Podcast #1148: 2024 TV Season Wrap Up

All Episodes

May 3, 2024 • 26 mins

On this week’s show you get what you pay for! Ara’s experience buying cheap automated wall plugs. Plus we wrap up the 2024 TV season and read your emails and take a look at the week’s news.

News:

Roku Said to Be in the Running to Take Over the MLB 'Sunday Leadoff' Game Package From Peacock | Next TV
YouTube TV starting to roll out Multiview on Android phones, tablets
Peacock Hikes Price $2 Ahead of Paris Summer Olympics
Fubo's Warner Bros. Beef Worsens -- TLC, HGTV and Other Discovery Networks Blacked Out on vMVPD | Next TV

Other:

You get what you pay for!

Recently I purchased some thread based wall plugs to turn a night light on at sunset and off at sunrise. It was an extremely inexpensive Wemo plug that ran on thread. I was excited because thread based products are extremely fast and reliable. Well that’s what I thought.

Wemo Smart Plug with Thread - I bought them for $80 for a four pack. You can get them for $30 individually.

I deployed four, Two lose connection with the thread router every few days. Unplug and plug back in and repeat.
Two are rock solid
Belkin Customer Service won’t refund my money because its well past the 30 days.
No info on a firmware update
Useless product!

GE CYNC Indoor Smart Plug, Matter Compatible $30 for three pack

This product has no support for Homekit so this was a good test to see if a Matter plug would work in an Homekit environment.
Connecting to my home is just as easy as a Homekit device.
Worked for three days and then disconnected. Unplug and plug back in did nothing. Did full reset and the device can not be added to homekit or GE Cync app. DOA
Added a second plug to my home. Just as easy as the first. Three days later, we are still in business.
I have not contacted customer support.
Other than the device failing, connecting a matter plug to Homekit was trivial.

Eve Energy - (Matter Compatible) $40

I currently have four plugs deployed for six months
They are connected using thread and bluetooth
Super fast and super reliable
You get what you pay for

2024 TV Season Wrap Up

Although this year's TV Season got a late start, we did have one however short it was. It seems like we just got new episodes and now we are looking at season finales. But even with shortened TV seasons, executives have to make tough decisions on what shows get another season and which ones say good-bye. The following is what TV Line is reporting for the end of the 2024 Television Season:

ABC