Eve's Tim Both discusses Matter's delayed launch on the HomeKit Insider podcast

HomeKit Insider

This week, Eve MotionBlinds launched in Germany through manufacturer Sonevo. This expanded availability of Eve's Thread-connected blinds continues the rollout that began earlier this year.

The Aura Air purifier was also updated this week with new firmware that enables support for Siri Shortcuts ahead of full HomeKit support. HomeKit was promised earlier this year, but the company ran into delays getting it rolled out.

Finally, the Philips Hue app Ambee was updated to version 2.0 recently which brought an entirely new redesign and several new features. Ambee allows you to dynamically change the lights on your Philip Hue bulbs for a more immersive experience.

The bulk of the episode was taken up by our interview with Tim Both who joins us once again to talk about Eve and Matter. Matter just announced yet another delayed launch until the fall of 2022. As staunch supports of Matter, we hear Tim's take on the delay.

Additionally, he shared exclusively with AppleInsider that Eve's upcoming outdoor HomeKit Secure Video camera has been slightly delayed. Instead of launching on April 5, it will now be available on May 17.

Links from the show

• Eve Website
• Eve Motion Blinds from Sonevo
• Aura Air Purifier
• AMBEE for Philips Hue Lights on the App Store
• Schlage Encode Plus Smart Wifi Deadbolt
• Wemo Thread Dimmer Update
• Matter QR Code

An interview with Eve's Tim Both

Andrew O'Hara

Welcome everybody to another thrilling episode of HomeKit Insider. You've got me, Andrew O'Hara, you're with my pal and famed peanut butter sculpturist? Sculpture maker? Artist? I don't know what your title is, Stephen, but Stephen Robles.

Stephen Robles

Artisan.

Andrew O'Hara

Peanut butter artisan. That just sounds like you make art with peanut, but not sculpture. It's the whole sculpture thing. That's your deal.

Stephen Robles

I consider my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to be art. So I would say that that is an accurate depiction. I am an artisan of peanut butter.

But Andrew, I'm excited because we have a third member here on today's episode. Returning guest from Eve, Tim Both.

Thanks so much for joining us, Tim.

Tim Both

Thanks for having me. Great to be here.

Stephen Robles

That's wonderful. We're going to a grill Tim later about where's the Eve dimmer and why the flair doesn't have thread yet.

No, I'm just kidding. We're not going to do that. Although I probably will ask maybe a little, yeah, maybe, maybe, maybe a little like a small flame.

Yeah, yeah. But great to have you here, Tim, and we will get to all the stuff in a moment.

Actually our first piece of news is about Eve, which is awesome, but Soneva actually has brought Eve motion blinds to Germany. So if you live over in Germany, you can buy Eve motion blinds.

And we've been covering over the last several weeks that Eve has been available, the motion blinds available from more and more vendors, and in more and more countries.

Have you guys been kind of working with those third party retailers to expand your reach?

Tim Both

Pretty much, but not, not directly. This is the first time we sort of do a cooperation with a company who's specialized in just that called Coulisse, and they have a great network of partners around the world that they work with because with.

With blinds, it's not usually a product, like a smart plug that you just buy in a store and plug into your outlet and you're done with it. You need to have like your exact measures, and there's like tons of fabric choices you want to take into account and all of that thing, which sort of makes just having one product on the shelf very difficult.

So there are all these great partners out there, like Soneva, like Select Blinds that you've mentioned in the past episodes, and many, many more around the world that do just that. They use the motor we've developed and put it into a really nice blind that fits your window perfectly with the fabric you want, and so that's the most straightforward way to get these.

Stephen Robles

Very cool. Andrew, you got anything you want to add to them?

Andrew O'Hara

Nope. I just like them. They're really cool.

Stephen Robles

They are very cool. I want to try some of these in my new home. We're five to six weeks away. I'll put a picture up. I just installed about 30 something HomeKit light switches, and the next step will be putting in some shades and door locks and all that.

So yeah, I'll be looking to see what Eve might offer in the near future. Tim. Let's see what you guys got. Sorry, just, just trying to get anything out of him. All right.

Well, Aura Air actually had an update. Andrew, it looks like you got some info on that. Tell me about Aura Air.

Andrew O'Hara

Yeah. Gosh, this was, this is like a storied thing. Like we'd mentioned it like 30 times now on the show. And I feel like it's like ups and downs. It's a rollercoaster.

So, Aura Air like around CES time was like, "Hey, HomeKit support coming to the Aura Air Purifier." And then they were like, "JK. No, not yet." And then they were like "another update's coming out soon that you can use shortcuts and stuff to control it."

And then it was radio silence, and we didn't get that update for awhile, but it is here now in the latest version of the Aura Air app. It does have full integration with Siri shortcuts, as well as, you know, Amazon's assistant and the Google assistant and all that kinda stuff. But Siri shortcuts.

So you can tie this into your scenes and your home care automations that way. There are four, I think, commands that you can do. So like you can put it into the quiet mode, full-on mode. There's like auto mode, stuff like that, that you can all control via Siri. So it's not full blown HomeKit support yet.

They still say that's coming, but at least in the meantime, you can integrate it into your scenes and automations that you already have.

Stephen Robles

Very cool. All right. There was also another app update to Ambi. I actually hadn't downloaded this app until I saw you put it in the notes, but Ambi is, uh, an app to control your Hue lights.

Is that right?

Andrew O'Hara

Yeah. It's a dynamic scene creator for Hue lights. And they came out with a big version 2.0 release. It's like automation. So all of your lights will change and flow. And instead of just like a static light, like light coming on and boom, that's what it is.

You can set a bunch of different colors and it'll cycle between them and you can choose the speed and all that kind of stuff.

So in version 2.0, they say it's completely redesigned, recoded from scratch. You can group lights by scenes, moods, colors, and sound. You can have favorites and you can add into albums that are coming shortly.

There are more controls for brightness, speed, volume, and pause. Picture and picture if you're watching a scene with it, there's a lot of cool stuff here.

They also added iPad support. So Hey, if you like your Hue lights and you want to kind of tie these scenes and these animations in, give it a try.

Stephen Robles

Very cool. We'll also, Schlage, the HomeKit lock that we have talked about for several weeks that actually supports Home Key. The first lock ever, if you want to use Home Key, this is the one to get, you can now buy it. It is available.

You can actually buy it in Home Depot, either the app or online, you know, check whether it's available in your store. But if you order it from Home Depot's website, you can get it delivered as soon as the next day, at least where I am here in the states. So exciting. First Home Key lock is now publicly available.

You can go buy it. That's awesome.

Andrew O'Hara

There's nothing against Schlage, but why is this the first Home Key lock? It's a little disappointing for me. Like Schlage's a big name, but the lock doesn't, isn't my style, and it's like kind of big and bulky and there are so many other HomeKit locks. I'm surprised we didn't see this drop with Level or August or something else.

And, you know, I don't know. This isn't my cup of tea. I got to try it. I mean, I'm for sure reviewing it and everything like that, but just a little disappointing that this is the first Home Key lock that comes to market, and it's kind of like big and bulky.

Stephen Robles

If only there was a HomeKit brand that does a lot of Thread stuff that doesn't even need a hub.

Maybe they could make a...

Andrew O'Hara

That works exclusively with HomeKit.

Stephen Robles

That would be amazing. Tim, do you have any idea if there's a brand like that, maybe making a lock sometime soon?

Tim Both

Maybe. I mean, the, the, the brand question sort of seems familiar that there might be one in my mind. I'm not sure they're working on the lock though.

Stephen Robles

Oh, okay. Okay. You see, the first time we have a guest on, it's all buddy-buddy. The second time we are going to grill you, we want some info. Some behind the scenes info.

Tim Both

Okay. I'm ready for that.

Stephen Robles

Alright, well, so yeah, the Schlage or Schlage. I forgot how to say it already. Andrew, the Schlage...

Andrew O'Hara

Nope. You've got peanut butter in your mouth.

Stephen Robles

That's what it was. I was just making a sculpture. This Schlage lock available now from Home Depot.

And final piece of news. Uh, this is not, they didn't announce it. The news was, we already announced that their Thread dimmers were going to be coming later this year. They'd said that at CES, but the Thread group tweeted that the new Thread Wemo, dimmers were coming soon.

And so I got excited. I quote-tweeted the Thread group and said, "Belkin, tell me, is it coming soon?" And Belkin confirmed once again summer is when we will see the Thread dimmers. And so, as you will see from the images of my HomeKit light switches, I bought a ton of Wemo dimmers. They are not Thread.

That is not coming till the summer as Andrew already predicted.

Andrew O'Hara

So, yeah. And we know this too, that the Thread group likes to get, uh, excited. I think sometimes with sharing, not like exclusive information, but like, they were all about like the Wemo stage scene controller having thread, but we didn't get that update for many, many months after they had their whole white page on it.

And its like, cool, No one can use this yet. So we know Thread group likes to push those like white pages before anything is even, you know, kind of out there. So I wasn't expecting this was like, imminent, when I saw them talking about that.

Stephen Robles

Right. Well, it just crushed my dreams officially. I just wanted to put that out there. I'll link in the tweet.

So. All right, well, we've got Tim Both here. Andrew, where are we going to grill him first? What do you want to do?

Andrew O'Hara

Well, I think we should, uh, we should talk about Matter. What do you think?

Tim Both

I love talking about Matter.

Stephen Robles

You mean that fictitious HomeKit standard?

Andrew O'Hara

We've talked a lot about it too.

Stephen Robles

"Matter: I'll believe it when I see it." That's the official tagline for Matter here on the podcast. That's such a great tagline, you know? Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Tim. All right, listen, you guys have announced Matter support for some of your products. We've been covering it the last several weeks. It's been delayed again, possibly till the fall, Tim what's going on with Matter?

Tim Both

Well, first of all, I mean, what's, what's there not to believe. I think this is it. It's hard to not believe in this because everybody's like joint this effort. So, so really this isn't a question at all about if this is gonna happen.

It's, it's been a question about when it's gonna happen, and that has shifted a bunch of times because it's a really, really ambitious project, but nevertheless, it will happen and it will be awesome.

Andrew O'Hara

So here's my worry, Tim. There are a lot of people getting together on this thing. Right. Which is good. It's great. Cause it's a lot of interoperability and theoretically, it would be a lot of, like, problem solved.

But at the same time between a lot of delays, a lot of, you know, not a lot of clarity on things like the certification process and how it works with various platforms like HomeKit, which is of course is on Apple.

But in like the question of, like, what products are gonna look like, when they launch. Between marketing and everything, it seems like it's going to be so confusing, so delayed, despite the fact that there's so many people involved with this. How are consumers going to react and understand and everything like that?

When it feels like the people in the industry don't even know how to feel or understand. I believe it will come, but whether or not it like takes off and becomes the defacto state. It seems like another question entirely

Tim Both

Well, I think I would disagree on that last part because, like sort of everybody in the industry agreed, this is what we need and this is what we're going to do.

And I think where a lot of the, the unknowns right now come from is because this was a very public process all along. So this wasn't like a bunch of companies behind closed doors, designing something, and then saying "okay, now it's launched, this is the product," but rather communicated a lot throughout the development of this, what the status is and what the plan is.

And so, so plans change. And everybody that has been dealing with software development specifically knows that it's really hard to plan, like what, what things are gonna pop up and what problems could arise and what sort of new ideas you want to get in there.

Ultimately software development is a process without a natural end.

So you need to find points in time where you commit that this is version one, for example, and then work on shipping that. And I think this is what we all have seen now that we sort of have obseserved the process before the product or the standard is done. We have sort of been getting glimpses at that, which doesn't mean that it will be much, much clearer once products are actually in people's hands, because I mean, the whole goal of this is to make it clearer and to make it easy for, yeah.

Stephen Robles

So I have a question. You guys are kind of HomeKit-first at Eve. You know, all of your devices are really HomeKit-first. And so I guess the first part of the question is, when Matter comes and you guys have adopted it, that means those in other smart home ecosystems, like Google home or Amazon's, will be able to use Eve devices in their smart home without HomeKit.

Right, right. That's what the goal is. Right. Right. So the follow-up question then. We've actually talked on the last episode about what happens when a HomeKit company stops supporting their cloud services. iHome announced that they're not supporting their services anymore, but they're devices that are HomeKit compatible stay in HomeKit. You can still use it in HomeKit and all that kind of stuff.

From your understanding, Tim, if a third party, let's say some light switch that is not currently HomeKit compatible, not HomeKit first, but they support Matter. Matter launches. And now Matter allows me as a HomeKit user to adopt that light switch into my HomeKit home, and I can control it and everything.

What then would happen if that company, like iHome, goes away? Does that HomeKit compatibility stay? Is that Matter? Like, does it stay like, can I still use it like normal? What happens? Do you, do you have any idea there?

Tim Both

Yeah. So, so you're both describing the problem and the solution that we, we currently have in the industry.

I mean, we, we are in a very special position because we are one of the only HomeKit-exclusive brands, the only a big one. And the reason for that has been, not because we don't like the product of the other people, but because the system set up was what's really, really messed up.

So, so it was cloud-to-cloud. It was cloud dependency and we don't have a cloud. Right. Didn't want to run a cloud, um, because for, for data reasons, for privacy reasons. So we never went that step and that has prevented us from being on the other platforms.

And the great thing about HomeKit is it's a local protocol, so it doesn't matter if we go belly up next year, the, the, the products will still work in the customer's home as, as happens with, uh, other companies products now, and Matter is the same thing.

So it's a local protocol. It works within your home. It's basically defining the language that is spoken between things much in the same way. That HomeKit is a language that can be spoken. So with Matter, you get everything that's great about HomeKit, but it now also works with non-Apple products at the end of the day.

Andrew O'Hara

So I think that, so the short version there is they will still work because it is local. So there's no reliance on third-party cloud server, right? Yeah. Okay. That's a good question. Here's my next question.

This is more Eve-specific. We've talked on the show about how Matter, especially in iteration one is going to be fairly broad and simple in terms of maybe what its commands are, like maybe lights we'll have like, you know, on and off and brightness and color control, but they're not going to have other specific things.

So what happens with products that have like special HomeKit features? So in this case, like right behind me, you guys probably can't see it in our narrow field of view here, but I've got an Eve light strip, which of course supports adaptive lighting, a HomeKit-specific feature.

How does that work? You know, when it comes into play with matter and other platforms, will they still be able to use those things?

And how do other products, you know, locks that have Home Key? That's a really HomeKit-specific feature, but if they work with Matter, how do those all play out and tie together?

Tim Both

So I can't really comment on Home Key because I don't work at a company that's working on a lock. Um, but let's dive a little bit into how, how this whole adaptive lighting works, for example, because that's one of the products we have.

The adaptive lighting stuff is actually run by your Home Hub. So that's part of the system requirements, basically that your Home hub decides, "okay, it's this time of the day and this weather condition and lighting condition. So this is the color temperature that the light strip should have."

And then it repeats that every once in a while to sort of adjust the lighting curve. The way this currently works is completely independent from the language, what the Home Hub talks with the light strip. So they can talk HomeKit and that works well today. We see that, but it wouldn't really matter.

Huh? That pun was not intended. No, it wasn't. It's hard to avoid those puns with, with, uh, the Matter of brand name.

But yeah. So it, it doesn't matter whether they talk Matter, same thing. So you sort of need that thing in your home that empowers those sort of features, adaptive lighting, and then it can work the very same way.

Stephen Robles

Okay. So, I mean, technically, if someone has an Amazon assistant home, not a single Apple hub in the. No Apple TV, no HomePod. They only have Amazon assistant Echos in their house. They have smart home devices that support Matter.

They want to get the Eve light strip that supposedly also supports Matter. Would they get adaptive lighting or not?

Tim Both

Tough question because I don't want to confuse people here. Each light strip is a Wi-fi product today. And so we're transitioning our Thread lineup to Matter, which notably does not include a light strip.

I don't actually know because we're not actively working on that. But what I can comment on is how a product like Eve Energy would work. For example, for Eve Energy, our smart plug, we have additional functionality that's not covered anywhere, right?

So of course you can turn it on and off and you can use the app, the Home app, Siri for that. But we also have energy metering functionality, which is sort of something custom that we built and implemented. And we completely used the HomeKit mechanisms for that, but in a way that that doesn't require it to be defined anywhere, right.

So that Apple doesn't have energy consumption in their Home app, but we do. So this is sort of the custom bits and pieces you can add to whatever is specified, um, to sort of enable those features and innovation ultimately for companies. So that's one mechanism to implement these kinds of things.

Andrew O'Hara

So from, from my understanding then, which is what I was kind of getting at with the question, HomeKit is still going to have like more or less exclusive features that other platforms won't have. So when you're like, you know, buying a Matter product, it may work across three different platforms, four different platforms.

But you're still gonna have extra features baked into HomeKit that you wouldn't have with like Amazon assistant, whether it is features like Home Key, adaptive lighting or energy monitoring. I mean, maybe they have energy monitoring over on the Amazon side or Google assistant side, but there will still be like some specific features that are relegated to certain platforms.

Tim Both

I fully expect that. I mean, this is not the story of everybody getting together and everything just being the same and completely interchangeable. That's, no, nobody wants that. And also customers don't want that, because where would innovation be coming from?

Andrew O'Hara

Yeah. You need a benefit to certain platforms.

Tim Both

Right? So this will be a competitive landscape just as it is today, but without the barriers of benefiting from that competition. So, there might be you, you might be all set in your, your Apple world today, and then there might be another company coming around like Google or Amazon, or really any other one, like Eve, introduce a feature that works with all your devices you have at home, and you can then use that.

And that's the beauty of Matter. It really enables anyone, not only the big ones, to develop features that work with all your devices and that's, I'm really thrilled to see what's going to happen with that.

Andrew O'Hara

In this process then, because there are, or maybe features that are at are still platform dependent, is there going to have to be a separate certification process, one for a Matter certification and then one HomeKit, and then maybe there's also one for an Amazon certification, and you end up having, you're on four platforms, still going through Matter, but you still have four or five certifications you have to get?

Tim Both

I don't fully know because I'm not speaking on behalf of one of the companies doing those certifications.

So this is pretty much guessing right now, but I think for the time being. Yeah, those companies are gonna want to have those special treats and have that as incentives to do their certifications as well. Yes.

Andrew O'Hara

Okay. Because I think that's something that Stephen and I have have been talking about and not knowing, like, is Apple gonna require a separate certification? And from what we've gathered, it seems like, yes.

And I know that, you know, still no one knows for sure. Apple has made anything official. But it still seems like there's going to be certifications and it still seems like there's a lot of barriers for customers to make sure that, um, they're buying now "I need to make sure it has Matter certification and HomeKit's certification, or if I'm looking for that or just focusing on the HomeKit certification part."

And then for the manufacturers like you guys to make sure you play nice and make sure you do get the certifications for Matter, Amazon, Apple, or whoever else is offering specific services. At least say you want to offer a specific features.

Tim Both

I'm not really sure this is a customer problem though. It certainly may be a manufacturer problem to sort of go through all of those certifications, but really many companies that are not called Eve do more than one certification today.

So that's sort of tried and true. So for us, it may be some overhead, but for the customer, really, what do you care about? You care about that this stuff works with whatever you have at home.

So right now you only have Apple products at home and then the HomeKit badge is a really, really great sign. That stuff just works flawlessly well in the future. The Matter batch will be the golden standard, because that means it works with whatever you have at home.

It works great with your HomeKit, alongside your HomeKit devices with your Apple home ecosystem, but you're not locked in and you can choose to buy a smart display from some other manufacturer, and just add that to your setup. Um, so I fully expect that that one Matter badge will be the golden standard.

And then if you look for additional functionality, let's take adaptive lighting for example, then you might want to go and look at an additional batch to sort of justify that.

Andrew O'Hara

Well, Steve, I'll open the thrown to you, Stephen, because I'll ask you this question. Like when we're looking at something like a light strip as HomeKit users, like specifically, I feel like I'd almost still to a degree I'd look at the Matter badge.

But if I'm looking at two different light strips, say you have one light strip that supports adaptive lighting. They both just say Matter on them, but one clearly works better with HomeKit. Like the Matter part it's still, I would still rather the HomeKit one. And how do you even differentiate those?

And then what do you write on your box? Supports Matter, Amazon Alexa, but also certain features only with HomeKit, and then list the extra features that are HomeKit-specific or Amazon assistant, whatever they happen to be. But...

Stephen Robles

Yeah, there's an old, there's an old joke. I think it was XKCD or whatever.

He writes like internet comics and he had one, like a long time ago that said, we're going to make one more document standard that will just work with everybody. And it will be the one standard for all. And then the next page. This just added one more file format that everyone has to deal with.

You know, it's like, no, no, there's no formatting. We got Docx, PDF, we got everything.

And so like, you're saying, Andrew, I wonder if this will just add one more label to every smart device box where you have like Google, Amazon, HomeKit, Matter. So now we've got four instead of three.

But what I'm curious too, and Tim, I don't know if you could speak to this, but you know, when it comes to a HomeKit device, me as the user, like you're saying, what is the, what is the customer's issue?

I know that when I pull a HomeKit device out of the box, I'm going to look for that HomeKit code to set it up in the Home app. And I'm curious when a device supports Matter and should work with my HomeKit home, but it's not HomeKit-first, will that light switch or smart plug have a HomeKit code to set up?

And if not, what is that set up experience going to be like. Is it, can I just open the Home app like I'm used to on my iPhone and scan something, or will it be something totally different? Do you know if, how that might work, Tim?

Tim Both

Yeah, there actually has been some public communication around this when they did the brand reveal, when they transitioned from, from CHIP to Matter.

There are images out there of sample Matter devices that, that show a QR code that looks very similar to whatever your HomeKit user is used to today. So that process will be completely frictionless. So to maybe take a step back, what happened with Matter is like all the companies currently doing this got together and sort of identified in each area what the best way to do things are.

And so that, that frictionless setup experience that we all enjoy in HomeKit today is just not really the case with other ecosystems to a large degree. That is an obvious benefit that they carried over to Matter as well, next to like the local connectivity and all of that.

So to answer your question, if you buy a Matter of product without a HomeKit badge, you'd still just have the same process of scanning a QR code and setting up that device really, really easily.

Stephen Robles

Yeah. And I actually just found a tweet. This is from June, 2021, so almost close to a year ago, but HomeKit News actually has an image of a Matter QR code and it shows the Home app literally scanning the Matter QR code, like it would, a HomeKit code. So yeah, if that's the case, I mean, that would be good. That'd be good.

Andrew O'Hara

I hope Stephen and I, uh, I hope we're not coming off too, like aggressive against Matter here. Cause we are, we are excited and very bullish about it. And I know for me, I'm excited for, like the additional categories.

I'd rather have even basic support for some of these products than no support, like smart displays, like robot vacuums, stuff like that.

Tim Both

Exactly. That's one of the benefits. I think we, as a company, we're super happy in the HomeKit space. Like it's a great space to be in as you have sort of seen throughout the past year. So we haven't really felt the need to go beyond that.

This is not why we're so excited about Matter is because, like, we have all those other customers, now that we can address, we, we could have done that if we really wanted that. But it's great for the experience that we currently have on HomeKit.

So it's really everything you love about HomeKit, but better. You may not care about like the interoperability. You may never want to get an Amazon speaker in your home or a Google speaker and that's fine, but maybe you want a smart display and then you can do that with these products.

Um, maybe you, you have the kid that doesn't enjoy the benefits of iPhone yet and has an Android phone. They couldn't control all the HomeKit devices today, except for talking to the HomePod, and with Matter they can, you, you can still have locally connected, nice secure devices.

And then as you mentioned, the device categories, it's, it's a much more democratic process now, to sort of enable all those crazy companies out there doing amazing products to say, "okay, I want this support it." And then it, it can happen.

Stephen Robles

Well Tim, you're making me excited for Matter again. I just, I believe it when I say it, I mean, do you think this, do you think this final delay is like, are we going to see it this fall?

Do you think we're going to see it 2022?

Tim Both

I'm pretty certain we will.

Stephen Robles

Okay. All right. Well, I'll get excited again. I'll get. I'll... Let's see it.

Andrew O'Hara

No, Stephen, I hear they change it explicitly for Apple to release iOS 16. Like they're tying it with Apples release or just for them.

Stephen Robles

Okay. Okay. Very good. So I'm excited about Matter again.

Well Andrew, you got any more Matter questions? You want to talk about some, uh, some camera.

Andrew O'Hara

Yeah. What about you, Tim? You got anything else you would talk about Matter? Or you want to talk about maybe some Eve outdoor camera news that you were teasing.

Tim Both

We can gladly talk about that? So, um, I'm, I'm happy that I could introduce some more excitement around Matter again.

It's going to be awesome. There's like the, the world today, that's not Matter yet, and the products we have, and yeah, we have a camera coming up, Eve Outdoor Cam, a floodlight camera, and we've announced that at CES and it's very close to being launched.

Andrew O'Hara

Nice. I was gonna say, I wouldn't even say at CES, because with all the COVID stuff, you guys were not able to attend.

I was so excited to see this thing in person and, uh, and see it. And yeah, things did not work out that way.

Tim Both

You'll be really, really happy to see it. It's so beautiful. It's like made of aluminum and has really a high quality heft and feel to it. So it's really a gorgeous product. Of course you won't have it in your hand that long. It will be sitting nicely on your outside wall, it's a whole two seconds and mount it. Yep.

But I mean, it's a nice to have something pretty to look at. So that's one part, but then really, all the tech is, uh, I think we paid close attention to just making everything work and be really integrated really well so you didn't have to think about stuff.

And HomeKit Secure Video is of course a big part of that, because it's such a seamless experience where you don't have to worry that your video is going to end up on like some random server. Like for me, about a camera that's like the most important thing.

You have to be confident that the video stream is sort of secure and encrypted and nobody but you can access it. And we think HomeKit Secure Video does a really, really great job at that.

Stephen Robles

Yeah, I'm all in on a HomeKit Secure Video. And I don't know if, you know, building a house, it is going to be finished in five or six weeks, and I was looking to see what floodlight camera I can put on the front of my garage. And there was only, I think, one other option until April 5th, it looks like is the date for the Eve one, but it is actually less expensive than the other option. And I don't know. I want one of these, Tim, what is it? April 5th I can order this thing?

Tim Both

Unfortunately, it's going to be a slight delay. We're talking about.

Stephen Robles

You're hanging out. You've been hanging around Matter or too long. You've been hanging around Matter. Those delays is contagious.

Tim Both

No, no. Our team put a lot of effort into this, but I mean, with the current situation and like the whole supply chain madness that is going on, we had to push it to May So it's just a little while longer. So not a super huge delay, but we can't meet that April deadline unfortunately we would've loved to.

Stephen Robles

Oh, I'll wait, I'll wait for you. That month doesn't Matter to me.

Andrew O'Hara

Can I mute Stephen on my side? Is there a way to...

Stephen Robles

Cut it off? But no, I'm excited for it. I will, I am going to wait to get this for my outdoor camera and love HomeKit Secure Video. It's lower profile too, you know, some floodlight cameras can be very like large and whatever this looks like.

It's a well, like visually pleasing as well. So it's very cool.

Tim Both

Yeah, I definitely think it is.

Andrew O'Hara

I was going to ask Tim, was that the exclusive update that was teased before our call here that you guys had to push the launch by roughly a month?

Tim Both

Yeah. That may have been it, yeah.

Andrew O'Hara

What a fun, exclusive update to share with our audience! Well, I'm glad that Tim had to break the news and not us.

Stephen Robles

That is true. Yes, that is true. So about a month. So this show airs April 4th, Monday as our listeners listen to it, so they can get this in about a month.

Tim Both

Yeah. It's sometime in May. I think by the time this airs we'll have a specific date to actually communicate as I've said planning is sort of... I feel for our supply chain team, they're doing an amazing job right now, but yeah.

I've been testing the product for ages, of course, and I can't wait to have other people using it as well.

Stephen Robles

I'll test it. I'll test one for you. If you'd like to, I could test one. I can take it. I can take some drone shots.

Tim Both

We can make that happen.

Stephen Robles

I'm just saying, just saying, well, let me ask you this. I actually just got another Eve product recently. I talked about it on the show, the Eve Flare, your glowing orb. And, uh, I don't hear anything announced about maybe Thread compatibility coming soon or anything like that. I might buy another one from my studio in the new home.

Tim Both

There is no immediate launch of a Thread-enabled versions version of this, but what I can say and what, what we have been saying is that we will of course transition all products that, that used to be Bluetooth based to also include Thread technology because, for one thing, one of the pillars of Matter.

So that's soft of the prerequisite to make Matter a reality, but also as we've seen in the past year in HomeKit, it's just such an improved experience, um, that, that you really want this in your products. So, yeah, for sure in that spirit, we'll update all of our products and Eve Flare is one of our products, so...

That will happen eventually.

Andrew O'Hara

What products may you be transitioning next to Thread? We just got your water guard. We had the review of that guy come out, which is great. Love more Thread, especially router capability is perfect. What other things might be on your radar for Thread? I know everything is happening, but what has higher importance in your roadmap?

Tim Both

I'm trying to think what, what products we haven't put on Thread yet? It's not many. I think we have the largest part of our portfolio moved to Thread now. The other ones will follow, I would say, uh.

Stephen Robles

Let me ask you this. This is a product you don't currently have so you're not, you know, cannibalizing any current sales.

I needed to get a bunch of dimmers for my house, and that is one HomeKit product where you have a light switch, but no dimmer. Are there any plans to release a dimmer version of.

Tim Both

Yeah. I heard about your experiences with like all those different brands and switches, that was quite the project, or continues to be probably.

Yes. We may have a pretty European point of view here, really. Like dimmers create a lot of problems in many setups because at least here in Europe, everybody gets transitioned to cheap LED lighting, ultimately that that can't really be dimmed at the source. So really the options going forward are if you want dimming then replace the light source, or don't have dimming basically. So that's sort of, the mindset we live in.

So, so if you have. light bulbs that may not be LED or something, or can be dimmed easily. Yeah. The Eve light switches is not the product because it creates a lot of problems for many people that don't know, like what sort of light source they have, or replace their light source later on and that sort of thing. So we have consciously decided against that.

Stephen Robles

Gotcha. Okay. All right. I won't look for any Eve dimmers then. I guess.

Andrew O'Hara

Yeah, but you did say that you've Thread light switches next, right? That's the one specifically.

Tim Both

I'm not sure I said that.

Andrew O'Hara

Was it just my earphones that heard that?

Stephen Robles

We tried, we tried Andrew. I don't know. I don't think that's...

Andrew O'Hara

Pulling teeth over here.

Stephen Robles

I know. I know. All right. Well, you got us a little bit more excited about Matter, Tim. I'll give you that. I'll give you that.

Tim Both

I'm happy about that. And you should be, you should be. It's not taking anything away from HomeKit. It's just making things better.

Stephen Robles

Andrew, you got any more questions for Tim?

Andrew O'Hara

I don't think so. I think we've, we've grilled him quite a bit today, between dates and Matter.

And that was the last time we had Tim on the show...

Stephen Robles

Yeah, that was it.

Tim, thanks so much for coming on again, the Eve Outdoor Cam with HomeKit Secure Video will be coming in about a month. We'll be looking out, we'll cover that for sure when it comes out. Tim, anything else you'd like to point people towards in the next week when this episode launches to find out more about Eve.

Tim Both

I think just our regular stuff. Evehome.com. Eve Water Guard you already know it exists. Eve Outdoor Cam will be, will it be pretty amazing? And we look forward to getting some nice impressions and coverage about that in the coming weeks. So, yeah, stay tuned.

Stephen Robles

All right. Well, thanks listeners.

You can find links to everything we talked about in the show notes, and of course you'll have links to Eve and all the great stuff that they have as well. Thanks for tuning in this time. We'll catch you next episode.

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