – crucially – in importance.  They’re becoming more personal.  The shift from 10″ to 7″ has obvious implications re: productivity, and the combination of lower price and smaller screen suddenly makes the device more personal again – probably because it’s more mobile.  Microsoft will likely find success with Windows 8 RT, but it won’t be iPad-level success.  Rather, they’ll have nothing more than a viable slate alternative to a Windows desktop/laptop at best, and a larger version of a Windows Phone 8 smartphone at worst – complete with the market traction that they’ve enjoyed for the past year with Windows Phone 7.

Personally, I think that the relative success of the Kindle Fire and the Nexus 7 are harbingers of the future of consumer tablets.  Curated experiences.  Portals to the ecosystem.  Unquestionable media-consumption devices that can run mobile apps on a larger, more comfortable screen than a smartphone.  And presently, the only real contenders in this space seem to be – yes, Kindle Fire and Nexus 7.  But there’s more to the story.  Google is probably better positioned than any other company at present to lead the next tablet wave.  Why?  Simply, Amazon has no interest in tablets for tablet’s sake.  Google, with the unvieiling of the Play brand, has a competitor to Amazon and they have an app store to compete with Apple.  And… they have a slew of online resources that cater to social and productivity – the latter of which has been Microsoft’s strong suit.

They’re the only company that has a 7″ tablet, a mature media store, a mature app store, and mature cloud-based social and productivity offerings.  If they were to use the 7″ tablet as a curated experience, they could immediately offer the end-user a solution to every usage case there is for a mobile device that’s not a smartphone and doesn’t have a hardware keyboard.

Stop treating Drive/Docs, Gmail, Google+ etc. as mere apps.  They need to be integrated.  Google needs to own the experience.  Sure, a user can still run the Kindle app, but there would be an obvious and clear distinction between an “app” and the ecosystem.  Stop treating the tablet as an app launcher and start treating it as an extension of your brand.

This is something that Google could do without alienating the notion of “openness”.  Again, they’re well-positioned – they have the hardware “Nexus” brand.  Rather than have a Nexus phone and a larger Nexus phone as they do now (ie, the Google Nexus and the Nexus 7), have a Nexus phone with stock Android and a Nexus tablet with “Google Experience” – the curated experience.  And if they want to continue to pursue the 10″ space (which they should), then get serious about tablet apps.  Distinguish them in the Play store, and work with developers to take advantage of the recent app guidelines.

Google still has time to figure this out.  Word is that an iPad Mini will be released soon, but unless Apple changes the staid iOS experience then we’re really only talking about the same old iPad in a smaller form factor.  It will challenge the Kindle Fire and existing Nexus 7 simply because it’s an Apple product.  If Google were to redefine (or evolve) the 7″ tablet space then they could compete with an iPad Mini on the same basis – it would become a bonafied Google product, not just an Android tablet.

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October 12, 2012

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Digital Lifestyle, Home Automation

What have I been up to? (“Home Automation” edition)

Apologies for the dearth of updates.  The silent masses have been wailing my name incessantly as a result.  I hear you, your screams are defeaning.

(WTF?)

Things have been… different… this year.  That’s about as much as I can say at the moment.  The lack of a stable “all systems OK” comfort zone has basically meant that I’m in maintenance mode more than anything else.  Hence – little in the way of blog updates and other reckless indulgences 🙂

Anyhoo, on to the subject of this particular post.  And this will likely be quick.

You may recall that, to-date, the home automation system consists primarily of surveillance, hvac, and music.  Much hasn’t changed in that respect, but I have been able to make some changes that have increased the reliability, efficiency and usefulness of the system.

Surveillance first.  The most notable change here has been the inclusion of HTML5-compatible transcoded video.  For some time I’ve relied on Flash to allow for remote viewing of archived surveillance video – but having upgraded my phone to Jelly Bean and settled on Chrome as my browser of choice, Flash is no longer an option on that particular device.  To that end, the backend transcodes video into both Flash and x264 formats.  The format available to you is in the browser is determined automagically.

Other small changes have been the regular code cleaning that occurs when you realize that the way you did something a year ago makes absolutely no sense and – there – this makes much more sense.  For now.

The next notable change/improvement actually touches on HVAC as well, so it’s a good segue.  You may recall (but probably don’t) that the automation system is occupant-aware.  When we’re home, certain things happen – like telling the thermostat to target a comfortable temperature, or telling the surviellance system not to pepper me with event notifications.  Previously, occupant detection relied on Bluetooth and its rather short range.  And while I had dreams of hacking unsightly 2.4Ghz antennas onto cheap USB Bluetooth adapters, I woke up recently and decided to use WiFi for the same purpose – which also makes sense since our phones are connected to WiFi whenever we’re home.  Well, Shelly’s Nokia wasn’t always connected, by her loaner phone (my Desire Z) is as is my Galaxy S III.  It was just a matter of course before – no changes in usage or increased battery consumption.

This has simplified matters greatly, in addition to greatly increasing the reliability of the detection code.  The method is actually straightforward – check the wireless access point’s association table to see if particular MAC addresses are connected.  C’est tout.

Also within the spherical roundness of occupant-detection (???) is the news that the system can now get updates from the alarm system.  This is very useful, as it leads to very dependable home/away information that is actually more reliable (in some cases) than the wireless detection method.  The automation system is also configured to simulate motion/audio events on all cameras if the alarm notifies it of a perimeter breach.

Now over to HVAC.

Again – more code cleaning.  I spent a little bit of time thinking I could simplify the “Smart Logic” – the stuff that determines if the system should be off or on and what mode and when to run the fan and blah blah blah – but that turned out to be more painful than just leaving it the way it was so left it I did.  However, the system now has the ability to pre-condition the house if the next program calls for it.  This is one end of a multi-month effort that involved the automated collection of efficiency information.  The system keeps track of how long it takes to heat/cool the house – and currently maintains these statistics seperately for various absolute inside temperatures as well as inside/outside temperature differences – and if the next program calls for more heating or cooling, the system will start doing just that so that we hit the desired temperature just as the next program becomes active.

Admittedly this is not a novel concept.  Some thermostats have been doing this for years.  Something they can’t do is take the efficiency data and determine when to start pre-conditioning the house once it has been determined that occupants are on the way home.  And in the name of openness – my system can’t do this either.  But presently that has more to do with niggling concerns rather than a dearth of information or ability.  Any claims to the contrary would be blasphemy – you’ve been warned.

???

Anyhoo, the reality is that the current pre-conditioning only happens once a day – and perhaps twice a day in the cooling season.  Mostly this is due do the fact that I’ve “flattened” my thermostat’s programs, so that we basically have an overnight setpoint and a not-overnight setpoint (like I talked about here).  I’ve been able to do this because:

  1. the HVAC is much more efficient now than it was before (since we’ve moved)
  2. occupant detection can lower/raise the setpoint appropriately
  3. occupant prediction can target the “home” setpoint before we get home

We tend to keep a “cool” house when we’re asleep, but it absolutely sucks to wake up in the morning to cold floors and cold everything-else-too.  Otherwise, there’s really no need to program the thermostat when the pieces are in place to make more effective decisions automatically.

So ya, that’s HVAC.  Last (and perhaps least?), Music.

Admittedly there hasn’t been much development there.  Not to say that I/we don’t use the system – in fact I used it this past Thanksgiving when we entertained family.  I just haven’t had occassion to spend oodles of time on it.  As it is now, it Just Works(tm).

What I have done, though, is to bring some HTML5 usefulness to the streaming aspect of the system.  As with video in the surviellance system, there has been a browser-embedded solution for some time to stream music via a Flash player.  Got the job done, but again – Flash’s days seem numbered and are basically done and done in the mobile world.

To that end I added HTML5 Audio, and it gets regular use when I’m at work.  Not so much in the car (also known as “not at all in the car”) but that’s because Chrome (and perhaps others) will not allow for background HTML5 audio.  If the screen turns off or the browser is pushed to the background: sayonara streaming audio.  So I still rely on a bonafied SHOUTcast client for streaming in the car, and truthfully I’d love to be able to run the browser-only solution as it requires much less in the way of security concessions.

Aaaaaaand….

….that’s it!

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July 31, 2012

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Digital Lifestyle

Is that a superphone by your face, or just happy to see me?

I have a troubled history when it comes to any combination involving PDA/smartphone and Shelly.

First it started with a Compaq iPAQ that was left behind in a cab at the St. Thomas port-of-call of a Caribbean cruise.  That particular PDA was a Christmas present from Shelly, and suffice it to say that I was incredibly upset for the remainder of the trip.  Not that I had lost data (I hadn’t, really) – but that I had lost something that Shelly had given to me.  It felt like a betrayal of trust.

Fortunately, the iPAQ made its way back to me.  That’s a feel-good story by itself, but ultimately the PDA was a “marked man” – it unceremoniously slipped from my grasp while I was opening my car trunk.  Yes, the screen cracked, with the digitizer beyond repair.

Next in the story line – the Desire Z.  Shelly didn’t buy this smartphone outright, but she did lend a financial assist.  And yes, it too suffered an ignominious fate – dropped, again, in close proximity to my car.  Dropped, again, while my hands were entirely overburdened.

And while I did manage to stick a foot out and deflect the phone before it landed at a perpendicular angle, the resultant slide left a fair number of gouges and scratches in the body.  With the phone face down I hoped for the best – I picked it up, and observed a crack at the top-right.  The digitizer was saved, and the crack didn’t obstruct anything too badly.  But there it was – two high-tech devices, two assists from Shelly, two undeserving ends.

I suppose it’s good that the Desire Z is still functional – blemished though it may be.   But I can’t understand how the Palm Pilot (that preceded the Compaq iPAQ) and the HP iPAQ (that followed the Compaq iPAQ) as well as the HTC TyTN (that followed the HP iPAQ) all managed to survive without incident.

At some point I believe that Shelly decided she was done buying me high-tech devices.  That particular decision came before the Desire Z, and apparently she relented to my obvious technology bias as she subsequently offered to subsidize the Desire Z’s full face value.  But I refused; I agreed with the spirit of her initial resolve, in part because it was based on the realization that consumer technology is a fickle beast, where relentless technological advancements cause devices to be put to pasture well in advance of their time.  I did not want her to continue to invest in such a selfish ideal.

That may have been fortuitous on my part, because I believe that around the time I dropped the Desire Z I was also starting to look around heavily for the Next Thing(tm).  Not necessarily the next phone, but rather a refreshed user experience.  Back in the WinMo/TyTN world the next thing was the move from stock-WM5 to WM5-with-customizations; fTouchSL and a different launcher, if memory serves.  While I was content initially to run the HTC Sense version of Android 2.2 on the Z, I came to realize that I was two major versions behind the current trend.  I felt nothing compelling me to upgrade to 2.3, but 3.0 had come and gone, and 4.0 was the talk of the day.  Fortunately many applications still listed 2.2 as the minimum required Android version, but when Google itself is pushing a 4.0 release you can bet that they’re also pushing the envelope when it comes to the 1st-party apps.  The likes of Gmail, Maps, etc all worked fine on 2.2, but the experience was designed to be something else entirely with 4.0 afoot – both in appearance and functionality.

Additionally, the bru-ha-ha over the HTC One X flagship’s sub-par multitasking performance caused me to sour on the sub-par multitasking performance that my own Z had always exhibited.  It was becoming noticeable, and it was noticeably negative – a harbinger of change, that is.

So I had been researching Cyanogen-based ROMs for the Z prior to the fateful drop, and the day after the drop I proceeded to load a CM9 derivative.  Never looked back, despite some noticeable lag.

It was just too much of a sweet upgrade going from Froyo (2.2) to Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0.x)  I was definitely feeling Google’s design philosophy, and even after playing with the latest HTC and Samsung flagship phones in the store I still felt that “stock” ICS was the way to go.  At one point in time I felt that Sense was where it was at, but the advances that Google put forth in ICS quickly erased that (unhealthy) dependency.

So there it was that I was digging ICS on the Z.  Well, I was digging ICS anyway.  Either it was the beta state of the ROM or the limitations of the Z’s hardware, but the lag was killing me.  And for whatever reason, the screen was starting to feel cramped…?!?  So I started looking at a hardware upgrade to go along with that software.

Understand that – thankfully – no impulse decisions were made.  I had a carrier hardware upgrade waiting in the wings for about 2 years so I figured I might as well put it to good use and get the latest and greatest for a really good price.  Except that each of the latest and greatest somehow had undesirable qualities of their own.

The HTC One X was a looker, no doubt, but having done my fair share of battery pulls – and even having replaced my battery for one with more capacity – I couldn’t stomach the non-replaceable battery.  Lack of expandable memory was also a minus, though one I could stomach but would rather not (in the name of disaster recovery).  On the software side I discovered that Sense 4.0 wasn’t that bad, really, but there was that awful multitasking.  Would it get sorted?

The Samsung Galaxy S III surely would continue the GSII’s reign on top of the Android heap, but TouchWiz almost made me throw up.  I mean… I was speechless.  Ya, the phone itself had replaceable everything and a nice camera and screen (the latter not as good as the One X though) but the s/w was a no-go.

That left the Galaxy Nexus – which had the benefit of being a Google-supported device.  Except that the Rogers version was behind the times by three minor Android versions (4.0.1 vs. 4.0.4) and there was talk of signal drop issues in 4.0.4???

Ultimately, my time with the CM9-derived Andromadus Audacity ROM lead me to decide that, regardless of the hardware, I would likely be running a CM ROM in the future.  It had the best of both worlds – a stock Android feel, subtle but welcome improvements, and relentless developer support across many devices.  And once I came to that realization, the upgrade decision came down to hardware alone.

But first I sat on the decision for a while.  Because… Jelly Bean (4.1) came out.  And while Google provided an official version for the Nexus, I was still of the mind that CM10 would be the ROM for me.  But CM10 didn’t exist yet.

That gave me time to decide if I would wait for a fall Nexus device or go with the current Nexus.  Thing is, the current Nexus wasn’t the best hardware that was currently available.  It was eclipsed by the One X and the GS3.  The One X wasn’t a contender, which left the GS3.  So really it came down to: GS3 or fall Nexus?

In the smartphone world, it’s always the case that there will be something newer and better within months.  Does that mean that you should wait perpetually?  A consequence of wedding oneself to a CyanogenMod ROM is that there’s a delay between Google’s official unveiling of a major Android release and the subsequent CM release.  This is a hardware-independent fact.  At which point, the focus shifts from getting the best hardware to getting the best CM release.

And it just so happened that CM10 preview builds got to the point that: 1) they were stable, and (2) they showed an obvious commitment on the part of the Cyanogen team to support the hardware. Tipping point was reached – I sprung for a Samsung Galaxy S III.

So yes, I went from a 3.7″ QWERTY slider with a trackpad to a 4.8″ slate with a single physical button.  And that last point is noteworthy, because I absolutely adored the trackpad-wake feature of the Z, which made it a cinch to turn on the screen when the phone is docked in its vehicle mount.  In fact, this is one of the features that made the GS3 win out over the Nexus (in addition to the faster hardware, bigger battery, better camera and 2x the RAM).  Might a quad-core Nexus come out in the fall?  Sure.  Is the GS3 mighty fast with its dual-core?  Yes.  Does Project Butter make insane core count a non-issue to anybody but the hardcore gamer?  YES.

So ya, I’m rocking a “Pebble Blue” SGSIII.  What do I have to say about my previous tirades (sic) re: device longevity?  Admittedly, dropping my Z didn’t help.  And buying into 2.2 may have been the wrong decision too, as I believe it was already a 6-month old OS at the time.  But you know, I have no doubt that a 4.1 version of Andromadus will be available for the Z (there’s a working CM10-build out right now) however…

…as I said earlier, the screen was starting to feel cramped.  And, believe it or not, I used the hardware keyboard no more than 10 times in the 1.5 years of actively using the phone.  That meant that I was carrying around the size and weight of the keyboard (and its perpetual on-the-verge-of-opening state) for no good reason.  I realized early on that my primary reason for having a hardware keyboard – that is, text entry in remote desktop sessions – was a non-starter.  Pinch-to-zoom and finger-panning make a virtual keyboard work very well during remote desktop sessions.

Which means that, like the Touch Pro before it (and the TyTN before that), it was a hardware design decision – and an iconic one at that (vs. something like processor speed, which isn’t distinctive) – that forced the desire to move on.

I’ve attempted to future-proof this purchase (in as much as one can when talking about smartphones) by electing for the GS3’s 2GB of RAM (vs. industry-standard 1GB), large screen and relative newness (what, 1 month old?).  A HUP was critical, as I absolutely would not fork over full price for the “latest” model in fear of feeling that I’m just following a trend with hard-earned bucks.  But a subsidized phone?  Ya, I’ll do that every 5 years or so 🙂