Amazon announces new fire tablets, nestcams have a new subscription model, and what you're really spending your money on during quarantine times? Oh plus your tech questions answered? What's going on? I'm Rich Demiro and this is Rich on Tech, the podcast where I talk about the tech stuff I think you should know about and I also answer the questions that you send me. My name is Rich Dmiro, tech reporter
at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. Joining me is producer Megan, who is doing this podcast with a mask on even though we're on video chat. Welcome to the show, Megan.
You know, I just love wearing my mask everywhere. I just have to.
I went from my first run in a mask yesterday and it wasn't that bad. It was I stopped kind of running outside because I don't want to deal with the looks. So I I said, you.
Know, what do you feel like you were getting? Look?
I got one guy who I was passing who would give me like the cross symbol, you know, like I was the devil, and so that was enough. I got that twice from him and no.
Are you kidding?
Are you kidding kidding?
That actually happened.
Yeah, that actually happened, so I you know, but I so I counted because you know, my wife and I went on a walk with the kids, and I'm like, should we have these on? Should we not? Now I'm still unclear if you have to because they said you have to have masks whenever you leave your house. But it's still very like like the documentation is not clear. But anyway, so I was counting, like the amount of people. This was the day before he said you always have
to have masks, you know. Yeah, so I would say it's about when I was running, it was about fifty percent of people, like maybe even last maybe thirty percent that had them on. But now I guess everyone is in LA. I'm not really sure. So how are you doing.
I'm good. You know.
I have a cotton mask which like it's I got it on like at sea, and it's totally like bradable, So like I like that I have that when I go outside because it's not like super uncomfortable like the medical masks are.
So yeah, I was.
Using saran wrap and it just seemed like that's probably not a good idea. It definitely it protects you.
Yeah, that sounds really uncomfortable.
It was it was. Yeah, So I did my run and I actually did not think it was that bad. It was. It's not ideal, and but you know, it's I don't know anyway, So how weird is this? So last night I had a dream that we had an earthquake. And I never dreamed about earthquakes. I don't really think about them or care about them. But I just happen
to have a dream. And the other part about the dream is that I was in Las Vegas, Like I was in like a casino with like a bunch of friends and like whatever, and we were woken up by this earthquake. And then when I wake up, the first story I see is that there was like a huge earthquake in on the border of like whatever, California and Nevada. Oh that's strange.
Oh crazy? Are you predicting the future?
I don't know, but I'm gonna I'm gonna see if I can remember my dream tonight, and maybe it'll be some lottery numbers. All right, let's get make that happen. Let's get into the first story of the week. Amazon has some new fire tablets, and it's interesting how many tech products have come out during the quarantine. And I guess a lot of these were in the pipeline and it's they come at a good time because people are at home, we need technology, and tablets are very very
popular right now. So three new tablets. So, and they're not brand new, they're just kind of building upon what they've already had. But this is kind of their I would say, this is let's see, I'm gonna see if this is kind of their middle line or you know, cause they Amazon. I would say all of their tablets are pretty budget friendly, but they have some that are super duper cheap and some that are not so cheap. So I think these are right about in the middle. Yeah.
So there's the fire seven, which is like their basic basic tablet for fifty dollars. Then you have the fire HD eight, and then the ten is kind of their flagship one. So these are the eight. So Fire HD eight has an eight inch display, faster performance with two gigabytes a RAM instead of one, Oh my gosh, or thirty percent faster, I don't know. It says thirty percent faster with two gigs. That means I'm guessing the old
one used to have one. That's really sad. Two times the expandable storage with up to one terabyte via a micro SD card, twelve hours of battery life. And the big thing I think that they changed here is the USB C. It used to come with micro USB, which is the older version of charging, and USB C is much more modern. And this is only ninety dollars, which is pretty good for a tablet. Now. I generally do not recommend this tablet because it is so bare, it's
so basic. It's kind of like it's not very good. Then they have the but we'll see I have not tested this recently. Then they have the fire HD eight plus. This is kind of the same thing as before, except you get wireless charging and kind of nice right to have. I personally don't think you need wireless charging on a tablet because you just plug it in. Tablets usually last for a while. Yeah, but there you go. And that one's one hundred and nine dollars one hundred and ten,
so twenty more dollars for wireless charging. If you're gonna get this, I would say, I don't even think you need that. I would say just skip it if you're gonna go with that. And then finally they have a fire HD eight Kids Edition which includes one year of Amazon Free Time Unlimited, a new kid proof case with a stand, which is cool, and then a two year worry free guarantee which means that if your kid breaks this, you can easily just get another one, which is kind
of nice. And so again I did put a request out to Amazon to get these tablets in because I feel like it's been a while since I did anything with these tablets and I kind of want to see what the deal is with them. And so I think we're gonna do a story on these three tablets just to kind of give them the once over and see what the deal is. Because the kids one is one forty, the other one's one ten, and the basic one is ninety.
And I still overall think that you're if you're buying a tablet, you are one best served with the entry level iPad just because of what you get on it. You know, all the apps, all the features, the Apple ecosystem, so so.
You you will not be buying I.
Will not be. In fact, I did buy a couple of years ago. I bought these tablets for my kids, and I returned them the next day because they were such a value. But they just the kids didn't like them. They they kept doing things wrong on them. That just wasn't the app selection that you get on the iPad. The iPad is more money, but you get way more out of it, so cheaper is not always better.
Right, Okay, So our first question today comes from Anna simply, how can you tell if a website is a true retail website?
Is true true retail website? You mean, like she means like legitimate retail website.
I'm guessing I'm assuming that's what she means. Yeah, like it's a legit store online store.
That's a good question. I I don't know that. Yeah, that's a that's a good question because you kind of just it's like you kind of know, right you look at it and you kind of know if you see Okay, So I'll give you some of my thoughts on this because a lot of times I get questions about things that are selling online and you can tell they're own websites. Okay.
Number one giveaway that you don't want to order from that website is if it has like a flashing bar with like a countdown to like, if you get off this website, you are going to lose that deal. That's number one.
Oh yeah, right, yeah.
I mean yeah, Amazon does actually do that, which is kind of funny because they do with their lightning deals, but not to the way that these random websites will do it. So if you see that, I would I would walk away. Number two, If you see any sort of pop ups like all over the place with like codes on them and like just just a lot of pop ups like the high the high pressure sales tactics, if you see that, get away. That's it's just not
going to be a legit website. You don't want to order from a web get this deal right now, exactly right, because they know that they somehow got you to that website in a shady way, and now they don't want you to leave from that website without purchasing. Does that make sense?
Yeah?
And the other the other thing I always do and not that. Look, I don't really order from random websites. I kind of order from Amazon, from best Buy, from Target, from Walmart. And I did order something the other day from Oxo dot com, which is you do you know that brand? It's like the kitchen supplies, It's like they're, you know, fancy kitchen supplies. So I cut my finger on a on a can the other day, and so I need a new can opener because that's like the third time
I cut myself on this can opener. So I said, no more, I'm going back to this old can opener. And I had to order it directly from the website because no other store had it in stock. And you know, you know that's a legit website because it's a big company. So those are the ways. I also look for contact information, So at the bottom, if you can't find an address, a physical address, a physical email address. And also if people aren't linking to the website, it's probably not legit.
If they don't have an Instagram presence or a Twitter presence or a Facebook presence, or you click on those links and they bring you nowhere, that means that they just went to WordPress, they downloaded a template and they forgot to put in or at the end it's like the yeah, this is the biggest giveaway. If you go to the bottom of the website and the it's literally still the word Press template, like they forgot to fill in their Instagram or fill in their Twitter, and it's
still such a sampler demo. So those are the kind of things that I would look out for.
Yeah, I've I've been on Instagram before and I'll get ads and I'll like click the ad because it looks like a cute dress. And then I go to the Instagram account and there's like five followers and like it's just sketchy. It's like where did this come from? Like is it actually? I don't know who knows if it's real or not.
But I and I see both sides because I don't want to put someone like let's say, Megan, you started making something and selling it on Etsy, or I don't want to put you at a disadvantage because a small business has to start somewhere. But I feel like there are telltale signs and like you said, you probably used your common sense when it came to looking at that, saying I don't know, this is just someone that didn't add by on Instagram and not much more. And who
knows if I'm ever going to see this dress. If you have some Nest cameras in your house, they are changing your subscription or they're asking you to change your subscription. I don't know if this is going to be forced on you or if eventually you'll have to switch over what but now it's called nest Aware, and this is something that Google announced last year, actually in about October, I believe it was at their event in New York City.
And it's kind of cool. So some people are gonna actually win in this scenario, other people might not, depending on how many cameras you have. I think in my case it comes out to be cheaper with their new subscription than it did for what I was paying before. So instead of paying per camera, now any device you have in your house is all covered by one price per month. So you can do a six dollars a month subscription or sixty dollars a year, which saves you
six times twelve of seventy two versus. So you can save two dollars a month or dollar a month by going for the yearly, which most people probably would, or you can just go monthly. Sometimes people like monthly because it's just easier to budget that way. Six bucks, you know, that's so much it costs. So the new nest Aware comes with thirty days of event video history. Now let
me explain the difference here. Now, the new thing is you can pay more, So you can pay twelve dollars a month, which is double or one hundred and twenty for the year and get ten days of history or sorry, the sixty days of event history and twenty four to seven video. So let me break this down for you. What they're doing here is they're kind of making the
default where your camera is not continuously recording anymore. It is now looking for motion, and once it sees motion, that's when it will start recording a clip and sending it to you. What does that mean? That saves Google a whole bunch of money because they're not recording millions and millions of cameras twenty four to seven three sixty five. Only people who pay extra will get that twenty four
to seven recording history. And I would say for a majority of people, they probably don't need the twenty four to seven recording history unless you're running a business operation out of your home right or a business operation in general, because if someone walks past your house, it you know, it triggers the clip, It will record the clip and then you have the clip of the person. Most of the time you don't need the full twenty four to seven So.
I mean you don't need the still the like this ill shots. Anyways, if there's nothing going on.
Right, Yeah, basically, And I think the way that these cameras work is I think they are recording, well maybe not, I don't know. I'm curious if they're still recording to the cloud twenty four to seven but not actually giving it to you unless you get that little clip, you know, or unless you pay for the extra amount. But the bottom line is for ninety nine percent of people, this is probably gonna save them some money, and on Google's
back end, it saves them a lot of money. The other thing is that, let's see, I mean, that's basically it. They're going to send you a clip a notification to your phone when something happens. So they send you an alert and it says if you prefer twenty four to seven continuous recording, then you have to go to the Nest Aware Plus, which is that expensive one. Now here's the other thing that I think is kind of cool, and they talked about this at the event as well.
They are now turning all those Nest speakers, like you know that little Google Home that you have one of those kind of things, or the Nest Display, They're turning those into almost a security system because now those are going to listen for critical sounds like a smoke alarm or glass breaking. So if you have one of these speakers in your home, you now have a kind of a little security system in a.
Or if you have just the Google Wi Fi, it'll listen that one.
I don't know, because Google Wi Fi does have Google Assistant built in, and it does have it has microphones, right, yeah, yeah, because you can use Google Assistant on it.
Yeah, exactly, you can talk to it.
So that's interesting. So I guess that probably would be a part of it. It says it says Nest speakers and displays, So I'm not sure if the Google Nest Wi Fi is included in that because it's not necessarily a speaker or a display, but it does function that way. But that's a good question. Now, the other thing they're going to do is you can call nine one one from the app. So let's say you're vacationing in Florida. You get a little alert that there is glass breakage
in your room with your you know, Google Home. You can open up the app from the alert and it will dial nine one one in the LA area where you live. Not you know, if you just dialed nine one on your smartphone in Florida, it would rout you to you know, Tampa or wherever you are. So that's kind of a cool thing, too smart.
That's really cool. That's really cool.
Now, the big caveat to all this, and some people might not like this, is that you have to let's see, if you are an existing Nesta ware subscription, you can upgrade to the new version through the Google Store. Keep in mind that you have to migrate to the Google account if you haven't done so already. You also have the option to keep your current subscription if you choose.
So I need to actually switch to the new subscription because I checked my price and it was more to keep my subscription than to go to this new one. So I'll definitely be doing that. Save me some money for the year.
Yeah, that's awesome.
Okay, This next question comes from Rick. Good afternoon, Rich. Have you tried the Wi Fi Blast product?
Oh, that's kind of like what we were just talking about with the Nest. I have not tried the Wi Fi Blaster. It sounds like it would work really well. I've gotten a lot of questions about this device, so clearly a lot of Clearly, a lot of people are seeing this ad. I'm looking at this. I actually just it must be called Wi Fi Blast because I just googled it and Wi Fi Blastered is not. Oh here, it is Wi Fi Blast. Okay, So now.
Two point six rating on Amazon.
Well okay, so now where are you seeing that? Okay? Wi Fi Blast? Okay, I see that, but like, where is this website? That's okay? So now if you okay, I see it on Groupon. I see Better Business Bureau. So I think that this this is an example of what the earlier the earlier question was talking about, how
do you know a legit website? So here's here's the Wi Fi Wi Fi Blast seems to be used by a lot of different companies to describe a Wi Fi extender, and for that reason, I don't trust it and I don't like it, and I'm looking number one, I don't really recommend Wi Fi extenders anymore because they just don't really work. This one, in particular, I'm finding a whole bunch of different ones that all look similar, but they're
all sold by different companies. So for that reason, I would say stay away from the Wi Fi Blaster.
And if you yeah, it seems sketchy.
Yeah, if you need to. If you need to get an extender versus a full new Wi Fi system, which I would recommend, I'd recommend EO, Google, Nest Wi Fi or neck your Orbi. If you don't want to splurge on that, I would say AMP. Look at AMPED Wireless. They make a lot of these things, and I have tried them in the past. They are legit, they do work. It's actually a local company, I believe, in the LA area.
But the problem with these Wi Fi extenders is that they take a signal that's not very good to begin with, and they kind of boomerang it around your house, and so you're just taking a signal it's not very good and you're moving it around, Whereas the way that the mesh systems work is they're taking a signal and they're actually working in unison to create a better signal throughout
your home. So that's the big difference with these things, and that's why i'd recommend going with the legit new system. I know it costs more, but I'm telling you you will get Even if this Wi Fi blaster was forty bucks, you're kind of wasting that forty dollars because you could put that forty dollars towards a new system that would give you what you're paying for it when it comes to your WiFi, let me tell you about the secret X ray capabilities of the one plus eight Pro smartphone.
This was such a fun story. I love technology. I love when technology is fun. I love when it's exciting. I love when it's interesting. I did a review of the one plus eight pro smartphone, which I do believe right now is the best Android smartphone on the market right now, And in fact, I wanted to switch to this phone. It doesn't have one fee, Meghan that I want. That is well, two things that are keeping me from switching. Number one my Apple Watch.
I I, oh no, yeah, that's that's like part of you.
Oh my gosh. It is so it's so tough to go without an Apple Watch.
I just I think I might literally get one, like this weekend.
Okay, you really should. No, I mean, once you experience it, it is so tough to I will give you one example. Okay, So I you know, I've been at home, so I've you know, whatever, I've been trying different phones and seeing whatever. So I was on the one plus for a while and Lindsey. My wife kept yelling at me, saying, like, what why is your phone going off all day?
Like?
She realized that she just kept hearing notifications all day long, and I told her, she goes, who is texting you all day? I said, it's not that anyone's texting me more now than ever before. You just never heard any of my notifications on my phone because guess what. Everything always went to my wrist and my watch would vibrate when I got a notification. I haven't heard a sound on my phone in five years since I got.
The Apple Watch.
It always goes to my watch. I never have the sound on on my phone. I never have ever since the watch, because you don't need it now. In general, I never had the sound on because I work at a TV station where you don't want your phone ringing in the middle of a newscast. But so anyway, so she was like, what is the deal? So just that little thing alone where I was adjusting the volume. So I'd go to sleep, I'd have to turn the volume off. I'd wake up, Oh, let me turn the volume on.
I'd be outside, Oh, I can't hear my phone, let me come inside. I missed a notification that feature alone of the Apple Watch. It's weird because it was oddly satisfying to be disconnected from my notifications all day long when I was using an Android. But it also like is stressful too, because like if my mom calls or someone calls, I can just literally answer right on my wrist, like if I'm outside in the yard with the kids.
So anyway, then the other thing about the one plus was the it does not as far as I know, you can't plug an external microphone into it with the onboard camera app. And for me, you know that I record a lot of stuff. I need that feature and it does work, and an external microphone on the one plus eight Pro does work with the voice recording program, so I know it works to plug in a microphone. It just does not work with their camera program. And so I asked them, hey, are you going to add this?
And they were under the impression that they were going to add it. But there's been a couple updates. There's actually a new update now which I'm going to test it out on and see. But I still don't think I could switch, just because of the whole watch thing. AnyWho. That's just to set up this cool feature that people have seemed to discovered, which is the X ray vision on the one. Plus they've got an extra lens in there, a color lens that I guess either filters out IR
light or doesn't feature filter infra red light. I'm not an expert in this field, but all I know is that it can see through certain plastics. And you saw the video, Megan, and yeah, would you think, I.
Just can't believe that that's pop ball. So it can.
Basically, it's like an X ray machine, not an X ray machine, but it can see through technology, right, Yeah.
It was.
It was mostly plastic that was that looked it was. It's mostly plastic that kind of looks like it's black, but it's really not. It's kind of like if you can, you know, if you can see further, you see that it's kind of more plastic is not. It's semi translucent, I guess. So the best thing I tried to know was the Amazon Fire TV and the Amazon Fire TV remote.
I try it on a Nintendo switch. I try it on my toaster, which was the scariest look ever, because your toaster looks like it's off, but then you aim this IR camera at it and it is so hot and like it's like on fire. Yes, I mean, it's just wild. And then of course everyone asked if it works through clothes, and I had to this is embarrassing, but I had to drag Lindsay. I was like, Lenn, you're gonna you're gonna have to help me test this out. And I tried it unclosed.
It shouldn't have gone on the street and just like gone up to people.
Well it was also like six am, so I like kind of had to wake her up.
So, oh my god, it's not annoying.
Yeah, no, not at all. It doesn't. It does not work on close, but one one of the YouTubers did find that it does work on close if you have he put like a like a an apple like an iPhone box underneath like his T shirt, and like if he held it really tight next to the box and then he did the thing on it, it did see through it a little bit. So I'm hoping that one plus does not get rid of this feature because it's it's kind of fun.
So huh.
I wonder if there's any like weird thing that's going to come out about that feature though, like someone figures out like, oh, you can.
I don't know.
Yeah, oh I know. I'm sure people are because like the Verge, we did our thing two days ago. The Verge just did it today. So it's still being like it's still percolating, like it has really reached mainstream media just yet except on KTLA. But you know, it'll it'll probably take I you know, Megan, I always say this, how mainstream media, you know, like the stuff I see in the tech world, it bubbles up in mainstream and probably like three days after I see it, or maybe
up to a week. So this is one of those examples of I feel like it's gonna take a little bit to percolate, but it will get there. One plus is not a house.
Some after some famous actors gonna like do something of it with it, and then everyone's.
Gonna be like, oh wow, that's such a cool feature. Like Rich found it two.
Weeks ago, brah Bro, we were on this.
Yeah you don't even know.
No, But I was not the flaet. I did not find it. I saw it. I saw someone who posted it I think on either Twitter or Reddit, who saw it on Reddit, So either way it was I was not the originator. I just I just found I just did it, and you know saw how cool it was.
Isn't there an app for that?
Uh? Not yet?
Not? Yeah?
Okay, all right, So next question comes from Susie. I was wondering if you happen to know of an alert device for a senior citizen, something that they could wear on their wrist. I know they have necklaces or something like that, but my stepmother doesn't want a necklace. She wants something that you can wear on her wrist, like a watch. She fell on Saturday night and no one was around. I thought maybe you were a great source to go for something like this.
Thank you very much, Susie.
It's a good question, and the immediate thing that comes to mind is obviously the Apple Watch, and the Apple Watch would be perfect for this situation. If you get the generation four or five, it will have this functionality built in, which is sort of life alert functionality. But the Apple Watch requires an iPhone and it also requires
the Apple Watch, which is expensive. But I would say, no matter what any of these other systems that you're getting, I think that the Apple Watch would actually be cheaper over time. Now you don't need the Apple Watch to have cellular capability because okay, so is it her mom? She said, let's see senior citizens just say stepmother. Oh, stepmother. Okay, So I don't know if she but she says she's living alone, right yeah, yeah, no, Oh she fell Saturday night and no one was around.
Yeah.
So it leads me to believe that either she was home alone, or she lives home alone. I don't know, or she lives at a nursing home and maybe you know, there's no one around and that's you know, I don't know. I don't think that could happen though. Wouldn't you be at a nursing home to have people around all the time. So I think the Apple Watch would be the best case scenario. I don't know if the stepmother uses an iPhone or not, but if she does, that's the no,
no brainer thing to do. As soon as you put in her date of birth on that Apple Watch when you set it up, if she's over I believe sixty five or sixty, it will say do you want the fall or enabled? Otherwise you can just enable that. I
think that's the best way to do. I've only had the fall alert on my watch activate once when my kid I forget it wasn't like he hit me, but he I think we were wrestling or something and my arm hit the ground really hard and it did alert, and it was like we're calling the nine to one one in five four three. I'm like oo, but I thought it was really cool that it worked.
Oh my god.
It takes a pretty it takes a pretty rough hit for it to activate. But it's not just a rough hit. It's it's it's algorithms that they've developed that that can detect a fall. So it's not necessarily just if you just hit your arm really hard on a table it's going to do it. It's they've done a bunch of falls with people and recorded that and then came up with an algorithm it decides like, this is a fall, this could be a fall, and this could be a fall.
That could be a fall because not everyone falls the same exact way. In fact, you may fall and your arm maybe the last thing to hit because of the way you fell, so you may your arm may not hit that hard because the rest of your body absorbed it. So it really comes down to the algorithms anyway. So the other things that I would recommend looking into is
obviously life Alert is the big one. There's something called Medical Guardian, which I don't I don't think any of them have as good of a system as Apple, but they're more dedicated to the elderly. That's the other thing. But all these systems are going to cost money to buy the product and also the service. And I think the other one is doesn't isn't Jitterbug? Isn't that like the local company that does the flip phones, Great Call, so I think they have. They're based out of Carlsbad. Yes,
so they have they have family caregiving services. Let's see what do they have? Yeah, but most of these Oh, they do have a watch? Hold on. Oh they have the Lively wearable too, but I don't know if it detects falls. Let's see, this is from great Call dot com. Does it respond to falls? Oh, it does have fall detection. There you go fifty bucks? Now how much do you have? Oh? But hold on, you have to have it. You have to have it. You have to have an Android or iPhone.
So if you're going to spend fifty on this, I would say go the extra mile and probably just get the Apple Watch because you're also going to have to buy a service contract. Or a service from them. I'm guessing every month, Yeah, twenty five dollars a month. Oh, fall detection is forty dollars a month. Megan. That's that's basically included with the.
Apple Watch at.
The Apple Watch. Yeah, that's that's what I say to do. Yeah, So have you been spending more or less money since you've been cooped up at home? Megan?
Less?
But I feel like it was like nothing and then suddenly I was like, it's time to shop again.
So that's yeah, less overall.
Less overall, I would say less. And now, given this is a very privileged conversation we're having right now because we both have our jobs. Yeah, thankfully. I know many people have been impacted by this pandemic, and it is just it's insane actually, how many people have lost their job, are underemployed, are not employed, want to work, can't work. I mean, there's so many situations right now that are outstanding.
So we are very fortunate right now. So when I talk about this story, it's coming from a place of you know, there are people that still need to work, shop, play, eat, whatever. So this is the Adobe Digital Economy Index, and this is from Adobe Analytics you know, I love Adobe Analytics because they always come out. They kind of monitor a bunch of receipts and online transactions around the web to come up with all these data points that I just
love because they have great data. So Number one key finding online shopping has become the primary means of commerce during COVID nineteen. I mean, duh, who doesn't know that? The analysis found that by online pick up in stores orders serge two hundred and eight percent year over year in April. Did you have you done that yet where you bought something online and picked it up in the store or at the store. Yeah, yeah, me too, Best Buy.
Let's see what else? Us digital purchase power I thought was cool, grew four point one percent, which means consumers can now get for one hundred dollars what used to cost them one hundred and four dollars last year. So what does that mean? Oh wow, I don't know what that means. Yeah, it's a lot. Let's see online prices for apparel dropped by twelve percent, which is the largest April price drop in five years. Now, that's bittersweet because
nobody's buying clothes, That's why the prices are dropping. Who's buying new clothes right now? Nobody. I'll tell you what they are buying. According to the report, what is it? Workout close, Yes, workout clothes. That's not on here, but I know they are. But pajamas up by one hundred and forty three percent, pants fell by thirteen percent, jackets by thirty three percent. Electronics are up.
What is it, sweatsuit?
Yeah, sweatsuits. The sweatsuit is back. Electronics sales are up fifty eight percent, which makes a lot of sense because everyone's outfitting their home offices. And electronics prices actually went up, which is true because if you look at some of these things like the uh, if you look at some of these things like the people hold on, people are saying they can't hear us, but I don't know if that's true. If you look at things like the webcams, those have those you can't even get so those are
really expensive. Yeah, So that's that's another one. Now here's my favorite, and maybe oh, online grocery shopping one hundred and ten percent boost, which I could see that we've still been going to the grocery store, but we've also been buying stuff online as well. So the final noteworthy finding is that e commerce purchases of wine, beer spirits, and accessories like wineglasses and corkscrews saw a seventy four percent increase in April as consumers look for ways to
wind down, kickback and relax. And you are actually working on a story right now with subscription wine. Did you get a chance to break into those yet?
We're going to do it tonight.
So tonight is the big wine party at the mcdonaga house.
We shot some beer roll the other day with Louise, and Louise wanted us to like open up a can of one of the wine, so I did it.
Can wait, this is canned wine.
Canned wine? What? Yeah? It comes in the company way, comes.
In a can and each can is one point five glasses.
What okay? That's actually kind of cool. So if you just want like a little bit at the end of the day or something.
Yeah, and the company when you order, like your first order, they send you this wasn't just for me because it was pressed.
I like looked it up. I was like, why did I get this? They send you like a called No, what's the thing you wear around your waist like a like a purse pack?
Fanny pack, fanny pack for the cans of wine with a with a little tiny like sound system.
Yeah, it's really funny.
Okay, that's that's unique. Okay, that's definitely aimed at a certain intel.
Okay, yeah, but you know, but yeah, it was good, very cool.
Looking forward to that. That should air soon. I'm looking forward to that story. So we did a story. I've realized one thing, we hardly ever talk about the stories that we actually cover on KTLA here on the podcast, and I need to do a better job of remembering some of those stories. So this was one that I got a ton of emails about. This is the wise Remember this camera they made? Are this company? They make the twenty dollars security camera you heard me talk about
on this podcast. They did a story on KTLA back in like twenty seventeen. This company, which is a bunch of X or at least a couple x Amazon folks, they came out with a twenty dollars security camera. And when they came out with that, people could not believe that a security camera could be twenty dollars. So of course there's all these conspiracy theories that all your video is being sent to China and all this crazy stuff. But the reality is is just a really good deal.
And this company has continued to innovate in a very cool way, but in a very cheap way. So everything that they have is way cheaper than what you would pay if you got it from another company. And so now they have two new devices that I tested out. One is a twenty five dollars activity tracker called the Wyse Band, and the other thing is a twenty dollars scale called the Wyse Scale. Now, when I took this y scale out of the box, a lot of times people when they send me stuff, I don't really look
at all the details. I kind of know, like I saw that this was really cheap, and I was like, oh that's cool, And I was actually more interested in the activity tracker, not the scale. So when they sent both, I really didn't even know how much the scale was. I set it up, I was like, oh my gosh,
this is so cool. It gives you all of your information when you stand on it, like your body mass, your you know, your muscle mass, your bone body water, your bone mass, your metabolic age and all this, like all these metrics which I thought was really cool, and I was like, this thing is pretty cool, but it's probably like sixty bucks. It's kind of a tough sell because you know, we've had our same scale for twenty years. Right. Well, when I found out the scale is twenty dollars, game changer.
I mean, that is a that is it is insane, Like I don't even understand how they can make a scale for that cheap. And it's a really nice scale. You saw the video on it. It's it's like a good looking scale and you don't have to tap to activate it. Do you have one of these like electronic scales or no?
No, we have like an old school scale from like the seventeen hundred.
You like slide the thing? Is that that kind that old school? Or yeah?
I like it?
Like some days it's like it's nice, it's really you're like, oh okay, that's how much I weigh, and then other days it's like someone messed with it. I don't know, but yeah, yes we have a.
Scale, but it's old. But it's old, so maybe I need.
This and it's really cool. It works with up to eight people in your home and you just have to step on it. You don't have to like ours, You have to tap. You have to wait for it to initialize. It takes a little bit. You got to say if your user one or two this you just go ahead and stand on it and it figures out who you are and you'll have to turn it on. You have to turn it off. All the data is synced to your phone. You don't have to have your phone open
to use it. You can, you know, you can have your phone open and then it'll sink the back data once you open your phone back. It's really cool. So I was very impressed with that. Why scale and then whyse banned? This is a simple activity tracker with Alexa built in, and this one is This is just if you want to get your ten thousand steps right. It's basic, but it does a lot of stuff. You've got Alexa built in, you've got your step tracker, you've got a
run keeper. There is no GPS on board, so if you're a true runner, you probably want something with GPS built in. But again it's so cheap, attracts your sleep. I found that the screen was not as responsive as I'd like, but again twenty five dollars. This is for someone that just wants to make sure they're getting ten thousand steps a day, plus getting a couple things extra if you want the next closest device. This also does
your heart rate. By the way, the closest fitbit to this device is about seventy to seventy five dollars, so that's a significant savings. That's a third of the price. Now, the problem with both of these devices is that they're really tough to get, just like the camera back in the day. So when I did the story on the security camera, the number one thing I got back from people was that I can't buy this. It's not available.
And that's exactly what happened with these two products. They're just really tough to get because they make a couple of them and then they sell out, and they make some more and they sell out. So just get on that list and that's the best you can do.
Yeah, I'm looking now, I'll to see once the scale is. I think they have one available.
So do they really?
So it tells you your like body mass and how much water.
Oh everything, Megan, I'm telling you, when.
I know, I don't understand, Like how does it it just.
Reads your blood or your your I don't know it like reads your It's like electric it sends I'm guessing it sends an electro electrostatic current through your body through your feet just to be barefoot when you go on it, and it just that's how it reads, like all the different metrics in your body and it the metrics are quite impressive. I mean, it really is everything you need, like if you want it to lose weight, if you want it to gain muscle mass, if you wanted to
make sure your body water. You know, if you're not dehyde, you can look at it. You know. My sister is a she's a trainer, and she looked at it and she's like, yeah, this is legit. Oh my gosh. Are we almost at the end? Okay, yeah, we have one more question. Go ahead.
Okay, this next question is for me. Oh okay, it's from It's from Laurie.
Uh.
Can you ask producer Magan.
Which pilates app or site she she is using that She said she loves thinks. So the website that I'm using is called Melissa would Help, and it's basically a website, but you pay ten dollars a month and then there's an app that you can put on your TV that has all her videos and it's just has a lot of it.
She has a schedule of all.
These pilates videos, so every week it's updated with what to do every day and really like, I mean they're not per easy, but it ranges from like fifteen minutes to forty minutes totally like doable if you're like me and I don't like to work out, So the fact that I'm able to do it is telling something.
So that's is this a family friend? How did you find this person?
No?
I how did I find her? A friend recommended her, and then a lot of like YouTubers like okay flincers like her.
Yeah. Interesting, so she's kind of blowing up. I feel you were.
Influenced by the influencers. So they did they did their jobs.
Yeah yeah, I don't know if they were paid by her, but.
Oh I'm sure there's something well maybe not, who knows. I mean, some of that can be organic, but if you're if you're making a living on that, it's like what you say is like somehow paid or whatever. I feel bad for all the I mean I don't really feel bad, but like, imagine you're like a travel influencer, Like what are you doing right now?
That's tricky no, no.
I mean fashion blogger. I guess you could still be doing but travel not so much kind of tough and don't even.
Think about that.
Yeah, and you're not You're not really supposed to go on road trips right now.
So well that's the thing. I mean, I don't know if you're not supposed to, but you well they're saying not to, like I know, there's like I because Linday and I we were planning, like to get out of town for like either a weekend or like whatever, and then I started reading the CDC website and it's like, do not travel if you don't have to do not travel.
I was like, oh, I did'n't really think about that, you know, like that you just because places are being opened in other places, like they don't really want you traveling either, So that was tricky. Yeah, so yeah, I mean you're not I think that. Yeah, it's it's tough for them because you can't really do anything.
So yeah, oh my gosh.
All right. Final story, Yes, final story of the podcast. We did a story on KTLA today about these copper touch tools. You've probably seen them advertised. They look like a key and they use them to like you know, touch a touch screen, the pin pad. They have like a hook on them so you can open up a door handle. Had you seen these things before I brought these this story to you.
No, okay, no, I hadn't seen them.
So the thing about these is that because copper is anti microbial, the germs die on this thing, so you can use it, you know, to push all these buttons and stuff and not get sick. So I was a little bit skeptical because I'm like, come on, that sounds a little bit hooky, right, So I ended up getting in touch with this guy at the Medical University of South Carolina. His name is Michael Schmidt, and he's the guru of copper. He does a podcast called This Week
in Microbiology. I mean, this guy, you know, he knows what he's talking about. And he was like, yeah, this is legit. And his whole thesis is that, you know, number one, people have been using copper for thousands of years because they figured out back in the day. Did I tell you the story that when they were carrying their water in like a copper vessel, their family didn't get as sick as much as when they cop carried
it in like anything else. And they just realized that like, oh, oh my god, copper must like kill stuff in you know, or not not be conducive to germs. So and then so the whole thing about this these things is that they take time. They don't kill the germs in seconds, you know. Most of the time, it could take up to four hours. And that was this big study that was cited in a whole bunch of articles saying that these things are kind of a waste of money. And
I asked them about that. I said, well, what about this four hour time limit for like this bacteria to die. Because by the time you have four hours, you let's say you use a pin pad and then you put this thing in your pocket. Now your pocket's infected with COVID, right, or whatever germs. And so he said, well, if for that four hours, that is the most extreme example, you would have to literally sneeze on something over and over for it to get that infected. Where it would take
four hours for this thing to kill it. He said, at that point, the surface would look wet, He's like, and you're gonna use common sense at that point to not touch that surface or interact with it because it's wet, right, if you saw if you went up to an ATM machine and the keys were all wet, would you touch it? No, I don't think certainly, not so any anyway, So and he explained how copper works to like kill these things.
It's very complicated, but it apparently does. And the alternative if you want something super cheap, if you don't want to buy one of these keys that are like twenty five bucks. They're popping up everywhere. By the way, Megan, I got one hundred emails this morning from people who are making them locally or just in general around the world, like or around the US, that like want to be a part of the story. I guess anyone that knows anything about brass or copper can make these things. He's
shape it into a key. But you can use a penny. Penny apparently is made from or coated with copper, and it will kill germs. Can use a quarter, You can use any any change apparently, yeah, any change. Now, the dirtiest thing is cash, So you do not want to touch cash, because there I thought he was going to say that they put antimicrobial properties in cash in America,
but they don't, and over in Europe. I guess they use plastic for their money, Like it's made out of like a plastic and it's even dirtier than money over here than paper money.
So so crazy.
So I always thought money was dirty, but now it's like, I you know, it's it's funny because we're taking a fresh look at almost everything in life and being like what, like it's just going out Like how clean is that? Yeah? Like the things we used to take for granted is like, you know, feels like you're doing something wrong now.
I was on TikTok yesterday surprise surprise, and one of the videos that came up for me was this new trend of putting your strawberries in a bowl of water with salt in it. Like after you buy your strawberries from the market and bugs come out of the strawberries.
What And it's disgusting, yes, And like so all these people are posting videos of like they take their strawberries out and they put them in the water with salt and they pour salt and they wait five minutes and they watch as like bugs come out of the strawberries and oh my gosh, now I will never eat strawberries.
I just had strawberries this morning, and my kids love them. Should I try it.
Either extra crunchy? I mean, you know, sorry for telling you.
No, it's here's here's the thing. Back in the day, I used to love this book that would tell you all these like little like factoids and stuff, and one of them was that every food we eat there is a level of acceptable bug fragments in pretty much everything. So like in a bottle of peanut butter, they're allowed to have like seventy four fragments of like insect legs or whatever. So it's just the reality. I mean, you can't not have it, and it's it's just the way it is.
I could have gone without seeing it.
Yeah, I agree. I agree. What you sometimes that you don't know is better than you know what you do know. Anyway, I used to love that book, by the way, I wish I remember they had a couple of like sequels to it. I used to I used to love that. All right, that's gonna do it for this episode of the show. If you'd like to submit a question for me, just go to rich on tech dot tv, scroll all the way down to the bottom and hit that email button and you can submit your question to be on
the show. We'd also love it if you would rate and review this podcast to help other people discover it. Just go to rate this podcast dot com slash rich on Tech producer Megan. Where can folks find you on social media?
I am on Twitter at producer Megan.
You can find me at rich on Tech. I'm richiemire On behalf of everyone that gets this show to your ears. Thanks so much for listening. We will talk to you real soon