Amazon drops a whole bunch of new products

lot of them, and that's okay. I do try to answer them more so than just on the podcast, But the podcast is a good place because it helps other people know what's going on. So who am I? I'm the tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. Hope you are having a fantastic week. I did something totally wild this week. I flew home for my mom's birthday. And I was supposed to go home Monday through Wednesday

of the week. And now, mind you, my mom lives in New Jersey, so not necessarily the easiest thing to get to. I mean, you can there's millions of direct flights a day, well not millions, but there's a lot of direct flights. But you know it's expensive. It's cost costly. Well, did I say that time consuming? I have to take off work. So I said, you know what, I got to do this. You know, people aren't getting any younger, and you know, I just felt like I've missed a

lot of things living out in Los Angeles. I've been there for a lot. But I just said, you know, I've never really done this. Let me just do this. And so I talked to my boss. I said, hey, can can I do this? Can I surprise my mom? Can I kind of work remotely a little bit? And she said sure. And so I did it and I was ready to fly out Monday morning, but I had this major toothache that could not I couldn't deal with. And so thankfully nowadays the airlines let you switch your

flights for free. Because I switched my flight like three times. I got into the dentist. They were very nice and helped me out there. I don't really know if it's solved. Still think I've got an issue that I don't know what the deal is with. When it hurts to eat, that's a problem, right anyway, Still working through that. But I did fly home on the Red Eye that night, and I got home surprised my mom in the morning,

and it was fantastic. We had a nice big dinner for her birthday dinner, got to see all my family members, and then I flew out the next day. So it was I think it takes the award for the shortest I've ever been in New Jersey for a trip. It was less than thirty six hours and so or let's see, yeah, twenty four Yeah, probably thirty six hours, so whatever, Yeah, twelve plus twenty four Okay, So it was great though. I got to say, it was pretty fantastic and it

was well worth it. And my only advice if you are planning any sort of travel at this point. It used to be I would look up the flights and then you know, then later on I would figure out the rental car situation and the hotel room situation. But nowadays, honestly, if you're going somewhere, if you're flying somewhere, look up the rental car situation first, because the rental car situation right now is absolutely oops, not that one, bananas, it's

so bad. I ended up doing so. The cheapest rental car for a forty eight hour rental was six hundred dollars. I'm talking a compact car from Hertz, and I was like, there's no way. I got so taken in Hawaii with my rental car. I thought that was expensive. This takes the cake. So I was like, no way. So I was willing to just Uber if I had to, but even Uber's expensive these days. So I ended up doing price Line. But price Line and I know, I'm going off. This is a much longer story than you need at

the beginning of the podcast. But whatever. You tuned in for the rich On Tech show, and so I'm just telling you rich On Tech stuff. But I did the price line thing where you name your own price. Well, they don't do that anymore. They just give you a price and you say yes, and then they tell you the rental car company. So I got Avis. But the problem is I changed my whole flight, and so I wasn't arriving at the time, and it was this whole

big thing, and I couldn't get anyone on AVIS. I couldn't get anyone from price Line to help me out. And so finally I just said, you know, I'm just gonna go up to the desk. And so I go up to the desk and the woman sitting there I'm just like, Hi, I'm a little late for my reservation, like by twenty four hours or something, and she's like, driver's license, didn't really care. The whole thing was prepaid, so whatever, I'm still paying for the time, right, and

I got my car and it all worked out. But anyway, it was just it was a great trip. And it's one of these things where I just feel like sometimes in life you have to do some things that are a little bit out of your comfort zone. And I'm very comfortable flying, I'm very comfortable traveling. But it's like one of those things where if you really analyze, you like, I'm going I'm spending all this money to go home

for a dinner with my mom. And yes, when you say it like that, you're like, well, of course, what's that worth. It's worth everything. But when you actually have to put a price to it and it costs you your time and your money and your days of work and all this stuff, it is tough and so but sometimes I feel like it's just really nice to just challenge yourself into doing things. And it's kind of like the reason why I went to Chattanooga, Tennessee a couple of weeks ago, and I shot my own story with

my iPhone because I like to challenge myself. I think it keeps you fresh, it keeps you young, it keeps you thinking. I've been doing my job now for ten plus years, and yes, I could do the same thing every day. I could do the same routine. I could dubh blah blah blah blah. But it really helps to challenge your brain. And I always talk about this with your pathways and your brain. I feel like when you read, when you do different things, when you have experiences, it

opens up different pathways. It kind of like forges these little paths in your brain. And I think that's really important for keeping you young, keeping you fresh, keeping you challenged, keeping you interested, inspired, all these different things. And so I had a really great time. It was so worth it and it was a lot of fun. And anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. All right, Let's talk about the Let's talk about Amazon. They had

a big event this week and Amazon. I was watching this while I was at home, and I was It's just amazing how many products they release and Amazon. It's kind of interesting because when when Amazon Facebook, what are the other ones? Uh, Google. They were always software companies, right, They always came out with products that were software, you know, Google Search and Google Maps and this and that, and then all of a sudden they started coming out with hardware.

And now these big tech companies are also the big tech hardware companies, which is kind of scary for some people. But clearly they have, you know, the integrations that they have kind of the beauty of their products working together is really the magic. And these companies are big into AI and so that's all playing a role as well. But anyway, Amazon has a bunch of new products that they came out with this week. I'm gonna go over

some of them. I think the most exciting one, I know it's kind of funny, but I think the most exciting one for the average person is this Amazon smart thermostat. And so I've had a Nest thermostat was the first thing I ever installed in my house when I moved in, and it's been fine. I mean, I don't think it's anything that exciting. I don't know if it saves me a lot of money. I don't know if it works

that great. It's just there. But I was big into Amazon Google products, like Google home, and so it was great it worked with that. But as I sort of move away from those more towards the Ring products more sorts, the Amazon Echo line and the Alexa stuff, I feel like this smart thermostat I might have to switch to. And the best part is it's only sixty dollars, so it's DIY. It works with Alexa, and the reality of this thermost is that it learns what you like. It's

super simple. It has a very simple display on it with like it looks like to be three buttons and two digits, so it shows you your temperature and then you can go up down and there's something in the middle which I'm not sure that one's for. But this is sixty dollars, which Amazon says it will save you at least fifty dollars on your yearly energy bill, which I know it's not too much money, but still every

nickel counts, especially when it comes to the thermostat. So in my house, when we leave for you know, leave the house, it turns off the air. It'll like turn it to like an eco savings and so if you're not doing that, if you're just having a regular thermostat, that's programming give me a break. You're never going to program a thermostat. They're so complicated. But if you're just turning it off and turning it on when you come home, okay, that's one way, but probably most people are just leaving

it on and forgetting about it. And so the idea that this knows when you're home, when you're away, it learns your preferences, it learns when you're sleeping, that's a big deal. And so I think this is a huge, huge win for consumers at sixty dollars. And the best part about Amazon, They've already done their homework and when you purchase this thing, they're actually going to send you an email with any available rebates in your area. So I think that that's a really cool feature as well.

So I think this is a winner. I think this is a really cool device, and I think that it's probably one of the better things that they announced. There is no speaker or microphone built into this Amazon Smart thermostat, but if you have an Alexa compatible device like an Echo or the app, it will work with all of that stuff and you can DIY, I install this thing myself. The last one, the next one, I think I'm gonna switch to this. I think I'm gonna try it out

because the next one is getting kind of old. It's going on a couple of years, many many years, so actually yeah, like five six years old. So I think that it's kind of nice for something new. And Amazon worked with Honeywell to to make this thing, so it's not just them that made this thermos that they did work with a trusted provider as well. Sixty dollars available November fourth, twenty twenty one. Let me know if you get it. Let's get to the first question of the

day we have, Miriam. She says, I don't understand why this update is different than the usual ones. Am I supposed to install it? Or wait? Thank you very much for your help. And she included a screenshot of iOS the update screen under software settings or software update under the settings on iOS on her iPhone and what it shows is it says iOS fourteen up to date or at the bottom it says install iOS fifteen. And Miriam, you are one hundred percent right. This is a new

way that Apple is doing updates for the iPhone. It is the first time ever that you can stick with the old iOS fourteen. The previous generation, or you can update to the new one. And what they're doing is they are going to still send you security updates security patches for your old operating system, even though you haven't updated to the new one. And this is the first

time Apple's ever done this. Previously, if you stayed on an old operating system, you were stuck in time, You were frozen in time, you did not get software updates that dealt with the security updates. Usually Apple would bundle iOS updates, those little incremental ones like iOS fourteen point two, fourteen point four, fourteen point six, fourteen point eight, they would bundle the security updates into the overall iOS update. They're no longer doing that now they're parsing them out.

So if you choose to stay on iOS fourteen, your phone will be just as secure as someone who is on the latest and greatest iOS fifteen. And why did they do this, Well, I think enough people want the choice at this point. I think it's pretty smart and they don't want people who are on old devices getting security holes. It seems like there's more and more kind

of security issues with the iPhone. Not in a big way, but there's definitely things that are being discovered, and so I think Apple understands they've got a billion people using this device around the world, like, hey, we probably shouldn't shut those folks out. So Miriam, it is your choice.

You can continue to do just the software updates or the software patches or the security patches, I should say, for iOS fourteen and stick with what you know, or you can update to iOS fifteen and get the new features. Are the new features worth it? I don't know. I mean, it's up to you. I feel like the focus feature is kind of a It's way too complicated for the average person to set up and use. I'd never know. My phone is always switching into a different one of

these focus groups. I don't know what you want to call it, but it goes from from bedtime to sleep to weekend to war to personal. I'm like, these are way too many. I don't need all these different things, and it's just too complicated to set up, even for me, a tech guy. And so for that reason, I think that Apple is going to go back to the drawing board and simplify the focus over the next year or so,

so we'll see some changes with that, I'm sure. But yeah, you can choose now if you want to go with the new update or if you just want to continue running what you got and do some of the security patches along the way. All State drop the iPhone thirteen and thirteen pro to figure out how durable they are, and they say they are compatible comparable to durability to their iPhone twelve predecessors, but they also drop them in

their cases. So why does all State do this well because All State offers protection plans, and so they want to sell you insurance on your phone. Which look, I test a lot of devices. I can tell you that in my ten fifteen years of testing devices, I have dropped maybe maybe four or five devices over the years, and I have cracked or broken maybe three over the years. And so most of the time I will tell you

how you break devices. It is someone that is maybe a kid or another person that hits into your phone while it is in your hand and your kind of your phone is rested in your hand and someone bumps into you and the phone pops out of your hand onto the floor it shatters. That's one way that it has happened to me several times. The other way is that it falls out of your pocket when you're getting

out of the car, and that's another big way. But most of the time we have a pretty good grip on our phone, and if you have a good case on your phone that offers some protection, especially a raised lip around the edge of the case, your phone is going to fall and it's going to be fine most of the time. Now, there are some instances where it falls specifically on its face or on an edge where it will shatter, But most of the time when your phone screen shatters, it's based on several small drops and

then one drop just pushes it over the edge. So with all that said, face down drop test iPhone thirteen without a case when drops six feet onto a sidewalk onto its front screen. It survived one drop with only minor damage. On the second drop, it cracked at the top and bottom. The iPhone thirteen pro cracked across the top across the bottom after one drop, and so again it may do a small crack or a big crack

with just one drop. But yeah, so back back down drop test without a case, when drops six feet onto a sidewalk onto its back the iPhone thirteen survived with no damage virtually no damage after three drops. Minor cracks on one of its cameras along a corner, and the iPhone thirteen Pro shattered after one drop. So the iPhone thirteen Pro is a lot heavier and bigger and bulkier

than the iPhone thirteen. Oh sorry, this is Pro. That's not pro maax but interesting, So the Pro, Well, it is bigger, it is heavier, so or it's not bigger, but it's definitely heavier, so that's probably why it's shattering after one drop. iPhone thirteen with the silicone case with a mag safe silicone case made a significant difference in durability when dropped back down. It survived three drops with only a small scratch on a camera lens. When dropped

face down, iPhone thirteen cracked on its second drop. iPhone thirteen Pro in a leather case. The leather case made a significant difference in durability when dropped face down or back down. iPhone thirteen Pro survived three drops with no damage and performed best in our drop test. When dropped face down, iPhone thirteen Pro cracked on its first drop. So again, iPhone thirteen Pro. So what do we learn

from this number? One? Get a case on your phone, any sort of case is going to be better because it's going to protect you in the case of a fall. Now you may say, rich, I've got insurance. I really don't care. But to me, why do you want to go through the hause of insurance claims? And also, some of these cases are pretty nice and thin. They still give you a decent amount of durability, like they're saying here.

Even the silicone case and the leather case, which are two pretty thin cases, these are not thick cases are giving you a lot of protection, especially on the standard iPhone iPhone thirteen. Yeah, it's gonna crack a little bit more readily, so you might want a slightly more pronounced case on that. I like cases if you want something basic from Spegan that's really cheap, doesn't offer much drop protection for their basic hybrid case, but it's gonna be nice on your phone. I like if you want a

lot of protection, I like the Spec Presidio grip. And if you want a lot of protection at not a lot of price, the Smartish cases are really nice and they have a good grip around them. So that's the deal with the iPhone thirteen. Get a case on it if you're upgrading personally. I've been using the iPhone thirteen Pro for I don't know, two weeks now, and I gotta say it's fantastic. Battery life is definitely better than

the previous model, the iPhone twelve Pro. The cameras, I mean, I can't say they are significantly better, but it's a camera that is basically, I think, the best that you can get on a smartphone today. The video camera is absolutely the best you can get on any smartphone out there. The Pixel six Pro is coming out in a couple of weeks, and so I have to compare and see,

but it doesn't really matter. I'm not going to say switch to the Pixel six Pro because it has a better camera, even if it does, because Apple has so many other things going for it. Just when you look at the accessories and the ecosystem compared to the Android, it's like Apple Watch. You're just not getting if you're switching to that, And that's gonna be a problem for me if I want to switch to the Pixel six Pro, which I've been talking about on this podcast, but I

don't know. I mean, the iPhone is just so standardized. I mean, everything just works so nicely, whether it's the wallet features, whether it's the apps, whether it's all these little things that Apple is built in and just kind of put its It's what do you call it, tentacles out into the world. It kind of grips so many different things that it's tough to just switch at this point because they've done so many good things. So I love the iPhone thirteen Pro. I think it's a great upgrade.

If you have an iPhone twelve model, you probably don't have to upgrade to the iPhone thirteen unless you really want the better cameras on the iPhone thirteen Pro. When it comes between the Pro and the Promax, I can't do the Promax. It's way too big. They didn't make you choose this time, so it's the same camera setup on the thirteen Pro and the Promax. So for me personally, I really like the Pro because it's a great combination

of features and size. If you don't mind a giant phone in your pocket, then go ahead get the Promax. Some people just want the added screen real estate, and I totally understand that. As for the iPhone twelve, it's your basic phone. I don't see a big, big difference in the cameras. This year over last year. But you know, for the battery life, it's probably a little litle bit better.

But if you're going from any phone before the iPhone twelve, if you're on the eleven or the ten or the ten are or the nine or the eight or the seven or the six, you are going to see a huge increase in performance. And also cameras. Oh, in cinematic mode it's pretty cool too, But I don't know when I really ever use that. All right, Debbie says, Hey, Rich, I'm hoping you can help me. I posted a few things on Facebook Marketplace today. I got a message right away.

Oh that's good. They asked for my phone number to call me. Then I got a text with a Google verification number and they asked for it to make sure I was legit. I feel so dumb. I've never heard of this. Then they started asking me for other numbers. I don't really know what this means for my Google account. I'm not aware I ever set up a Google Voice. Is my information in danger? If so, what can I do? Thanks so much? Debbie in Utah. Oh, Debbie, I hate

that people have to go through these scam artists. These scam artists are lurking around every corner. No matter what we do nowadays, whether it's applying for jobs online, whether it's texting for food orders, whether it's ordering something or selling something online, all we want to do is a person to person transaction, and these scam artists love to get in between us, figure out the holes in the system, and really really take advantage of our good nature. And

that's what's happened right here. I don't know what the scam is. I'm not sure. I'm trying to figure it out. Did they sign you up for a Google Voice number and now they're asking you for that verification number that Google sends to you. Are they trying to break into your email account and Google sent you that two factor authentication number, and by calling you and asking for it at that very moment, are they going to be able to hack your account? All of these things could be

what's happening. Did they try to steal your password when you logged in for this Facebook marketplace? I'm not sure, But the reality is you have to stay on your toes because these scam artists are working looking twenty four to seven to figure out ways of separating us from our money, from our goods, from our accounts, from whatever. They just want to come in between us. All we want to do is act like a normal human being that is in general, very nice to other human beings.

But these people, they don't care. They want to scam us. And when it's done, it's too late. The damage is done. You're out your money, you're out your product, you're out whatever. You sent them, whatever, you gave them the information. So I'm glad that you emailed me, And it sounds like you did not give them the information they asked for because you said, your little spidey sense is said, this doesn't seem right. Why are they asking me for this? I just want to sell them my snow globe from

nineteen eighty four Worldfair or whatever. So yeah, don't give anyone these numbers. And so the scams that I see that are happening right now, when you apply for jobs online, they text you right back and scam you. Don't fall for that. Make sure it's a legit company. Make sure it's legit what they're asking you. Don't give out your personal information. Ever, be very very cognizant of these scams. Whenever you're giving out I don't care if it's your

date of birth. I don't care. I mean social obviously you should be giving that out maybe once a decade when you apply for a mortgage. But that's about it. Nobody needs your soci security number. Nobody what else your phone number? Be careful when you're giving your phone number out. If you have to set up a fake phone number, set it up. There's an app called Burner. If you're selling something online, create a phone number with the app

called Burner, and that's how you use to sell. Because yeah, it seems fine to give your phone number out, but guess what now that goes into this major database. It gets out there on the web. You'd rather have your stuff close to the vest. And I don't know why I'm using that term because I don't even know what that means, but I think a vest keeps stuff close to you, and so maybe it keeps you warm, It keeps your stuff close. So keep it close to the vest.

But just imagine, like even giving out your email address. Just try to keep tabs on your personal information. And there's a good feature in the in the iPhone on iCloud Plus if you subscribe or you can now give outgus not bogus disposable email addresses. There's a lot of services that offer this. I think one password is doing it now. Hopefully all the password managers will let you

do that. But give out, you know, these disposable email addresses when you're signing up for services or if you're selling something online, and so that's a good thing too. And credit cards, I don't know what happened, but it seemed like my debit card was hacked. And believe me, I'm not sure how it happened, but it happened. And next thing you know, boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom, trying to get a million authorization charges on my debit card. And what a pain to cancel that.

So I don't know how it happened, but you know, you give out your debit card to one p and next thing you know, boom, it's it's out there. And so my general rule of thumb, and I've talked about how I'm not a big credit card person, but I've been using mine in the last week or two because

I don't have a debit card right now. But the reality is, when you're using your cards the way I like to do it in the past is if my card is leaving my hand, which means if it's going on the internet, or if it's being handed over to someone or it's being swiped, I will use my credit card. And if it's something that I'm doing which only involves a chip or pin transaction, then I can use my

debit card. But having your debit card on all your accounts is definitely dicey because you know, these people get a hold of it and that's your bank account, which is really annoying. And so for me, of course, you know, all the phone calls came in from all my recurring charges because I was trying to be good and use my debit card, which is more like cash, and you

know that backfired. So I'm sitting there. Every single place is emailing me rich we can't bill you, we can't bill you, we can't bill you, and it you know. But I like having it on my debit because I like spending money on my debit because it's more like cash. And you know, I've talked about that, and I try to go cash, but it's tough because once you get hacked, it's or your card numbers compromised. It's really tough to figure all that out. So do those things, do the

best you can. And yeah, that's that's my advice. All right, let's talk more Amazon products. Echo Show fifteen. This is another product I want that they announced at this big event, and this is a giant Echo. It's a Giant Echo Show. So it's a screen. It looks like it's flat, it looks like a picture frame, and it's a display. It's a fifteen point six inch display that you can mount on your wall. Yes, you can place it on your counter.

But this is kind of like the New Family corkboard and the New Family whiteboard, right, So you can leave messages on it for each other. You can watch TV, which is kind of cool. It's got a full HD display. It's got widgets so you can add you know, your package update widgets, you know when they're going to be delivered. You can add little sticky notes, you know, the weather,

whatever you want. It also recognizes your face, so when you look at it, it will show you your personalized information like your calendar, your shopping list, whatever you want. You can keep a shopping list on this thing, so if you need to, you know, buy stuff at the grocery store, you can, you know, the whole family can see what you need. It's got picture and picture, so you can be watching or looking at a recipe, but also keeping an eye on one of the cameras in

your house, which is also really cool. This is a great idea because I'm always following a recipe on my phone and it's kind of a pain to keep unlocking your phone, especially if your hands are dirty touching meat. You know, if I'm like making something like I'm one of those people that I don't know how some people do it, but when I'm cooking anything that's meat like or beef or you know, steak or fish, like, I have to wash my hands every single time I come

into contact with the with the meat. And I'm sure that's You're like, well, rich, yeah, of course you should do that, but you'd be surprised how many people on them over their houses they're not doing that, you know. They just wipe their hand on a towel, or they just wipe it on a paper towel, And I'm like, I've got to wash my hands with soap and water every single time. So I'm talking even when i'm seasoning like the fish or the steak I have to, you know,

when I flip it over. Okay, so now my hand just touched it. Now I got to rinch, not rinch, but like wash my hands again with soap before I even put the steak seasoning on the other side. I don't even want to touch the steak seasoning bottle. Maybe I'm just typical, or maybe I'm atypical. I don't know, but whatever I am, that's the way I cook, and so let me know if you cook that way. But I'm I'm kind of a stickler for washing my hands a lot while I cook. Okay, anyway, so I think having

the recipe on there would be nice. Echo Show fifteen can also double as your kitchen TV. You can play videos from Prime Video, Netflix, Hulu or even Sling TV coming soon. That's really cool. So basically, this is a two hundred and fifty dollars device coming out soon, and I think I might have to purchase this from my house because I just love the idea of this thing. Plus I can show your pictures when you're not using it. So did they mention that photos? Yeah, of course they did, Okay,

full screen photos or art. Oh, that's so cool. I love it. I love the idea. Okay, you know what. I have to get this just for the fact that it can show my photos on the wall, because I've always wanted a moving picture frame. And yes, I've got the Google Home device which does that, but it's not the same because it's on my desk, and I want something on the wall that looks more like a picture that's just rotating through my favorite pictures at any given time.

So that's gonna take a little bit of effort because I use Google Photos and not the Amazon Photos. But I can make pick some selects that just rotate through and that that will work that way. So don't you love when I just go off on tangents on this show. You're like, Rich, I listened for the tech and you're talking about making steak, You're talking about your trip home, You're talking about this and that, and oh my gosh, Rich, I tune in for the tech news. Well, if you

do that, I'm sorry to tell you. If you follow me on social media, you know that I am not just about tech news. Yes i am, that's my main thing. But I'm sharing my life and I'm sharing who I am. I'm sharing personal stuff and that's just the reality of it, So enjoy it. Bab says, in your opinion, what is the best screen protector in case for the iPhone thirteen? I remember you saying something about Spegan, but can't find where you mentioned it. Much appreciation, Babs sent for my iPad. Babs,

I did mention the Spegan the Spegan screen protector. I mentioned it because I installed it on my iPhone twelve pro and I thought it was excellent. I really really was impressed. It was so easy to apply, and I definitely recommend it. It was great. It was actually one of the better screen protectors I've installed. And the reason I liked it is because the edges were slightly tapered, which meant it was really smooth on my phone, Like it didn't feel like a sharp edge, which some screen

protectors can feel like. So I can highly recommend the Speaking screen Protector. The cases, I kind of went through the cases a bit earlier, but I like stuff from Spec, I like stuff from Tech twenty one. I like, you know what, the case stuff is really tricky because it's such a personal thing. But I get that it's really tough to like buy a case at the store or

you know, like, just figure out what you like. But what I would do is just order a couple cases on Amazon and take advantage of their generous you know, return policy, and get like three or four cases and then just send back the that you don't like, because I think that it's a case is something that you got to kind of feel on your phone, and what I like is not necessarily what you like. I've seen all kinds of cases on phones, and so yeah, I

can tell you I do like the Smartish case. I like that case line for stuff that is pretty inexpensive, but I also like stuff from Tech twenty one. I mean, there's just so many different cases I like. So I think that you just have to go on Amazon look for cases that have a lot of ratings and reviews and have the features that you like. So if you want a thicker case, you know, look up thick case. If you want a grippy case, look up grippy case.

If you want an invisible case, look up invisible. If you want a case that's a color, look up that. I mean, you can get really specific and so, but order a couple of them and just see which ones you like. They've got cases with stands you know, whatever you like, go ahead and order it. But yes, I can highly recommend the speak in scream protector for sure. I think you will like that. All right, More Amazon on stuff. I know it's all Amazon. That's what a

big announcement was this week. Amazon Glow is a new device for kids. This is a device that's pretty unique. It's got an eight inch screen, but it also has a nineteen inch projected space. So it's got a little projector on it at the top that projects out onto the floor or onto the table, and that area is touch sensitive. So not only can you make video calls with loved ones. They don't have to have one of these. They can use, you know, the Alexa app or one

of their echos or whatever. But there's this area where you can interact and you can read. There's a bunch of books you can read on the projected space. You can play. There's games like chest, there's checkers which is kind of fun, memory match. You can create art so you can have digital pencils, crayons, paint brushes or spray paint. That's pretty cool. And then there's animations and sounds that

the kids will like. There's object scanning, so You can scan an object and create a jigsaw puzzle out of it, which is kind of cool. You can scan a favorite art project or school work and you can you know, the loved one can help look at it as well. And then there's a thing called glow bits, which are physical objects that sort of interact with the touch area as well. So I think that Amazon did their homework. They definitely tried to make this not your typical, you know,

video chat device or your typical toy. They made it something that takes advantage of technology, which is this projected space, and it's something that you would think would be in the future. But we'll see. It's expensive. It's two hundred and fifty dollars their introductory price. That includes one year of Amazon Kids Plus, which includes some of those books. It also includes those those glowing bits, and it also includes a two year worry free guarantee, so if your

kid breaks it, you can replace it. Now this thing is going to settle at three hundred dollars. I don't really understand. Amazon did this with a lot of their products. They made an early access price, which is cheaper than the standard price. But I think if I was me, which I am, I am me, I would never pay more than two fifty for this because it's clear that two point fifty is the price, and why are they penalizing me for ordering this later and paying three hundred?

So I will wait until the price drops back down to the two fifty. So I think that Amazon is not doing a service to customers by making these weird introductory prices that go up later, because if I'm a customer, I'm just gonna wait for the price to go back down, which I know it's going to because Amazon has proven that they will sell it for the cheaper price, So I'm just gonna wait for that cheaper price. So that's the idea with the the Echo, the Amazon Glow. It's

it's a lot. It's an expensive device for for two hundred and fifty dollars, But I can see if this thing is paired up with you know, your loved one that has an Echo device and they can video chat with them. And it's also something that's not an iPad. But the problem is a lot of kids have their own tablets, so to spend another two fifty on this dedicated device is definitely going to be a reach. So I'm not convinced that this device is going to take off.

But we will see. We'll see what Amazon does with it, with their with their marketing skills. Next question from Leonard. He says, Hey, Rich, congrats on the Tesla. I was hoping you would give me your thoughts on a couple of companies that do things I think are pretty cool for ev and Tesla owners. One is updawat. They tell you how much you spend on charging and also schedule your charging. Seems pretty cool. The other one is a local company called license Plate Rap. It's a great concept.

It's a decal for your front license plate that is approved by the state of California. It's a good way for people who don't want to drill into their car's front bumper to add the license plate. It's also a local company. I'm also a new Tesla owner. If you have any questions about putting in a new charger at home, let me know. I just put my in. I have some thoughts about the process if you're interested. Regards Leonard, Leonard,

thank you. Now you know this podcast is going to turn into a weekly dose of Tesla because I am just obsessed with my new car. I love it. I

am learning so much. I think it's so great for me to have purchased this car because it expands my horizon into ev so much, and they are such a growing area that for me to actually be knowledgeable and pretty much becoming an expert in this area is just I think invaluable to my report, to my podcast, to people that listen to me and ask me advice, Because like this week I learned about putting in this install or this charger at home, had a guy come give

me an estimate. It was like three thousand bucks, and that didn't include the price of the charger that I bought, which was six hundred. So number one, there's no gas savings when you're spending thirty six hundred dollars to install a charger at home. Getting an electric car is not about gas savings. And I know some people might be lured in by that, but the reality is you're not

saving money. This car is expensive. Gases everywhere it's easy to fill up, and especially in different places outside California, gas is a lot cheaper, and so you're not really doing it for the gas savings. Now, to me, I think you're doing it for the lifestyle, and I love the fact that I've not used gas now in going on three four weeks. I think that's amazing. And yes, electricity has a cost. I don't know how they make it. I'm sure it's probably just as bad as whatever they're

doing to the Earth for gas, but maybe not. And if you can get a clean source of electricity like solar, then yeah, that's really really amazing. I'm not there just yet, but with all that said, I think that you know, learning about this stuff learning. I went on a road trip with it and that was interesting to see how that you know how you gas up or how you fuel up with that, or how you charge up. I should say this Optowa. I did some research on it.

It's really cool. It's an app that you link up to your your Tesla and it kind of goes into your electricity company, figures out how much they charge at different times, and then automatically talks to your tesla and will schedule your charging based on that. And of course there's parameters like when you leave for work, so you

want your car to be charged up for that. But I thought that was really cool and that's a great concept, and so Optowa Optiwatt is something that's really Neat the license plate wrap, I had to do a little investigation because, yeah, my car came with no front license plate area, but it came with like sort of a bracket that I have not opened, and I was under the impression that you just stick it on there, but clearly looking at some of these YouTube videos, I guess people have to

make their own holes and their Tesla bumper, which, yeah, you think I'm gonna do that? Probably not. So if this little license plate rap is legal and easier to apply, I think that that's a really cool option. And just looking at their website, it looked like it was about eighty bucks and I've got to figure out how this

works now. I would love to do kind of a Tesla wrap up story, like where I do a couple of these things like optowa and license plate wrap, but I'm not sure how much I'm gonna get into the whole Testlas situation on my TV segment, which I don't know. Maybe I should, because it's kind of an interesting journey that I'm taking in this electric car, because it changes your whole perspective on things, changes your perspective on I

love the idea that when you leave your house. Your car is a full tank, so to say, which is really cool. Going on your road trips, you have to plan them differently. It takes a little bit more time. You have to kind of take your time. But I've also found that that's really nice because when you're on a road trip, your mind frame, your state of mind is really just like, let me get there, let me get there as fast as possible. Yes, I'll fill up with gas, but I'll grab a Red Bull and get

back on the road with a power bar. Or I'll eat fast food in my car on the way to Vegas. But now it shifts your paradigm into We sat out at a Wendy's with my kids and we waited for the car to charge up, and we just sat there and kind of chatted for twenty five minutes. And by the way, the Tesla's supercharging is really really fast, faster than you think, and it gets you on your way pretty pretty speedy. So it was really nice. And my wife and I were discussing it and we're like, this

is kind of a nice change of pace. Like road trips don't have to be go go, go, go go. They can be a little bit more. I mean unless you're trying to get there for something at a certain time. Most of the time there's some built in flexibility. My grandma used to say, if you have time to spare, go by air. But now that's kind of like an EV road trip. You got time to spare, take the EV because it does force you to take a little bit extra time to enjoy the stops, to enjoy life. Life.

Up when I was in Visalia, we went and charged my Tesla. It just mostly to show my little brother how it works. And we went to a supercharger that was next to a little farm, so we were petting sheep. Then we went inside and we just like looked at all the little knickknacks and we had so much fun kind of comparing all of them and talking about them.

And then you know, buying magnets. You know, spend a couple bucks and then your car's charge, you're ready to go, And it was it's a very different way of thinking about things. And so again it goes back to what I'm talking about with your brain making these different pathways. It's kind of fun because it forces you to change the way that you historically do things in a good way.

So Leonard keep those those suggestions coming. I'm in this wild path with the Tesla where I am looking at every YouTube video about tips and tricks on the Tesla, and it's just so much fun. Like I said, it's kind of like getting an iPhone for the first time and just discovering all the different things that it can do. Oh, by the way, also got really into cleaning my car, so now I'm one of those people that carries the microfiber cloth in the trunk along with a little detailing spray.

I went to this place called the Chemical Guys, and I just bought a whole bunch of stuff and I cleaned the car with my kids, which was amazing. We washed my car and then we washed my wife's car, and they've never been so shiny with this stuff. Because I asked the guy all about the stuff I needed, I was like, you know what, I'm just going to spend as much money as I need to on my cars, because when I get my car washed, I usually spend about twenty five thirty five dollars to get it washed.

And so I said, you know what if I spend one hundred and fifty two hundred bucks on this car wash stuff, if I get four washes or five washes out of it, it'll be worth it. And the time that you spend with your kids washing your car is invaluable. They had so much fun they wanted to open up a little car wash, which we didn't do. My wife came back and she was just like amazed at how clean her car was. I got my one kids spraying it with a wash, I got my other kid doing

detail work. I mean, it was fantastic. So I sat there, and by the way, when I went into the chemical guys, the store happened to be twenty percent off, so I was like, all right, well that's cool. So I ended up spending like one hundred and thirty dollars, which I know is a lot on car wash stuff, but I've already used it now once. I'll probably wash my car again,

maybe next weekend. And I got this foamer spray, like this thing that attaches to your hose that foams up the spray, and that is game changing, so real quick. I know, I know you tune in for tech, but I'm just telling you some of the stuff I learned along the way in my life. And I learned how to wash a car from this guy. Because my dad mentioned something about, oh, yeah, everyone's using foam nowadays. I said, huh, I don't know what that means. So when I got

in there, I said, hey, what's the deal with this foam? Like, why is everyone using it? He goes, oh, well, here's how you wash your car. You get this foam sprayer. You put a little bit of the cleaning solution and this thing that foams up. And so what you do is most people they just put stuff in a bucket, like I've been doing for thirty years, and you put stuff in a bucket, you take a sponge in the

bucket and you start washing your car. Well, what that's doing is scratching the heck out of the paint on your car. And so what this guy said to do is you take the foam sprayer. Just foam spray the entire car. So you douse it in this foam. You let the foam penetrate for a minute or two and it kind of seeps in, and then you rinse the car and that will get all of your initial layer of dust and dirt off of the car. And then

you go through you foam it up again. You wash it and you clean it and then you detail it with the spray and I'm not kidding perfection. It came out so nice and shiny. I was just in love with our cars. I was just like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. So it took me many years to figure out how to wash a car for real, But now I think I know, and I'm imparting that knowledge to you. All right. Another Amazon product? Are you sick of them yet? Amazon Halo. I'm not gonna spend too

much time on this. This is basically their version of a fitbit. It now has a color display, touchscreen display. For eighty bucks if you want Amazon Fitness. I don't know why you'd want Amazon Fitness over something like a fitbit. I would still probably recommend a fitbit, but you get

for eighty bucks, it's a pretty compelling price. You get all your tracking that you need, your activity scores, your sleep scores, blood oxygen levels, live workout trackings, your texts, your move notifications, their sensors for heart rate and blood oxygen, skin temperature sensor, accelerometer. It's got up to seven days battery life, and it's got a whole bunch of workouts

built in so you can watch these kind of. I'm not gonna call them Apple Fitness Plus workouts because I'm not sure there's the same quality, but maybe they are, but I haven't tested them Studio quality workouts that are also included plus nutrition. But here's the thing. You have to pay a membership fee. So the Halo membership is included for a year, and it's eighty bucks for the Halo band plus the membership, and then the membership is let's

see how much that is? It is it is? They tell you how much it is, three ninety nine a month, So after a year you got to pay four bucks a month, which I know. Fitbit has their own membership as well. I think it's nine ninety nine or six, and I don't know. But everything's a membership. Now, everything is a membership, all right, Mary says, I think you mentioned an app to use to borrow ebooks library ebooks on a kindle. Please explain, Thanks Mary. Mary. The app

is called Libby. I've talked about it on this podcast many a times and it is my absolute favorite thing in the world because I don't think I've paid for a book in a couple of years since I learned about this app, and I know oh rich, Oh, come on, you can afford books. Give me a break, you're on TV. It's not about affording books. It's about why why do I need to buy books when I have a library that offers e books. I'm not doing anything wrong. I'm

not doing anything bad. I'm not taking anyone's job away. These are e books that are purchased by the library and they are given out to people to read, and I'm doing exactly as they intended. Libby is not operating in a gray zone. This is not shady. It is in fact, they want you to do this. This is your tax dollars or however the books get to the library. This is what public service is all about. These libraries exist for you to use them, and so if you're

not taking advantage of them, why not someone else will? Yes, now a lot of these books on the Libby. Here's the catch. You can't always get the latest, greatest book. There are sometimes major weights for the new releases. But the trick, there's a couple of little tricks to Libby. Number one is that you can look at a section in search called available now and then sort by popularity, and so you will see that some of these books are just like a bonus available right now. Some of

the hottest books available are there. So like the book I'm reading right now is called The Silent Patient, and I got it through the now Available and sometimes it's a shorter loan window, it'd be two weeks instead of three. But the reality is you can read some of the latest greatest releases by doing now available and then sort by popularity and then by the way. The sorting by popularity is also really helpful in general, because if you want to find something to read, that's a good way

of doing it. The other thing I like to do is go on either the Wall Street Journal Best Selling List, New York Times best Selling List and just search and sometimes you'll get a surprise skip the line for one of the books that you want, and you can do it that way and they'll just give you that book because you're They're just a kind hearted app. So I love Libby. It's so cool. Definitely download it. And once you download it, you can read books on your iPad.

You can read them on your smartphone, or you can send the book right to your Kindle app on your iPhone on your iPad, or you can send it to a physical kindle as well, no matter how you do it. It is one of my favorite things and something that I think not enough people are taking advantage of. So good question, Mary, and thanks for listening. And not where did I mention that on TV? I did? Yeah, all right, let's talk about another Amazon product, the Amazon Blink video doorbell.

Now you might be wondering why is Amazon doing a video doorbell when they own Ring? Why are they doing this Blink thing? Well, you know, different strokes, different folks and or different folks, different strokes, however you say it. But there are a lot of people out there. Not everyone wants ring, and I think some of this is a play because Ring in certain groups has this connotation of, you know, maybe they don't like it because there's been

some privacy gaffs with that company. That's there's a big brother aspect to the company. They just don't like how it's operating. And that's understandable, you know. So this is why they have a Blink brand, which is not Ring. And this camera's only fifty bucks and it's a video doorbell. It's fifty dollars. It gives you pretty much what you need. You can do it wired, you can do it wired free. You can do HD day night video, two way audio, and also alerts to your smartphone when someone is seen

at your door. Now, the main thing is that I don't think this is as full featured as Ring, but you know, it works with Alexa and it's a simple doorbell. So if you just live in an apartment building and you don't really want a big install this is something that's super simple. Two double A batteries. Now here's the trick here. It is fifty dollars, but there is a little catch. If you want this thing to last up to two years on two lithium batteries double A batteries,

not alkaline lithium. Those are the slightly more expensive batteries, you have to pair it with a sink module two. Now, this module has like an SD card slot and a couple other things in it. It's kind of like the brains of the device, and I think that gets plugged in and that enables the kind of offloads some of the processing power of the Blink video doorbell, so that it's not using all of its energy all the time. And so that is how it's getting the two years

of battery life, which is still really cool. I mean, but here's the thing. The sync module too costs thirty five dollars. So realistically, if you want to use this thing the way it's intended, it's going to be an eighty five dollars investment, which is still cheaper than I think the typical or the cheapest Ring video doorbell. I think, let me see how much it is. I think that it's one fifty. But let's see shop all video doorbells.

Oh well, that's a wired doorbell. So the cheapest battery doorbell, okay, is a ninety nine dollars doorbell video doorbell. So personally, if I was getting a new video doorbell, I would go with the ninety nine dollars video doorbell from Ring. I think they're a little bit more full featured. You don't need the separate thing, and the battery you can swap out pretty easily and it lasts, you know, a couple of months and it will just recharge, So I

would go with that. But again, option options are always good. So blank video doorbell fifty bucks available soon. Jenny says, I found an iPhone thirteen Promax on the side of the road. It was raining cats and dogs, so it wouldn't work for a few days. I called Apple with the IMEI and the serial number. That was useless. We were told call the police. How do we find the owner? Thank you, Jenny. Oh wow, that's a good question. iPhone thirteen pro max? How did someone lose an iPhone thirteen

promax already? I mean, come on, I don't know if I believe this question, but I'll trust you. And here's what you do. So you call the police. Yeah, what are they gonna do with it? I don't know if the police have like a major lost and found, but I guess they don't, so they don't really care. Apple is not going to hand over any sort of personal

information to relocate this owner, so that is useless. But the thing I think you could do is plug this phone in, turn it on, connect it to Wi Fi if you can, let it get a connection if it's on cellular, and wait for a message from the owner that is either calling the phone or is sending a

lost message, like setting this up as lost. So if you have iCloud, you can mark a device as lost and set some recovery info, which might be you know your phone number or you know they can I don't know exactly how it works, but there is a way to do that to mark something as lost. So if you have iCloud or I guess find my is how you do it. So go in to find my and say report item as lost. I don't know if you

can report. I think it's just lost or misplaced. And that way on this iPhone you should pop up or there should be a message that pops up saying hey, call me you got my phone. Please, I will give you a reward. But Jenny, you sound so nice that you probably don't even need a reward to return this phone. So that's what I would do. So if you lose your phone, definitely set that lost message through iCloud on find my, open to find my app and set it up. And by the way, set up find my lost iPhone

before you lose your gadget. There are some settings in there that need to be tweaked by default. I think Apple tries to, you know, run you through all those settings when you set up your phone, but if you've set up your phone a long time ago, that might not have happened. So just go in too find my and make sure that your lost settings are all intact. In that way, if you lose your brand new iPhone thirteen promacs on the side of the road when it's

raining cats and dogs, you'll get it back. All right, A couple more stories here, Let's see. I'm not going to go into this Amazon Astro too much except for the fact that, look, we all want to robot. Well maybe I do. I want to robot in my house. It's been a dream since, you know, growing up with the Jetsons. But so far no tech company has delivered. Every robot has failed. Amazon Astro will share the same fate. I mean, it looks cool, but it's one thousand dollars.

Eventually it's going to be fifteen hundred dollars, which is just come on, don't do this to us. Amazon, Who is gonna buy this product knowing they can buy it for nine ninety nine right now, but a year from now they can buy it for fifteen hundred. That does not make sense. So no one's gonna buy it when it's fifteen hundred dollars knowing that it's sold for a thousand. So now you're just making five hundred dollars of profit on me. No, not gonna happen. So they will sell

this for nine ninety nine. It will go on sale for nine ninety nine, so don't buy it at fifteen hundred. You have to request an invitation to purchase this thing. And what does it do? It can monitor your home. So it's got a screen, it's got fun cute sounds, it's got sensors, it's got cameras. It has one camera

that telescopes up. So if you'll leave the oven on, like I always think I do when I leave the house, you can send astro to the oven, have the robot put up the telescoping arm camera, look at the switch on the oven, and say, now you left it off, just like you did every other time that you thought you left it on. Let's see what else. It can patrol your house, so if it recognizes someone unknown, it can, you know, question that person or send you a notification.

But honestly, if someone's in your house and they come across this robot, unless this robot is armed, it's not gonna be able to do anything except get a picture of them, which might be fine. Hopefully it sends that picture up to the cloud immediately before it's destroyed by a baseball bat by the person intruding in your house, or you know, smashing it or kicking it, whatever they're gonna do. Let's see what else you can check in

on loved one. So theoretically, if you have a loved one across the miles, you can give them one of these devices. It can be in their home and you can check in on them. But honestly, come on, if you have an elderly parent that's across the miles, it's tough enough to get them to FaceTime or to video chat on a dedicated device screen. How are they gonna have this device that needs to be charged roaming around their house. It's one thousand dollars. That's also a big no,

not gonna happen. So for all these reasons, I'm not very what's the word is it bearish when you are not really into something. I think bullish is when you're into it. Bearish is when you're not a I think it's really tough for me to say, but I just don't know if this is gonna take off. But with that said, we are maybe entering the era where companies are getting a little bit better at robots. But every robot I've seen so far seems to be a screen rolling around on wheels, and they need to do more

than that. They need to have a function. So I would say, if we can get Rumba to have a vacuum robot that also does all this stuff like an astro sitting on top of a roomba, that's a step in the right direction. Because Rumbas can be five six hundred bucks for the nice ones. So if this can do dual duty, that's a better step I think in the right direction. And then if it can you know, put away clothes or pick up things around the house, or charge my phone for me, that's all good stuff too.

So hopefully we'll see more things in the future. All right, do I have time for one more question? I don't think I do. Yeah, I don't have time for another question. So, oh my gosh, I have so many more questions. I'll do one more. Help Hey, Rich Hope, Hey Rich Hope, you can help me out. My friend's mom just passed away on Sunday. Oh so sorry to hear that. She was trying to download photos off of her iPhone, but instead of save, she accidentally deleted them. She click restore

on her phone. Apple support said they couldn't help and told her she needed data recovery services. We tried the recently deleted folder, nothing was in there. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in Advanced Steve, Steve, what happened? Oh gosh, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry that your friend's mom passed away, but I'm really sorry that these photos

got deleted. Now I'm not really sure what happened here because when you delete photos off an iPhone, and it's interesting because you mentioned both places that they go, but why would your friend delete the pictures? And then I go into the folder and empty them and it takes a lot to empty them. So I'm wondering if there was a picture in there that they didn't want someone to see, or there's something more going on here, because this is really odd and I feel really bad. I

feel really really bad. But the reality is when you delete pictures off an iPhone, they go into a folder called recently deleted, and then they delete after thirty days. In that they sit in that folder for thirty days and then they get deleted, and there's even a little countdown on each photo to say it's going to be

deleted in fifteen days. Next day it has fourteen, thirteen twelve whatever, And if you really want those deleted immediately, like let's say you're getting rid of some incriminating evidence, you would go and say empty and you have to like select all and then it says are you sure? So ah, I can't believe that your friend did all of that stuff. But the reality is, I hope that they're still in this folder. That's what I hope, because

they should be. But if they're not, the the other two things I would hope is hopefully this mom had her pictures backed up somewhere else, like an Amazon Photo. So look on the phone for other apps that the pictures might have been uploaded to, like oneedrive, Amazon Photos, iedrive, Google Photos. Maybe they're in there. Then I would go

to iCloud dot com. Disconnect this phone from the Wi Fi, go to iCloud dot com and see if the photos are in there, and if they're not in any of those places, don't do anything else on this phone, and like Apple said, search Yelp for data recovery services in your area, find a highly rated one and see if they can recover those pictures on the phone. I'm so sorry for your friend's mom, and I'm hopeful that you

can get some of these pictures back. Oh wow, already that is going to do it for the end of this show. Thanks so much for listening to the rich on Tech podcast. If you have a question you'd like for me to answer, just go to my Facebook page, Facebook, dot com slash rich on tech, hit the blue send email button to send it to me, or you can go to my website richon tech dot tv click the email icon send your question off. I would love it if you would rate and review this podcast. In fact,

don't even worry about rating it. Just review it. That means writing a written line or two about what you love about this show to help other people know why they should listen. If you write it, I'll read it on the show. Go to rate this podcast dot com slash rich on tech to do that, or go to Apple Podcasts and follow the cues to rate a podcast on my page. You can find me on social media. I am at rich on Tech. That's where I share my best stuff. Well TV is where I share my

best but social media is a close second. So follow me there Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, take your pick, follow all three whatever you want. I post different stuff on them most of the time. No matter where you live in the US, you can download the free KTLA plus app on Apple, TV, fireTV, and Roku, and there you can watch all of my technology sections or sections technology segments. Just scroll to the tech segments and you can watch all my TV segments on demand. My name is rich Dedimiro.

Thanks so much for listening. Hope you enjoyed this week's show. There are so many ways you can spend an hour of your time. I do appreciate you spending it right here with me. I'll talk to you real soon.