Paul Braren Podcasts from the Tesla 3 and Buys Another – HGG429
Paul Braren joined us live from his garage and inside his now one year-old Telsa 3 for his annual visit to Home Gadget Geeks. We talk about how he has enjoyed the Telsa since purchasing it a year ago, why we bought another and how he will never purchase a gas-powered car again. Of course, there is lots of gadget chat along the way. I think you will enjoy the show.
Full show notes, transcriptions, audio and video at http://theAverageGuy.tv/hgg429
Join Jim Collison / @jcollison and Mike Wieger / @WiegerTech for show #429 of Home Gadget Geeks brought to you by the Average Guy Network.
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Podcast, Home Gadget Geeks, Paul Braren, Telsa, Tesla Model 3, Home, Cameras, house, battery, Ring, Miles, Connecticut, Home Security, Super Charger
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Find Paul’s blog at https://tinkertry.com/
Follow Paul on Twitter at https://twitter.com/paulbraren
First Year and 25,000 miles of Telsa Model 3 – https://tinkertry.com/one-year-and-25k-miles-of-tesla-model-3-is-going-incredibly-well
Paul loved his Tesla so much that he bought one for his wife! https://tinkertry.com/tesla-tuesday
More articles on Telsa at https://Tesla.com/Tesla and vids at http://bit.ly/teslavids
Get all of Paul’s Telsa coverage at TinkerTry.com/Tesla
Wondering about battery life on the Telsa? You can see charging at the top of this article here https://tinkertry.com/differences-between-2018-and-2020-tesla-model-3…
Jim Collison [0:00]
This is The Average Guy Network and you found Home Gadget Geeks show number 429 recorded on January 9, 2020.
Jim Collison [0:22]
Here on Home Gadget Geeks we cover all your favorite tech gadgets that find their way into your home news reviews product updates and conversation all for the average tech guy. I’m your host Jim Collison broadcasting live from the average guy TV Studios here in a beautiful today but we got some snow coming, weather this tomorrow they were out to I don’t know Paul if it’s what it’s like where you’re at but head of the storms they try and spray down the streets you know just to kind of keep the they put some defrost any freeze kind of compound down to keep the ice down. Yeah, they do that for you guys, too.
Paul Braren [0:53]
Yeah, there’s white stripes. Was it magnesium somethng? The highway before the storm? Yeah, yeah,
Jim Collison [0:58]
Kind of, I was I came out of work this morning. They’d sprayed that stuff down already and some of the some of the roads and I was like well, they must be thinking we’re going to get some pretty cold weather and some snow. So it’ll be there before you know it a court of course we post the show with world class show notes each week, out of the average guy.tv we want to welcome you back for those who are at CES just a reminder we got Ryan out there as well. And if you want to follow the see CES coverage that’s going on, I think or has gone on depending on when you listen to this thing computers.org slash ces 2020 so if you want to head out there and follow Ryan and some of the work that he’s done out there or is doing just depends on when you listen to this a CS think computers.org slash ces 2020 of course you can also listen live on our mobile app best way to kind of listen when you’re on the road or at CES. You could be listening to this right now if you’re doing that Home Gadget Geeks. com. I want to thank our Patreon subscribers for doing that as well. If you want to join the conversation, there’s been a lot Conversation lately in our discord group, head out to the average guy TV slash Discord. If you want to join us in Facebook, the average guy TV slash Facebook Mike is out tonight. out. I’m sure he’s having a good time. Paul Brennan has said yes to coming in for his bi annual visit to Home Gadget Geeks. Paul, welcome.
Paul Braren [2:21]
Thank you, Jim. Thank you for having me. Great to be on again.
Jim Collison [2:24]
Good to hear. Yeah, you made it. You You didn’t tell me you’re doing this. But for those who you got to come out and see the video, Paul has decided to make this work from inside the Tesla in his garage.
Paul Braren [2:35]
Wait, no, no. Garage. Oh,
Paul Braren [2:38]
I thought you were on Mars. Oh.
Paul Braren [2:42]
Talking about nice. And there’s the odometer.
Jim Collison [2:46]
Yeah. 24 25,000. You’d posted on your site quite a few months. How does one just Is it is it travel miles that you’re racking up there on the Tesla?
Paul Braren [2:57]
Yeah, a lot of its for work last year and actually had two jobs. Just last year and a lot of businesses in customer so, all the way to Richmond, Virginia, to Maine to Pittsburgh, so quite a span there.
Jim Collison [3:08]
You made the jump to Dell. We had we had you done that when we had you on last or were you just getting ready? Oh, no, I can’t
Paul Braren [3:15]
remember three jobs ago. Was it? Yeah, it’s been a year. So we don’t know is it really
Jim Collison [3:19]
been a year since we had? Yeah, well, so maybe your annual visit, I have to have to step up my game a little bit. Make sure you’re here twice a year. And not every every six how’s how’s the new role?
Paul Braren [3:30]
that’s been very good. I’ve only been at Dell technology since October 28 of 2019. So still new guy in the role. It’s a large company like IBM inside IBM for almost 22 years. So I’m learning the ropes. There’s a whole lot to learn. They have a whole lot of server storage that I’m getting up to speed on, as well as servers, of course, just three hours ago is putting together configuration for a customer and was actually kind of similar to my VMware job to a hyper converged infrastructure. So pretty familiar, but a lot to learn. That’s new as well. Yeah, generally
Jim Collison [4:00]
Always new people, new places to go and new things to see. I’m sure it’ll come. All that stuff will come to you a pretty fast. How have you been like and let’s let’s just talk about the Tesla. Oh, last time you had just picked that up I think or it was pretty close to just it was pretty new The last time we talked to you. It’s 25,000 miles and maybe a year later What do you think?
Paul Braren [4:25]
Fantastic Jim, best thing ever bought hands down. that’s it in a nutshell. Obviously I’m more detailed than that. But here’s the thing. I had it all of a week when I talked to you. I knew I was about the drive a lot for my job. Like literally days after I think we talked in early January. It’s part of why we bought it in late December was I knew about the drive a lot and there was also a 70 $500 rebate at the time, so it worked out quite well. So the practicality, I mean, the thing that people often miss and I think about road trips, I always have the battery fully charged right now. On 275 miles, I mean, it’s 90% charged. In other words, not only skipping gas stations, but you’re not going to anything every week, long road trips, like, you know, visit family in Pittsburgh or something. Okay, fine. I’m stopping for lunch, a Ruby Tuesday for 3540 minutes, while the cars charging, that’s it. So it hardly changed my lifestyle or travel plans. It’s been awesome. That is the long range model three. So I have a 2018 long range all wheel drive, it’s called. And that was made in November of 2018. And then, of course, federal rebates actually just went away january first of this year 2020 because Tesla is filling, making a whole lot of whole lot of cars. There’s over 300,000 of these made last year. So it’s been a big success. Jim,
Jim Collison [5:47]
what do you what do you think’s been the one surprise that you’ve had or one or two surprises that you had that you didn’t anticipate?
Paul Braren [5:55]
Okay, number one, I thought it’d be scary driving, you know, going from The first test drive in Springfield mass where they don’t get test drives in Connecticut for because they don’t have dealerships in Connecticut. So I got a little tricky but find half an hour drive go to test drive it and you realize very quickly it quickly gains your trust that there’s no skill involved. You can stop the pedal even on a turn, nothing dramatic happens. So immediately like, oh, okay, accelerating fast is not scary. In fact, it’s rather fun especially in a you know, dry road and the light turns you just go. There’s no drama, there’s no noise people’s heads aren’t turning, you just go immediately and it’s just way beyond any turbo or anything else I’ve ever driven. I mean, like literally twice as fast here to 60 and we both had a 2006 Honda Civic Kramer but I went and put all the statistics together blank with high ground clearance, all that stuff and I found it quite fun to do actually have a whole bunch of articles that are pretty nerdy pretty in depth. You know, wait miles range, all that stuff because I do my shopping before I Buy something so expensive. And you and I, we keep our cars a while. So kind of big decision we’re going to keep on, you know, 10 plus years. When I bought it, I was the number 118,000. So there’s some risk and Ilan doing some goofy stuff people worried about the survival, the company, complete turnaround if anyone’s looked at the stock in the last week. Oh my god. Basically. I was right. I felt a little risky buying, you know, a lower a little lower VIN number not, you know, early adopter first 10,000 Vince made my Honda Civic. Hybrid 2006 the VIN number is 6000. That was an early adopter car. This car is 119,000 and now they’re up to you know the number 600,000 subs so they’re cranking them out, it’s going well and they’ve ramped up production. That’s the cool thing. This is not like nerd buys Gar wants to show it off like no 30 plus year mostly Honda Civic owner saves up buys a car. That’s what three times more efficient than under civic and more safe by far, crush resistance, all that stuff. safest car ever tested. That’s the story right? It’s not it’s not a probably I mean I drove 25,000 miles now nothing happened was which is what you want to hear. And it’s just been awesome now surprise number one it doesn’t scare you at all. Surprise number two so when you go in and some things in life and you need to jump in and both feet right so remember the test drive store I told you that was surprise number two. So and I said to my wife Hey, finally someone to test this offering the test drive not too far from our house rather than driving all the way to Boston. You willing to hop in the car to go to a Panera Bread behind there they set up a little Tesla pop up tent. Could we go for a test drive just in case maybe someday we make the change in my car and my 2006 Honda Civic getting kind of old and one of our sons could use a car and all that. To my surprise not only she say yes, but I warned her the car looks like a spaceship inside is very minimalist. You might hate it because it’s new and not a lot of buttons. Quite the opposite.
Paul Braren [8:57]
So enough of that.
Paul Braren [9:00]
Two weeks, three weeks old. That is the standard range plus a whole lot more affordable. Thank goodness this car came out they started shipping that in volume in April. And naturally everyone asked the price so yeah, they’re starting price is now down to 35,000. But it’s really more realistically 39 minus 1500 dollar Connecticut rebate minus another 1875 federal rebate cuz I snuck it in in December. So add Connecticut tax. Yeah, you’re sneaking in just a whisper under 40,000 per car. We’re going to keep 10 years. Yeah, you know what, compared to the Honda Civic when I looked actually spent over 30,000 of mine and two and six years, whatever. It’s 25% more expensive in today’s dollars adjusted big deal. The cars so much better. So now my wife is quite pleased and hers is the daily drive around town lines. The formal driving that we take on the long road trips. We certainly didn’t need two cars with a ginormous battery. Right and actually today that was announced the product which can power your house. Battery from your cars. Oh, that’s pretty cool. Here we got two giant batteries in the garage wouldn’t be nifty if that could handle a power outage rather than a gas generator. Yeah, yeah. So yeah can you tell I’m a little excited but I’m just as excited 2012 months later since we last talked that has not changed every time I get in the car like I can’t believe I freakin am able to enjoy this thing 24,000 miles I stuck 25,000 miles I still feel the same way it’s Yeah, you feeling I’m not even like a supercar dad. I mean, we’re both driving around loudest Honda Civic right? It’s not like we’re going to it. Now I drive people and maybe a little too nuts but it is fun talking to people are taking for test drives. It pretty much runs them the second they’re in it, especially if they drive the car. Passengers. One thing people get a little annoyed with the acceleration if they’re not, you know, there’s not an accelerator or a roller coaster enthusiasts. Well, I haven’t had a speeding ticket 12 years and we’re pretty tame driver but going zero 60 there’s no road squeal. There’s no noise. So you can just do it. Chocolate Like, oh my god, a car can do that without tire screech and any drama or, you know, fear. So yeah, I think I sums it up. I mean that’s, that’s huge that my wife not only was on board with, you know me taking a major road trips in about the drive a car a whole lot for living having a be the safest car also three times more efficient than the most efficient had a Prius. Her car is the most efficient car in America right now. It was announced like three weeks ago, the car you just saw and wait next to me. That’s because it’s single motor, and it’s just also 42 pounds lighter than mine. So very impressive. Very glad this car exists at all. Now, those listening this is a polarizing topic, right? We jumped right into the most polarizing topic of all I’m aware of that. So people have their feelings about it, but I think a lot of people just don’t get it yet. Well, for one it’s American company to its American company that just broke ground in the China factory a year ago and started shipping cars by the thousands per week last week. Three, they’ve announced Germany, right in the heart of Germany, whether, you know, car central for Europe, and they’re going to do quite well there because they’re already exporting like crazy to Germany. So it’s a huge American success story with innovative technology coming out of Silicon Valley, the first new car company, all the others are over 100 years old in America. It’s a disrupter. It’s frankly going to be rather scary for a lot of people. I am well aware of that when I talk to people coal gas, there’s all kinds of politics that invariably tied to it. But as soon as you drive the car, whoever’s listening to this forget everything you read on Jalopnik about a car fire something stupid on the local news, but someone falling asleep at the wheel or doing something done by rigging the steering wheel and putting they’re doing dumb stuff that they just forget all that go take a test drive before in reserve judgment until you actually do that thing normal the words if you do want words though, and you’re nerdy engineer type Yeah, go to tinker, try to come forward slash Tesla. It’s all there or a bit dot Lee slash Tesla vids, the IDs, everything’s there. I have a ton of videos and you drive around with a GoPro and all that good stuff. So there you go. Again, just give the audience an earful. But yeah, no, I mean, I’m a guy who’s very careful and for me to be this excited to hear later, that’s a really pretty good sign. What kind of scary
Jim Collison [13:17]
what kind of maintenance to those require?
Paul Braren [13:20]
Well, rotating the tires front to back was done in my garage by remote test the mobile service fan. That’s pretty cool, right? Not having to go to service center. And he Jacks it up. The car is so much torsional rigidity. You just jacked it up by the left rear corner, the whole left side left off. So if the wheel front the Rat Pack, I’m like, that’s interesting. So there’s your maintenance. Jim. I didn’t need to pour some washer fluid in and then my wiper blades are getting a little old. That is a pretty minor maintenance story. BMW 300 run on the Hornet now, who has a car for 25,000 miles? Well, the story might be a little different. So cost of ownership is the story. The point I’m trying to make there. Yeah. Yes, it’ll still need tires. Right? But you have to
Jim Collison [14:04]
have a special special tires or can you put it just regular? Can you go down to the tire store and just tires on there?
Paul Braren [14:11]
Yeah, no, I mean, given the car selling by the hundreds of thousands Canada and us now stocked up and they expect blow out all the usual infrastructure is getting much better. Yeah. That is the Achilles heel that we can sit Tesla service people can do without the car for a month and a routine accident that should take a week to fix waiting for parts. It’s gotten better. People are saying apart these take three months like about a bumper, which was absurd, like the first weeks of delivery. Now we’re down to like two weeks, but it should be like two days, right? They’re getting better. Right? But that is if you’re a person who really absolutely can’t do without your car for more than two to three days no matter what happens even if it’s some kind of $3,000 wreck. This would not be the car for you. The stories are after that it takes longer than it should repair. You need to deal with a rental car and hope your insurance company covers you for a month. So I’ll just put that out there. I that’s how I am in my career. Try to tell people the good and the bad. Nothing is perfect in life.
Jim Collison [15:03]
How has your for sure how has your insurance company been with it was at a fairly seamless
Paul Braren [15:11]
your day? Wow. But not just USA. I call them I tell them okay my wife. She’s getting rid of her 2507 right. So we’ve dumped our last gas car ever and someone. Gemini. Okay, take a try to contest the Tuesday. Yeah, that’s the headline of my article, right? last guest car ever. My wife and I are kidding about that, right? Um, and calling. That was something I did with trepidation like, okay, we’re committed to the car. We bought it and it came 33 days later. Not bad. I made that thing pretty quick and ship it across the country, which takes takes eight truck days alone just to ship it. So they’re cranking them out pretty fast. But calling insurance your little word, you know, getting them getting the features you don’t quite really know. I think it went up $15 every six months, Jim is basically the same. So we traded in a 2006 Honda Civic I 2005 Honda Civic, the brand new Tesla’s 2018 and 2020 And our insurance did not take a hit essentially. Now our insurance is pretty low, you know, married low risk, low accident rate. But still for people listening if you think they’re going to charge you like crazy because of crazy sports car, no, it’s a four door sedan. That’s the safest car. We tested some insurance companies and figure that out. Okay, this is not horrible to insure. And here I am in Hartford, Connecticut, right. This is where these calculations for insurance capital of the country. So yeah, I think about all that I’m so glad you asked the question. I would not have thought to mention that.
Jim Collison [16:29]
I’m, you know, I’ll be releasing my car this summer and thinking about those things. So I’ve started to kind of go through the checklist. Okay, what are all the things I need to think about as i as i get into this, so insurance is always one of those that you can like, well, I don’t think it’s I think it’s a lot easier than it used to be. And I think cars just in general are made a lot better than they were. Tony’s wondering you’re free. You’re in the queue for the cyber truck at all. How did you did you look at that you see that announcement? I’m sure you’re not but what are your thoughts on on On that recent announcement
Paul Braren [17:03]
No. Um, so my wife and I, our kids are older now they moved out of the house so there’d be absolutely no way we would just for that we are pretty frugal people. I know that sounds nuts, owning two Tesla Model threes, but keep in mind I can drive to Richmond, Virginia for heat $15 electricity, and, okay, do the math. If you’re driving for work, do the tax calculations on your reimbursement. So you can make your car payment in a week or two of driving for work. Get the math now. It’s pretty simple. Well, this card is incredibly cheap per mile. I know it appreciates, but guess what they’re doing very well and appreciating. And guess who’s hurting right now is Audi and BMW. This car is squarely in their sights. It’s hurting Germany big time. So yeah. The math is there. If you’re going to own something 567 years, kind of like you own a cell phone for two or three years of the cell phone plan. gonna look at what the phone’s gonna cost you when you want it for two three years. Yeah. Oh, the car we’re gonna go under like 510 years. Like my wife and I, we’re gonna look at the total cost of ownership. And that’s where the customer really excels, especially a high miles person like me 25,000 miles here that’s a lot of gas. Do you feel the post 100,000 mile you know when you get there and I mean, I asked you to speculate but you feel as confident when you get to that hundred thousand that it will be just as good and 100,000 is it was it 25,000? Yes, the batteries test has been cranking out cars since the Model S and 2012. Some of those cars have 300 400,000 miles fine. Model three has been shipping in volume for about a year and a half. It’s been out about two and a half years. Some of them have easily gone past 100,000 Okay, they lose me before percent range, they lose less than that in the subsequent years. In other words, this is already figured out the battery chemistry and really know how a Model S does. There’s plenty of them that last plenty long so supposedly the design life of the bodies a million miles the design life of the battery 300 to 405 1000 there’s also divided in seven battery segments you could potentially replace a battery segment not the entire thing. Yeah, so yeah, I mean that’s pretty darn high we’ve never had my wife and I we are Honda Civic dx is the longest we’ve ever had a car for mileage and made it 270,000 I think it’s now living in Pittsburgh and fighting rust, right. So yeah, um, so yeah, I yeah, whatever questions people have in the chat to you know, feel free to ask me or leave comments under my articles. I threw it in the chat there for people in line Sorry, I wrote with the wrong URL. Leave comments right below the articles. It’s really fun for me to answer something because you’re likely the same you know, only one in 2000 people read article leave a comment right? So whatever you’re thinking someone else probably thinking the same question.
Jim Collison [19:48]
On on my civic, my hybrid. You know, we had those batteries replaced after you We met at the meetup and you’re like, Hey, I got my batteries and, and my went out for I’d say fortunately they were under warranty, I bought the extended warranty. So that saved me from having to buy new batteries. Since those are replaced right at the hundred thousand mark I think hundred and something, I’ve had no issues with the new set they’ve put in or 215. Now I’ll pass that on to my daughter. It’ll be interesting to see I don’t know if they put some different batteries in or whatever, certainly that’s old Honda battery technology. I kind of told my daughter like when they go they go, you’re not going to replace them. type deal. But you know, that is one of the risks on the on the newer cars, you know, you kind of think, how long will these batteries hold up for when we think just from a mileage perspective? I do think because he’s getting more popular. I think we’re going to see some really good battery technologies come out of this and we’re just going to get better at this as we go. So you know, the day of maybe, you know where you’re at a million miles on the battery side is I think could be a possibility the chances Americans don’t hold on to their cars that long. So you know You wouldn’t have that kind of opportunity and in places where rust is probably here in Nebraska, you know, you probably wouldn’t hold it on to that long I, the all wheel drive capabilities of those is very attractive to me in Yeah,
Paul Braren [21:15]
I’m in New England, right. So yeah, I had a class for Dell, one of my first weeks of employment in Franklin mess and looking at the radar, and I’m like, Okay, I’m going to drive a southern route. I’m gonna be driving in 234 inches of snow pack the whole way there. 90 miles later, I ride safely. I’m not saying it’s advised and something I do very often. But you know what the class happened to start at and the next day, I was fine. I was just driving 3040 the whole way and just drove the southerly route where I avoided like 10 inches of snow that was happening in sturbridge mass. So just being a little smart and leaving at the right time of day and there’s no traffic and keeping other trucks away from me. It’s fine. That’s life. I’ve driven into Manhattan at 11pm with a total ice storm. Why? Because the next day at people were waiting for me at a Dave and Busters where I was presenting on V San as a VMware employee. That’s what a job is like. You got to get there. Yeah, this car pulled it off, including valet parking in Manhattan which is a hateful thing to have to do to hand over a key but guess what, it locks the car from accelerating fast they can’t see your name and address book on the screen. It locks the glove box it locks the front so if you have a laptop, you lock it in the front, they can’t get up in the front trunk there. Okay, that’s pretty cool velikiy it and keep tabs in your car and if they remember to plug it in like they offered to charge it overnight from the hotel and we fire up the app and you can see cool yeah 90% battery or drive to southern New Jersey today gotta Manhattan. So that was my job. That was at VMware where I couldn’t do a train because I’d been been had one day and then Sunday news the next regular like week after week. So the car nailed it. Not great to drive into Manhattan than anything so I go there 11 at night Park overnight safely and head on out every customer ratings and so yeah, my point is it’s not babysat this thing drives and all kinds of snow and Rusty salt and whatever and here I am a year later and you know
Jim Collison [22:57]
for cup when when I first When I bought a new Ford, this was years ago now, at 30,000, I need to replace the brakes when I bought the Honda Civic, because it’s got inductive charging. I remember taking it to my mechanic at 40 or 45. And I’m like, Hey, you should probably check the brakes. And he’s like, are you even pressing on the brakes? Because, because the you know, he’s getting Brake Assist on that car on the Tesla. I’m assuming I mean, it’s a 25. But you so you’re not even close to needing to replace those. But brakes would be the other component besides tires that you have to replace. Have you had any thoughts or any research on when you got to do that? Are those gonna last longer they do anything different? They’re
Paul Braren [23:42]
funny, you should ask. So, four wheel drive particularly you got two motors. So as soon as you let off the accelerator, you can do one pedal driving this car, it’s an option. So what’s one pedal drive driving me means soon as you left the accelerator, your brake lights go on. So if you told me let off your foot off the accelerator, like a lot all the way to four. A little bit of pressure to zero, completely lifting your foot. The car behind you sees your brake lights go on why? The region is very powerful, Jim, the motors are slowing you they’re shoving electricity back into the battery pack very quickly, way beyond our 2006 Honda Civic Hybrid, which has a very tiny supplementary motor and battery pack. But there’s still no Oh, no, I mean, my point. My point though, is let me go back to that New York City story. So say I’m leaving at 9pm like one night I was leaving supposed to take two hours to get to New York and it says the battery’s gonna ride like 62% when you get to the hotel, like cool. I have a tremendous traffic jam in New Haven for no reason. All the roads are jammed up sitting there for an hour complete standstill thinking Hmm, it’s winter. It’s 20 degrees. Is my range gonna change? Guess what I arrived at the hotel like 61% Big deal. In other words, the cars so good to region so a lot of it was stopping go for like half an hour. It doesn’t matter if it takes me two or three hours to get to Boston, New York. I live right between both of those. It gets there and exactly what the thing tells me it’s gonna get very good at predicting The region is very strong that’s part of what the secret sauces versus how to eat Tron Jaguar I pace they’ve really struggled to come anywhere near testers efficiency the cars getting the equivalent of 130 miles per gallon plus again very cheap per mile to get your family moved around from location location. That’s another typical message here people
Jim Collison [25:20]
and breaks you wouldn’t have to replace your brakes is off
Paul Braren [25:25]
yeah 50,000 plus people are seeing minimal brake pad life and I’m a pretty I don’t drive like crazy or jam the brakes are pretty like low g force or most of the driving. So yeah, I suspect the brake pencil
Jim Collison [25:35]
I think you’ll probably get more just to be honest I the Honda i don’t i don’t know your Honda. I think I first even thought about it about 75 or 80. I was they were like the the like I said my mechanics like you need to break a little more often. It’s like your, your pads are great. And so just one of those that with that, you know with the motor with the charger and they’re bringing it back it just kind of assist to You know on that getting it done, Tony that in the chat room had asked we didn’t talk about this from a charging perspective. You got to watch the YouTube video Paul showing a picture of camping and a fire. Is that like a background?
Paul Braren [26:14]
Now let’s get mode. Keep the car running while I’m sitting in the garage so I don’t freeze out here. So notice, no cost. No problem with that. Yeah, girls, I’m running my car. Right. That’s why Paul has mobile office mode. So like sico it back goes way back. my mouse pad is right here. The center console laptop on my lap, steering wheel out of the way. That’s mobile mode. The car is very good when I’m parked and doing a you know, zoom conference call for work or something.
Paul Braren [26:43]
Yeah, all sorts of little benefits the mobile conference
Jim Collison [26:46]
mode. I like it. A charging wise. You know, we had Duane Robinson on he’s he’s doing this as well. same boat. You’re funny. We in that Gala. We actually We installed two chargers at work. We’ve got a couple Tesla’s as well, from some of our employees. What are you seeing from a recharge perspective?
Paul Braren [27:11]
Six hours overnight if I drive home with like 10% which happens sometimes if I’m driving in New York or Boston, get home at 11pm and I might need to drive somewhere at home the next day. That’s not a problem that 48 charging the wall there you see with the animated green in the middle between the two garage doors is plugged into my car right now. And I got a hanging from the ceiling so I’m not I’m tripping over again. My wife’s car, hers goes 32 amps. You can see 100 amp circuit panel on the wall there and it’s suspended with some Engler off the ceiling there were we’re not tripping over record either. So here’s just as the test the charger the car King with In other words, a $275 separate charge was avoided. We just took the charger out of the car, I got on the wall, and it just plugs in every day because her car’s not doing the long road trips. It doesn’t really need a charger at all times right?
Jim Collison [27:55]
Is yours faster than hers or doesn’t matter.
Paul Braren [27:57]
recharge at the same rate. Once I’ve got an article that Was all the tests the model three differences and people often asked me the charge speed so I put that right at the top of the articles let me get a correct answer for you but the basically within like 10% of each other about six hours so there’s a screenshot right at the top of my article that talks about design spec changes between the two cars and it has a little picture that shows charge rate somewhere in there so anyhow yeah about 34 miles per hour and the road about 1000 miles per hour with the new v3 supercharger just opened in Connecticut. The first one east of Arizona so that open like two days ago pretty cool because people drive from Boston to New York and Connecticut’s the you know, drive through for that
Jim Collison [28:35]
yeah. Yeah, they get are they opening Do you get notifications of new stations that are opening to the just the car know where the most optimal charging stations are? How does that work?
Paul Braren [28:47]
supercharger dot info is the third party site that lists them all. And then there’s a fee three supercharger, what’s up through supercharger leads the charge on 150 kilowatts, and now they charge a 200 What does that mean? It means about 1000 yet, let’s see 100 miles range in seven minutes. So if you’re just going on a trip that’s a little longer like for me to get to DC is a little bit beyond the tank in the winter tank of electrons let’s call it so I have to stop in Delaware for five maybe eight minutes to stretch my range to make it the full 360 miles big deal. That’s incredible, right? When you hear those numbers that is not perking up in their bread for three hours was sitting on Wi Fi figure out while you’re nice on least taking forever. That’s how long it takes a Nissan LEAF to charge. They charge it 20 miles an hour if you’re lucky and their batteries are not lasting on they did not do great job for longevity in their car. The competitors Chevy Bolt a little better, but they didn’t really do thermal management of the battery so they didn’t really have 400 500,000 miles in ring in mind. Tesla’s motivated to get there, right? They want to do a fleet vehicle. And also, cabs in New York are now buying model threes. police stations are buying model freeze seeing the math because they idle all the time thinking What a police car that is cruising around town. And perfect match, right?
Jim Collison [30:05]
Do you think will the others catch up is is these are in the market longer and just market forces? You know, like everybody else eventually reverse engineers and does things differently and doesn’t better do you think you know, you’ll see the other auto manufacturers catch up and do a better job with this.
Paul Braren [30:23]
Yeah, it’s taking a while, like, you got the Honda CEO saying yeah, it’s gonna be 30 years in America doesn’t have enough chargers. He’s so that’s delusional. I mean, I, I just saw in blog all about why get rid of 206 because it offered nothing like this. Yeah, Tesla. I’m sorry, another one to watch out. How long’s total going to last if they don’t wake up and start making something electric. It just doesn’t make sense to me. So it’s sad that there’s no more competitors. So Tesla’s mission is accelerate. accelerate the move to sustainable future basically islands. Not exactly. Working but the point is, it’s not just making cars part of why they on the solar business All right, they’re trying to light a fire under Detroit, and that’s working in Germany now. But also move towards sustainability. In other words, electricity that’s from the sun and I know a friend whose wife wanted to talk to me and my wife about our car and owning it what it’s actually like, they wouldn’t order to model three. And when he you know, he put an order in for the zero to 60 and 2.9 seconds cyber truck, you know, for three motor addition. Yeah, he’s got solar all over a giant garage. Perfect, right? The dudes gonna be driving on photons from the sun. It’s cool. That’s the ultimate thing, right? Just think about that, what he’s able to do, drive a pretty cool car, in his case, a truck and drive around off a solar panel power much of the time. That’s awesome. So yeah, Tesla’s motivated with their mission statement has been true for a long time accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy. That’s their mission. Everything I’ve said in this whole call so far has been consistent with that. Including opening in China and opening in Germany, because the demand is tremendous. The naysayers were wrong. The car selling by the hundreds of thousands, literally shipped over to Europe right now. So yeah, I’m, I obviously followed the space a little because I got more into it once I had the car realizing, wow, this is a huge disrupter. And I think the trucking industry, the number one job in a lot of states in the Midwest, is trucking. So fast the trucks coming to you again, this is going to continue to irritate a lot of people. But West Virginia coal country, guess what, this is the only coal fired car. That’s kind of ironic, since the car is electric, right? It can be run purely on coal. And that’s kind of funny. So why are people angry at an American company for innovating here? Do they really want that? not want that eventually like it’s it’s going to happen? So I hear you and it’d be good if there’s more competitors and unfortunately, they’re taking a while to catch up like I pasted not sell too well. And BMW has an IP that didn’t sell Well, and they’re not real serious about and stop making it. Chevy Volt hybrid, stop making that they’re having trouble competing, that is worrisome. You don’t want Tesla to be only the only one, certainly. So next year, this year, excuse me, it’s not 2020. There’ll be many more offerings, VW, which is a huge conglomerate. That’s a good thing. They’re not shipping into us yet. But hopefully, their ID threes will take off. It’s good for everybody. So unlike BMW or Maserati drivers want exclusive car, Tesla owners that I needed. supercharging all the opposite. We can’t believe our friends and family don’t drive electric vehicles yet. We don’t necessarily care that much. We just know they’re gonna have a giant smile on their face. Once they get in one realizing. Holy smokes. It’s far better than anything we’ve owned or driven in their lives. Hands down, like whatever brand, pretty much, even Chevy Volt. I’ve been pretty cool. Emily, I’ve driven the most to
Jim Collison [33:50]
all right, who’s Paul, who’s Second, if you say you could have bought a Tesla, what would you have done when you were going to replace the high now what would you have gone with?
Paul Braren [33:59]
Well, my way fitted. I didn’t need a sport utility. So I don’t speak for most of the audience, right? Most of the audience probably has some kids and wants more space in a model why they’re willing to wait for the model. Why come late this year? So in my case, there was another brand. Hmm. What was shipping that my wife would get last month? We couldn’t afford an Audi or? Certain certainly, Porsche tyka. know it’s already thousand. Audi and Jaguar up, it’s not even close. We didn’t have another car, Jim. And I wouldn’t have bought the Chevy. They’re not serious about it. They’re not. Yeah, their dealerships make their money on repairing the old cars. They’re really kind of screwed. How do you transition this? It’s a real problem. They have to go all in or forget about it.
Jim Collison [34:42]
What if you couldn’t would you go back to Honda and bought gas? There’s
Unknown Speaker [34:45]
no. We’ve done
Paul Braren [34:50]
for three years,
Jim Collison [34:52]
saying, if you could have done tests, I’ll say they weren’t available. Would you’ve gone back would you have replaced her car with a gas car See, they were there. backorder couldn’t get them couldn’t buy it. No.
Paul Braren [35:07]
No, my wife was already on board remember for Yeah.
Paul Braren [35:11]
Right, because she knew she’d like it too much when she drove it. Once she drove it. That was true. She’s now hand crank, replace her car and then her car needs to be towed twice in a span of three months, all while I’m far away in a business trip. Right? And that was it. You know, have the talk like, Okay, how do we do this? One of the monthly bills and all that. And by the way, you know, well, yeah, we settled the family first got them through education, finishing their masters. We did it in that order. That’s why we driving ancient cars around for years all through high school and middle school. So that every family story is different. But my point about about the rebate, there is a Tesla with 210 mile range. That’s kind of crippled artificially a little bit, the same batteries, my wife’s, but it starts at 35,000 and you probably have a rebate in whatever state you’re in, like, New Jersey’s $5,000 rebate. So what did I just say? I just told you about a 30,000 metallic or $31,000 car that pretty much everybody loves consumer report says is the most love car ever like 90% customer set the car just kicking back from the people actually on it. There’s no other car my lifetime I remember like this, Jim. What other car had a quarter million people actually 400,000 pre order? What the heck? Like hasn’t happened?
Jim Collison [36:22]
If I was going to order that for summer? Do I need to order that now can I
Paul Braren [36:26]
know 33 days from placing the order to delivery and it’s from California so about those days are gone jump so yeah. When you talk to me the last podcast that was true it took a while to get my mother actually my car was not that bad, I think was six, seven weeks, little longer year ago.
Jim Collison [36:47]
Any any cameras in those cars from a security perspective? Do you have anything on the inside I know the backup cameras and some of those kinds of things, but any other security features that come with that that are that kind of fancy. You mentioned the value Key but
Paul Braren [37:01]
what an amazing stroke of timing, I found myself driving to Hampton ins not necessarily the most awesome place of the various cities I drive to all over New Jersey, New York. Pretty cool that they added century mode, meaning they started using the camera that’s aiming out the front to the sides, and then I went up the license plate. So what essentially motor records to USB? Well, people put a thumb drive in the thumb drive dies in two weeks or two months. So it’s both a dash cam. And if you turn on century mode, it’s recording video constantly when the cars Park. So that wears out your little USB thumb drive that was never meant for 99% rights, right? Cool thing is you can’t view it on the test of screen. So you have to like pull out the USB drive. And if someone dinged your door or whatever, you have to review the footage. So just last week, the engineer who created a product actually came to my house. And it’s called roadie for Tesla. And I’ll be reviewing this so those of you on the YouTube basically fired up an app happens to be iOS but runs on Android and we know click connects you It saying is a firmware update. I’m gonna ignore that right now because I’m on camera. Here we go we got some footage of the
Paul Braren [38:07]
cleanest part of my garage.
Paul Braren [38:10]
A little better footage. Okay, here’s me, you know driving yesterday or something. So basically it’s joined a Wi Fi network in my case I’m at home so they’re both in the same network but when you’re on the road, it’ll join the Wi Fi hotspot of a Raspberry Pi Zero. That’s in my goal in the center console, tiny little device that lets me view my footage. In fact someone unplugged me from Panera Bread the other day and I had fun seeing who did it. Where did they small caffeine pulling it out? Whatever I just drove away like fine he needed electricity more than me I was kind of just seeing how fast the charged I didn’t you know, but my point is if someone’s going to tamper with your car got this camera. This cars a bad choice to mess with in a parking lot. There’s endless videos on the web about people cutting people off and witnessing accidents dashcam catching it or when the cars parked people being up to no good. So yes is the answer. And they added this all with software since the car came out the car, just getting dramatically better. And that’s a pretty good example of a very compelling feature that was added for free. Well, after I took the liberty, I think that was maybe April.
Jim Collison [39:10]
I asked last show, you know, we talked, we had a little security breach here at the pound. And I have spent a bunch of time with cameras and figuring stuff out. And, you know, you you install some new cameras, and then you figure some things out about those cameras after using them for a couple weeks. And I think I, you know, I’m a week or week and a half, two weeks into them, and I’m already kind of like, Okay, the next time I do this, I’m going to do it a little bit different, right. But interesting, you know, you’re in a tech platform right there. What, you know, what, what did they offer, they’ve got a bunch of cameras around that to Paul, one of the things it’s interesting the solution you’ve come up with one of the things with both ring which you’re going to show here in a second and some of the other solutions. The problem isn’t the technology, the camera, the problems, the storage of the video, why? Where are you going to put it? Are you going to pay for it? Are you going to in rings are you going to pay the three or $10 a month to have it stored? I have some z moto cameras they want you know, they got some cost storage and some local stuff. The local stuff doesn’t roll off. You know, you’re talking about that thumb drive that eventually wears out. It is you start kind of thinking through like, Okay, if I’m gonna install a bunch of cameras, I kind of need to have a data plan in place or something to manage all the data that’s coming off these two at least for a week or two right to think about you’ve you’ve got some ring stuff in front of you there What do you have to talk about there?
Paul Braren [40:34]
No, great segue Gemma monthly bill right. Used to be maybe set up a Synology NAS in your home and stream to it like you know the McCabe has stories about that too. Right trying to keep up with video. And I’m very much into that cloud nothing right because the cloud providers changing every two three years but you have a terabyte you moved, you got bandwidth cast that you and I are in Cox gym, there’s been challenges with all that. It’s kind of nice. We could build your own infrastructure but man ring did kind of nail it with the ring alarm products because Now I’m paying one monthly bill to have fire smoke bridge to my existing detector. So I put detectors and all the bedrooms all over the house. And they’re just um, was it First Alert to make a loud noise ring had an add on device that listens for that noise. It connects to your security system. So it’s calling you know, police and fire accordingly for intrusion and fire and smoke all for one monthly bill that also keeps your videos from your cameras. That is smart. Meaning Yes, I’m paying a cab the cloud bill to keep those videos for longer. Now, what’s the downside? Do you remember Jamie before he was big and got bought by Amazon, right and you would talk to them and interview them which was fantastic. He was kind enough to leave a comment under my article on my website where I’ve caught someone else’s audio on my video. It freaked me out. This is before the recent things where they talked about overseas people viewing the videos or too much collaboration with police rings had some black eyes This year, the last six months or so. But my point of telling a story about the wrong audio. It did worry me about security a little bit right like really taking Seriously, if I listened to someone else’s audio and Jamie was kind enough to leave comments on my site explaining what happened, the technical issue and how they’re fixing it, that didn’t mean a lot to me, because you’re buying a platform. You don’t really want $400 A cameras and secure devices laying all your house becoming Well, you’ve heard of other smart home devices going out of business where everything becomes, you know, a doorstop a brick. Yeah, you’re shopping for the cloud provider, not just you know, I knew it was Amazon backup the video so it felt like ring had a pretty good chance of survival. So I don’t regret that. But mean it took them forever to add two factor for logging in. And that’s creepy when you get people have cameras inside your house. Yeah, I don’t have that is bad. So the two factor they added. It’s pretty weak. It’s SMS. Just as Twitter SMS is not the best two factor. You really want an app or something. And you and I have like traveled overseas and you need a data plan. You want you to factor in your phone. You don’t really want to rally an SMS because you go overseas, you don’t you have your us phone number, all all sorts of little things. They can do better. They’ve got called out for it. And I think that’s good. They’ve had their come up and said we need to wake up Yes, they had the billion dollar whatever what many millions whatever it was for Amazon takeover but they need to keep taking this too seriously and people don’t want to see each other’s videos and they don’t want to hand it over to police automatically or any of that so anyhow, so I don’t regret buying it and I blogged about them real early days including having to swap out the bring ring for the ring pro getting a better one and swapping out the transformer my basement that didn’t have enough voltage for the that’s problems and I blogged all about it warts and all. And you know, yeah, it’s just really cool though. To do that and actually have you know, Jamie comment on it and hear him you interviewing them. It’s like Whoa, that was big deal. Really cool.
Jim Collison [43:37]
That that kit that you have, I think that’s a 199 kit that you have that you
Paul Braren [43:43]
have it for quite a while actually. I think the price might still be done.
Jim Collison [43:47]
I think it’s 199 on Amazon right now if you want to get in that way. I picked up a add an $80 deal during the holidays where I got a ring doorbell and I got an Amazon Echo show Five for like 80 bucks and so that was kind of my intro into the doorbell and then of course the next day you know the our cars got went through and so I bought the cam on the garage that has been I’ve been thinking through ring has a pretty reasonable plan I think for the three bucks a month or $30 a year. I can get the minimal storage backup for what I’m doing or you have a $10 plan. Are you do you have to do that full plan with them? Is that what it’s costing you?
Paul Braren [44:28]
Yeah, monitoring for alarm fire I believe I have
Jim Collison [44:32]
100 bucks a year. Not i’m not i don’t think unreasonable to be honest in and I’ve still got some time some trial time on what I’m doing. I’ll make a decision. I’ll probably go with $3 plan and back them up. I have Paul I have all the cameras I put in so Tuesday motos, to which I would never go with I would actually never buy but two rings and then the D link through site hound where I do get to do my own storage that way Think you know if I moved or if I was going to redo things we’re going to go you know, it’s going to redo it. I after a week and a half or two weeks, I still kind of am leaning towards I’d like to have everything in sight sound and own all my storage sink some of it over to the IOC for fire protection at stake some of it to the Drobo just to have as a backup. That’s kind of like I’ve liked the functionality. The ring cameras, by the way, Aaron Lawrence, who was on two weeks ago, three weeks ago, maybe now. She just did a review on the ring cam and talked all about the security issues that you’re talking about. So it is like it’s very typically she doesn’t get that techie. But in her review, she was really really clear ring has had some bumps going. They’ve been doing just like you said and I think going in, especially this audience is probably probably pretty sensitive and pretty savvy to that. I hadn’t I wasn’t aware of those when I picked up that doorbell and stick up cam. I wasn’t aware of those when I bought them I might have made a different decision. If I had known that now I’ve got them up they work great. I think green is going to do some things in the future Have you added since you put that in what else have you added from from security system?
Paul Braren [46:12]
Yeah, no cameras like you your story about cameras wearing crew I was actually just doing something similar. adding additional camera right near my giant white plastic box and my friend step for deliveries having a camera there.
Jim Collison [46:24]
My wife just, she just Sarah just reference to that box. There you go. She was like, Hey, didn’t somebody come on? Talk about like,
Paul Braren [46:36]
they talked about that. I think in last podcast, I know. It was Yeah, she wrapped it up 80% of the delivery people maybe 70% actually use it. Some people look at it and then put it down in the step anyway. In the rain, you know, it doesn’t always work. But it helps definitely
Jim Collison [46:50]
especially well now that I’ve now that I’ve got the ring, this is what we noticed. So the delivery people look for the cameras. And so they’re coming up. We watched this happen the first couple days. We had at our Amazon guy came up the steps, saw both cameras and then put the package where it could be seen by both cameras. And I thought that’s pretty cool. Now he’s incented because you know, they’re there they you know, they drop your package take a picture of it. Right and they don’t they don’t want that thing stolen off your off your your porch. So there must be some and I bet there is some kind of KPI or something that those delivery drivers have on stuff that gets stolen. I bet in some way, their incentive to make sure it gets there in some way. But yeah, Paul, we this driver looked at both cameras and then put it in the place and I thought, you know, if I’d had the box, the delivery box, and I think it’s like 45 5060 bucks. I’m not terrible. I could put it right there and I could see them put it in there. Like they’d have to take the little put it in. I could see him on both cameras be able to do that. So I still may. I didn’t pick it up. I think I’m gonna go I think I’m gonna I went I actually went back to you The old post the last time you’re on, I was like, what was that thing that we talked about? And still available the exact same thing still available on Amazon? I may put a package box right on the porch. It just kind of keeps the shenanigans Have you found it kind of keeps the shenanigans at bay? And have you had anybody come up? And have you seen anything in your ring cam that alarmed you at all?
Paul Braren [48:23]
No, I’ve been pretty good. Um, and by the way, if someone wants to find it, it’s called step two. I misspoke when I said Rubbermaid or whatever i said before and take your credit. com forward slash hgG 385 a year ago, where I have six different places to shop for Amazon, Home Depot, Lowe’s, whatever that looks for it. No, for it’s mostly sometimes something so big or sometime it’s useful for my wife and I didn’t know something’s waiting, who’s gonna pick it up? It’s just helpful for all of that. Luckily, we don’t seem to have a lot of, you know, theft so far in the neighborhood. I know a lot of people are really thrilled with that. Especially apartments and all that problem still hasn’t been solved for that can tell
Jim Collison [48:57]
Do you use a neighborhood app at all? Do you monitor what’s going on in your name? neighborhood with
Paul Braren [49:01]
Yeah, not me not so much. My wife Yeah, more so.
Paul Braren [49:06]
Yeah, yeah.
Paul Braren [49:09]
useless to know what’s happening a mile and a half for me though, like, really like, I don’t know, kinda like you could sit and read the news about miserable stuff happening if you spread the radius far enough around your house
Jim Collison [49:17]
really useful if I know if there’s been a rash of you know like if I had known there had been when I after I logged into the ring app I had seen there been a rash of that going around the neighborhood you know we got some we got some kids who were just checking to see if cars are open right. And if I’d known that I probably would have been a little more vigilant to make sure that they that they were all locked in so for me it’s just kind of a like a kind of just want to know what my threat level is. If there’s a rash of cars that starting to get stolen well I’ll probably be a little more vigilant about checking my cameras to make sure you know the the dealing camera on site hound the site and technology that identifies vehicles Animals, humans, those kinds of things is really good. Like, it is really good at identifying things. And so at the end of the day, I can come home and look at the camera and say, Hey, show me all the clips that have humans. And then I can quickly scroll through scroll through those and say, Okay, what was going on? Like today, I watched the kids walking home from school. And I could see during that certain time period, kids were walking by my house and going to school. So I think just being aware kind of what the threat level is, or what’s going on may make me a little more vigilant on the checking the camera side to see if I can help identify. I do think I don’t know about you, Paul. But I do think visible cameras on your property are a deterrent, I think, you know, agree.
Paul Braren [50:47]
Yeah. My wife is very vigilant. I’m thankful for that. I’m admitting I’m not as vigilant right. So it’s good someone and she would know something’s happening here. But I didn’t realize that part of your story that that rings neighborhood app might have helped you in your circumstance. I didn’t really put together I’m glad you pointed that out. So some people listening, they’re probably, you know, pretty meaningful.
Jim Collison [51:04]
And you don’t i don’t think you have to have the ring any ring equipment to download the app and check in on the neighborhood. I think Jamie even said that when, in some interview, I don’t know if it was mine or whatever we were talking about that but just not a bad Not a bad app to have on your phone to kind of monitor and see what’s going on in the neighborhood. I like I said, I probably would have been a little more vigilant. The interesting thing is we’re having some interesting conversations now with neighbors and it’s all anonymous, which is kind of crazy. We’re having some interesting conversations with neighbors and I’ve had some neighbors post we had somebody come up and rifle through their rifle through through their mail. And it was all caught on the camera and they’re like, Hey, does anybody know this person? And just I think it just adds a little bit of a name right accountability to that. So I’m still kind of deciding I, you know, like I said, I got three different cameras and I’m kind of deciding like, Okay, what I also installed some motion sensor lights, you know, I ordered some motion sensor lights off the off Amazon and I’ve got I put one in the garage, which I don’t need that light blaring all the time. So it just comes on when I pop in there and then same in the in the front, the front door light. As you get closer to the door, it comes on. And those are both govi lights that I’m trying now gobies, I think Chinese company that’s pretty inexpensive. I got their little humidifier for my cigar box in it’s dumb. It’s a dumb light, except it has a sensor built into it, which is really, really interesting. There’s a little you know, the bolt comes down and then at the end of the bulb is the sensor and you just screw the things in and they’re there motion sensing.
Paul Braren [52:45]
Yeah. Do you recall? Do you segregate your Wi Fi at all? I know you’ve talked about that a little bit.
Jim Collison [52:51]
Okay, I haven’t but I think I’m going to do you.
Paul Braren [52:54]
Yeah, like, you know, the, the Tesla has or the cameras they just send the guest Wi Fi like they know they don’t need to be on my homes network? So, a little less risk there, right? Raspberry Pi or whatever, all this stuff Internet of Things. I just put in a separate network. Yeah. Is that perfect? No, but um it’s something some people would do a whole separate SSID which is what like we were talking about, I think last week. Yeah, yep. Everyone has a different approach. Yeah, not not not a bad idea. especially some of the products you buy we have no idea what it’s sending and what they do whatever. Anything’s an attack vector, even a printer. had a lot of things actually at least ship with public ports open usually behind that and the home. That is true. But firmware can do some weird stuff with lateral moves. So well, you know, it’s it’s been cryptolocker all kinds of stuff. Yeah. So yeah. Just Just curious what you do there.
Jim Collison [53:46]
Did you did you install a chime it all with your ring? Well, I installed the chime pro which actually acts as kind of a repeater or an amplifier for the Wi Fi and I attached both devices to the chamber. You didn’t did you have to do that at all?
Paul Braren [54:02]
Yeah, no, it’s good. I’m with euros. So I just I have actually four euros. I have one in the basement lab where I’m working on Tinker, try stuff. Upstairs when you’re the garage where the cars are, so that works fine. The Tesla show with three or four bars. And upstairs that handles the garage, the doorbell or house not that huge or anything. When you’re doing the cave, he’s got like, 4000. That’s huge. He’s got a whole different story. Yeah, he
Jim Collison [54:28]
has a big space. And he has big corners. I mean, he’s spread out. So he’s got to get that Wi Fi to the corners to the to the edge of things. Yeah. So he’s he has a challenge on that. I don’t hear I can get away with either one. bitdefender router that that does its job. So go and show that
Paul Braren [54:46]
Yeah, speaking of networks here.
Paul Braren [54:50]
Nothing so.
Paul Braren [54:52]
Here’s what’s different about my phone. Let’s take a look. What do you see for logos there, Jim.
Jim Collison [54:58]
I see both varieties. Any TMG on there?
Paul Braren [55:01]
So what’s that about? And then show the Sigma street for both right? So how do we do that? So a lot of people aren’t aware that iPhone 10 or 11 has an ISA as well as an NSM. So that meant I called Verizon when I got the Dell job and Dell and offered me a phone carrier second phone like No thanks. I’ll just mail me the sim. So they sent me an at&t Sim. I called rise and say, Hey, I got an iPhone 11 I want to pop out the nanosecond. Can you move my phone number for rising over to the eastern part of the phone? They said sure. They went did that you reboot the phone tested out the column at work that I popped the at&t seven now have a dual sim phone takes phone calls from both place calls from both there’s actually a good FAQ an apple site and I don’t know if you do show notes off the chat but let me throw that out there. And it walks through all this because guess what, for messages for voicemail, there’s some thinking to do. Here’s the cool part, Jim. data. And this I can’t shows I guess it was funny. Yes, but automatic failover from one to the other. That is cool. So you pick your cell primary for cellular data is it the personal one or the workflow the works them and if when it gets really weak like disappears it hands off to the other one. In other words I one heck of a hotspot a dual brain to hotspot now so if I need to host a zoom meeting pulled over the charger something Sunday from the road well part I just plug in the USB to my computer USBC because it charges nice and fast or a nice fast charge and it’s while you’re tethering no Wi Fi at all for the best most robust connection and we phones now providing Delete on at&t or Verizon whichever a stronger pretty cool thing that people just don’t seem to know or haven’t heard of. Android two dual phones can be really handy for work why would you want to carry two phones have to charge Bluetooth Connect
Paul Braren [56:47]
so they have to do
Jim Collison [56:50]
no that’s that’s super cool before we leave the ring and we’ll talk a little bit about Botox here in a second but did you you in the notes have it says ring freezer story Did we did we talk about that? Yeah, that’s
Paul Braren [57:03]
great. I’m glad you brought that up. Yeah. So he was a moisture detector, water detector, leak detector, whatever you want to call it. number one cause of damage to people’s houses right when they go away. So I unbox it I record a video in 4k and like many more videos that never saw the light of day I don’t think I ever got that published. Like 80 articles, my dress folder after eight years of blogging,
Jim Collison [57:24]
and you do a lot of blogging, so I’m surprised you have that much in your draft.
Paul Braren [57:31]
Yeah, I never put any thousand articles to summer kind of fall by the wayside. But anyhow, that’s one that never made it but their water detector product was only like a week old. I bought it pretty early. I should have blogged about it. And the story there was I unbox it I pair it with my ring alarm system shows in the ring app and it keeps track of temperature so it gets really cold or if it gets wet. So I forgetting the exact name of the product, but I couldn’t hear the phone call in the house and When I’m back there for whatever reason, there’s a profit there before I go to bed that night, the hatch for the garage, sorry, the hatch for the basement wasn’t completely closed and the door wasn’t completely closed. So I had been doing some work or throwing some stuff out whatever happened. I didn’t seal things up. It got to be like eight degrees Fahrenheit that night, things got really chilly. And what do you know, I was greeted with an alarm The next morning, went to check it out. And I had been planning to go away for a few days. That could have been bad. I could have frozen my house. Yeah, my point is the very within 12 hours of installing the thing. It’s in my bacon, because I would have left the house with the basement unconditioned and would have no clue about it. Yeah, so there’s my success story with I think a $40 product right like, okay, they nailed it. I put my house at risk without knowing about it and that could have been bad. Yeah. So a bit of insurance there now even better would be if a leak detector with turn off a valve that turns out the water Joel house. That’d be kind of cool. I think ring is adopted. A whole lot of third party ecosystem, right? So you get a whole lot of third party products. Yeah, that’d be cool. If a rain water detector would automatically trigger. Okay, this person’s got a leak in there. You know, let’s just turn off the whole lot, right?
Jim Collison [59:11]
I think that’s the one thing I’ve learned in doing in the last two weeks, we’re doing all this work. In resurrecting the habitat right, I bought the habitat back in the in the spring, I tried using it, I wasn’t ready for it yet. Like I didn’t fully understand what it could do. And after installing cameras and thinking through some things, I pulled the habitat back out. Also a D link had had upgraded all their systems, Philips Hue had released a brand new app that I didn’t know about. And it was just like, in six months, that whole ecosystem had changed radically on me. All one of the things I’ve realized then with all this IoT work that I’ve been doing is we have made strides, huge strides in integrating all the systems together so you can get ring and z moto and wise and all these devices now connect all these different ways. And they all interact with each other. It’s not seamless. And it’s it’s not easy, but it does work. And I think it’s just going to get as we consolidate a little bit more and such. I think it’s just going to kind of get better. But there is a lot of integration going on right now with all the services. It seems like every single IoT app has a bunch of automations in it, the Google Home stuff will do it they be Amazon a lady things will do it for you. It there’s a ton of different options. And so I just I don’t know about you, but I am finding, I woke up to a world where a year ago, not a lot was possible and nobody was working together. And now all of a sudden everybody is and you have this. You have this amazing integration that’s going in with all these things. So I just it’s an interesting for me, it’s just been an interesting wake up call to like, oh, You know, maybe I need to dig back in on some of this IoT stuff in, in think through all the integrations that I have, including, you know, so I set up an integration that leaves the lights on down here for the litter box and the front door, but shuts everything else off out front. And those are all on sensors now. And so you just get some, like, he just gave me some new options, right and in some of the stuff that I was doing.
Paul Braren [1:01:23]
Yeah, I look forward to hearing people like Richard Gunther, talk about this new Google collaboration, crowd collaboration with Amazon and apple. Yeah, you got some amazing guests in the show, too. Yeah. So just looking in the chat there to about that collaboration. The industry could use that. Like you said, you’re looking for apps. Well, if you don’t get a ring camera, then you’ve got another app to fire up to check that other view of your driveway, whatever. It’s a mess.
Paul Braren [1:01:50]
Yep. Yeah.
Jim Collison [1:01:53]
It’s well, but it’s, it’s, it’s harder, but it’s more there’s more things that are possible. And so you know, I can build a dashboard and habitat that brings all these things in, but not quite all of them. And I can build a dashboard and my Amazon infrastructure that gets almost everything but not quite all of it. Google Home, which does a really good job of it, by the way, I think they they’re onto something there. But not 100% of the stuff and so you kind of have 95 or 90% solutions on all of them, which a year ago, you had zero to 15% solutions. Everybody was isolated, right? You couldn’t do a lot of things. Today, you know, you’re getting some on my on my on my Amazon device, I can view and monitor both the Z moto which I think was actually possible and the ring cams by just asking, show me the cams, and it logs into the website and brings me the cams back. It’s slow and a little clunky. But there’s just so many the habitat is got in Which is a super interesting device because it’s got all this user, you know, it’s a really sharp development community that are doing a lot of cool things. But you almost have to be a developer to to interact with it. I mean, I’m copy and pasting code into this thing to make it kind of work. I’m trying to get those guys. I’m trying to get Patrick Stewart back on as well to talk some more about that. So So Paul, it’s just, I say all that to say, I think the IoT world for the consumer for the average guy has changed drastically, I started approaching this stuff. I’m like, wow, this is way different than it was a year ago when i when i first interviewed habitat, then and find it that interesting. Today, I’m finding it very interesting. You and I have had this discussion, we gotta have it because we have it all the time. You first and then me or under internet, you know, data caps, and I think it’s been a year for me and maybe some change in doing that. And you’d put in the show notes, you know, how are you dealing with that? I haven’t had any problems. Actually. The only time I did was when we were doing some really big cryptocurrency stuff and it was, you know, downloading dozens of block chains kind of thing. Have you had any? Have you any problems or certainly now you have dual Sims on your phone, you can switch over to that. But if you had any problems or data caps,
Paul Braren [1:04:12]
yeah, no, I definitely use that I went with Giga blast and why when I joined VMware early 2017. In the first week, I blew through my cap, the laptop, the corporate laptop was doing backups. And I do a lot of stuff with big big files. So it was pretty much a no brainer that Cox was forcing me at that point to move over to Giga blast where there was a cap, so she had to pay more per month.
Jim Collison [1:04:36]
It’s pretty significant though, right? Yeah, it’s 50 bucks more.
Paul Braren [1:04:39]
It can be 950 down and 37 up so it’s all right, there’s not fiber. So it’s a DOCSIS 3.1 cable modem. And they’re willing to pay for that. But I ended up I think I own the modem. And it took six truck rolls to get that right. So I was a little bit early for gigabyte. So my neighborhood one of the first in town Yeah, what reminded me of being ISDN, the first dude in town in 1990. Six or whatever it was. So once they got DOCSIS three, one working in my neighborhood, I could consistently get that speed on a synthetic test. But Jim real world, whether it’s Microsoft ISOs, you’re downloading it from vmware.com hypervisor, whatever. Most sites just cap you at like 20 or 30 megabits per second, you’re not seeing anywhere near 100 megabits. The cool thing is though, you could be downloading five offices at once. And since my little 90 actually $110 now, ubiquity edge router can keep up with that. It’s fine. It can handle that. trying any third party products or filtering products, they all slow me down to 100 200. When you’re paying for gigabit, you know, you want gigabit on the way in interface, you want to be able to actually handle that. And it’s my surprise the ubiquity of had for three years been a complete success. And that’s really helped me before my home lab DNS works great for local name resolution. Linux and Windows machines can see each other by name, they automatically see each other if a computer is a hostname by default when you boot a boon to or something. It makes up a name. Okay, just go over a Windows machine. Hang up by the name. And everybody knows each other video. That’s like, that is a cool product. Most home consumer routers don’t do local resolution, you just are surfing the web. They don’t care what’s in your house. So. So I’m sorry, we’re going slightly back to topic, but I just want to touch on Tony and others, I think in the chat, they wanted to know about insteon Yeah, success story. I started blogging about insteon. In 2012. I had no product failures since 2012. It’s eight years later. Now they’re stagnation. I’m a little worried about them coming out with a new toggle switch that will be competitive with LED bulbs that are now common. When they engineered the thing and years ago, that was not common. It was mostly public for excellence. So a minor concern but I like that, but I spent money replace some lamps that could put the front lights automatically at sunset and often the lighting, that kind of thing, Christmas tree lights, all this work and eight years later, that’s a tech success story to me. It wasn’t the perfect choice because now there’s big B and there’s lots of ways were smart home was kind of proprietary with 3d and stuff. But you know what Richard Gunther is on For most of this stuff for lighting, it’s worked out. I’m
Jim Collison [1:07:04]
sorry I went back a little topic No, no. What What do you think it from a home automation standpoint? What’s the What do you not have that is going to be the next thing for you to install? Home Automation wise?
Paul Braren [1:07:18]
Hmm. Jim I think I’m kind of there like, you know, don’t
Jim Collison [1:07:21]
say it’s not so Paul.
Paul Braren [1:07:25]
The stuff I really need, like be able to control the thermostat if we’re away for a few days and check the temperature in the house. We talked about a moisture and thermal detector, which $35 said earlier, by the way, nice to pack is 70 I threw that in the chat. Um, let me think comic Yeah. I don’t know. Like, when remember I mentioned when I go away, things go wrong. And things going right and they’ve got to and that’s what I my customers expecting it my day job is make it reducing risk in my life and in my customers data centers. Kind of same thing at home. My tinkering needs to be so Separate iWork mentioned the basement, but the stuff that actually keeps the house going needs to be pretty solid and I’d have to say leaving it settled for a little bit but we’ve had a kind of a challenging year and two job changes last year. My focus honestly wasn’t on tinkering with that stuff. You needed to just work so I’m going to give you the answer. I haven’t really thought that one through and I’m not there’s one exception just thought of it. I don’t know if this really counts my wife’s car that I showed you. The kind of cheap down at home kit removed home kit and it can no longer open a garage door and you pull to your house and the newer Tesla Model threes in the lower trim levels. Not a big deal. I mean the battery pack is by far the lion’s share in her cars 40 pounds less because its range is 20% less. So that’s where most of the money difference way between your car my car but they did take some other things to try to incent you to get with the four wheel drive. But I’m living you know in New England where pretty much one of your car needs to be four wheel drive way better than our Honda Civic everyone’s been away from incredible you know snow as we talked about earlier. But there is a device that fit the bill. I don’t know. We’ll see. I think it was 80 bucks. So Bluetooth, you put this module in, sync it up with my, I think 18 year olds, garage door openers that are above me that still work amazingly. basically giving him some smarts where Bluetooth gets out of range, okay, it automatically closes the door. So think about that. If I can retrofit her car with an $80 opener that works every time. The Tesla one actually only works about 95% of the time. So that’s actually a win. I don’t really want to pay in order she wanted to pay $300 to retrofit her car at home link that Tesla took out of the cars were used to be standard for my car, right? So there’s my little story for a gym. I’ll let people know how it goes fairly well reviewed on Amazon. It’s nothing to do with Wi Fi or anything. It’s just a done device that uses Bluetooth to figure out when your clothes for your particular devices clothes. Oh, let’s let them in. Is it a security right you know, I’ll be keeping tabs on that hasn’t been.
Jim Collison [1:09:55]
We’ll see, Paul for there’s been some discussion in our discord group. light bulbs Wi Fi enabled light bulbs versus switches. And so now knowing what you know and when you think about lighting in on from the Philips side other gym in the chat room saying Philips new Wi Fi bulbs are from their purchase of Wiz. I wonder if there’s ever going to be an integration between them and you and that doesn’t. That’s not out there today that doesn’t work. But do you have any preference when you think about it, it’s kind of gone in the in the discord group. It’s kind of been like some folks are like, you know, I’m moving away from bulbs and I’m just going and control and getting dumb bulbs and controlling them with smart switches. Have you kind of thought through that in your environment as far as how you control them and how you want to control them.
Paul Braren [1:10:49]
All right, our house is built in late 94. We moved in first owners early 95 when house is more affordable, thank goodness our timing there. So we’re now living our house almost 25 years. toggle switches in the walls. You know what, from a human factors perspective, not a bad idea, kind of swipe your hand across the wall and you can very easily find a toggle and, and turn it on. Okay? So if someone else’s in your house, it needs to be that easy. Anything that requires a nap or a tabletop controller that’s labeled what to turn on and off, kind of a fail. I mean, when, you know, family of four, and then we actually had seven living now so when I got the number, right, yeah. Everything’s got to just work. And that’s part of that project where I had everything working and most of it still working, where if I’m gonna replace like a living room lamp that you can’t mess with meaning it’s just going to go on and off with a timer. I don’t want a wall switch to override it and break that. So I put a toggle in from Instagram where it’s a toggle, it sticks straight out, you flip it up with your finger turns on you flip it down, it turns off, but it also does its own thing. It’s sunset and sunrise. Right in other words is nothing for the family to learn. He’s still the same sweetness, light motion. Whereas decor has different shapes and sizes and brands oh no never a big fan of that because you go to someone else’s house and it just feels all weird. toggles they’re pretty old school but um since the house already had them I want with that when I work with in stone so my office a little different um some of the rooms in my house you might want to turn off a light that the ceiling light from your bed not just a near the door where you come in from your door that supposed to be closed during fires we learned thanks to Jim. Thank you for that job by the way event
Jim Collison [1:12:26]
coming up by the way, we’re still I got this still in the box ready to do the live on Boxing on Joel comes on. So
Paul Braren [1:12:33]
yeah, yep. So for people listening there, instead of nice and affordable little pad, that’s this button by your bed or wherever where you can turn off, maybe your computer screens or maybe your ceiling like whatever your stuff your house didn’t have when it was built. You can now have the wall switch controlled by a tiny little battery operated remote control that has four different you know, insteon devices control that enough. Negative would be it’s Mike mini USB, which are now let’s see micro USB You got to charge it every three four months. little annoying. Yeah, not a big deal but you got to charge it for a couple hours every three four months when the light turns red is that agree? Um, so yeah, sorry not not the most high tech new answer but again to me that’s a tech success. I didn’t have to keep hemorrhaging money year after year and replace devices. They really last quite well. I did you hold homes or suppress my extend, extend devices were lasting no more than two, three years. I put it on hold and lit lebreton $260 whole house search depression device installed by electrician and my extend devices started lasting longer. And then I replaced a lot with insteon. And, you know, like I said they’ve lasted at least eight years. Yeah,
Jim Collison [1:13:38]
we oppd our power company actually provides that as a service really cheap. And so they’ll come out and put a device on your house and run the ground in and service it and guarantee it right behind it. So they have a $250,000 they’ll replace it due to any search from the outside. They take care of it and they just recently Suddenly offered me a $3 plan, they’ll take care of all the inside wiring to which I just kind of like get a house this age, this is you know, 1960 not the best wiring in here and we’ve had some wiring problems and I’m like, you know, I’m going to take you up on that because in the next couple years, I may have some things that need to be replaced that I’ll probably give them a call from those calls are only good up to 1500 bucks. But for the things for the small little wiring things that I may need a lot of a lot easier for me to come to have them come out and replace those kinds of things then to do it. So that’s another option our power company does that I find very, very useful is I can just basically subscription power, you know, subscription work that way.
Paul Braren [1:14:43]
Is it a smart meter?
Jim Collison [1:14:46]
It is not. Yeah, no, it is not.
Paul Braren [1:14:50]
Okay, um, since I may have mentioned that on our last one, I don’t know. But this is a device that’s real time monitoring. How many watts are being burned in my house right now. It is failed. reliably detect Tesla, though. Hmm. So here’s what I’m going to do. Let’s just show the audience here. I know that’s been people in the YouTube, but I’m gonna change the limit of the car from 90%, let’s say 91 or something to get the charger to start here, what we’re on the air, okay, the cars going to start charging them. And we’ll see the Walker and go up considerably. And their ECM sends out a big spike. So pretty cool, and that I didn’t install anything special on the wall. This is just a clamp and amateur that goes around in your panel. But you know, they struggle to just get the algorithm and figure out what’s tested and then I got to test was if they’re both charging at once, you know, it’d be great if it kept track of both. Here’s the thing though. There’s an app, an API Tesla has where it knows exactly how much electricity this car is sucking up. So I can go to a web portal and see and I did a one year article like 25,000 miles and one year of ownership with the Tesla Model three, and it put the stats right in there like how much should I spend on a home Charging supercharging is actually zero because referrals. So, yeah, just I’m pretty good, you know, like a nice freezer chest in the basement and keep tabs in that. You didn’t have to do like a smart plug for each of those devices. It learned most things in my house, but not all of them, including the heavy hitter like the two cars, which is kind of sad. They’ve been struggling with the firmware, I’ve been trying to help them in the forums. And they’re judging him. They’re trying hard, their supports been awesome. I want them to succeed. And I’m the kind of guy that tries to do that and do bug reports and say, Hey, you can look at my data, have a look, figure out you know, what’s going on my house. It worked for seven of the last 12 months of last year. So they really struggled every time the firmware come out and the Tesla would charge a slightly different way kind of throw them off their game. So there that’s why I haven’t written about me and I just said yeah, it with them yet. Success.
Jim Collison [1:16:48]
We had a question in I think the Facebook group about sense and I didn’t know you had pulling in so it’s you’d be good referral from that as folks are asking about that. Those, you see those ads all over YouTube and Facebook, I think they were they were advertising for quite a while on, you know, you basically just clamp that on to your to your box. No, the one we have is actually goes on to the meter. So it’s a surge protector that goes on to the meter has two little lights underneath it’s not tracking Its job is really just to make sure that if any spike is coming back through for any weather related reasons, or whatever or power reasons from, from the power company, that those those things are leveled out and or controlled in some way. I’ve also let them kind of come in they have a during the summer we have a program where they’ll spin down your air conditioner during peak times in run it a little bit differently to kind of help with the load. And for that I got some credits on my system to kind of help out with that. We noticed absolutely no difference this summer in our cooling around it and I got some sweet Credits out of the deal and they control it so pretty cool and and then I bought solar credits from them too. So they’re we’re putting in solar big big solar farms up north here and you can you can buy into the infrastructure of it and then that comes back through your bill. And, and so I made a deposit and will be participating in that program to kind of help them in this case, help the power company build out the infrastructure kind of commits me to it we benefit on the backside. And you know, I it’s here in Nebraska, it’s a lot cheaper to do it that way then to put panels on my rush. So,
Paul Braren [1:18:39]
so So Jim, I just shared an article, please are bidirectional home PC TVs into a huge Tesla powerwall. That’s surfline Electric writing three days ago about a new product. What’s interesting there is imagine your power company who’s got some troubles in July and August keeping up with peak and basically they’ve been Using your car battery on those two or three days a year where they’re just really hurting for a little extra juice to limp along through it. At what cost? Well, maybe they subsidize the $4,000 or $5,000 installed unit. So that would be something where they kind of own the unit, your house and you agree to have it charging your cars all year long, but three or four times a year, it’s actually going to suck some juice out of your cars to try to keep up with that, you know, 6pm everyone’s home turning on the air conditioner watching Netflix kind of thing in the summer. So kind of interesting, right? A little different than a generator.
Jim Collison [1:19:31]
Yeah, just or even a little different than traditional solar where you have it on your roof. It sure so
Paul Braren [1:19:37]
that’s what’s been fun about the car like it’s opened my mind up to, well, the planet and thinking about all that, and that’s even more polarizing that whole thing. Do people actually believe things are changing, but whatever, at least my wife and I are trying, right? Yeah, I’m reading just burning through everything that our planet has to offer. We’re trying to make steps in the right direction. Yeah. And it’s fun for me to write about stuff where 10,000 people read it and 2.1% actually buy it. I had a greater impact than carbon imprint that the last eight years of articles I’ve written about little home servers. So let’s just let that sink in. right that’s part of why I write about this stuff just because well it’s my own blog I can write about whatever kind of motivates me and excites me and Tesla has been a little bigger on my blog this year. It’s also kind of nice to people actually seem to watch you know and appreciate the YouTube videos too. So I’m part of that is Intel stagnation with there’s the on chip and moving past 14 animator, so Intel’s been kind of a yawn for a year or two. So I’m writing about something else temporarily until they finally go to 70 centimeter and try to you know, compete with the end epic, which is kind of transferring them right now. So more to come for me, but I just kind of follow what my passion is, you know that year and what insights me and the test is definitely met the bill and have you learned a whole lot about power. One more top power thing to Jim still there. Yeah, yeah, one more power thing, Connecticut, I think six years ago. We had a really big scare in October where it snow pretty heavily like third week of October, and I was actually driving home from Boston and got heavier and heavier. Next day. There were leaves on the tree still, it’s stuck to the leaves. It was sticky, heavy, wet snow took down power for eight days and musty Connecticut. Now it’s 40 degrees, so you weren’t bursting your pipes in the basement. But it was a good wake up call that hospitals like my IBM customers, they had some trouble, like their diesel generators only ran for two or three days. They were assuming a truck could make it from New Jersey to refill, but they were still trees like laying across 91 for a day or two or major you know, north south corridor. So I just share that story that that was a big wake up call. They started shaving trees like crazy inner power has been more reliable sense. But you still have a little PTSD for what that’s like having my family and my parents move in trying to save all the food. me trying to fill up the generator but going into the one pump that work that actually had power. Gas stations don’t work when there’s no power if people didn’t know that, but there was one good little drive away, right Wait a line from midnight 2am three or four in a row to get my tanks fail to fulfill the generator keep the house going with, like a people living there temporarily. So I just tell that story that people in California are dealing with that for decades to come. Holy smokes, right. They got some real problems with the power company that’s happily just turning off their power on a regular basis. So you better believe the battery is going to be a lot of interest to people in their garages in their homes.
Jim Collison [1:22:23]
Yeah, well, especially because we have better batteries. Like I mean, I think that’s the key is that, you know, years ago, 10 years ago, our battery technology was pretty bad. Yeah. And you were putting in lead acid batteries right banks of them that weren’t that that weren’t great, right and venting and you know, all kinds of problems with and now our battery technologies gotten a lot better. I do love the fact you’ve got, you know, yeah, yeah, your car is 99% of the time you’re using those batteries to run the car. But what if they weren’t what what if they became part of the grid as a backup
Paul Braren [1:22:59]
because I Now this device is enabling it’s not made by Tesla which is a little weird and for now it’s not even compatible with Tesla but the vision there is that Tesla allowed it yeah your car certainly capable of powering house there’s a thing called power wall. But I think each car is worth like four power walls these batteries are giant and my car here so yeah, they could power your house today’s
Unknown Speaker [1:23:19]
Right.
Paul Braren [1:23:20]
Yeah. So I did have a transfer switch put in where Yes, I still have a gas generator, you plug it in, roll it out to the backyard far from the house, fire it up, plug in a thick beefy cord to the transfer and then hit the manual transfer switch and they get my house back and so I still have that. And when the electrician was doing the wiring for the Tesla he had 100 amps on panel for the garage. For whatever reason my town zoning and electrical codes wouldn’t allow him to do to 60 amp breakers and 120 so he was 100 it’s fine for two cars were charging and top speed with charges we have so we’re not losing anything. We have a much bigger like Model X or something. Yeah, I didn’t go all the way up to 70 kilowatts, we don’t need that in our house. We have no plans for a giant car again. My Way I mind you have been driving small Honda Civic or whole, pretty much our whole life. So we’re used to small cars even when our kids are growing up and they’re six feet tall. So we’re pretty modest in our, you know, our needs, we never just how we are, we like small cars, we’re not even hankering for the model y. But if people got a got their interest and they’re thinking about test driving it hopefully you remember nothing else from this. Before you buy whatever brand electric car at least test drive one of them. If you’re on the fence about going gas or electric test drive any electric car before you make that decision, I encourage you and then consider what I said that the price is getting down to lower than the average price of the American car, which is now it is astounding $36,000. So you remember there’s one test that we have special are in column, say I want the cheap one. And there’s still one for 31,000 I believe they keep withdrawing it and putting offering again, more realistically, it’s going to be more like 30,000 that one’s here to stay. The cheaper one that’s three to 5000 minus some rebates that when she’s to come and go, I don’t know. But we’ll see. I’m imagine going to New Jersey announcing the Yesterday I think $5,000 rebate for its citizens. Holy smokes sure beats Connecticut 1500 you know, incentivizing behavior. You know, China and other places did that it had a huge move. Norway is dumping all gas by 2025 other European countries are following suit. That’s only five years away, Jim, saying you can’t drive a gas car in this country. That’s this is happening in America is just way behind. But especially Europe and having visited Europe last year again. boy did I see it firsthand the gas prices driving that rental car around. I was pretty keen on getting a car with 40 miles per gallon not 20, which was the rental car places one to give me and it was driving 800 miles with my parents. So yeah, I think about those things. Every month, every dollar counts. If you rent a car that has 20 miles per gallon, you can spend $1,000 driving it 1000 miles in Europe, versus the rental itself is only 300. That stuff matters. Like people don’t think it’s expensive. Look at your bill. filter your annual American Express for all your guests. Does it have a look? If I met with 25,000 miles last year Oh my god. Yeah, yeah. Yeah
Jim Collison [1:26:07]
that’s pretty great Paul thanks for thanks for coming back on sorry It’s been a year I didn’t realize it had gone we done a whole year without seeing Yeah, I thought we were on the six month rotation so I have to do better a better job of getting my my spreadsheet a little more current so I get you on here on your bi annual side but thanks for jumping in. Thanks for being creative. You’re always always thinking through your my most creative guests in a lot of ways that you’re always thinking about different ways in all the times you’ve been on thinking about different ways you can present things and do things and have things laid out. I was thinking a couple episodes back we kind of did a look back at
Jim Collison [1:26:52]
your you have to watch the YouTube video to see that one. Know why is that in there? What were you
Paul Braren [1:27:00]
I don’t know if we’re gonna do something goofy like having you in the back seat. Oh,
Jim Collison [1:27:03]
yeah, hold on let me let me go fullscreen on YouTube video show just bring that in camera view so people can see.
Paul Braren [1:27:11]
My one of my inspire me. So,
Jim Collison [1:27:14]
super great. Well, Paul, thanks hang tight for one second and with the Edit. This will be right right about an hour and 20 minutes so remind will remind everyone Yeah, we started a little late and then I think there’s it it was probably good 10 minutes that the internet went out on me so
Paul Braren [1:27:29]
and the breo came by the way 720 p How did I look? If you
Unknown Speaker [1:27:32]
look fine. Now looks great. Yeah,
Paul Braren [1:27:35]
yeah, you’re down resisted a bit. But the wider angle ends work well, for tonight. I took up dead. It was waiting there or rain. So yeah. Anyway,
Jim Collison [1:27:44]
I have not had anybody have to tell Duane enough step up his game that you came in from the Tesla. And so I’ll have to tell them tell him that as well. A couple reminders. Why don’t we thank our Patreon subscribers who each and every month support the network. So the theAverageGuy.tv sauce Patreon at solving the other day was just very generous in what he has doing a listener. And so we appreciate those who do that as well. And so and thanks for your pledge to Patreon again the average guy TV slash Patreon if you want to jump in on that they are just go to TV slash discord or the average guy that TV slash Facebook will get you in either one of the groups you can contact me via email. And last week many of you did that episode we did last week, Paul on IoT and all those all that I went through, got a lot of comments about it. It was one of those kinds of things I didn’t I kind of expected the people I quit wine and you should have locked your cars. And I actually I got a lot of great emails and a lot of great feedback. So I appreciate that Jim at the average guy TV find me on Twitter at Jay Collison if you want to connect out there as well. And we got a pretty good Twitter community going on. Of course we want to thank Maple Grove partners for sponsoring the average guy TV and all we do they host and media host for us plans, high speed hosting from people that you know and you can trust for Chris Christian is added a bunch of infrastructure. If you need hosting for any reason plans start as little as $10 a month. Maple Grove partners calm and I just appreciate Christians partnership over the years. Coming up on 10 I think it’s 10 since I’ve known him and we’ll coming up on the anniversary this year of Home Gadget Geeks being 10 years old home tech back in the day and and I appreciate Christian and his sponsorship as well. Then of course don’t forget to download the Home Gadget Geeks app. Home Gadget Geeks com and you can get it there. Paul we’re still loving home home. Hello Fresh There we go. You’re doing are you doing another service still for service?
Paul Braren [1:29:40]
Yeah, given the travel and my wife schedule. Home chef worked out quite well for us because we could select little reduce carbs. So basically just say that in our profile and you’d have to worry about picking the meals too much. They would just you know remove the bagels and go and cauliflower some so it worked out pretty well. Pretty darn well. not always easy. We do that three days a week where I’d be the one to cook and because I You know, the nights I’m actually home. So my wife and I both work full time. not always easy, right? But we’re certainly eating healthier that way. Yeah, the last week we’re trying freshly so that’s where you just microwave it. So it arrives refrigerated we’re still experimenting seems salty. We gotta keep looking at it’s tricky. thousand milligrams of sodium But okay, well car but holy smokes. It’s a lot of salt, salt. Yeah, I know. We’ll keep at it, but it has been a big success. You’re right, you know, having your house smell good and cooking and I don’t know how to cook but I can follow the recipe card
Jim Collison [1:30:31]
is pretty great. I just enjoy the process.
Paul Braren [1:30:34]
Yeah, I mean, not every night. Sometimes I don’t enjoy it or don’t feel like it right? Or just don’t get it done. Or I’m on a phone call. Whatever. But yeah, yeah, for people listening, I encourage you to think about it. It becomes more affordable when you have less people at home. I
Jim Collison [1:30:46]
know it works perfectly even when my daughter so um, it works perfectly for us and we haven’t tried anybody else but we we do indeed like hellofresh so that’s working for us. I just, those meal kits have taught me how to cook you know,
Paul Braren [1:30:59]
kind of gear. Absolutely. I like to cook really and never did, but I can follow the cards. And yeah, and I’m Jim and one more thing I want to mention. I’m just looking at my little notes here. Two more things. Yeah. Dragon explosion. So next week if you like to watch rockets, like Jim apparently is a bit of a space nerd too. I like it asex blowing up something on purpose and I went and tweeted that out earlier today. So follow me up, Paul, Brandon. And then the other thing is, I may have a new server to show off to the world gym that’s compact in like a better suited for home lab use. So that’s what I’m known for. And the VMware communities is what’s you know, quite efficient in your home. That’s been the thing until Nick has led little fan when it gets busy or when you servers have really loud little fancy going to tuck him in your basement. I’ve been focused on stuff that you can actually run upstairs in your home. So I found something pretty exciting, hopefully be able to take the covers off it soon. I’m still working on VMware support and some other just x issues. And stay tuned. So for me I love that stuff using my thermal cameras using my NVMe s detests running VMware and everything I still very much do that I still have my evening a weekend tinkering that’s
Jim Collison [1:32:07]
Yeah, if you’re not check it out Paul at Tinker try calm you. That’s definitely one you want to add to. He writes a lot. And so even though not every he even though he’s got 80 draft articles, the stuff that does make it there, it’s pretty freakin awesome. So you haven’t checked out Tinker, Tinker, try. Paul, you’re in the most thorough, well thought out well planned writers that I know. And just if there’s ever an exhaustive, authoritative post on something, you’re going to have it. So I appreciate your work in what you do there. You want to rerun a great blog. And I just appreciate the work that you do for the community. You’ve been a good friend for a long time. So thanks for doing that. I appreciate it.
Paul Braren [1:32:49]
Well, back at your gym, it’s been an honor to know you so many years, and it’s always better when you invite me on. Yeah,
Jim Collison [1:32:54]
likewise, well, we’ll get you scheduled for six months and not a year right after we’re done here but it just remind folks We are live every Thursday 8pm, central nine Eastern out here at the average guy.tv Live, we always have a good time. And maybe we’re not your typical tech podcast. But we like what we do. And we have a great community. And a lot of fun in that if you enjoy the show, you can help me out the most just share it with somebody this week, just take it out, share it with somebody say, hey, maybe you know somebody that likes this kind of stuff and share it. It’s always kind of fun to pick up some new listeners. So we appreciate it if you do that as well. We’ll be back next week, special guests coming in and talk about the technology around sports and data which is going to be really, really interesting, had this guest on before and so Kevin is his name and he’ll be in to talk about that and then all kinds of great stuff coming forward. We’ll see you back here and with that will say good night, everybody.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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