Google has a bunch of new gadgets, a rundown of the new Chrome, cast, Pixel and smart speaker, Facebook Messenger comes to Instagram, a fun free new Nintendo game, plus your tech questions answered.
What's going On?
I'm Rich Damiro and this is Rich on Tech, the podcast where I talk about the tech stuff I think you should know about. It's also the place where I answer the questions that you send me What's going on? My name is Rich Damiro, tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles.
Did I just say what's going on? Twice in a row? I must really want to know.
What's going on? But I do want to know what's going on because there's a lot going on. I mean, this is the wildest time in history, right. I mean, we're all stuck at home, we're working from home. You know, the news cycle is just like you can't write this stuff. I mean, it's really pretty wild. But when it comes to tech, man, oh man, oh man, there have been so many new gadgets. I can barely keep up. I mean, we had Google this week, we have I mean, there's
just so many things coming out. We still haven't even gotten to the main event. Which is the iPhone, the iPhone twelve. That's still by the time you listen to this, maybe we'll have heard something about when the event is. But I mean, we just got through like Apple Watch and new iPads and now we've got all this Google stuff and new Samsung. Samsung just keeps coming out with the phone every week.
It's a lot.
I just love seeing the innovation, and it's gotten to a point where it takes a lot to be innovative at this point because these gadgets do what we need and I almost need like a reason to change out my TV or my internet. Oh yeah, euro came out the new Internet, the Wi Fi six one. I don't know if you notice, by the way, I've been doing
some bonus episodes. So my idea with the bonus episodes is to do interviews with folks that I find interesting that can you know, add some perspective to the various gadgets, you know, kind of take a deeper dive into things. And so you might have seen the or heard the one with Roku. Also, I did one with the new Nest audio speaker, so I talked to the head on that. So I mean it's been really fun. I love that kind of stuff because if I'm into something, I want
to know. I want to absorb as much information as I can about that thing. And so when I do these deep dive interviews. For me, if I have a Roku or any other gadget, I want to hear what the people behind that gadget have to say in a much longer form than just, you know, a SoundBite or a press release or just you know.
So anyway, I love doing those.
Let me know what you think of them at rich on tech on Twitter or Instagram or Facebook or whatever. But I'm going to keep them coming. You're listening to them, I mean I could tell because of the numbers, so that's good. But just tell me what you think of those, and if you have any ideas for who you want
me to actually talk to. Right now, it's been just kind of like new gadget people, but I was thinking of just making it sort of a ten minute interview every week with someone or something that I find interesting. So I'll keep doing those until you tell me to stop. But let's get to the top story of the week. And Google had their launch night in Google launched a whole bunch of new products. Was it the most exciting event. No, definitely not. It was It was almost like just watching a YouTube.
Video, which was kind of weird.
The way they shot it, the way they did it, there was no real cohesive like manner to it. But that's fine. I mean everyone's trying these things or trying to be different, trying to do it in their own way, so I don't fault Google for that. I mean, these are this is some Really it's different than standing up on a stage and presenting something when you're you know, if it's not live, you can do things in different ways. So anyway, the event was fine. They sent a whole
bunch of stuff to a journalist. It was like a little box of like stuff to use while you watch the show, which, by the way, they called it Launch Night In and it was at eleven and I kept wondering if it was eleven PM, because why would you call it Launch night In when it's eleven am. So that really confused me. But I got there, I was on time, watched the video, and they sent like a pair of Google socks. They sent some coffee, they sent some candy and a candle which actually smells really good.
Hold on, I've got it. Right here smells like a cozy night in. Oh it's cedar wood. Okay, that's well. I've decided that I really like the smell of cedar wood. I had this thing burning in my office yesterday and my kid came in and he goes, wow, why is your office smell so good? And I said it's this candle. They said, oh, wow, your office has got a candle now. So I anyway, if you like cedarwood, go smell one
of those at your local wherever you buy candles these days. Yes, it's bed, Bath and Beyond still the thing, or what's that other one?
Bath and body works?
But what's the one in the mall They have the really good scented candles there. I always like to go, like once a year, I'll be in the mall and I'll stop there and I'll just buy like all those soaps and all the and so for like a couple months or weeks. In our house, everything smells really good. The soaps are really like good smelling, and then.
We forget about it.
Okay, So, I think the most exciting thing about the Google event was actually not the pixel but the Chrome cast with Google TV. This is their brand new streaming device. It's fifty bucks, and it seems to kind of hit all of the things that I've wanted, which it really frustrates me. I use an Apple TV on my primary TV, and I think it's just okay. What I like about it is that every app is on there. The apps work really nice. The remote is horrible. I mean it's horrendous.
It gets lost all the time. There's no way to find it's just the moving around on the touch area is just terrible. And it's just okay. It's like my least favorite Apple experience. It's like it just works, you know. The screen savers are great, but since I don't use Apple Photos, I don't get my own pictures in there,
so that really annoys me. And so this Chrome Cast with Google TV is very intriguing because it brings together two things that I love, the Google Assistant, a watch list, a remote control, and my own Google Photos as a screen saver when I'm not using my TV. So this device is a tiny you know, it's like a Chrome Cast. It's a dongle that plugs into the back of your TV and then it has remote control and so it does four k HDR sixty. It also supports HDMI pass
through of Dolby audio content. It has that remote control, which has the buttons you need. It's got the volume buttons, it's got the input buttons, it's got the void assistant button. It's got YouTube and Netflix, which I don't like. I don't like how they're pulling a Roku on me by giving me two branded buttons.
And I get it.
Netflix, Okay, everyone watches Netflix.
YouTube.
It's probably not something I would have wanted on there because my kids are like addicted to YouTube and that's of course what they're going to go to. So I hope I can set some restrictions on that. But you know, give us the old Google would have given us two buttons that we could have programmed in. But you know, the new Google and all these other tech companies are all about deals. And you know that they got money from Netflix or there's some sort of deal signed and YouTube.
You know there's some sort of deal there. Obviously they own it, but you know it's like, come on, why does everyone It's not one size fits all Google, and you know that this is not the Google that we used to know. That's something that Apple would probably do or something that you know Roku pioneered, but Google, come on, But that's that's the world we live in now. So what's unique about this service is that they're trying to make a watch list that works across all of your
streaming services. So you know how frustrating it is when you sit down. I go into Hulu and I pop through there and see what's on there. I go into Amazon Prime and I pop into there and see what's playing on there. I go into Netflix, see what's playing on there. It's a very frustrating and really slow process to find something to watch.
Well, this is.
Doing much more broad categories like horror movies. It'll show you movies across all the different services on the home screen. And I'm just making that up, but that's kind of what their idea is. So that's really cool. So it'd be like Halloween and by the way, at the bottom it'll say HBO Max, Oh cool, I have that, let me pop in there. So that's really neat. It works with a bunch of apps. YouTube, Netflix, Disney Plus, Hulu, HBO Max Prime Video are the ones they mentioned. Those
are the pretty popular big ones. The one I noticed. I don't think it's gonna work for right off the bat is Apple TV. Now I've only watched one show on there, which was The Morning Show, so I'm not too worried about that losing that if I switched to this, which I probably am this weekend, so you know, maybe I'll just have to watch like I was gonna watch Greyhound and I went to Bookmarket on the new Google TV app on my watch list and I couldn't. And
that's the other cool thing about this. They're making a universal watch list. So now I used to use that app called real Good or I use that app called real Good, and that works, you know, across everything, but you still have to go in and like look at it and then go to your device and find it. But with this, you can use the Google TV app on your phone or just Google add things to your watch list and they show up on your TV screen.
So I think this sounds really, really awesome. You've got the slideshow of your Google photos when you're not using the device, which is really awesome for me because I love that feature. You can also do Google Meet on Chrome Cast, which is kind of cool, and of course it just works as a Chrome cast as well.
This is fifty dollars.
I think, and according to some of the early reviews, they did not send me a review unit, but some of the early reviews are really saying this thing is awesome. Not as customizable as you'd like for the home screen, but you know again, I ordered mine from best Buy. I'm getting it today, I'm setting it up immediately. I'm a switch. Of course, my whole family over to this. They're gonna hate me for it, but I am very
excited for this device. I think that it's Google's best chance at kind of making some sense out of the streaming TV landscape, and if anyone can do that, it is Google. Now, don't forget. Apple TV has a very similar feature with their what is it? What do they call it? Like Apple TV up next I think is what they call it. The problem is not many people use Apple TV up next requires the use of an Apple device to add stuff to it. It's not perfect, and in my case, I've never really used it because
it just doesn't really work for my workflow. But this Google watch list will really work for me. And plus you have Google Assistant, you can just say what should I watch? So I think that this is like I don't know, I have very very high hopes for this Google TV, and I'll have more about that as I test it. All Right, let's get to the first question, and just FYI little housekeeping note. It will be me doing the questions from now on or a special guest.
I'm not gonna do the computer thing. I didn't like that last week. I decided it was kind of gross. But it will be me going forward doing the questions. I may have folks start sending in voicemails for the questions, or I was thinking I might branch the podcast to where I just talk about the tech stuff and then I do like an hour or two on Facebook Live and then cut that down into a podcast where I
actually can talk back and forth with people. So I'm trying to figure out the new direction of where to go. You can let me know what you think, but it's at rich on Tech. But it will be me going forward. So that's kind of like the news is that it's either gonna be me or special guest, a rotating special guest to do the questions. So let's get to the first question from Joyce. Joyce subject Lin says, kids phone
or watch? Have you ever tested anything for children to keep in touch with them or know where they're at. I'm talking younger kids. Nine years old granddaughter takes her scooter to play at a friend's house, then takes off to another friend's house. Thank you, Joyce, Joyce. I am going to recommend the Apple Watch SE. Now, I know this is an expensive way to keep in touch with the kids, but I think it is the best way.
And the reason I think it's the best way is because you're going to spend a little bit more buying this Apple Watch. But I'm telling you it's going to be leaps and bounds ahead of any other solution you're gonna find there. And here's what people do. They ask me for my opinion, and then they go out and they buy the five dollars a month smart watch at the mall and they say, real just things sucks, it's not that good. And I say, well, I told you to get the Apple Watch. So the thing about the
Apple Watch is that you can use with family. It's they have that new thing called family set up. So Apple Watch Family setup works with the Apple Watch Series four and up, but you need a cellular version. It also works works with the Apple Watch SE. So if
you have a series four and up on cellular. You can maybe find one of those on eBay, or maybe a family member has it, or you can purchase the new Apple Watch se with cellular, and when you purchase it with cellular, it starts at two seventy nine, but then when you add cellular, it brings it up to three hundred and twenty nine dollars. I don't think that's that terrible of a price point to have your kid connected.
Now you do have to set up a service plan with your child once you have this watch, so yes, it gets a little bit more expensive. When I went to set this up on my phone for some reason, and I'm not sure, it's said that it was zero dollars a month on my Verizon plan. I don't know if that was some sort of special I didn't actually set it up because I'm still testing this feature, but that was interesting. But usually phones are about ten dollars
a month extra. I'm not sure what the pricing is on this whole family setup thing, but that's what i'd recommend. The only other thing that I found that even comes close is a watch called the Dimo smart Watch. What it or is it Dino? Sorry, it was the Dino Dino Smartwatch from cool Pad. I'm not even sure if they're still supporting this thing, but that was the one that I tested and I thought was actually pretty cool.
It's from Coolpad Dino Kids dot Com. This one is sixty dollars and you of course have to buy the plan with that as well. It runs on the T Mobile network. But I thought this one was pretty cool. It's just the software that kind of is not very good. And this is what I'm saying. With Apple, You're gonna
get fantastic software, fantastic support, every app. You can imagine features that are written for this device that Apple has thought of for a child, and so you'll be able to keep track of them, You'll be able to see where they go, you'll be able to call them, message them. I think it's the absolute best solution you can think of, and that's what I would go with.
Joyce.
You want my opinion, you're gonna get it here on the rich On Tech Show. All right, let's move on to the second most important. It's funny because the things I think people are gonna buy the most of at the Google announcement are the speaker and the phone and the Chrome cast. But I'll go with the phone because I do think this is a big announcement in the scheme of things. So they announced two new phones, the Pixel five and the Pixel four to a with five and both of these have five G. So let's go.
Let's go over the Pixel five. This is kind of their top of the line Google phone. Five G connectivity, water resistant, wireless, charging, four thousand million our battery.
Which is not that good.
Because we know that the battery life on the last Pixel was horrendous, so let's hope that this one lasts. It's got eight gigabytes of RAM one, twenty eight gigs of storage, a six inch full HD plus o LED smooth display, which that means it's got ability to go ninety hertz refresh rate. It's got this qualcump Snapdragon seven to sixty five G, which is not the top of the line. The top of the line is the what I said, the eight sixty five or the whatever it is.
It's something in the eights and it's that's the main chip. This is a lower end chip, which I'm not gonna fault them Ford just yet. And then it's got the rear camera. It's got twelve megapixels, and then a sixteen megapixel ultra wide, so yes, we finally got an ultra
wide on the Pixel. And then it's got night Site Live HDR plus, which they said they improved, a cinematic pan feature, which is a video feature that makes your videos look more Hollywood style with like nice panning, like pretty much what Apple does on the iPhone, Like when you take video on that phone, it.
Just looks like it just looks beautiful.
And then you've got the ultra wide, portrait light, stereo speakers, and USB C and the interesting thing on the Pixel four A with five g you drop down to a small a bigger screen, actually the same processor. You still get the ultra wide and you get a three point five millimeters audio jack. So what don't you get with the four A? Uh, you get let's see, you don't get the ninety hurts. You still get the same Oh it's six gigs, a RAM, one hundred and twenty eight gigs of storage, a smaller battery.
But here's the thing.
I think the four A is probably gonna be best for most people because it's got that audio jack and you know, most of the features you need. The Pixel five, which I kind of want to be my next phone, I think I'm gonna switch. I think I've got this crazy plan. Okay, I'll tell you what my plan is. Because my plan is to activate my Apple Watch because I can't live without that on my wife's phone under
family setup, and then use the Pixel five as my phone. Now, what I'm not gonna get are my text messages and notifications as many to the watch, but I'll still have my running and my music on there. But I'll still get the Pixel five day to day. Now, if I try this Pixel five and I find that it's super not fast like the Pixel four.
Is, just it's not.
It just doesn't keep up with like the main phones out there, like I'm using all these phones that are so good.
So anyways, that's my plan.
This thing is, by the way, six hundred and ninety nine dollars for the Pixel five, the Pixel four A.
For a five G is let's see how much that one is? They did?
They say the price on that that is two hundred dollars less, so five hundred bucks, five hundred dollars. That is going to be the for most people.
Right there.
You get the five G, you get the amazing camera set up, and I think that Google, and this is what a lot of people are saying, not just me, but Google has kind of given up that that top of the line.
If you want top of the line at this point, you.
Got to go with one of the Samsung Ultras or the iPhone you know pro that's those are the top of the line phones. That's that's the bottom line. This is for everyone else. And I'll be honest, I don't think ninety nine percent of people need the two phones I just mentioned. Nobody needs this Samsung Ultra unless you're an influencer or an early adopter or got to have the latest, greatest, best.
Thing out there.
Most people need just a nice phone, and I think what Google has done with the Pixel four A with five gs made a really nice phone. Now, given I have not tested it, I need to test this thing out and see if it works day to day, but I think it will for someone that just wants a really nice experience and a good camera. Same thing with the Samsung. I'll talk about this in a moment, but the Samsung S twenty f it was fe fan edition.
That's a really nice phone and that. But I honestly, I think that the Pixel four A with five G is gonna be better than that, or better choice, or the Pixel five for the same price.
So again, unless.
You're an influencer you make a living making videos all this good stuff, these phones are gonna be pretty awesome for you. Oh that was a big pop pop I thought this had a pop thing in it.
I thought this.
I thought I didn't need a pop screen. I thought this Mike pop pop pop pop pop. Maybe it's just when I do a certain thing. Uh okay, what else do you need to know about these phones? Pixel five has IP sixty eight water and dust resistance. They don't mention that with the Pixel four A, So I'm wondering if that doesn't have it. Mmm, that would be not so nice. But you know who's dunking their phone anyway? How many times do you get your phone wet? I mean,
it's nice to have, but uh okay. The other feature they have on these phone is called hold for Me. It's a cool feature Google Assistant. You know they're building all these smarts into it, but Google Assistant, if you're on hold with a company, it will say, hey, we hear hold music, Can we jump in, and we'll the assistant will hold on the line for you listen for the person to pick up, and when they pick up, it'll say hey, hey, hurry up, get over here, get to your phone, and you can do that.
Now.
Is that much different than just leaving your phone on speakerphone? I don't know. I mean, what's the difference to me? That's what I do if I ever have to wait on hold. But you know, it's Google's way of doing things. And we'll see if it's any better. I think the assistant, I guess we'll maybe talk to the person, maybe do a little like pitter patter, be like, hey.
I'm the Google assistant. I'm just I'm just here until the you know, hold on, Hey Jim, get over here. You got the person just picked up.
So maybe that's what I'll do, all right, So let's go into Bob's question. Bob says, I just saw this phone because I got an email from slick Deals.
Is it worth it? Is it a good phone?
I think I can trade in my Galaxy S seven and get a good deal. I'd love your thoughts, Bob, and he sent a link along with the Samsung unveils Galaxy S twenty fe for every fan. So Bob, to answer your question, I have been using the Samsung Galaxy S twenty fan addition, and last in the last podcast, I talked about how this could be my perfect phone, and I'll be honest, it is a fantastic little device. In fact, I think Samsung did a great job in
this device. And I can't really find any major issues with this device.
It's got.
It's a six hundred and niney nine dollars device, which it's already been on sale for five ninety nine and like you said, Bob, you saw it for a two hundred dollars trade in offer, and so this is a mid range device. It's got a great screen, it's got a nice refresh ratest, good battery life. I did test the battery a little bit more. It's working very nicely. I'm very happy with this device. The only thing I'm
missing on it is a nice case. And I think this device is actually so good you can use it without a case, but who wants to risk that, right, It's got a nice grip to it, It's got a nice feel. The camera is excellent. Is it an iPhone camera? No?
Is it the best camera? No? But is it a really good camera? Yeah?
I'm loving the pictures I'm taking on this thing. I'm not sitting there wanting more. I mean, I'm looking through some of these shots I took at the beach and they look fantastic. In fact, I need to tweet some of these out.
Is it the pixel? No? And I think that many.
People would be better served with a pixel, But I don't think you're gonna get that same deal you're gonna get from the pixel that you get for this phone.
Like, Samsung likes.
To make things a certain price, and then the carriers take over and they discount these things and they kind of run with it. Hundred dollar six nine becomes a three ninety nine phone, or, like you said, a one ninety nine. So I can I can definitely one hundred percent recommend the Galaxy S twenty Fan Edition. I think it is a perfectly great phone for every fan, not just every fan, and it's it's really a phone for
the every person. So it's just a great phone for the every day user, and I can definitely recommend it. All right, let's get to the next item of the week. This is a big announcement from Facebook and they are just integrating their services a little bit more. Facebook is effectively building Facebook Messenger into Instagram. Let that sink in for a moment. Facebook is building Facebook Messenger into Instagram. Why are they doing this? Well, it makes a lot
of sense. It expands their reach. Let's let's be honest here, there's been a a little pushback on Facebook from the younger generation. They are not so much on Facebook anymore. Maybe their parents are, but they're not. They're on Instagram and they love Instagram even though they don't necessarily care
about Facebook. And what does this mean for Facebook? It means hmmm, well, that's kind of frustrating because if let's say you're on Instagram and your mom's on Facebook, well that kind of sucks that you can't text her through Instagram. Why don't we make these things work together? And so that's exactly what they're doing. So you can now chat with folks cross platforms, so to say, or cross app
so to say. So here's what's happening. You open up your Instagram app, it'll say, hey, do you want messenger inside Instagram? And you say sure, And once you do that, there's no going back. Beware, you cannot go back to the old Instagram experience of DMS and boringness. Once you up grade now. Once you upgrade to Messenger, it is a party inside Instagram. You're gonna get all kinds of new features, including watch together so you can watch a
little videos together. You're gonna get disappearing messages if you want to turn that mode on, selfie stickers, emojis, animated message effects, gradient colors for your texts, all kinds of stuff. It's a little circus inside your Instagram and it's gonna be fun. Because Instagram was pretty boring for messaging. I
think this is awesome. I know I'm probably in a smaller minority of opinion there, but the reason I think it's awesome is because whatever makes it easier for me to message folks and break away from I Message, I
am all for it. Every single person in the US seems to have Instagram installed on their phone, so if I can now message them through Instagram in a way that seems like texting, I am all for that, and I love I Message, but I'll be honest, it's really frustrating that the American's reliance on I Message is just so annoying, Like, oh, you're trying to send me a picture and it comes through one tiny half megapixel because you're sending it from an Android to my iPhone.
Or a video.
Do you ever have someone try to send a video from an iPhone to an android? I mean, try watching that. So if I can say, oh, I can just send you that full res picture or a nice resolution picture through Instagram and it's actually sent through Messenger, Oh I can do that, that's awesome.
So I am a huge fan of this.
I know that there's a lot of talk about Facebook trying to wrap itself up into a tighter bundle so that the antitrust folks can't get through to them. But let's be honest here. Is Facebook Messenger really a dominant messaging platform. No, No one's saying, hey, use Facebook Messenger to message. Nobody's saying that you can only get I Message if you have an Apple product.
It only works to other Apple products.
Apple has not done anything to open up I Message in any way to any other platform besides their own, and it has a strong armhold on us users here who are on the iPhone, and they love their I Message. In fact, I would venture to say that people would switch to an Android if they weren't so wrapped up in I Message.
Yes, it is the truth.
But I also just see the bigger picture of things in that they have built a force to be reckoned with with I Message, and nobody can touch that here in the US. At least outside the US, people don't understand it. They say, why are you so obsessed with I message? I Message? I Message? We use WhatsApp, we use line. In Japan, we use we Chat. In China, we use SMS, we use Snapchat, we use Facebook Messenger, we use WhatsApp, we use Instagram, But no everyone here uses I message anyway.
Just be on the lookout for that.
Was that about the Okay, I don't know where I am right now, mine a new question, I think I am.
Let's go to Amanda.
Amanda says, I moved into an older relative's house. She does want me to install cable right now.
I'm assuming you mean doesn't.
What Wi Fi product could I purchase that doesn't cost an arm and a leg and gives me unlimited data that you could recommend? Would appreciate any suggestions. I am new at this.
Thanks.
Well, if she doesn't want you installing anything, you're probably gonna have to go with a mobile hotspot. So when it comes to mobile hotspots. I recently recently reviewed one called the Zte max Connect. And what I like about this device is it's unlocked. It's ninety dollars for an unlocked device. And what this Wi Fi hotspot does is it allows you to put in pretty much any SIM card and then it will spit out a Wi Fi network.
And so ninety dollars gets you this device. Then you have to buy the SIM and the service, and you can do that in a few ways. You can buy a prepaid SIM and pop it in there. What I would do. Oh and by the way, the SIM networks that it supports is T Mobile, metro by T Mobile, Sprint, gen Mobile, Boost Mobile, Simple Mobile, Ultramobile, Red Pocket. Haven't heard of that one, Republic Wireless, and other GSM networks.
So I mean, just find a plan that you like that's cheap, you pop in the SIM card and there you go, You've got WiFi. That's what I would do. Your other option is to sign up for a mobile hotspot from a carrier, But why would you do that when you can buy this for ninety dollars unlocked and there's no contract. You can even just go buy a prepaid card. Even if you want to try it out, buy the router for ninety bucks. They actually, I don't
know if they're still coming with the free plan. It was coming with three gigs of data to try it out. I'm not sure if it's still doing that thirty days of no contract service from Gen Mobile. Maybe it does come with that still, I'm not sure. But anyway, you know, try it out and just see how it works.
Again.
It's called the Zte max Connect Unlocked Mobile Wi Fi Hotspot four g lt E GSM router MF nine two eight up to one hundred and fifty megabits download speed, connect up to ten devices, create a wirewland anywhere bundle. So just search that on Google and you should find it. No, you can find a link in the show notes. By the way, do you know I link up everything in the show notes.
I hope you know that.
I hope you're looking at those links because I have no way of knowing if you're clicking those, tapping those or whatever.
All right, more Google News.
Let's move on to the Nest Audio speaker. Google was kind enough to send me one of these to try out, and uh, I can't really say my review yet. Apparently reviews are embargoed until Monday, but I will say that it is a very nice looking speaker. Oh well, I guess Google search for me. It's a nice looking speaker, and it replaces the original Google Home, which was just when that thing came out. I remember going up to that event in San Francisco when the Google Home speaker came out.
It blew my mind.
Because here you are Google Assistant built into a speaker that can do all kinds of stuff. We never had anything like that before except Alexa, but this was Google, so I was more intrigued.
And what do you get with this new one?
You get better hardware, better software, a better design, whole home audio, faster Google Assistant. They say that all these things sound better on this. They've got this ambient IQ feature, which means when you're using like a you know, toothbrush or the water's running, Google a system's automatically gonna sound louder, so you don't have to like sit there and oh do I have to just the volume again because I'm
like the dishwashers running no media. IQ automatically changes the equalization depending on what you're listening to, whether it's the voice music or podcast music. Recommendations. You can just say hey G, hey G, recommend some music and it will speaker groups, which is intriguing me at this point. I'll be honest, you know, I built this Sonos. I built this Sonos world in my house over the past many years, and I have a Sonos in pretty much every room.
And I love Sonos but and I love the one speaker that I bought recently, which is the Go Anywhere. It's like the it's four hundred dollars, it's like rechargeable.
It's just great.
But I'll be honest, and I have this Sonos Bar which hooks up to my TV, and then I've got the two speakers paired behind that for stereo sound. But I am really intrigued with kind of using these these Google speakers throughout my house because I feel like it's
more fun at this point. And I've got almost all these speakers in rooms too, and between the Mini and then this new one, which is one hundred dollars by the way, and then you've got the Max and then you've got the Smart displays, you can build a pretty good whole home audio system using these things. And the cool thing is you get voice control, which unlike my so nos, I don't really have voice control. Technically, it's there because of the one speaker I have that has
it the uh what's that one called the move? But I've never used that because it just seems too cumbersome. But with this, you can say h or no not HG, hey G, move the music into this room and boom your music stream moves into this room. Or eight, hey G, put the play music in all my rooms. That is pretty compelling to me. Or I keep forgetting what the syntax is, hey G, play music in my living room.
That's pretty cool.
So I may set up these speakers across my entire house and just see how I like it. But I kind of think this might be overtaking my sonos. The one thing it's not gonna do I need to test this out is I've got my sons hooked up to my TV. But I'm thinking if I can somehow pair these speakers in my living room, but I don't know.
I think that's where it's gonna end.
So that means I have to use my sonas setup for the living room, just for the TV, and then the rest for everything else. That's not very good. That doesn't sound very clean. I want to clean setup. But I will say the Sonos app has been lacking. I've got I'm on that gross s one app, which is like the old version. Now it's got the yucky icon and it's kind of slow these days, it doesn't work very well. I just feel like Sons is at this point.
It's too high end, it's too expensive, and I just feel like Google with these speakers, had one hundred dollars. You could put a speaker in every room so easily, compared to a Sonos speaker that's way more expensive. I think their minimum is two hundred. But I do love my Sonos, so I'm not I'm not totally trashing them. I just feel like this seems more compelling to me at this point, and I will see if I need
to switch to this this new Google setup. Anyway, that speaker launches, probably by the time you hear this, it'll be launching.
I'm sending one.
I'm purchasing one for my sister. She's building a little home gym. She's a personal trainer, so she was She asked me, she said, hey, Rich, can you recommend a Bluetooth speaker?
And I was thinking about it and I like the UI boom.
So then as I thought, I'm like, whoa hold on, stop the presses here. Why would I not just get you a Google Nest audio speaker. I mean, doesn't that make sense? And so that's what I'm buying her. I'm gifting her this speaker, not the one that Google sent me. No, that doesn't doesn't work that way. I'm gonna buy her one on the website and have it shipped to her.
I ask her, ask her which color she wanted. It comes in these five cool colors, and she chose the uh, the black, which is like, okay, can we be any more boring? I mean it's nice. I think that it's charcoal is the the official color. But they've got like charcoal, They've got this sky, they've got this green, They've got just some really nice colors gray, I've got the sky blue that they sent me. But you know, it's like, okay, I guess you want to be boring and go with
the most basic of all tech colors. But anyway, I think she's gonna love it. And I asked her, I said, you have a streaming service, like for music. She does not subscribe. But the cool thing about this is. There's so many services you can use. I just tested iHeartRadio with it and it sounds fantastic. You can just you know, she can use her phone with the iHeartRadio app and cast it to there, or she can just like call up a radio station. Or you can use Spotify for free,
or you can use the ad supported YouTube music. I mean, there's so many options versus just the standard Bluetooth speaker that needs to be you know, bluetoothing from your phone the whole day.
Which is gonna, you know, be annoying.
You walk out of the gym and you got to walk upstairs to do something and your music stops. So anyway, I think she's gonna love it, and I am more than happy to spend the one hundred dollars on her to get her that speaker. That's the kind of person I am.
I love.
I love buying people technology, Like my niece. I bought her the new iPad because it's like, this is awesome stuff. And since I get to test it, I know that it works awesomely, and of course I share it with you too, I share the info. Oh, speaking of iHeart Radio, Oh, do I have another question? Well, let me just do this real quick. iHeartRadio now has a standalone Apple Watch app, which is really neat.
iHeartRadio.
I don't know if you realize, but they have a really good service going. And I'm not just saying that because I do. I do things for KFI. You know, I'm on there with Bill Handle and Jennifer Jones Lee every week. But I think what iHeartRadio does is pretty awesome. They've got all these radio stations, which you know, you can listen to in the iHeartRadio app, but they also have kind of like their equivalent of like serious stations.
So there's a station called like hit Nation. There's a station that's like hit Nation for kids, which is like a kid friendly hit Nation. There's a hit Nation Top twenty. There's an iHeartRadio Country. I mean, they have really good stations, and what I like about it is that they do blend in the DJs, and yeah, it's kind of like you know, it's look, it's DJs.
Sometimes they're fun.
Sometimes it's like nonsense, but I kind of like having the person telling me what that song is, right. I already went through this with with Apple Music Country and Serious XM. Serrius XM has made it a thing to have DJs on their stations. They don't need to have them, but it differentiates them from something like Spotify. And as I get older, I and I've always loved radio DJs. I like the perspective, Hey, here's the latest song from
you know what was it Carly Pierce. The other day they gave like a little introduction as to like, you know, she just broke up with her husband, and it's like, here's the song she wrote MM pretty much about him. And so it's that little bit of perspective that I think radio DJs have always offered when it comes to new music. When I'm listening to Spotify, a song comes on and I've said this before, I have no clue is that song brand new or was it done ten years ago? And it just happens to show up in
my playlist because of AI. So that's why I like iHeartRadio because you get that perspective from the DJ. So anyway, if you have an Apple Watch, you've got the iHeartRadio app. You can listen like I tried this on my run the other day, where I can just listen to the station streaming live. And so yeah, you have to have a data connection to do that or Wi Fi. But it's kind of cool because there's one more way to kind of free up your Apple Watch from the iPhone.
And it did not work in my case, I'll be honest. I was on the Santa Monica bike path and signal is notoriously terrible along that bike path for me on Verizon. I'm not sure if it's like that with other carriers, but it's really bad and it just it could not keep the signal, and so I ended up listening to my my music that was saved on my Apple Watch because I just couldn't just kept going out.
It just would wouldn't do it.
So I'm not sure if there's a way to save stuff to your Apple Watch from the iHeartRadio app. I'll play around with it a little bit more, but I think it's something you should have on there if you like to run with your watch. I mean, they've got I did a cool running workout. Let's see what do I have on here? They have Let's see what do I have iHeartRadio. Let's see come on, where's my so
my library is, Let's see my stations. I've got the twenty four hour Cardio mix and I think that's from twenty four hour Fitness Country Workout Radio, Hit Nation, Junior Hit Nation, iHeart Country Radio KFI.
Of course, iHeart.
Christmas, which is a fantastic station, Dave Ramsey Channel, Rich Demiro's Favorites KTLA five. You know you can listen to that on iHeartRadio, American Top forty, Today's Mix again, one of their kind of satellite radio stations, Eclectic Rock, which is just fantastic. My favorite radio stations on iHeart, and then Coffee Shop Radio, which I'm listening to on the weekends.
So anyway, check it out. I can't speak highly enough and it's totally free, and I'll be honest, I don't pay for the iHeartRadio stuff and I still rarely rarely hear.
Commercials on there.
So all right, another question here, Tim says, Hi, Rich, I watch your segments all the time. I was asked by a new client for an e business card, but I've never heard of them. Can you suggest an app or give me an idea on how to create one?
Thanks? Tim?
Yes, I will so. I first saw this at the Toy Fair in New York City and it was like mind boggling. So this guy, I can't remember his name, but he tapped this business card to my iPhone and next thing, you know, his contact information was right on my phone. I was like, what did you just do? And he's like, isn't that cool? And I forget what the specific name of the card he had. I I think I took a picture of it, but he's like, oh, it's coming out. It was like thirty five dollars. But anyway,
they have a couple of these things. So the first one I've been testing out is called I think I don't know how you pronounce it, but it's a big ad ont on a TikTok. It's called Popole pop l dot co. And this is kind of for the young kids, but you can use it, you know, no matter what age. These are fifteen, fifteen to twenty dollars little dots that stick on the back.
Of your phone.
And the main thing here is that it's an NFC dot and you stick it on your phone and then you tap this to a friend's phone and the NFC takes over and it leads you to a website with your popoll profile. And so that's that's basically it. And on your propol profile you have your Instagram, your TikTok, text messaging, Snapchat, Venmo, Spotify, whatever you want. You can you know, you can have it open to a one thing.
You can have it open right to your Instagram if that's how you want to share, or you can have it open up right to your VCF. You're you know, is that what it's called? The card file? VCF file? I think so, no v card. I don't know v card. I think it's a v card. Yeah, VCRD file v card.
I thought it was VCF. Maybe it's not.
Yeah, VCF virtual contact file. You can have it open up to that. So this is really cool. That's an easy solution. And it sticks on the back of your phone. I don't like anything stuck to the back of my phone, including remember you know those pop sockets everyone loves. I just can't have anything stuck to my phone. I like a clean phone experience. So I have this thing stuck to the back of my computer. But it doesn't really do much good there anyway, poppol is really cool. I'm
gonna do a story on them. These are some UCLA students that started this, and I want to do a story. But the problem is, you know, we're not really supposed to be, you know, socially meeting random people right now. So it's kind of tough to recommend a product where you're meeting a whole bunch of random people and popping your phones together, right So anyway, I'll do that when the time is right. But the other one is Blue Social And this might have been the card that the
guy tapped. I'm not sure, but it's the same thing. It's just in a business card form and it has that little NFC chip in it, and you know, you tap it to someone's phone and it brings it up. Just tim what I'd look for is NFC business card. I'd probably recommend the Poppol honestly, because there's a most momentum behind them, and I think they're They're look and feel is pretty clean, so I think i'd go with
that one. And they've got a bunch of different styles you can choose from, so they look really cool, from like glittery.
To just standard.
That's what I'd probably go for. The other way you can do this is just a QR code. Now that people are finally clued into QR codes because of all these menus everywhere, you know, the contactless menus at restaurants.
People are figuring out.
Oh, what is this QR code That's been around forever, but people are finally figuring out that we can use them, and thankfully because QR codes are great. Every other country in the world uses QR codes except America. Why is America so strange when it comes to their adoption of technology? Like, I mean, what is up with that? QR codes were just like standard fair everywhere else, NFC standard fair everywhere else. But it took Apple Pay for that to become popular.
You know, Tap to pay was popular everywhere, but like all of a sudden, Apple does it, and now it's like, oh yes, uh NFC is amazing. All right, I do want to get through a couple other things. I know I'm going along here, but let's see that's not that exciting.
Let's talk about this.
If you want a free Nintendo game Super Mario Brothers thirty five, this is kind of cool. It's it's kind of like inspired by you know, Mario Super Mario Brothers, but it's a it's a thirty five player twist on it, so it's a it's a it's like a Fortnite kind of thing, right, A Battle Royale thirty five players. They all start at the same time and they compete in this gameplay.
Now. I have not played this yet. I downloaded it to my kids.
I got my kid for his birthday Nintendo Switch Light, and he loves it. But I've got to get the games on there, so I downloaded this one and it looks awesome. I'm gonna play it this weekend and I'm excited. So it's kind of like that idea of playing online with friends. So you need the thing you need here is a membership to Nintendo Switch Online. That's twenty bucks a year. If you don't have it, you do need
that to play this game. And this game is only available until March thirty first, twenty twenty one, digital only, so go download it. It looks really fun and it kind of you know what I like about. My kids love Rodblocks, which I hate. You know that I've talked about it. They like Minecraft, which I think is fine, but I personally would love if they played the Switch more because to me, the Switch is like good old fashioned gaming. The games have a start, a middle, they
have an end. They're fun, They're created by people that are you know, their entire world is gaming, like Nintendo people, and so I really really like that, and I like the idea of them playing that. So anyway, and it reminds me of my childhood. You know, you'd get sick of stuff and you'd play this game until you beat it and then you'd be sick of it or whatever. So anyway, that's a quick game. Again, it's called if you want to download it? Why did I put this
over here? It's called the Super Mario Brothers thirty five. So maybe I'll get on there and I'll tell you my username and we can all play it, all right. One last question from Pam. Pam says, what what your suggestion? People write me really fast. I think because these questions like what your suggestion of good car play wireless adapter like CarPlay to Air? I think what Pam is saying is what do you think of or do you have a suggestion of a good car play wireless adapter like
car Play to Air? And my answer is no, do not get a wireless car play adapter. I don't care how sexy they look on YouTube.
Don't get one. I'll tell you why you don't.
Okay, so give you some background. I just finally tried out wireless car play for myself. Apple gave me a demo of it a couple of years ago, but it was only in like a high end BMW. It was very limited, but I tested. I recently did a test drive of the Nissan Rogue, which has wireless car play in its Platinum edition, and so I got to try it. You know, when Apple did it, they sort of you know, they held the ball. They they did it. They showed me, they led me through it. I wasn't able to play
around with it in this car. I was able to play around, and it is awesome. Let me tell you. Wireless car play is seriously, seriously cool, and it solves a lot of problems. It solves a problem of when I get when I'm doing errands around the how or around the neighborhood, I'm getting into my car and getting out a bunch of times I don't want to. I end up not plugging in my phone after the first time because it's too much work to plug it in every time. So I get why they came up with
wireless CarPlay, and it's really cool. In the Rogue, it worked phenomenal. It was so cool, it's slick, it's the you do one one time kind of like set up, and then after you get in your car boom, you just put your phone wherever it is and it just shows up on the screen. So it's streaming CarPlay from your phone. It's actually using like a Wi Fi direct connection to do it. I think maybe it's blending at with Bluetooth but to get the signal or whatever, or
to kind of get the connection. But it's literally like chrome casting your phone screen or what's happening on your phone to the screen.
But it works the same way.
It's great and anyway, so these Wi Fi you know, CarPlay adapters. I looked at this one that she mentioned, this CarPlay to air and it's one hundred and thirty dollars number one. That's expensive for an adapter that very unproven, right. I looked at their YouTube video. They spelled the word chord wrong. They said, oh, you got lots of chords.
It was spelled hrd. Another red flag. They didn't have social media on their website, which again is another red flag and the biggest thing I think you need if you're going to do wireless car play, Otherwise it defeats the purpose. You need a wireless charger in your car, and so if you're adding wireless car Play to your car, you probably don't have a wireless charger. Now, my car is a couple of years old, and I actually do have a wireless charger like a CHI charger, which is
one of the things I wanted. I never use it, and I do have car Play, and I could potentially use the wireless car Play and then pop my phone in the Chi charger to wirelessly charge, but that's all too much work. I can just plug it in. So anyway, my advice to you, Pam is just to deal with wired CarPlay for now, because I'm not sure how good
these wireless adapters are. And I think that, you know, just let technology evolution take its course, which when you get a new car, eventually wireless CarPlay will be there. And right now we're just starting to see it come up on the you know, higher end additions of certain cars. You know, like with the Rogue it was a platinum edition and it wasn't available in the other or maybe it was in the lower options, but like as an option, but it comes with the platinum, or maybe you have
to get the platinum. I think you have to. I gotta check on that. But anyway, so just kind of just plug in. It's not that big of a deal. I know it's kind of a pain, but when everything's wireless these days. But I will say it is awesome, and I'm really looking forward to wireless car play when I can fully take advantage of it. But if I switch that Pixel five, I don't know, I'm gonna have to use wireless Android auto.
I don't know how's that gonna work.
Oh my gosh, so complicated with all this stuff, I mean, isn't it.
Oh my gosh, what is that to hear? Is that the music?
Oh?
Yeah, it is.
Oh no, it is the music. You know what that means? They're playing me off. I'm being played off my own show. How rude? Remember that on a full house?
How rude? What was that? What was that girl's name? How rude? I think she's stolen the new one.
All right, that's gonna do it for this episode of the show. Thanks so much for listening. If you would like to submit a question for me to answer, just go to richon tech dot tv and hit the email button at the bottom of the page. Now we'll try something new. If you want to send me a audio question. Just record it on your phone and you know, use your voice recorder app on iPhone or whatever voice memos and just send it off as an email to Hello
at richon tech dot tv. Hello at richon tech dot TV. Also, I would love it if you would rate and review this podcast. Just go to rate this podcast dot com slash rich on tech two hundred and one reviews or ratings. I should say on Apple Podcasts five out of five.
Love it. Oh my gosh, this let me read one.
Let's see happy years, says this young man has turned tech sharing into an art. Stay blessed, rich Thank you art. I love it, And if you leave a review like that, yes I will read it on the show. You can find me on all social media at rich on tech. Don't forget to look at my website every once in a while rich on tech dot TV. That's where I post all the good stuff I'm doing on KTLA and other places. You know, You've got me doing a lot
of stuff these days. I'm on KTLA, I'm on my other TV stations and places like we just added Las Vegas. We're on in San Diego, Sacramento, Cleveland, gosh, all over the nation and also this new show called News Nation, which my company's doing, and that's a nightly newscast on WG in America, so look for that. Also this new show called la on scripted. So I am working hard. So if I don't respond to your email on the first day, I know it's tough. I'm working, but I'm there.
My name is Richard Meiel. Thanks so much for listening. Stay safe, I'll talk to you real soon.