🎙️ 33: Smart home tech, Ralph Lauren in the metaverse, smart toilets, and snacks

Rick Huckstep and Shaun Weston discuss smart home technology, including security concerns and the market for smart speakers. Plus, Ralph Lauren's investment in the metaverse, Google's new VR glasses.

Aug 31, 2023

🎙️ The Big Tech Little Tech Podcast

In the latest episode of Big Tech Little Tech, Rick and Shaun discuss smart home technology. It’s a subject that divided them, with Shaun being an enthusiastic user of smart home gadgets and Rick ambivalent to it all.

That’s not to say that this isn’t a huge market and there are many upsides to the use of home automation technology which is dominated by smart speakers and security systems. But there are also downsides, including security concerns and a lack of interoperability.

The range of smart home tech is broad and includes smart devices in the kitchen and fun, if not banal IoT gadgets like smart toilets and showers that turn themselves off (why not use the tap, says Rick?)

In other news, the pair talk about the CEO of Ralph Lauren's investment in the metaverse, declining TV viewership, Google's latest VR headset collaboration with Samsung and Qualcomm, and the wind-powered cargo ship Pyxis Ocean.

The news roundup includes AI-generated art, EU's battery regulation, Microsoft's bid for Activision, and OpenAI's GPT 3.5.

Shaun and Rick