Amazon buys Eero, a potential new way to save on spectrum Internet. Samsung opens its news stores just like Apple, And are you willing to share your ring.
Video doorbell feed with the police. What's going on? I'm Rich Demiro.
This is Rich on Tech, the podcast where I talk about all the things I think you should know that happened this week in technology, plus I take your phone calls live.
What's going on? I'm Rich Demiro, the.
Tech reporter at KTLA five News in Los Angeles, and this is for me to kind of expand on all the stuff that I talk about throughout the week that I just think is interesting that happened in the tech week. It is not a comprehensive look at every single thing that happened in technology, but it's mainly the stuff that I think is interesting I think you should know about. And of course your calls will take your first call in just a little bit. But first let's talk about
some of the big news this week. Amazon dominating the headlines in several ways. Number One, they totally ditched their East Coast headquarters HQ two in New York City, more specifically Queens in New York. So that is not happening, And I'm not going to spend a whole bunch of time on that because you've probably heard it over and over and over, and realistically, for the average consumer, it
does not affect you. And what I like to talk about when it comes to technology is stuff that affects the average person.
So you're still going to get your packages just fine. But the fact that New York.
City and the unions and politics got involved in this whole Amazon debacle over there does not really affect you unless you live in Queens, unless you put a big down payment on a condo in Queens thinking that this was going to be the next big place. But realistically, I think the bigger news for the average person this week is the fact that Amazon is acquiring euro And if you've listened to me talk at all, you know
I've talked about Eo a lot. And what Eero is it is a smart Wi Fi system for your home, otherwise known as a mesh Wi Fi network. And so what you do is you put a whole bunch of these little network appliances in your home and they all work together to give you really good Internet. And sometimes they get the question of hey, rich if I buy one of these systems. Do I still need internet from my company like Spectrum or.
AT and T. Yes.
This is just a system that broadcasts the Internet throughout your house. And if you haven't used one of these before, they are pretty amazing. They make the Internet in your house work really, really well. And I've had this for a couple of years. Actually interviewed the guy who started this company, Nick Weaver, many years ago. He came to KTLA when they were just a little baby startup and we talked about it and it was such a new concept, and it was also very expensive, and it's still kind
of pricey. It's more expensive than your typical router. But I always tell people, if you get one of the systems, you are going to have the best Internet in your home and you're getting what you pay for. So why does Amazon want this company? Well, mainly it's because they are now a platform company where they now have Wi Fi that works in people's homes. So by enabling better Wi Fi and people's homes, all the products that people are buying from Amazon will now work better in people's homes.
Products like Alexa and the Echo. Of course, running Alexa products like Amazon fireTV products like ring video doorbells, products like Amazon's cloud video cameras, so all these things, tablets, I mean, there's so many things that Amazon sells, Amazon Shopping, Amazon Prime. Now anything that you do in your home with Internet will now work better because of this acquisition. So over at Amazon they said, we're incredibly impressed with the Euro team and how quickly they invented a Wi
Fi solution that makes connected devices just work. And then Nick Weaver said, as we started with Wi Fi because it's the foundation of the modern home. Every customer deserves reliable and secure Wi Fi in every room. So the bad side of this, and by the way, some of the benefits of having one of these systems is you don't have any dead zones in your house. You can put parental controls on your network level, you could run speed tests, you can see what's associated with the what
devices are on your Internet connection at any time. So for instance, in my house, I have a regular network and also a guest network. And by the way, if you do have one of these systems, if you have an eurosystem, something that a lot of you guys don't realize is when people come to your home, you do not have to give them the password to your internet. So number one, there's a guest network that you should
have activated in your EUO app. So if you haven't downloaded the app to your phone, which I think you need to to set it up. If you haven't done that, download the app to your phone and then when someone comes to your house, go into your app, the euro app, and look in the settings and look under guests Access and there's a little QR code. All they have to do is hold their iPhone camera over that QR code and it will link them up to your guest Wi
Fi network. It is really cool. It's really fast, and that way you don't have to share network passwords and all that stuff. If you are going to share network password, just share the guest Wi Fi access. And the reason why we like a guest access is because they are limited to less access to your main network, so they can't really tweak with things, change settings, all that good stuff. So it kind of keeps them in a and you know, they can still get internet, but it just kind of
keeps people in check. So I think that the downside of Amazon acquiring Ero is really the fact that now we have a big company getting bigger. You know, Amazon just continues to absorb these other little companies, and at this point, it's really tough to have a startup that is not absorbed by one of the giant companies, whether it is Amazon, whether it's Microsoft, whether it's Google, whether it's Facebook, Book, all these companies are Apple. All these
companies now basically purchase up any cool startup. Which it's funny because if you're a startup, yeah, the end game is that you either want to become gigantic or you want to.
Have one of these big companies by you.
But it's kind of interesting for the consumer at this point that now we're just seeding more of our information and more of our data to Amazon. And while Eero says that it's private and they're not sharing what you do on your home Wi Fi network with Amazon, you never know how they're going to use the data that they got in this acquisition because your internet is basically ground zero for everything that happens in your house, whether you're doing smart home devices or what you're surfing or
what you're streaming, it all goes through your internet. So Amazon definitely gets a lot of data in this transaction as well. A net from Sunland you're on with Rich.
Hello, welcome to the show.
Thank you. My question is kind of weird, But if you have a twenty ten automobile and it's equipped with Bluetooth, is there any way you can get Wi Fi installed to the vehicle?
There actually is, Yes, there's a couple of products that you can add.
One of them.
Basically, Verizon and T Mobile both make a product, and Sprint I believe, so Verizons is uh let's see, oh gosh.
What is I know?
One of them is called hum h M h u M so Verizon hum uh And it's basically a little device that you pop into your cars.
I think it's called like an.
ODB oh gosh, ODB port something like that, and you plug this thing into the bottom of your car and it will link onto the Verizon network and give you a Wi Fi hotspot in your car. So that's just one option. T Mobile has one.
Okay, what about Sprint?
Yes, Sprint with Sprint Okay, Sprint just came out with one. Actually, so Sprint is there's is called Sprint Drive and it's the same thing. You plug it into your car and that's how it works. It kind of, you know, goes off their network. And I'm looking at the price here. It looks like it is twenty four months. Oh, it looks like it's free. So if you if you do it for twenty four months. So what they do is they get you on the plan. You got to pay
for the plan. So it looks like unlimited plan is like twenty five a month, a two gig plan is ten dollars a month. And of course I'm assuming you could add that right to your plan that you have with Sprint. So but again it's called Sprint Drive and yeah, it'll it'll basically, once you pop this thing in, it'll latch onto the Sprint network and then it'll create a Wi Fi hotspot in your car that you can use for whatever you want.
Thank you, all right, You're rich.
Good day, all right, Arnette, Thanks for calling in.
Appreciate it.
Well. One of the most popular questions I get is about cord cutting. Everyone wants to know how do I cut the cord, how do I save some money? And how do I subscribe to some of these newer services, like we all know Netflix, but there's others like Direct TV. Now, there's Sling TV, there's Hulu TV. There's a whole bunch of them, and there's only more coming down the pipe as well. We've got lots of new services. But the headline at a variety is that the five biggest pay
television providers. These are the traditional kind of like cable services, Comcast, AT and T, DirecTV, Charter, Dish, and Verizon everyone lost customers. So three point two customers three point two million customers total among these big companies were lost in the past year. So that's a lot of people. So one of the most popular questions I get, like I said, is about cord cutting. People want to cut the cord. And here's my theory on this is, I don't really see chord
cutting as necessarily a money saving trick anymore. It used to be you could save a lot of money. Right you're paying a couple hundred dollars to these big companies, and now you'd just be paying you know, fifteen ninety nine or something to Netflix, or you know, ten dollars to Netflix, whatever it is.
But here's what's happened.
The more people cut the cord, the more these companies get smart, and the more other services pop up. So I look at myself and I'm paying forty dollars a month for DirecTV. Now I'm paying sixty dollars for my internet connection, whereas my internet connection might have used to cost only thirty dollars. So it's interesting how we're watching all these companies jack the fees on the streaming services. So I don't really think these big companies are crying.
I think, yes, they're losing a lot of customers, but I don't think if you if you think Dish Network thinks that they are going to have satellite viewers, you know, in the next ten years, I think they're planning for the fact that everyone is going to switch gears into an Internet delivered system, and it just makes sense. In fact, I think they like it. When I had Direct TV come to my house, I couldn't tell you how expensive it was for them to come here and install.
This dish on my roof.
So now, of course I ended up paying because I broke my contract, so I had to pay them like four hundred dollars to get out of it. But the reality is it costs big money for these companies to come to your house to install the network, to install the wiring, to install the boxes, to run the cables for the TVs. So I personally think that all these
companies kind of like what's happening. And when it comes to something like Comcast or AT and T or Charter which owns Spectrum, I mean they also own the cable pipes that come to your house. So until the networks come along, the wireless networks come along, that can really take over your home Internet, and we haven't seen that in a big way just yet. I think they're still sitting pretty good, in a pretty good position. Yes, are
things changing, Yes, are things evolving. Absolutely, But if you look at it up Comcast, you know they own Internet and a lot of the direct TV, and AT and T, yeah, they own a lot of Internet. They also own DirecTV now Dish network, they own Sling TV, Verizon they own well they're gonna own you know, these five G networks that they're putting out all over the US or they're trying to. So again, they know that they're gonna capture
a lot of those wireless customers as well. And they ditched FiOS in a lot of places too, so they don't even care about their cable companies. And then who else do we have and I miss anyone. Charter is
obviously Spectrum. They own the internet pipes and you know, so the reality is you can save money right now and by cutting all these services, Like for me, I was paying I think it was I think it was about two hundred dollars a month to direct TV and now I have direct TV Now which is forty I also have you know, I have Netflix, which is another sixteen dollars a month, And I think that's it for my main services. But the reality is they're just going
to keep uping these prices. We've already seen Netflix up its prices. I've already been in the two years I've been a Direct TV Now customer, my price is gone up by five dollars. So we're noticing the same kind of trend that we saw with wired cable that we're seeing with all these streaming services. They just continue to up the rates over the years. And by the way, we're going to see a couple of new services. According to Variety, Disney Plus a lot of parents very excited
for what Disney Plus is gonna do. WarnerMedia they are going to have a new streaming service. And don't forget they own CNN and a whole bunch of other networks, NBCUniversal, they own a whole bunch of networks like E and a ton of cable channels. So again, the funny thing that we're not seeing in this world of cord cutting is what consumers wanted all along from the beginning, and that is the ability to subscribe to individual channels that they enjoy. So, for instance, if you're into golf, what
channel do you want in your cable network? All you want is the golf channel that's your favorite. That's the only one. You pay five bucks a month for that easily. If you're into entertainment, all you want is a standalone subscription to E. If you're into news, all you want is a standalone CNN subscription or something like that. But we haven't seen all these channels break out. We have seen a couple of premium channels breakout, like I think
you can get Showtime on its own. I think you can get Obviously, you can get HBO on its own. I think they were the first to do it, and let's see. The other one is Stars that you can get on sown as well.
But we haven't seen.
These little cable channels really break out, like the Food Network. I mean, some people just love the Food Network and would pay, you know, three dollars a month just to have Food Network, and it would save them eighty bucks a month on the other channels that they don't care about. So again we're seeing all these companies. The trend is that the wired companies and the satellite companies are losing subscribers, but we are seeing an uptake in some of the
streaming services. And one interesting note that they mentioned in this article from Variety, Todd Spangler's the author here is these virtual PayTV services have a much lower subscri fiber acquisition costs. Like I mentioned, they don't have to come to your house to do anything. You just download an app to your Apple TV and next thing you know, you're watching YouTube TV or HBO. But they also have
higher churn. You can easily cancel these services. So when you had cable, you had to physically get rid of the cable box. When I my my Dish Direct TV and Dish Network. I had Dish back in the day, I had to send back my DVR. It was a big pain in the butt because you know, they're like, you know, you're gonna lose all your recordings and you gotta They wanted me to go up to the dish and take off the transmitter. I said, no way am
I ever doing that. You can come here and take the transmitter off, but no, I'm not doing I'm not climbing on top of my house and doing that. Direct TV did not ask me to do that, I don't believe. But yeah, dish wanted me to go up on the tree and grab the the whatever the transmitter was off the dish and I said, no, not doing that. I'll send back your box, but I'm not doing that. But here's something I thought was pretty interesting. Saw this on
Reddit Los Angeles. This guy says he just got his Spectrum Internet only bill lowered from sixty five ninety nine a month to fifty ninety nine for one hundred megabits per second.
Now I pay on mine.
I believe it's fifty five a month, so I'm ten dollars lower. Now, I will tell you they did try. So I was on the promotion. It was forty five bucks a month for one hundred and then all of a sudden, my promotion ended after a year. I called in because it went to sixty five ninety nine and they didn't care.
And that's what he says in his.
Comment, he says, for the past five months, I've been pissed that I had to pay sixty five ninety five a month after the forty five ninety nine new customer promo year was up. And he said he called and threatened to switch services. They didn't care. Now, I will tell you I've called Spectrum now about three times since I've been a customer for I think the past two years, and they do not care. They know that you are streaming all kinds of stuff like Netflix, and they know
that your providers are limited. They know that you probably only have one other choice when it comes to internet coming into your house, so they do not care. You can threaten to quit all you want. I called the other day and I threatened to quit. They literally did not care. Now they said, okay, that's fine, let me transfer you. They were going to transfer me to another department to see if they can figure out a deal.
But I didn't get that far because I waited on hold for ten minutes and I just couldn't put up with it anymore.
But what we're.
Seeing is these companies don't care.
Now.
This guy, what he says is he got a piece of mail in his mailbox that said they had an Internet plus cable promo for forty four ninety nine, and he said, hey, what's up with that?
I'm paying sixty five.
Dollars just for internet and they lowered it to fifty dollars. But and he's locked in for the next twelve months. So bottom line, it's worth calling Spectrum and just saying, hey, look, I'm seeing that you're giving this new deal forty five bucks a month, and can I get something that's just as good, and also be prepared to switch. Now where I live, I can get another internet provider which is actually faster than Spectrum, for a little bit more a month.
So it's one of these things where you have to be prepared to switch, and I was. I was prepared to switch if I have to. I'm going to probably call in and actually talk to someone and just see if I can do this as well. But I will say the only thing that I thought is a little bit tough about this is when I got the cable plus internet promo in my mail. I just got this in my mail as well this week. I thought the
forty four to ninety nine was each. I thought it was forty five dollars for Internet and forty five dollars for the TV service, which would be ninety dollars a month. He's saying that it was forty five dollars for both. I don't think that's the case. So you can check, but look closely when you get that mail, or if you haven't already gotten it. But I remember it saying that it was forty five dollars a month for each service.
And so that's why I didn't really call in like he did, because I was like, well, they're not going to really do anything for me, because this is something they want you to bundle, right. The whole point of their business is to get you to spend more by bundling more things. Justine from the red Lands with rich what can I help you with?
Hi?
Yes, I just upgraded from the Pixel to the Verizon customer. I was a Sprint for like twelve years and I went to Verizon. I got tired of Spring and I had a Pixel.
For like a year and a half and it gave me to a lot of problems, and I went with the Galaxy T eight.
Is that what it's called? Okay, maybe I'm saying maybe I'm saying it wrong.
That could be a model. I'm not totally familiar with that.
It's got a pen.
Oh oh the Galaxy no date? Got it?
Yes, yes, I'm sorry the no date. Thank you? And okay, I'm gonna say my question stupid too. Okay, I'm having I keep hitting the left side of the phone and I keep getting this. Fix me what is that? And it's annoying and how can I get it?
Okay, Well, Bixby, Bixby is is basically their version of Google Assistant or Siri. But that's Samsung's version of that. So what what's happening is there's a dedicated button on the left side of the phone, right underneath the two volume buttons. That is the Bixby activation button. And and yes, I'm well aware that I say button a little bit different, but I'm from New Jersey, so give me a break.
But you're oh.
You're from New Jersey.
I love it.
See then I say then I say button just the way you'd say button. So you can basically disable this in the settings. So the first time that you open Bixby, you can't fully disable it, but you can kind of turn off some aspects of it. But go into Bixby once you turn it on or activate it, and then go into your settings and basically turn off everything that says to activate Bixby. I believe they kind of go through soft or changes. At one point, you could turn
off the button completely. Some people actually use these apps called remappers, and it will actually when you press that button, it'll bring up like Google Assistant or another app that's actually useful to you.
You can do that.
I don't really recommend those because they kind of it's a not a very clean system, so I would just try to disable it as much as possible. So you've got let's see what they lets you do right now. Bixby key is one of the options right now, press once to open or press twice to open, So I would recommend the option to press twice to open, and there will be a less chance that you will accidentally activate that.
Justine, Oh, okay, no problem.
How are you liking the phone otherwise?
I am. I did not like the pixel.
Oh what about the pixels?
I don't know. I was having a lot of issues with the part I did like about Verizon after switching from Sprint was that I do like that they have the tech coach. Okay on the phone, and I use it a whole lot. So I'm not tech savvy, so I do like that, and so I'm a big fan of Verizon. I don't know, I had a lot of problems I was getting, like I would miss phone calls and things like that. Wow, And so the Pixel was not I was not a fan of the Pixel.
I call it a one trick pony because it really is. It's a great camera, but other than that, it kind of leaves other things to be desired. It's got some good software from Google. But I think the note the Samsung devices, they've got so many cool features that people that's why people really have seen them as the alternative to the iPhone.
Exactly it did take Yeah, pictures are fine. Pictures are exactly fine.
You are so right, all right, Justine.
Thanks for calling in.
Justine in the Redlands formerly of New Jersey, and thanks for.
Calling in on the show.
Thanks, thanks so much. Rich.
Today's podcast brought to you by one and one Handy Tech Tips for the iPhone. That's my book. One hundred and one Handy Tech Tips for the iPhone is a best selling iPhone guide on Amazon. I wrote it. You guys have reviewed it. The reviews have come in. They've been excellent. Thank you for that. Believe last time I checked it was about four and a half stars on Amazon, which is no easy feat. By the way, I wrote
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if you want to share them with family members. Bottom line, you're gonna feel smarter about your iPhone, You're going to accomplish more in less time, and you're gonna feel better about the money you've spent on this very expensive device. I get a lot of questions about which iPhones it works for. If you have iOS twelve installed on your device, this book applies to you. It's called one hundred and one Handy Tech Tips for the iPhone. It's available now
in paperback and in kindle editions on Amazon. Just go to rich on tech dot tv slash book for more information, or just search one hundred and one Handy Tech Tips for the iPhone on Amazon. Well, well, well, it is a long time coming, but Samsung finally has their answer to the Apple Store. The company is opening up three new retail stores. And guess what I got an early sneak peek at their location in Los Angeles or near Los Angeles if you're really getting me on a technicality.
It's in Glendale at the Americana at Brand And let me tell you, I got a tour of the store and this is the real deal. This is Samsung's first retail store. Now some of you may say, wait a second, rich, what are you talking about. Samsung has had stores in the past. Well they really haven't. They've got a store in New York, but it's not actually a store. They call it Samsung eight thirty seven. I've been there. It's in the meatpacking district, and that's what's what they call
an experience center. So you can't actually buy the stuff that's on display there, which I think is a missed opportunity by the way. But this new store, they call a Samsung Experience Store, is a store where you can see all the different Samsung products, but you can also purchase them at the end of the day. Now that's great. They have all this stuff on hand, you know, like the phones, the TVs, they have all the accessories that
they sell, all the watches, all the watch bands. So if you're a Samsung fan, this is a must stop. You gotta see this place. It looks you know, I'm not gonna say it looks like an Apple store, but of course it has that same feel where you can go in, you can hang out, there's a lot of places to sit everything's on display, you can play with everything.
Hopefully the people that.
Are in there are very knowledgeable about the products, because that's one of the differentiating factors between say a Samsung store and just going into like you know, a wireless carrier store and buying the product or maybe a Best Buy. A lot of these locations with Samsung, you know, they they've trained the people that are at those little stores.
So I know they have like a Samsung store inside a lot of Best Buys, and a lot of times the people inside that little Samsung store inside the Best Buy are trained by Samsung, so they're.
Knowledgeable about the products.
But this takes it to the next level because these people are living, breathing it every single day. So, like I said, the first stores are opening at the Americana at Brand in Los Angeles, which is just outside just outside Los Angeles, I should say, which is Glendale, beautiful place, the Americana, by the way. The second store is Long Island in Garden City, and then you've got the Galleria
in Houston. So those are the first three, and I know for a fact that the Americana is opening on February twentieth.
It says that three stores are going to.
Open all on the twentieth of February, so that's the target date. Now, the thing I think is the most interesting aspect of these stores is the fact that you can finally go into a Samsung store and get your Samsung product serviced.
Now.
I know that there's been a lot of these repair shops that you can bring your Samsung to they'll replace the screen, all that kind of stuff, But how nice is it that Samsung will have a physical location where you can bring your device, get help, ask questions, and also get some on site repairs.
Now, beyond the screen.
Repair, Samsung wasn't very forthcoming about what other repairs they can do, but I do know that you can get.
Your screen repaired on site.
Could also get a TV repaired there, which I don't really understand because I mean, to me, TVs are so cheap these days.
Who brings them in for repair?
I don't even know if TV's break, but it has to be under forty inches so you can bring your flat screen in and they will troubleshoot it. But I mean, do TVs really break?
I don't know.
I mean, I've had my TVs forever and I don't feel like they ever break these days back in the day. Yeah, maybe tube and projection, but flat.
Screens, I don't know. They just kind of they're kind of like a workhorse.
These are also permanent locations. These are not just pop up shops. These are permanent locations. And I asked Samsung if they're going to open more past these three. They did not say. Now, I personally think I would expect that they will transform their Samsung eight thirty seven at the Meatpacking District into a real store. I would hope they would do that. I'm not sure. They didn't say they were gonna do that. But again, this is now
their answer to the Apple Store. And I think it's a really cool thing for Samsung enthusiasts because you've got this great community of Samsung fans with nowhere to go, and now that they have a location. It's kind of cool because you go into Apple stores, there's always a million Apple people in there and they're all, you know,
talking and chatting or whatever. I think it's really cool now that you can go into a Samsung store and you can sit in one of these like lounge areas that they have there and just kind of see other people and talk to other people and just kind of be part of that community. Two things you have to check out if you go there. Number One, right now, they're doing a promotion if you buy a case at one of these Samsung Experience retail stores, they will laser
engrave it on site for free. So that's kind of cool. So definitely take advantage of that if you need a case for your Galaxy phone or your tablet or whatever. Well I don't know, yeah, I guess for a tablet they would do that too. The other thing is that they have this VR set up there and it's with the Gear VR, but they've got this seat that you sit in and it's like a full VR experience. They call it four D, and believe me, it was pretty
I went on it. It was a roller coaster, a six Flags roller coaster, and I'll admit I was a little apprehensive when I got on this roller coaster because not a huge fan of the crazy roller coasters.
I'll go on them.
It's been a while, but I will go on them, and this was pretty realistic and so definitely check that out.
I thought it was a lot of fun.
They have like the chair will actually blow air into your face if the whole chair moves, you actually strap yourself in, so it doesn't go upside down or anything. I mean, the roller coaster does, but it's all simulated. So that was pretty cool. And again, the new Samsung Experience stores open in Los Angeles, Long Island, and Houston
on February twentieth. I should mention, since we're talking about Samsung, if you're in the market for a Samsung device, you probably want to hold off until February twentieth because that's when Samsung is unveiling their brand new devices. So they'll be unveiling their brand new S ten lineup. And also the rumor is a foldable device as well. I don't think you're able to buy that very soon, but I guess sometime this year perhaps, And also we could see
some surprises like wearables and stuff like that. So if you're in the market for the S nine, I would just wait to see what the S ten does. Even if you don't want to buy the latest, greatest, newest one, usually the prices drop on the old devices when the new ones come out. Now again, these stores open on
February twentieth. I don't think they're going to have the new devices in the stores that day, because usually what happens is Samsung announces the devices and then it's about, you know, a couple of weeks, a week or two before they come out, So that'll give the stores about a week to change over everything. But just something to know again, big Samsung event on Wednesday, February twentieth, so we will have much more Samsung news then. Mark from OHI you're on with Rich? How's it going?
Hey? Rich? How are you doing today?
I'm doing fantastic.
How are you?
We're doing great? Love your book, pon it for Christmas. Can't get enough of it.
Thank you.
We had to upgrade, just had to upgrade from my iPhone six battery went dead. Didn't want to put money into it, so I upgraded to the iPhone XR. Okay, I've been sitting here on a rainy day, look at reading your book, trying to get familiar with the phone. And the one thing I'm having issues with is my voice control in my truck I have. I'll give it a voice command to dial a number and it won't go through. It just dies. So what do I need to do?
M Okay? So well, thanks for buying the book. By the way, one hundred and one handy tech tips to the iPhone. Appreciate that. So what kind of truck do you have? And how are you making these calls? Is it straight up bluetooth or are using.
Car play Bluetooth? My truck does not have that year. It's a twenty sixteen Ford F one fifty. Okay, and so when you meet, but I'm just blue just bluetooth.
So you're just doing bluetooth and you what do you say? Do you say hey Siri and then try to call it? How do you how are you actually calling it?
Mike? I hit the voice activation and I say please call so and so?
Okay?
And then what happens?
So you're using Ford's Ford Sync to do that? Yes, okay, so the voice three, So the voice command is going to sync three and then it's handing it off to the iPhone somehow, or it's actually probably just using the address book from your device. So where does it go after that? What happens?
It dies? My iPhone six I had no problem with, so I know there's got to be a toggle that I haven't switched on or something to that nature.
So does the call ever connect or does it just literally it drops everything like it says, does it ever say calling the person?
No, it never makes it that far. Oh wow, it just as soon as I make the voice command, it dies.
Interesting, it sounds like it's something on your phone. Have you so you connected your phone? Did you disconnect your old phone? Have you deleted it out of the system on the ford?
I did?
You did? Okay, and it's still happening. What about when you go into your settings on Bluetooth and you go into your car, is everything like sync contacts, all your groups, all the contacts. Are those all kind of synced up? All those toggles.
I'll have to double check that, right man. That might be one place to look.
Yeah, I would. I would start there. So my to troubleshoot this for me personally, what I would do is I would on your car, I would delete everything out of there, so delete the phone, delete the old phone, make sure everything is disconnected from Bluetooth. Then I would go into your phone. I would disconnect everything from your phone.
So whatever you have connected to this car, I would make sure it's disconnected, and then I would, you know, restart my phone, and then I would reconnect the phone to sync. And also i'd make sure that there aren't any software updates with SINC because the ten hour is a new device. This is an older model. It's I mean, it's not old. It's only a couple of years old.
I know, right, but I know technology goes quickly.
It does, and especially with Bluetooth. I mean, it should be backwards compatible, but everything as they change these protocols is like different. Sometimes. The base functionality though, of a voice command to your phone activating should work. I mean that that's a pretty basic thing. So I would check those things and see if that will help. I think I've had there and you're not. You're just dialing out regular kind of like you're not using Google Voice or anything like that.
Now, just call it just just my standard my standard call list.
And has it ever worked with this device?
No, because I've only had this device for two days. Oh okay, my old phone work perfectly.
Yeah, okay, Well, if your old phone worked perfectly, I think there's hope for this one working. So I think it's it's obviously going to work. I think that there might be either the address book isn't fully synced or there's something kind of holding this up. So I would, like, I said, delete everything start over again, make sure that it's all fresh, restart your phone, and then connect, make
the connection again with Bluetooth and try it again. And i'd also just go online and make sure that you have the latest version of Sync on your device in your car, because that could make a difference too. Sometimes when these new phones come out, you know, there's there's some growing pains there. But it's a pretty popular truck model and it's a pretty popular phone model, so I
would I would hope that they would end up working. Okay, what if what if you learned in the book so far mark that you, uh, did this surprised you anything yet?
Significant locations?
Okay, that's a good one.
And then just learning some of the serie tips on That's what I've been reading today since it's raining today. It just reading some of the SERI tips and how it can assist you that way. That's what I've been doing most of the day to day.
Very cool.
Well, thanks for buying the book. I appreciate it. And when you get through it a little bit more, maybe leave a review on Amazon. That always helps. Let me know what happens. Email, Give me an email and tell me what happens with the truck will do.
Thanks Rich, see you tomorrow morning.
All right, Mark, thank you see then bye bye. All State announced that it has acquired I Cracked. And this is again another company where man, I'm I'm doing pretty well here. I had this company in when they first started at KTLA. They came in for an interview and it was such a crazy idea back then because it was a guy who started it, Aj and he started this company where it was kind of like the uber
of screen repair. So let's say you were a guy that was into technology or a girl and you knew how to do these screen repairs, Like I replaced the battery on my iPod once and I thought I was like so cool. And then I did the story with this guy called the iPod Surgeon, Joe Kempy in Central Los Angeles. And again this guy he had people come to him. But again, if you know how to do this and you can go to people, you can drive.
This is what I Crack did. So they had these techs all over the US and they would just go to you and do on site screen repairs and also other little repairs. Well guess what it paid off because several years later, Square Trade, which is owned by all State, is now buying I Cracked. And what does this mean for Square Trade, Well, it means that if you have the protection plan from Square Trade, which I highly recommend, by the way, versus your carrier protection plans, it's a
whole lot cheaper. You can now get I Cracked service with your plan, which is really cool. So that means you don't have to go to a facility to get your phone repaired, or you don't have to send in your phone. So again, I Cracked will come right to you. And Aj Forsyth, the I Cracked CEO, said, we are excited to join Square Trade, a company that shares our commitment to delivering high quality, on demand service to customers. They operate in sixty plus metropolitan areas in the US
and Canada. And there you have it. So now I Cracked is part of Square Trade, which is part of All State. And congratulations to Aj, a guy who I've I think I've interviewed him two or three times, and I'll never forget the first time they came into KTLA. It's like this little company and this guy, he was a kid basically, and he comes in with this new idea and I was just like, wow, it kind of blew my mind that this could be a thing.
But Uber was just starting and it was kind.
Of like the just the seeds of our undemanned economy, and he really had the foresight to kind of see the potential for that.
And kudos to him now.
He's his idea has really really done well.
So congrats to you.
Ring is rolling out a new feature. Okay, this one you got to stick with me on. I'm not sure if it's good, bad, indifferent, whatever. But they have this Neighborhoods app which is if you have a ring video doorbell, they have this separate app called Neighborhoods right, which is kind of like their next door for neighborhoods, and it's a place where people can share videos and you know, things that are happening in their neighborhood, videos from the
ring doorbell, people stealing packages, whatever. But here's the thing they're doing now, So they're linking up with police in neighborhoods. So police have this software where they can now contact people in the area that have a ring video doorbell and ask them if they don't mind sharing their ring videos if there's been a crime in the area. So they don't have access to your camera. Let's just be
clear about that. The police cannot tap into your camera, nor can anyone see a live feet of your camera at any time. Right, But if you choose to share a video from your camera, that is made public to people, so you can share a clip. But the layer, the wrinkle that's really interesting is let's say there's a crime
in your neighborhood. You know a lot of times, you know, a car gets stolen, or there's a you know, kidnapping, whatever happens, or some sort of crazy thing happens in a neighborhood, and all these people have video doorbells that may capture something.
Right, you never know. I work in the news.
Ever, nine times out of ten, when something happens, there is some sort of surveillance video camera that caught this thing on camera, this incident. But how do you find it. There's no real way except knocking on the.
Doors of the businesses. Hey, do you have a camera installed? Was it running?
It operating this night, here's the time, here's the place, and you know, yes, no, whatever, it's a lot of work. Well, imagine now, if you're in this neighborhood, something happens on your street, and the police can now send everyone that has a ring a little notification that says, hey, we had a crime in your neighborhood. We're looking for this person. Would you mind sharing a video from your camera at you know, one am to two am with the police department.
And that's kind of the deal here.
Now I understand it's kind of scary, it's kind of big brotherish, But again, they don't have access to your camera. You are feeding. You are giving this video to them willingly, right. But here's where it gets interesting. What if one day it's not willingly. What if one day they're like, look, we have to subpoena this video from your camera because you have it. Why are you hiding this from us? Why are you keeping this from us? Why are you
maybe we're going to start investigating you. So again, it gets kind of crazy when you really think of the implications. At first, it sounds innocent and you're helping and you're contributing to a greater good of society. But when you really think about it, these new systems and all these speakers and microphones and monitoring systems, they do add a wrinkle to the fabric of society. When it comes to who owns this stuff? I mean, who is it mine?
Is it?
Should I hand this over? Do I have to hand it over? Is there you know? Is there precedent that says I must hand over this this video that's mine. I mean, it's on my personal property. But I was recording something that you know, the police are investigating. I mean, it's very fascinating. I can talk about it all day, but I just want you to be aware of that.
I understand there are privacy concerns, but we are in a brave new world of this stuff, so there's gonna be some some fumbles and stumbles along the way.
But I like having mine. I think it's a good thing overall.
And I think if you have one of these things, the benefit has outweighed the potential concerns you've had over.
This thing when it comes to privacy.
And finally, Kroger this week day viewed a new mobile payment option. It's going to be launching in two states, but they say it's going to go nationwide by the end of the year.
It's called Kroger Pay.
And if you're wondering why I'm talking about Kroger, well, they pretty much own every grocery store in America. They own Ralphs in the southern California area. They own a whole bunch of different grocery store chains all across America. They're one of the biggest, if not the biggest, and they are one of the last holdouts when it comes to mobile payments. And when you think mobile payments, a couple of the big companies that don't accept them. Target was one of them, and they just got on board
with Apple Pay and the others. And the other one is Walmart. They do not accept any mobile pay except their own, which you know, here's the thing, and I'll just be honest. I mean, look all these companies that are holding out and doing their own mobile payments.
It's going to fail.
I'm sorry, but I'm not going to use Well, let me just explain what this is. So. Kroger Pay is an app that generates you link your credit or debit card and then when you get to check out, they put a you know, you basically bring up the app, it makes a QR code, the cashier scans it, and now you can pay for your purchase right and it takes the money out of your.
Credit or your debit card. Well, here's the thing.
Do you really want to use one separate thing just for Kroger. I mean, that's very unrealistic for the average consumer. And I get it the rewards, because they're going to link rewards and fuel points to this purchase, you know, these purchases at Kroger. But is that really enough? So, yes, you will get some people to adopt this payment system. But here's my mantra. You gotta do what's best for the customer. And this is not in the spirit of
things for the customer. The customer wants to use Samsung Pay if they have a Samsung phone. The customer wants to use Google Pay if they have an Android. The customer wants to use Apple Pay if they have an iPhone. They don't want to use Kroger Pay. And I'm telling you this, and I know this as a person who covers technology on a daily basis.
Kroger, you're doing the wrong thing.
It's the same kind of thing. It happened when you looked at CVS. They were trying to do something their own payment system and guess what never even saw the light of day. And now CVS is I think they're taking mobile payments as well, I think they're doing it too, but people don't want to have different ways to pay. I get you can have your loyalty card. That's fine, but you can't sit there and you know, expect us to download ten different apps for ten different stores just
because you want to control the entire experience. Right, So, I think that this is going to be a major fail. But again, we'll see what happens Kroger Pay and Kroger Rewards, will you know, we'll be They're starting it in Columbus in Colorado, then they're going to expand it to ten cities this spring and then go nationwide later this year. All this according to WCPO. I guess they got the exclusive with Kroger, but Kroger, I get it there the
margins are very thin in the grocery store business. But come on, I mean, look at even Whole Foods owned by Amazon. Amazon, if they wanted to, could require everyone that shops on their website to use their checking account, right they would say, look, we're not accepting Visa MasterCard debit cards because it's too expensive. We want you to just use your checking account number to pay with us. And by the way, they do do that they allow that,
and they incentivize it. They actually give you a little bit bonus on your money if you do it that way. But again, I haven't done it that way because guess what, I'm gonna use my credit card just like everyone else, or my debit card, and I just don't think that people want to use all these different systems. And here's
the other thing. Kroger wants to control the data too, because when you shop at Kroger with your Visa card or your MasterCard or your Apple pay number one, Apple Pay and Samsung, they all get a little tiny percentage of that profit. So does Visa, so does MasterCard. So if Kroger can get you just on their system, they can control not only more the data of that transaction,
but also more of that financial transaction. So if they're letting you link a debit card and a credit card, yeah, they're still going to be paying those transaction fees on those on those transactions, but at the same time they control more of the experience. So it's not anything different than they're already doing. They already let you use your
Visa or MasterCard. But personally, Kroger, it annoys me every time I go into Ralph's, and I just I can't stand the fact that it's like the one store I shop at that I cannot use mobile payments, even at McDonald's. I mean, all these fast food places they'll know they'll accept mobile payments as well. Well, that's gonna take us to the end of the show. Thanks so much for listening to the rich on Tech podcast. You can get in touch with me rich Demiro on Instagram. I am
at rich on Tech. If you're not following me there, please follow me there because I'm doing a lot more on Instagram. Of course, I'm still on Facebook, Facebook, dot Com, slash rich on Tech, and if you really want to go ahead and follow me on Twitter, I'm on there.
I'm just not on there as much.
These days because I really feel like a lot of the growth I'm seeing is on Instagram and Facebook and the podcast and the book, basically anything except Twitter.
I love Twitter.
I love it as a communication platform. It's like texting for everyone in the world.
But the reality is it's just your.
Stuff is just not seen by as many people as it is when I post it to Instagram and Facebook. So that's where I'm going to go. If you want to download this podcast. Just go into your podcasting app and subscribe. Just search Rich on tech or you can go to my website rich on tech dot tv.
Again.
The book is one hundred and one Handy Tech Tips for the iPhone. I am aware that many of you want a book for Android as well. If I can figure out a way to do that and fit it into my schedule, I will absolutely write a book on Android too, But don't hold me to that because I don't currently have any plans to do that, but I do hear you, guys. Thanks so much for listening, Thanks so much for watching me on KTLA every morning five am, seven am and nine am hours. And you guys have
a great day wherever you're listening. Thanks so much, and please share this show with your friends. Take a screenshot of it on your phone playing the podcast, and share it to your social networks, and be sure to tag me so I can reshare. I'm rich dmiro rich on tech dot t BE. I'll talk to you real soon.
Mhm.