Belkin Wemo Stage review, MagSafe chargers, & networking on HomeKit Insider

Aqara announces a new curtain motor, we highlight new MagSafe accessories from Belkin and Mophie, Stephen plans his new home network and home theater setup, Andrew reviews the Wemo stage controller, and we answer listener questions in this week's episode of HomeKit Insider.

In HomeKit news this week, Aqara's new HomeKit curtain motor was revealed. It will glide along the rail, bringing your curtains in tow. It will require an Aqara hub but otherwise will support Apple HomeKit.

Eero also appears to have new products incoming with several Wi-Fi 6e routers making their way through the FCC.

We then go on a tangent talking about the recent new MagSafe devices coming to market, such as those from Belkin and Mophie.

Stephen then spends some time discussing his new house and his plans for blanketing his home in fast Wi-Fi.

To wrap up the episode we review the Belkin Wemo Stage now that it has been updated to support Thread.

Links from the show

Those interested in sponsoring the show can reach out to us at: [email protected]

Keep up with everything Apple in the weekly AppleInsider Podcast — and get a fast news update from AppleInsider Daily. Just say, "Hey, Siri," to your HomePod mini and ask for these podcasts, and our latest HomeKit Insider episode too.

If you want an ad-free main AppleInsider Podcast experience, you can support the AppleInsider podcast by subscribing for $5 per month through Apple's Podcasts app, or via Patreon if you prefer any other podcast player.

Follow AppleInsider on Google News

1 Comment

AppleZulu

said about 2 years ago

Re: Stephen planning his new home network and home theater setup: Conduit. Conduit. Conduit.

While the walls are still open, run conduit everywhere for all your tech wiring. The only sure thing in deciding what network, speaker and tech wiring is best to run in a new house is the fact that some or all of it will be obsolete sooner than you think, no matter what you install right now. This is doubly true for someone whose profession involves trying out new tech gear. The best possible thing is to have conduit inside the walls that will make it comparatively easy to pull new wiring into all the places in the house in a few years.

Assuming civilization hasn't collapsed, it's otherwise almost a certainty that current gigabit ethernet wiring will be downright quaint in ten years. Whatever wireless standard also renders 5G quaint may do the same for all wired tech and wires-in-walls will be obsolete, or wireless 8G may simply be the means to bring ten or a hundred gigabit data to the house, and you'll want wiring inside that carries that to every room to bring content to your holographic entertainment devices. Or whatever.

If all that ultra-high-speed goodness becomes available to you, but you've zip-tied and stapled in CAT-6 ethernet behind the sheetrock when you had the chance to put it inside conduit instead, you will will want to kick yourself as you're stringing new wire along the floor behind the bookshelves and couch, while looking at those in-wall ethernet jacks that no longer serve any practical purpose.

Also, maybe you can't hear the difference so it doesn't matter to you, but surround speakers come in sets because they're calibrated and tuned to each other. To my ears, anyway, it would be better to get a moderately-priced matched set than to get nicer speakers for up-front and cheap, mismatched ones in back, even if your intent is to buy the matched back speakers later. Like every other tech business, speaker models change from year-to-year, and buying surround speakers to match your front-and-center speakers later is going to be about doing a hit-or-miss eBay search, because those speakers will have been discontinued and replaced by the manufacturer by then.

Latest comparisons