On this week’s episode of the Smart Home Insider podcast, we review an innovative light that runs via coaxial cable and answer a pile of listener questions.
Since the last episode, developers received the third developer beta of Apple’s 27-branded updates. Within the release notes of macOS 27, it was revealed Apple had seemingly decided on pricing for some of its AI-powered features.
To use Apple Intelligence with Apple Home, users will need to have at least the 2TB iCloud+ plan. This is also the plan that unlocks unlimited cameras for HomeKit Secure Video recording.
Otherwise, users will be able to view their cameras and use the old descriptions that relied solely on on-device AI recognition. The new AI natural language summaries are far more useable, but rely on Apple’s cloud servers to process which explains the added cost.
Both Govee and Channel Master have released new floodlight options. The Govee model supports Matter, 2.4GHz Wi-Fi, and has 3,000 lumens of output.
The Channel Master version is Apple Home exclusively, and we had one in the studio to test. We walk through its performance, impressive all-metal build quality, and why its coaxial power supply is so unique during the review.
The remainder of the episode was dedicated to answering listener questions that had been received since the last episode. We had six questions, some of them were questions about the podcast itself and others were smart home-related.
Eric had one of the more in-depth questions, asking what is the best budget-friendly indoor camera where Apple Home or Matter isn’t a strict requirement. We go through several options with various resolutions and features.
Sarah asked whether or not it is worth waiting for more Matter cameras to be released. In a similar vein as the last question, we try to go through the pros and cons of Matter cameras and the situations where you would need to seek them out.
Finally, our last big question was from Ben who inquired about how one would use Matter devices with multiple ecosystems. We go through why you’d want to, how to commission the devices on each ecosystem, and how it is changing with the latest version of Matter.
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