Dave Zatz 
I’ve got some good news and I’ve got some bad news. Which are one in the same. It’s a matter of perspective, I suppose.
As we twiddle our thumbs in anticipation of TiVo Bolt, the DVR pioneer’s next streaming app has presented itself. Nope, it’s not HBO, Showtime, nor ESPN. It’s WWE. Although I’m not overly excited, there are clearly a couple of you who will be once the app hits within the next few weeks.
The largely forgotten Cinema Now movie streaming service, once acquired and then sold by Best Buy, appears to have launched a promotion in cooperation with Roku… that seemingly announces the Roku 4. Or a line of 4k Rokus. Hard to tell if this is a clerical error or true indicator that a Roku 4 set-top and 4k-streaming Roku TVs will … Read more
We know smart home is hard. Just ask Wink. Or Nest. Well, it turns out, Apple’s HomeKit hasn’t yet lived up to its promise. And, shortly after launch, Insteon pulled their HomeKit-compatible hub from the market… due to firmware issues and inventory limitations. Over two months later there are signs they’re ready to try again. But are you? … Read more
Amazon Web Services had a really bad Sunday AM. Specifically, resources in my ‘hood were sucking wind… Yeah, Amazon AWS hosted in Virginia has been struggling… http://t.co/o46sSQKTpd pic.twitter.com/mjXf7mTyaF — Dave Zatz (@davezatz) September 20, 2015 Amongst the large number of websites and cloud services inaccessible this AM, was Google’s Nest. Despite being a Google company, and … Read more
Remember that Android or iOS SlingPlayer app that cost you $15 (or even $30!) to beam your Slingbox video around? Well, the company is retiring it. And you’re welcome to replace it with a free, ad-infested variant. Oh, you don’t like ads? Sling will gladly take another 15 of your hard earned dollars to remove them via an … Read more
As we continue to examine the updated Sonos Android app that revealed the upcoming touch-sensitive, second generation Play:5 connected speaker, we’ve learned that Sonos looks to further improve audio quality by listening to room acoustics – as we often see with home theater receivers. This new feature, called Trueplay, uses the mic on your mobile device to analyze acoustic performance in a given space. Presumably units with more speakers can be fine tuned to overcome positioning obstacles while units with fewer speakers might elicit suggestions to move it to another location.
There are multiple references to using the internal Android’s microphone for walking and waving as the analysis is conducted. Further, within the Android app code, there’s even reference to using an iPad microphone, so iOS support is clearly on the docket. Given some of the wording, I also wonder if newer Sonos models like the ZPS6 could even include their own mics. And while self tuning is great, the potential for Echo-esque voice control is absolutely stellar. Make it so!
As the story goes, I’ve been tracking at least one new incoming Sonos speaker — the S100 aka RM010. And after unpacking a publicly available Sonos beta APK for Android, I came across several interesting renders. They appear to show a sleeker Play:3 or Play:5 that does away with hardware buttons on top in favor … Read more