Your front door is the key to the smart home

The Verge's Jennifer Pattison Tuohy joins the show to discuss a bunch of updates in the smart home world, including what's new from Google Home and in iOS 18, plus some big news in the world of smart locks and video doorbells. Then, The Verge's Chris Welch comes on to test some new earbuds, and see which pair has the best sound – and the best mic. After that, a new take on the Vergecast's chaotic wearables theory. Further reading: Ki is bringing wireless power to kitchen appliances The Eufy Smart Lock E30 is the company’s first Matter device The Ultraloq Bolt Mission from U-tec is the first smart lock with UWB Assa Abloy buys Level Lock to bolster its smart lock business TP-Link Tapo D225 Video Doorbell Camera review Ring’s entry-level wireless doorbell gets a head-to-toe view iOS 18 lets you control Matter devices without a smart home hub The Thread 1.4 spec is here, but it will be a while until we see any benefit Google TV gets a big upgrade Google is set to supercharge Google Home with Gemini intelligence And on wireless earbuds: The best wireless earbuds to buy right now Samsung’s Galaxy Buds 2 Pro are its best earbuds yet Google Pixel Buds Pro 2 review: big upgrade, much smaller earbuds Bose’s new QuietComfort Earbuds offer top-tier ANC for under $200 Apple AirPods 4 review: defying expectations Nothing’s first open-ear headphones keep you aware of your surroundings Email us at [email protected] or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03David Pierce?

  Welcome to The Vergecast, the flagship podcast of Powered Front Doors, which is a thing that I just learned exists thanks to this episode. I'm your friend David Pierce, and I am cooped up inside and have been for several days. Obviously, a lot of people in the US have been really horribly affected by Hurricane Helene. I hope you're all doing okay. Our thoughts are obviously with everyone dealing with all of that. Where I am, it's been fine. It's just basically been raining for four days. And my kid has been out of daycare, and he's been sick. And so it's just been a lot of inside time. It's been a lot of running around in the basement. It's been a lot of watching the same Old MacDonald How to Farm YouTube video over and over.

• 0:46David Pierce?

  It's just been a lot. You just grow to appreciate outside more and more. I'm in a real, like, touch grass moment, except it's still raining. So there will be no grass touching for a little while. Even the dog over there is starting to lose it a little bit, I think. But anyway, luckily, we have The Vergecast to keep us on track and doing stuff. Today, we have two things we're gonna do. First, we're gonna catch up with Jen Tooe about all things smart home. There's been a lot this summer. She was at IFA looking at smart home gadgets. We have some protocol news with Matter and Thread. We have a bunch of stuff going on with Google and Apple and software updates everywhere and all kinds of fun stuff to talk about. So we're just gonna kind of play round robin and catch up with her. Then, we're gonna talk to Chris Welch about this new run of earbuds that we have this year.

• 1:31David Pierce?

  Apple just released some new ones. Google released some new ones. Samsung released some new ones. Bose released some new ones. I'm missing some. Oh, Nothing just released some new ones that I'm really interested in. So we're gonna talk to him about this new slate of earbuds, but also, we're gonna do a mic test. Because as I continue to say and really strongly believe, microphones matter. The way we talk to AI, the way we talk to the assistants on our devices, the way we talk to each other, microphones in these earbuds matter a lot, and they don't get talked about enough. So we're gonna do what we occasionally do on this show, which is put some really, really bad audio into the podcast. And I'm sorry in advance, but, you know, we do it for the greater good. We also have a really fun hotline question. Lots to get to today. Super fun episode. But first, I have to go outside.

• 2:16David Pierce?

  I'm just gonna go, like, stand in the rain, like a 1990s rom-com star, and just, like, stare upwards for five minutes, and then we're gonna get to it. This is The Vergecast. We'll be right back.

• 2:27Speaker 01

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• 2:58Speaker 02

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• 3:28David Pierce?

  Welcome back. All right, I've been outside. I breathed in the air. I got all wet. Overrated, very happy to be back indoors looking at screens. Anyway, let's get to it. First up, we're going to talk about smart home stuff because it's been a minute since we talked about smart home stuff. And normally I like to have The Verge's Jen Tooey on every once in a while just to basically sadly ask her why Matter isn't better and why the smart home isn't fixed. And we're going to do a little bit of that today. But there's also been a surprising amount of interesting smart home news that kind of points to something bigger going on. There have been a lot of new gadgets for your front door, which I find fascinating, smart locks and video doorbells and that kind of stuff. So I think that whole space is really interesting. I want to talk about that. We've seen some new software from Google and Apple

• 4:13David Pierce?

  that makes it easier to administer your smart home, which I think is a really big deal. And we have some protocol news. Because Matter continues to be chaos, we have to talk about the chaos that is Matter. Let's get to all of that with Jen. We're just going to bounce through a whole bunch of news. I'm very excited about it. Let's get into it. Jen, hello.

• 4:34Speaker 03

  Hi David, pleasure to be back. It's been too long.

• 4:37David Pierce?

  It has been too long. You're going through a hurricane right now. We should just tell the people that if you suddenly disappear and this segment is four minutes long, it's because you're like deep in hurricane times. Are you holding up okay?

• 4:47Speaker 03

  Helene has been paying us a visit this morning. Thankfully, we're not as bad off as the poor people in Florida, but it's been a bumpy ride so far. So fingers crossed we'll make it through.

• 4:58David Pierce?

  For sure. I find myself very curious in the middle of all this, what happens to your smart home situation when your power goes off and then comes back on? Like, is it just full insane chaos every time the power blips in your house right now?

• 5:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, because everything talks to me. It is kind of scary, actually, especially when it happens in the middle of the night. Because so many things will be like, you know, connection restored or offline and like voices from every corner of the house, robots in particular, robot vacuums, you know, cameras, security systems, a lot, yeah, it gets a little chaotic. And then obviously, the notifications on my phone are like ding ding ding ding ding ding, you know, offline, offline, offline. You can turn those off, but because I obviously am testing these things, I always turn on all the notifications. And then I have, you know, it gets a little crazy, especially cameras, because when they go offline, they send you alerts and then they come back online. So this morning, I was woken up numerous times

• 5:56Speaker 03

  throughout the night when the power went out. Thankfully, though, smart lights have managed to fix the problem where they all turn on automatically when the power comes back. And that used to be a terrible issue where, you know, they would reset to default and like all the lights in your bedroom would turn on at 2am when the power came back on. That's no longer a problem, thankfully.

• 6:16David Pierce?

  That is really like the first act of a horror movie is all of that stuff happening.

• 6:21Speaker 03

  Or going crazy.

• 6:23David Pierce?

  Well, I'm glad it seems to be settling. So I'm glad, I'm glad everything's okay.

• 6:27Speaker 03

  Yes, I'm doing good.

• 6:28David Pierce?

  We have some stuff to catch up on.

• 6:30Speaker 03

  We do.

• 6:30David Pierce?

  We have not done our Gen Y isn't matter solving all of my problems check in in a while, so we're gonna do that. But you mentioned right before we started recording that you're working on a smart lock thing. And I just I want to start, I want to run a theory by you and then I want you to tell me what you think and then we're going to talk about some new stuff around it.

• 6:48Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 6:49David Pierce?

  I think you could make a pretty compelling case that your front door is the most interesting space in the smart home right now. Between what's going on with video doorbells, what's going on with smart locks. That stuff is like mainstream and very good and suddenly like super interesting in a way that I feel like. Everything else in the smart home is like kind of cool, kind of a mess. And it's like your front door is like where cool, interesting, good, smart stuff is happening right now. What do you think? Good theory, bad theory?

• 7:17Speaker 03

  No, I agree. I think the front door always sort of, actually always has been a really key part because it's something that appeals to everyone. I mean, smart lights are really fun. Robot vacuums have large appeal, but you know, they are still niche. But the concept of just of easy access to your home, not worrying about losing keys, being able to let people in, lock, unlock your door remotely. Know who's at your front door. You know, the front door is the gateway to your house and having the capability to sort of remotely monitor it. Always know what's going on, having control over the entrance to your home is something that everyone is interested in, even people that live in apartments.

• 7:56Speaker 03

  You know, the smart entryways, you know, because smart home quite often apartment dwellers sort of get left out a little bit, but not when it comes to smart locks and smart doorbells. There, there's lots of devices tailored to those types of living scenarios. And it is an area that there's a lot going on right now. There's a lot of change happening. But there's also, it's also an area that's always had quite a lot of challenges primarily because of power. And that's an area we've seen more sort of innovation in. I think it will take a while. There was the smart door that came out a couple of years ago that was like wired for power. Which everyone kind of laughed about.

• 8:36Speaker 03

  A little bit, but you know, I think ultimately, most homes, new homes as they're built or homes as they're remodeled, wiring your door for power is going to make more and more sense, both for lighting, and for powering video doorbells, for powering your door locks. Because battery power in the door lock is probably one of the biggest pain points with smart door locks. And, you know, most sort of ordinary people who decide to get a smart door lock, you know, when they realize they have to start changing the batteries every three to six months, it's like, this is, this is not smart. This is a pain, especially if it locks you out because, you know, you've ignored the warnings after the seventh or eighth time that they've sent them to you. So it's interesting to find, you know, to see the solutions that are coming around there.

• 9:21Speaker 03

  And then we've also got U W B is a new, a new technology we're seeing in door locks. Apple quite recently announced that they were adding capability for unlocking smart door locks using U W B chip in the iPhone. And so we're starting to see sort of a real shift there. But in what's interesting about that is the sort of the hands-free notion of, you know, being able to access your home without even having to even tap your watch to the door, let alone pull your key out. Because the U W B radio will automatically sense that you're there, connect to your door and unlock it for you. And so there's so much interesting going on, but you need the power. And actually, something I've been testing recently, which sort of ties into all of this is wireless power.

• 10:05Speaker 03

  I'm testing something called We Charge, which is a wireless power transmitter. And it can wirelessly power a door lock that I've been testing, which is by a company called Alfred.

• 10:15David Pierce?

  Wait, this has been around forever, right? I feel like I've been hearing like Science Project things about wireless power for like the entire time I have been covering technology. Is this for real now? Like, is somebody actually going to ship this thing to me at some point?

• 10:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, you can buy this right now with this door lock. It is, it's not sort of off the shelf. You kind of have to get in touch with the company and they can arrange for installation. So it's a little laborious, but I was talking to the founder and he said they've actually developed a retrofit design so that you can just plug a little transmitter into power, put it on a shelf and then plug a receiver into your power port of, say, your door locks. A lot of door locks have power ports and then that can actually end up allowing you to wirelessly power your door. Now, wireless power.

• 11:04Speaker 03

  I think is maybe not the solution ultimately to all of these issues. Um, I think wired is always generally going to be more reliable, but it requires so much more effort for installation. And so I feel like there is, you know, there's always maybe going to be a middle ground. Um, you know, especially for retrofit, uh, you're going to, you know, having the options to do something other than use, I mean, have you used, do you have a smart door lock?

• 11:31David Pierce?

  I don't. It's actually the, the one and only smart home device that I think my wife would allow me to install.

• 11:37Speaker 03

  Oh, but you haven't.

• 11:38David Pierce?

  So I'm, I'm gonna do it. It's just like, we're, we're, I'm at the point where I'm procrastinating painting the thing. So I'm not sure I'm a good like version of, you know, being ahead of things on home projects, but it's on the list. It's on the list.

• 11:50Speaker 03

  Well, and the, the battery is an issue. I mean, the August is a great smart lock, for example, but when, you know, you have to change the batteries every two to three months.

• 11:59David Pierce?

  That's too often.

• 12:00Speaker 03

  Smart locks will go at least a year and a year sounds great, but actually that's still, that's still a lot. I mean, it's like, do you remember to change your smoke alarm batteries every year?

• 12:08David Pierce?

  I remember when it beeps at me at two o'clock in the morning. That's, that's when I remember to change the smoke alarm.

• 12:12Speaker 03

  Yeah. So, I mean, and that if we could have wireless power or wired for power built into our homes so that you can have, you can power your video doorbell, you can power your door lock, you can power some lighting around your door, maybe even your security panel. Um, you know, it just, I can see sort of a much easier transition um to these types of devices rather than having to constantly mess with them and um recharge or put new batteries in and, and so I go through so many batteries and I hate it. I'm like, ah, this E-wake.

• 12:44David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 12:44Speaker 03

  So it's, it's an interesting space for sure.

• 12:46David Pierce?

  Too many of these devices also make that part really complicated because I, I think the, the battery life thing is really interesting to me because I think like I, I wanted, I've owned a home for three years now and I'm still discovering all the things you're supposed to do on like a routine basis. Uh, and I just like, I have, I have furnace air filters, right? That I just am supposed to change every three months and I more or less remember every three months. That's fine. It's every three months. It takes 30 seconds. It's fine. But I feel like the problem with way too many of these smart home gadgets is not just that you have to charge it or uh reinstall batteries or whatever. It's that that process is annoying and I, this has probably gotten a lot better with these gadgets over time, but it feels like you basically have to like unmount the thing, charge the thing.

• 13:32David Pierce?

  Reinstall the thing, reconnect the thing, which probably won't work the first. So there's just, there's all these little pieces that it's like, if I could just walk up to it with a double A battery, like pull a thing down, stick the battery in and put it back on, I'm good. I will do that three times a year.

• 13:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:45David Pierce?

  But that is not what the process is.

• 13:46Speaker 03

  Generally not what the process is.

• 13:47David Pierce?

  And it feels like that to me is the solvable problem, right? Like wireless power is like a miracle of chemistry that I hope we accomplish sometime. But just like, make it easier to change the batteries.

• 13:57Speaker 03

  That's true.

• 13:58David Pierce?

  That seems easier.

• 13:59Speaker 03

  That is true. There are some where you have to get like a special tool and it's like, no.

• 14:03David Pierce?

  Yeah, that's just silliness as far as I'm concerned.

• 14:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, although, but speaking of wireless power, I was just at IFA in Berlin and they, um, the Wireless Power Consortium have launched the first spec for key wireless power. That's wireless power for kitchen appliances. Um, now not necessarily ovens and fridges, uh, cause you don't really need that. But for your countertop gadgets, so air fryers, microwaves, uh, blenders, kettles. So that, you know, you, it's basically induction power. You have induction coils underneath your counter, which can be retrofit. Also can work with retrofitted induction cooktops. Um, there are some new ones coming out that have this capability built in.

• 14:47Speaker 03

  And your countertop or induction cooktop can power your blender or air fryer. And you, uh, they showed me a demo at, um, IFA where you just basically put the appliance on the countertop and it will turn it on and it will blend or cook or whatever it is you need it to do. Um, and what's, you know, power in the kitchen is a challenge. Um, there's, you know, never enough outlets. Um, the cord never goes far enough where you are trying to reach.

• 15:15David Pierce?

  I really do think the thing where everyone has three gadgets and two outlets is like a completely universal experience of being a person in the world in a kitchen. Like I can, I can tell, I can picture in my head the Tetris I have to do every time I make coffee just in order to have the, the grinder and the kettle and the milk frother, which is my favorite fancy gadget of all time. Uh, I have to just, I know which one is which by feel. I could do all that like in the dark now. And like, it's ridiculous and bad because it's three things and two outlets. And if you can solve that problem for me, I'm, I'm in. I love this idea.

• 15:50Speaker 03

  You're a happy person. I know. Me too, I have the same issue and I also got recently redid my kitchen and just still, even though I asked the electrician to put in as many outlets as he could, I still don't have enough outlets. And this, you know, again, a lot of this feels very much in the future, but the there are, I can see a lot of benefit here, especially in the way that your new, the, the obviously does require all new appliances, but the way that they are manufactured, because they don't need cords, which means they don't need any open access to them. They don't have batteries in, it's not a battery charging, it's not

• 16:30Speaker 03

  like Qi charging, which powers the battery. This is just direct power transfer. So the device itself still kind of weighs the same, there's not a giant battery in there, but it's completely sealed. So the gentleman I was talking to, Efe was like, you know, manufacturers can design, say, your blender so that you could just put the entire thing in the dishwasher, because there's no open ports. And that also could reduce things like wear and tear, because quite often, it's the power supply that goes first on the, on a lot of these devices and these gadgets in your kitchen. And so, and it's, they also said it's only 10% less efficient than wired power. So.

• 17:07David Pierce?

  It's pretty good.

• 17:08Speaker 03

  Yeah. I think the future of no wires anywhere in our house is kind of an interesting one.

• 17:13David Pierce?

  Oh, I agree. I also think, I, I like, I admire your optimism and also I feel like I've been burned by wireless power at this point too many times, that I'll believe it when I see it. But I do think the, the kitchen as a thing with like mostly stationary things feels like a good use for that as opposed to like, you can charge your phone wirelessly. And it's like, that's a lot harder than you think it is. But I can just like, I can set this down and it will power it, feels more doable.

• 17:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:40David Pierce?

  I'm excited about that.

• 17:41Speaker 03

  It feels, it feels pretty smart.

• 17:43David Pierce?

  Yeah, that's very cool. I will say we should, we should switch gears, but the fact that we now have key, chi, and we, no, this is bad, everybody. You have done this wrong. Let's, let's, let's all come together and figure out one rhyme that we can do together for Wireless Power.

• 18:01Speaker 03

  Yes, I agree.

• 18:03David Pierce?

  So you're, you're doing a big update to the, the Smart Lock buying guide, right? Give us a preview. What's your favorite one right now?

• 18:09Speaker 03

  I'm still a big fan of Yale, the Yale assure two, because it comes in so many different flavors. It kind of fits everyone's needs. So Yale, if you're not familiar, has these swappable modules. So depending if you decide to change your smart home setup, you know, you've gone from Z-Wave to Apple Home or Google Home, you can easily pop in a different module and be able to have compatibility, which is nice. Although a lot of the locks I tested do work sort of universally with different platforms. But there also matter is sort of, is slowly coming into the smart lock space, which will help with compatibility.

• 18:49Speaker 03

  Although, I mean, a lot of people who buy smart door locks, it's really just for that. It's easier for me to get into my house. I don't have to have my key. So you don't necessarily need to set it up with your smart home platform. But that's again, what I like about Yale is it gives you multiple options. You've got fingerprint access, you've got keypad access, you've got lock key, if you really insist on using the key. And then also it has the auto unlock feature. So if, which is again, this hands free concept, which I've never found work that well for me, but that's also because I have poor cell service and poor GPS in my neighborhood.

• 19:29David Pierce?

  Fair enough.

• 19:29Speaker 03

  And it relies on that. But it is nice, the concept of having your door automatically unlock as you walk up to it.

• 19:35David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 19:35Speaker 03

  And so Yale has that feature, which actually got from August, which Yale is the sister company of August now. And we haven't had a new lock from August for a while. So I think Yale is kind of. Now the the main sort of smart lock space that we're going to see from what was Asser Abloy, now owned by Fortune. The whole smart lock space has got quite complicated. But Yale, Yale has some really good stuff. They actually just released a new retrofit locks, which kind of replaces the original iconic August retrofit lock, which has been my, long been my number one pick for your best retrofit lock. And just to clarify what retrofit means, there are two types of smart locks.

• 20:17Speaker 03

  There's a full deadbolt replacement, which is what most of the Yale assured two locks are. So that replaces your entire lock. So you're going to have a different lock on the front and on the back. A retrofit lock just replaces the back so that you still can use your regular key. And Yale's come out with a new retrofit lock called the Yale Approach, and you just replace the back portion to add smarts to your lock. And that's really helpful for people who are renting and can't swap out their lock. And also, if you have a nice lock set and you don't want a kind of ugly looking smart lock on the front of your door. And they've come out with a good solution, and we're seeing this a lot now. And I've tested a lot of these for the new update to the buying guide.

• 21:00Speaker 03

  Keypads that go with retrofit locks so that you can still use a key code or a fingerprint to unlock the lock without, because that was always an issue with retrofit locks. You couldn't actually control it from the outside other than using a key or an app. And when you get to your front door, you don't want to have to pull out your phone to unlock your door.

• 21:21David Pierce?

  No, but then just pull out your key. It's actually simpler to have keys at that point.

• 21:25Speaker 03

  It's easier to pull out your key. Right, so now, so the Yale Approach comes with a keypad that has a fingerprint reader and a keypad built in, so you can use either of those options. And the nice thing about these keypads is you don't have to put them like on your door or next to your door. They have quite long range, so you can kind of have it tucked away and still have your front door look like a normal front door. So, and I've seen, there's a couple other companies. Akara has a new retrofit lock that I've been trying, and Switchbot also has another one that all come with these. Bluetooth keypads, which I think is really kind of a nice upgrade. And a lot of those also work with Apple Home Key, which is new again in the retrofit space and being able to use Home Key,

• 22:07Speaker 03

  which people that use it swear by, they say it's the absolute favorite way of getting into a smart lock. Because you can put your Home Key on your watch up to the lock.

• 22:16David Pierce?

  Right.

• 22:16Speaker 03

  Or you can use your phone. And obviously, phone, again, not necessarily easier than key, but watch, quite easy. So, yeah, lots of great options in the lock space right now. We're seeing new smart locks come out almost daily. It's kind of a bit overwhelming.

• 22:32David Pierce?

  It really does seem like that. Well, and I think part of me thinks it's because of the thing you just mentioned a minute ago, is that these are not devices that have to like have a grand vision of how do they fit into an ecosystem? And like, tell you a big story about routines in your smart life. And like, you can build that stuff if you want, but this thing is just like, it makes it easier to get inside of your house, which is just like the single most mainstream home use case that anyone has. Everyone needs to get into their house.

• 23:00Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 23:01David Pierce?

  That is a thing that happens when you have a house of any kind. And so I think that stuff is very cool because it's like in a sort of increasingly messy idea of how everything works together. That's one thing that just doesn't have to. It can completely do its job completely on its own. And I think as we get through this messy matter phase, I can see why that would be very enticing to any company that wants to build this stuff. But let's talk about matter. You mentioned where we are with some of the the protocol stuff. And I think Google has made some big changes. Apple has made some big changes. It feels like we've had some good momentum on the how you control all of this stuff and how it all works together. But let's start with the protocol stuff. There was a big threads update this summer.

• 23:43Speaker 03

  Thread. Don't put the S on the end because that just confuses everyone and everyone thinks I'm writing about matter.

• 23:48David Pierce?

  Just the one thread. There was a big thread with a D at the end. Update this summer, there's been some ongoing matter news. Catch us up. Where are we in the the protocol world?

• 23:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, okay. Just before we jump into those protocols, there is one protocol I should mention before we move on from smart locks.

• 24:07David Pierce?

  Is it another wireless charging protocol?

• 24:09Speaker 03

  No.

• 24:09David Pierce?

  How much, where's the wireless power coming from this time?

• 24:11Speaker 03

  No, no, no, this is a Liero, so this is tied to Matter, but this is the new smart lock protocol. David's just put his head down.

• 24:22David Pierce?

  Someday you're going to come on the show and just make all of this stuff up and I'm not going to know and I'm going to feel very stupid at the end.

• 24:28Speaker 03

  But now this ties into what we were just talking about and what we're about to talk about. So it's a good segue, but a Liero is the new access control standard from the CSA, which is the organization behind Matter, the Connectivity Standards Alliance. And this is why we're seeing so much movement in the lock space, because it's actually going to help standardize the way we access smart locks, not just in our homes, but maybe even in like our businesses and apartments and everywhere. So we're waiting for the standard to actually be released. It's likely to involve UWb, which we've discussed, as well as NFC, which is the TAP, which is what HomeKey uses.

• 25:08Speaker 03

  And we actually just saw our very first UWb supporting lock get released this last month, although it won't work with a Liero. So it's like, we're seeing a lot of parts before.

• 25:21David Pierce?

  So we're just doing this again?

• 25:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, we've seen a lot of parts before horses at the moment, but it's excitement in this space. And Apple is a huge part of developing the Liero standard, as are the big smartphone companies, because basically the idea here is that you'll be able to use your phone or watch to unlock any door. And no matter which operating system you're using or which platform you're using, it's the universal access, just like Matter is the universal standard for the smart home. This is like a universal standard for the smart lock, which is kind of connecting you into the smart home. So it's separate from, but connected to. And so this is a space we should be watching quite closely. I think we'll get a lot of movement around CES, especially since Apple announced that it's supporting UWb unlocking in Apple Home.

• 26:06Speaker 03

  So anyway, that was just to wrap up smart locks and now into smart home.

• 26:11David Pierce?

  No, it's good. The answer, as I've always said, is let's invent more protocols. That's, that's what I, I'm glad that we're continuing on the trend of more protocols.

• 26:20Speaker 03

  I know, I know. But it gives me something, it gives me stuff to write about.

• 26:25David Pierce?

  I know, it's true. If if everybody figures this out, we'll be out of jobs.

• 26:28Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 26:28David Pierce?

  So like, this is for the best. So, but yeah, the the talk to me about Thread with a D and no S. Just the one, one single thread.

• 26:37Speaker 03

  Okay, so Thread is, as I've written about in the past, is one of the two main wireless protocols for Matter. So Wi-Fi and Thread. Thread's been around for a decade or so prior to Matter. But it is, and it was originally developed inside Nest, along with a few other companies. And it is a low bandwidth, low power protocol developed specifically for IoT devices, which actually is a sort of a first. Whilst we've got things like Z-Wave and Zigbee, they weren't necessarily designed for the smart home. And Thread is designed specifically for the smart home. And so it was sort of relaunched with big fanfare when Matter launched a couple of years ago. I was like, this is going to solve all our problems.

• 27:20Speaker 03

  Because talking about battery life, this is something we've see throughout the smart home. Smart home devices constantly running out of battery, needing to be charged. Thread is low power, so supposedly should, especially things like smart door locks, should not need to be recharged or have their batteries replaced frequently if they use Thread. But we've been having a lot of issues with Thread since it kind of launched into the broader smart home space in the last year or two. And just last, no, two weeks ago, just around IFA, when I was at the tech show in Berlin. And the Thread Group launched Thread 1.4, which is basically their panacea to all the problems that we've seen so far with Thread.

• 28:05Speaker 03

  Specifically around interoperability, which is one of the main points of Matter that we're supposed to be solving here. The idea that anything you buy for your smart home, your smart lock, your smart lights, should all work together, no matter which phone you use or which platform you use. And so Thread uses something called Thread Border Routers to help communicate from your Thread device to the internet and to whichever platform you want to use. And this wasn't necessarily the Thread Group or the Thread protocols problem. I'm trying to avoid saying Threads problem. Um, sorry.

• 28:42David Pierce?

  Thread apostrophe S. Yeah.

• 28:44Speaker 03

  Um, because um, every border router is made by a different manufacturer. So you have border routers from Apple. So like your Apple HomePod, your Apple TV is a Thread border router. From A- Amazon, your Echo, your um, Echo Show 10. Number of devices from Amazon, the Eros are Thread border routers. Same for Google. But unfortunately, these Thread border routers didn't talk to each other. Um, and this was causing all sorts of problems because your devices, you'd think you'd connected your device to your smart home. But it was on a different network from, say, your smart lights might be on a different network from your door lock. So it was, it was causing headaches and and problems. And so this 1.4 should, they say, fix that specific issue.

• 29:28Speaker 03

  But we have to wait. This is the, this is the thing with these protocols. They come along promising all these great solutions and then it's all down to the manufacturers and the platforms to then implement them. Um, so we're gonna have to wait for that. So I mean, I think with, you know, being optimistic, which is definitely my preferred method.

• 29:47David Pierce?

  Absolutely.

• 29:47Speaker 03

  Of approaching, um, we should see some movement by, around CES. Um, I think we'll see a lot of products that are coming out with Thread 1.4, but still that's a long way away.

• 29:57David Pierce?

  It is, but I will tell you, here is the thing that gives me optimism is I think the last time you and I talked. My worry was starting to become that this was moving so slowly. All that everyone is essentially just gonna give up on all things matter and it would be kind of a thing that existed, but nobody really cared about, uh, and thus kind of languished.

• 30:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:18David Pierce?

  And it actually doesn't seem like that's the case. I, I, there, maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm missing it, but it doesn't seem like there has been sort of reverse momentum where everybody has just decided to go back to doing their own things. It's just that it's moving slower than we hoped, but it still seems to be actually moving in the right direction. Which gives me optimism about the fact that we will get where we want to be. It's just gonna take a lot longer than anybody hoped.

• 30:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think, I think that's, that's spot on, but the problem has been, I think. Around expectation and a lot of companies kind of jumped on the bandwagon with Thread and Matter and were like, this is our solution. We're going to, you know, make everything work with Thread and Matter and ship it to our customers and it's going to be a great experience. And specifically companies like NanoLeaf and Eve, who are quite well known in the smart home space, but not broadly very well known. And they were sort of seeing this as their opportunity to become more sort of household names because their products can be so much easier to use. And they've really been burned by these things, these protocols not working in the way that it was predicted or promised. And so we have seen a lot of companies kind

• 31:26Speaker 03

  of walk back from these protocols, at least NanoLeaf specifically created its own protocol. Another one.

• 31:33David Pierce?

  Oh, no, it did. Oh, no.

• 31:36Speaker 03

  Because it's like, we can't rely on Thread. It's not that we can't rely on the protocol itself. It's a great protocol, is what their CEO Jimmy Chu told me. But it's the way it's implemented by the platforms. And this all comes back down to this interoperability issue. And this is something you and I've talked about a lot. The different manufacturers, the different platforms playing nicely together. Apple playing nicely with Amazon, Google playing nicely with Samsung. You know, we all worried that that could be the issue eventually. That they, you know, they all got together to start with, but when, when they all going to start going their separate ways and causing issues. And that's where the Thread border router issue came from. But they've come back. They said they're going to work on it. This should hopefully be fixed. But yes, right now, if you went all in on Thread,

• 32:20Speaker 03

  or if you went all in on Matter, it's not the sort of panther that we were hoping for. But we're getting there and people aren't giving up. You're right. There is momentum. It's just not ready for the, the real world yet. It's not ready for the people that want a good door lock and a good video doorbell.

• 32:37David Pierce?

  And we are definitely past the point. Where a lot of these companies promised us it would work by now and it doesn't.

• 32:44Speaker 03

  Right.

• 32:45David Pierce?

  But it will. I still, I still believe that someday it will. And speaking of, last thing we should talk about before I let you go is there's been some big software changes on that front, right? Like you mentioned Home Key with Apple. There's some stuff in iOS 18 that I think has been really important to the smart home things. Google is doing a bunch of smart home stuff right now with the, with its TV products. I have a TV streamer right over there that you and I both really like.

• 33:11Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 33:11David Pierce?

  That feels like it's moving in a really good direction, right? Like the, the stuff is getting built into the devices it needs to get built into.

• 33:17Speaker 03

  So yes, so the iOS 18 has an update that's specifically designed to address this problem, this problem of, of Thread and border routers. Because people were buying a Thread device, bringing it home and it wasn't working because they didn't have a border router. They didn't know they needed a border router.

• 33:32David Pierce?

  Because you shouldn't have to know that. No one should have to know about border routers.

• 33:36Speaker 03

  Right. And so as you may recall, all iPhone 15 Pros and newer have Thread radios in. And with iOS 18, Apple released an update that allows you to add Matter devices directly to your Apple Home app without requiring any hub, either a Home Hub or a Thread border router. So Wi-Fi devices and Thread devices can connect using your phone directly. I mean, this isn't a solution for the long term because if you want a smart home, you do need a hub for orchestration, but it does solve the problem of, I just bought this cool new smart light and I want to set it up and I don't want to have to go buy a Thread border router. And that's also an answer to sort of why Apple decided to put

• 34:21Speaker 03

  Thread chips in their iPhones. They are also-

• 34:23David Pierce?

  Which you kind of called. You should, you should take just a mini victory lap on that one because you were, you were way out in front of that whole story.

• 34:30Speaker 03

  Well, it, it did make sense. It's, it's, it's confusing a bit though, because people are like, oh, doesn't that make your phone a hub and a Thread border router? It's like, well, no, it's not, but it's like a temporary-

• 34:42Speaker 03

  Connection that you can use if you don't have anything else. It's like a fallback. And then, but if you do want a Thread Border Router, that's getting easier. And there are more and more devices, like you mentioned, there's the Google Streamer that just came out. This is Google's new answer to the Apple TV. And that is a smart home hub as well as a streamer, has Thread Border Router and Matter capabilities. And also great smart home controls, which I, was my favorite thing about this device. We said we both would test it out and reviewed it. And we try all the streamers in our house and most of my family just ends up using the regular Samsung remote and going to the built in OS. Like, no. Yeah.

• 35:24Speaker 03

  But they all love the streamer and they've all set up their own profiles. And it's like, it's been a huge success in my house. Yeah. And so, but it's great to see more devices like this that kind of have a good use case in your home. But for, for every day, like you would go buy this because you want a good TV streamer. But it's also going to help if you do want to use a smart home to give you a bit more infrastructure built into your home so that when you come home with that shiny new thread light bulb, it will work and you didn't have to worry about it. And but what, what I'm most excited about right now, um, overall with the smart home is where we're going with generative AI. Um, because, and this is something that Google talked about a lot at its event. At what was the last big event they had?

• 36:09Speaker 03

  Made by Google, I think is what they call it. Yeah. Um, basically, both Apple and Amazon, we know, have kind of struggled in this space. Um, Google says it's about to release some really interesting updates. I'm interested to see who, who gets there first. But where I see the most interesting use case of generative AI in the smart home is making the smart home easier. It's that natural language that we're being promised, being able to just say, oh, I'm, I'm a little cold and it's too dark. And your smart home voice assistant knows that it should raise the thermostat and turn the lights up for you. And Google has promised with, um, some new enhancements through Gemini

• 36:50Speaker 03

  for Google Home and the Google Assistant, that it's going to be bringing these kind of features to the smart home along with, um, interpretive. Notifications, which is another thing I'm interested in. Like I mentioned at the beginning of this chat that my smart home, when my smart home cameras send me notifications nonstop and it's really annoying. So what's happening with Google Home is they're using Gemini to sort of filter through your video footage and only send you relevant notifications. Like, you can say, I only want to know if this person shows up at my front door or this car shows up at my front door. And those kind of, you know, specific notifications rather than just, oh, there was a breeze and a plastic bag flew past your-

• 37:32David Pierce?

  Right. And then back the other way and then back the other way. Yeah.

• 37:35Speaker 03

  Wake you up at one o'clock in the morning. So these kind of sort of quality of life make the smart home so much easier to use, less annoying, and more intuitive, I think will really sort of push smart home adoption because there are so many benefits. But like you said at the beginning, just trying to unlock or figure out how to replace a battery. There are too many parts of smart home and home automation that require a lot of time and attention and reading and Googling and watching YouTube videos and reading my articles, which is a good thing. But I think we've seen both Google, Amazon and Apple and Samsung all trying,

• 38:16Speaker 03

  you know, using generative AI to make this experience a lot smoother and therefore hopefully encourage more people to kind of reap the benefits of what I think is a great experience in your home when it all works.

• 38:32David Pierce?

  I agree. I mean, and it seems like we're presumably only weeks away from Amazon launching the generative AI underpinnings of Alexa, which we've been hearing about for a long time ago. We were at the event, was that a year ago at this point?

• 38:48Speaker 03

  They were the first ones to promise this. Yeah.

• 38:50David Pierce?

  And so, and is that the same kind of stuff that you think we're going to see? Like, I think honestly, if Google Assistant and Alexa both get-

• 38:59David Pierce?

  Even kind of a pretty good version of what you just described that instantly upgrades like many, many millions of people's smart home lives, which I think is very exciting.

• 39:07Speaker 03

  Very much so. Yeah. I mean, Amazon promised, you know, they launched all of this a year ago and it's taken a long time. It's not here yet. And so this is why I'm interested to see when Google is actually going to implement what they've promised. And Apple hasn't even mentioned the smart home. You know, none of its Apple Intelligence or Siri improvements are specifically for the smart home. It is a difficult space. You get, you know, you get hallucinations in the smart home and it can go really, really wrong. And this is what, speaking to all of the companies involved here, I hear a lot. It's like, it's complicated and hard. So I think we're going to see baby steps. We're going to see, I'm hoping we'll see something from Amazon here. I mean, it's fall. We normally have a fall event. It's kind of later than

• 39:52Speaker 03

  normal last year. I think it was this week. So, but we know we've, there's been a lot of reporting on the struggles the company's had to really nail this down. And every time I've spoken with an executive at Amazon about the new Alexa, they said, well, we're working on it, but it's very complicated. So yeah, I think it's, it's a struggle. But when, but if and when we can see these solutions, I, I really do think it's going to be a game changer for the smart home. It's going to just make it, takes it from being something you have to program and fiddle with to something that just works. If, if they get it right.

• 40:31David Pierce?

  Yeah. It remains the biggest question. All right. Well, we're, we'll, we'll have you back on after all this Amazon stuff happens because I think in a very real way with all of this stuff, the, the proof is in the pudding. And by the pudding, I mean your house. So we, we will come back and we will do this. Jen, thank you as always.

• 40:48Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 40:50David Pierce?

  All right. We got to take a break and then we're going to come back and we're going to do a mic test. We'll be right back.

• 41:00Speaker 02

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• 42:26David Pierce?

  All right, we're back. So if you've been listening to the Vergecast for a long time, you know that a thing we like to do occasionally is test the microphones on a bunch of different kinds of headphones. The last one of these, I think, we did was the face gadgets, the Meta Ray-Bans and the Vision Pro and that kind of stuff. And that, I thought, was actually really interesting. The Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses might be the best, like, body-worn mic we've tested yet, which is pretty cool. But... This time, I want to go through all of the new headphones that have come out from kind of the major headphone companies in the last few months. Because for people who just want like a normal set of wireless earbuds, you're suddenly spoiled for choice, right? There's the new PixelBuds Pro 2 from Google. There's the AirPods 4 from Apple. Samsung has some new Galaxy Buds Pro.

• 43:11David Pierce?

  Nothing has the new ear open. Bose has some stuff. There's just a lot of new options on the market. Chris Welch has them all, as he has want to do. And so we sent him to a coffee shop and we're going to talk a little bit about the audio quality and his feelings about them overall. But mostly, I want to test the microphones. Because my running theory is that microphones really matter. I mentioned this a bit in the intro, but right now, so much of using your headphones is using them to talk to people or to make videos or to talk to Siri or to do this increasingly multimodal AI stuff that these companies are talking about. Microphones matter and we don't talk about them enough. And I think to some extent, that lets these companies off the hook from building better microphones. Like, it's not impossible to build a very good microphone.

• 43:56David Pierce?

  It's just hard. And a lot of these companies care a lot about noise cancellation. They care a lot about sound quality. I think they should care more about mics. So we're going to talk about mics and we're going to see who is doing the best job. Right now, Chris Welch is sitting in a coffee shop, I assume, with lots and lots of headphones around confusing everyone else in the coffee shop. So let's, let's do some testing. Chris Welch, hello.

• 44:18Speaker 06

  Hello again.

• 44:20David Pierce?

  Where are you right now? I feel like I'm, I'm growing to like, learn the different spots that you are when we test earbuds. Where are we?

• 44:27Speaker 06

  This is my go-to coffee shop in my neighborhood that I come to fairly often and work from. And it tends to be, you know, pretty loud, as most Brooklyn coffee shops are.

• 44:39David Pierce?

  Do they know you there by now? You're like the guy who shows up with a pile of gadgets and takes a bunch of pictures? Like, is that, they just, they just understand when you walk to the door?

• 44:46Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah.

• 44:47David Pierce?

  That's good, I'm glad. So, we're here because we're kind of at the end of this year's cycle of new earbuds. You just published the PixelBuds Pro 2 review. You have a bunch of them, so we figured this is a good moment to test them. Before we dive in, just give us the list. What are we gonna, what are we gonna try here? What do we have?

• 45:08Speaker 06

  We've got the AirPods 4. Which I have right now in my ears. That's what you're getting to start. We've got the Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 Pro, the Pixel Buds Pro 2, the new Bose QuietComfort earbuds that just came out as well, and the Nothing Opens, very funky open style earbuds that were just announced as well. So.

• 45:29David Pierce?

  I'm very excited about those. I have developed an unnecessary attachment to an obsession with these open earbuds. So I'm very excited to see if those are any good. And I'm glad you started with AirPods. So this is actually good. This is a good first test because I feel like AirPods are a useful control in a lot of this because they're just like the one that everybody has.

• 45:50Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 45:50David Pierce?

  They sound fine. I described them to somebody the other day as like, the nice thing about AirPods is that you can get them to sound like a C+ in almost any situation. The downside of the AirPods is you cannot get them to sound better than a C+ in any situation. Like, perfect scenario, they're gonna sound just like this.

• 46:08Speaker 06

  But that's, that's fine, I guess. Yeah, it's like, here's their like normal modes. But on phone calls, you can do like the voice isolation feature, which uses like machine learning to make you sound even clearer. We're not getting that here unfortunately. But it does get a little bit better on phone calls, uh, for day to day.

• 46:25David Pierce?

  The voice isolation you can only do, it's like phone calls and FaceTime, right?

• 46:29Speaker 06

  Yeah, exactly. Not here, but you know, they sound fine, which is all you really need, like 90% of the time if you're listening with a chat, some of it.

• 46:37David Pierce?

  Yeah, they, they, they do the job. Um, all right. Well, let's, let's, we've got enough of this. Let's switch to the next one. Let's do, uh, let's do Google next.

• 46:45Speaker 06

  Google.

• 46:45David Pierce?

  I think that's, that's a good, if I remember correctly, Google has outperformed my expectations several times on these tests over the last couple of years. So I'm, I'm curious about this one. Let's just do it first.

• 46:57Speaker 06

  See.

• 46:57David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 46:58Speaker 06

  All right, I'll do it.

• 46:58David Pierce?

  All right, let's do it.

• 47:03David Pierce?

  All right, hit me.

• 47:04Speaker 06

  We're back again. These are the Pixel Buds Pro 2. They're smaller and lighter.

• 47:12Speaker 06

  And the mics have gotten mixed feedback so far.

• 47:18David Pierce?

  I'm gonna go decidedly lower than mixed on this one.

• 47:23Speaker 06

  Really? That much of a difference in the AirPods?

• 47:25David Pierce?

  Do you remember when we did a test on the ferry in New York? And it was just blindingly obvious how hard some of them were working. Even even though they were kind of working and I could kind of hear you. You could you could hear how hard it was for them to get to that point. That's what I'm getting here too. It's like the one of the things that just happened was between recordings here. We just to let everybody in on how this works. We use this app called Riverside and you have to stop and start recording every time you want to change devices. So we have to stop each time. So I get to hear like the natural audio coming out of your Mac. And there was music playing that I didn't really hear on the AirPods. There was more noise than I expected that I wasn't really hearing on the AirPods. I'm hearing all of that now.

• 48:08Speaker 06

  Interesting. There's like no cancellation whatsoever.

• 48:11David Pierce?

  Almost. I mean, there's some. And it's like it's coming and going. It's kind of like they're raising and lowering the volume as time goes on. And your voice sounds fine. It's like it's picking up more of everything. So I'm actually like, your voice is a little richer than I was hearing through the iPod or through the AirPods. But so is the background noise.

• 48:33Speaker 06

  Not great.

• 48:36Speaker 06

  But I guess that's a trade off from getting smaller and lighter and they're even further away from my mouth. And I'm talking obviously, so it's harder to kind of separate voice from background noise. But these also have like clear calling on phone calls, which again you can't do on like video chats unfortunately. So like, it should be a little bit better when you're actually talking to someone on the phone. But if you're in a coffee shop, this is what you're gonna get.

• 48:59David Pierce?

  You know what this makes me think of? Do you ever do you ever do the thing where you're wearing noise cancelling headphones like over the ear noise cancelling headphones? And you just kind of take them on and off your ears and you can sort of hear it pulse the noise in and outside. It feels a little like that as you're talking. It's like it's sort of constantly picking up and letting go of the background noise in a way that is like. It's it works, but it's also like a little unnerving as I'm listening to it. I think if I was just holding up my phone to my head, it wouldn't really bother me. But I'm on like, pretty good headphones in a pretty good situation here. And it is like, I'm hearing stuff that I was not hearing with the AirPods. Yeah, it's really interesting. So yeah, this is we're going to give Google like a like a gently passing grade. I would say this is not like a disaster. I can hear you.

• 49:44David Pierce?

  But I can safely already say Google is not going to win this.

• 49:50David Pierce?

  They do look good, though. They're they're super small in your ears. That's it's really nice. And they're they seem very comfortable from from what I saw in your review.

• 49:58Speaker 06

  Yeah, comfortable. And they still have that Mentos look, which is what it is. But yeah, you can barely see them in your ears anymore.

• 50:05David Pierce?

  Yeah, when you're head on, I can I can basically not see them at all. That's really cool. All right, let's switch to the next one. Let's do. I don't know. You pick surprise me. What are we doing?

• 50:14Speaker 06

  Uh, let's do Samsung. The big three out of the way.

• 50:17David Pierce?

  Yeah, I love it. All right, let's switch.

• 50:24David Pierce?

  All right, Samsung Buzz, how we doing?

• 50:26Speaker 06

  These are the Buzz 3 Pro. They have stems now, just like the AirPods Pro do. So hopefully that makes them a little bit crisper, slayer. Oh, my, that was loud.

• 50:36David Pierce?

  I didn't hear that at all. This is OK. This is the opposite of what we just heard from Google. This is this is actually super fun. I'm glad we did this in this order because basically the AirPods are the middle. Google is all the way at the end of the spectrum of like, let's make this sound kind of as natural as possible, even if it means getting noise in. And you are just compressed to within an inch of your life. But there is no background noise like it is. It sounds like you are in a silent room.

• 51:03Speaker 06

  Yeah, it's super loud. There's someone's like thumping dishes and stuff over there. So if you can't hear that, that's impressive. Do I sound like intelligible, though?

• 51:10David Pierce?

  Intelligible, yes. You almost don't sound like yourself. Like, it sort of sounds like if you, if you, like, held up a pillow to your mouth and then had a phone call. Like, that's kind of what you sound like right now. I can hear everything you're saying.

• 51:25Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 51:26David Pierce?

  But, I mean, it is, you are processed to death. But again, I cannot overstate the extent to which I'm not hearing anything but your voice right now. That's kind of wild, actually.

• 51:36Speaker 06

  Yeah. Huh, that's fun. Uh, yeah. And these have been pretty good so far for my voice falls and talking to people. I've heard, like, similar feedback to that, that I sound processed but clear, so.

• 51:47David Pierce?

  Yeah, and this is, this is, this is a fun test case because, uh, normally with these headphones, at least my experience has been that they process your voice less when they're having to process less background noise. So in theory, when you're in, like, a perfectly quiet space, they should all sound better.

• 52:04Speaker 06

  Right, yeah.

• 52:05David Pierce?

  Uh, but they'll sound worse in, so we tried to pick, this is a pretty good, like, normal-ish use case to, like, test them but not overly so.

• 52:15David Pierce?

  But yeah, this is, this is solid. I take this over Google.

• 52:18Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 52:19David Pierce?

  10 times out of 10. Like, it's just more pleasant to listen to you, even though you don't sound amazing, just because there's not that kind of roller coaster volume of background noise.

• 52:29Speaker 06

  Yeah, there's a lot of noise in this, so again, hearing that, that's, that's nice. Uh, but yeah, these are, these are great. They sound really nice. They have lights on the stems, so you can have them light up in your bathroom, people, you know?

• 52:40David Pierce?

  These are the ones that Samsung just went full AirPods, right? Like, they just, they just did AirPods, but like, the Samsung way.

• 52:46Speaker 06

  Yeah. So.

• 52:48David Pierce?

  I don't even mean that as an insult. Like, it just is what it is. That's just what Samsung does. Yeah. Uh, yeah, in terms of, like, pleasant to listen to and wear all day, which has been your favorite of the bunch? If you're gonna just, like, do your life wearing headphones, do you have a favorite?

• 53:03Speaker 06

  I'd probably say it's a tie between these and the Pixel Buds, honestly. Those are newer, so I'm slowly getting used to those, but these I've used a ton. And yeah, they feel like AirPods Pro. You know, they're stable, they fit well, they sound really nice. They do all the Samsung ecosystem tricks. So they're not super original, but at this point, they're all the same.

• 53:28David Pierce?

  Yeah.

• 53:29Speaker 06

  But yeah.

• 53:31David Pierce?

  Okay.

• 53:31Speaker 06

  Yeah. You can hear me very clearly.

• 53:33David Pierce?

  I'm impressed. Yeah, like you sound very clear, but you don't sound very good. And if I have to make that trade, I'll make that trade. You know what I mean? Like, I'd love to have it both ways, but I will, I will pick this over the alternative. All right, let's, let's switch. Let's do, uh, let's do Bose next.

• 53:47Speaker 06

  Yeah, let's do it.

• 53:49David Pierce?

  All right, let's switch.

• 53:54David Pierce?

  All right, Bose time. How we doing?

• 53:56Speaker 06

  With the brand new Quiet Comfort here for the second generation. You're already laughing, that's not a good sign.

• 54:01David Pierce?

  Was I just very loud in your ears just then? You look startled as I said something. Oh, okay.

• 54:10Speaker 06

  Uh, they just come out this past week. And they have really good, super good noise cancellation. But from Bose through, which is smaller than the Sony Pro, but it's a cheaper $1.79. Same as the AirPods 4. You said tips, obviously, whereas the AirPods 4 do not. Um, but so far I like to use quite a bit.

• 54:31David Pierce?

  Okay.

• 54:31Speaker 06

  It's not on the sound.

• 54:32David Pierce?

  Uh, I don't, I don't want to be hyperbolic here. This is awful.

• 54:38David Pierce?

  It's so bad. This is the first time I can't understand some of the words that you're saying. And, and again, I wonder if, uh, an experience I've had, so I have a pair of Bose's like over-ear Quiet Comforts. And the, the impression that I get every time I use them is kind of what I was saying before, that the mic is, it's never good, but it's fine when there's not a lot of noise. But Bose seems to so aggressively prioritize noise cancellation over audio quality that when you get into bad sound, it will just destroy everything else in the name of noise cancellation. So I'm guessing you're sitting there and it's like not very loud to you and it all sounds fine. It's just ruining it.

• 55:19Speaker 06

  Pretty tired.

• 55:20David Pierce?

  Yeah. It's doing a decent job of suppressing the background noise. It's actually like it's better now than it was when we started, which is interesting. It's like it's, it took the processing a minute to like figure it out, but it seems to have cut a bunch of the background noise. But you sound like trash.

• 55:37David Pierce?

  It's really bad.

• 55:39Speaker 06

  Important, you know, that's, that's good.

• 55:41David Pierce?

  Yeah, this is, this is not the one to take a zoom call in a coffee shop with. That is like, basically the, the two reasons we do this test are like, are you the worst if you're on a video call with these? And, you know, grand theories about how we talk to AI and all of that stuff. Like, I really do believe microphones matter. This one will fail at both of those tests and I feel very confident about that.

• 56:01Speaker 06

  Big yikes. Okay. Well, they're good at everything else so far.

• 56:06David Pierce?

  These are good listening headphones, like Bose, Bose makes very good headphones to listen to. Please don't call me from these ever again.

• 56:17David Pierce?

  All right, let's, let's get off this one as quickly as we can. Yeah, let's, let's go to the next one. What are you gonna do next?

• 56:21Speaker 06

  Let's do the nothing, the funky open ones.

• 56:24David Pierce?

  Sweet. Love it.

• 56:24Speaker 06

  We got right now.

• 56:31David Pierce?

  All right. Nothing, the nothing ear open, that's what they're called, right? How we do it?

• 56:36Speaker 06

  Yeah, these are the first call I've actually had on these period, so.

• 56:41David Pierce?

  It's an honor.

• 56:41Speaker 06

  It's been an experience for us both.

• 56:43David Pierce?

  I kind of like how those look in your ears, I have to say. It's a little, it's, they're, they're a little more like deliberately space agey than anything else you've tried. They've got the, the sort of ear hook. And slate. Yeah, they just, they just look like you're wearing some kind of futuristic Star Trek-y headset. Which is not the worst thing in the world.

• 57:07Speaker 06

  Some people love this for like bike riding, that kind of, those kind of activities. I'm not an open earbuds guy, but I can see the appeal. Like I, I can hear everything in this room right now. That's just kind of absurd. So like you sound pretty quiet compared to like all this racket and move. But how does the voice quality compare?

• 57:24David Pierce?

  Pretty solid, actually. I would put this kind of right in the AirPods range. I'm getting a little bit of the background noise. Like I can tell you're in a coffee shop, unlike the Samsungs where it was like truly just deathly quiet. I can, it's clear you're somewhere. But I'm only catching kind of bits and pieces of the background noise. Like I can tell there's a, there's a woman talking somewhere near you. But I'm only catching like snippets, like syllables of it instead of like the whole conversation. And I can hear you pretty clearly, actually. This, I'm, I'm, I'm sort of impressed by these.

• 58:00Speaker 06

  See, I'm not sure where the mics are in this particular, like there's like a stem that runs down here. So who knows, but they're pretty funky. They're fun. They're interesting. But it's good to know that you're gonna make phone calls on your bike or wherever you might be wearing these. People will be able to understand you. I'm getting so many looks now at this coffee shop doing this call. Being that guy who I hate every day.

• 58:23David Pierce?

  Yeah, well, we'll, we'll only keep you a couple more minutes, I promise. But I think the part of the reason I'm, I'm interested in these is like you, I hear from people all the time who are like, yeah, I'm trying to do more phone calls while I'm walking, right? It's just like, like I work from home now. I sit in my basement all day and I'm trying to do more of that too. Just get out and it's like, oh, we're gonna talk for a half hour. I'm gonna just wander around the neighborhood for a half hour. And that's one reason that A, open ear is useful. Like I think for this particular case in a coffee shop, open ear headphones are actually the wrong answer. So like for this purpose, you probably wouldn't use these, even though they sound okay. But for like general sort of day to day life, like it's the same reason I like the, the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses, right?

• 59:04David Pierce?

  Like I can just sort of have a conversation into my sunglasses in a way that sort of works. Uh, and I feel like this is appealing to me for the same reason, and they sound pretty good. It's not, it's not the best one, but it is, it's kind of right in that sweet spot middle with the, the AirPods that I'm, I'm sort of impressed with.

• 59:22Speaker 06

  Okay, good to know. Uh, should I switch back to the AirPods for the completion or?

• 59:26David Pierce?

  Yeah, let's, let's switch back. Now that I've heard all of them, let's go back to the AirPods and we can, we can, we can pick a favorite here.

• 59:31Speaker 06

  Let's do it.

• 59:32David Pierce?

  All right.

• 59:37David Pierce?

  All right, so we're back on the AirPods 4. We are. And he still sounds pretty serviceable? Yeah, this, it's such a boring answer, but I think of this round, this is actually probably my favorite. I think the, there's a little more background noise here than there was on the nothings. But it's also a little less, I'm realizing like a little bit of consistent background noise is actually less annoying than And like fading in and out. Background noise. Yeah, it's like this, you just kind of have that low tone behind you all the time. And so it's actually easier for me to pick out your voice, whereas like the Pixel buds, which kept coming in and out were like giving me a headache trying to figure out what was going on.

• 1:00:21David Pierce?

  But I'm curious, Eric Gomez, our producer, hi Eric, is here.

• 1:00:25Speaker 07

  Hello.

• 1:00:26David Pierce?

  You have been listening to and making all of this work. What do you make of all of this? You're the, you're the audio expert here.

• 1:00:32Speaker 07

  Definitely impressed by the Samsung, but the quality is, yes, it's being squished and compressed to death. But at least you're not picking up anything going on in the background at all. And it's pretty, you know, it's, it's clear enough and it's coherent enough to be able to have a good conversation. And I'm really surprised by the Pixel buds. They're just not.

• 1:00:57David Pierce?

  Just was not impressive. Yeah.

• 1:01:00Speaker 07

  Yeah, I'm really disappointed in that.

• 1:01:03Speaker 07

  You know, I think Google did a good job in terms of hardware this, this round, but I'm just a little disappointed by the quality of the mic on that, on these Pixel buds.

• 1:01:13David Pierce?

  I do wonder, I mean, whilst you mentioned that they're smaller and thus just further away from your mouth. And I wonder at some point if that just be, is like an insurmountable physics problem. Like the, the things with stems tend to be better because they have stems, like it just is, seems to be a fact.

• 1:01:31Speaker 06

  I think so. I mean, I don't want to see everybody do stems, so it'd be boring. Uh, so I hope they can find a way to like, you know, like use machine learning or AI or whatnot to like, find some way to fix this problem. Uh, maybe the Pixel Buds will sound better on like phone calls with clear tone line. Like so far I haven't got so many complaints there. So that might, that might make a difference versus just like this overall audio mode. Um, but yeah, it's clearly that uh, that Samsung and Apple are kind of the head honchos here and uh, the rest are kind of okay at best.

• 1:02:00David Pierce?

  Yeah. Yeah. The win, the winner for most improved is Samsung for sure. I think the, the last time we did this, I think Samsung came in last and it was, it was the one that was like borderline unintelligible. Uh, and, and I think Samsung here is either in first or second place, depending on just kind of what you like, like the, the thing for me of that sort of eerie, quiet, super compressed just doesn't sound as good as what I'm hearing now from the AirPods, which just feels a little more natural. It's like if I were sitting across from you at a coffee shop, that's what it would sound like. But I can also understand that if what's clear is also if there is one that you are going to trust in awful situations to keep you intelligible, it's probably the Galaxy Buds. Right, Eric? Is that, is that your takeaway here?

• 1:02:42Speaker 07

  Yeah, I, I, I would have to agree with that.

• 1:02:45David Pierce?

  They're like the worst case scenario buds.

• 1:02:47Speaker 07

  Yeah. Don't, don't use them.

• 1:02:49Speaker 06

  Good to know for the future. Whenever I'm stranded somewhere and I carry around like several pair of Super Buds at all times. So it's nice to know that those are the ones.

• 1:02:56Speaker 07

  Don't, don't call 911 with those buds.

• 1:03:00David Pierce?

  Yeah, they'll be like, it's fine. You can't hear anything. All right, good. Well, we, we've, we've done it. I just, I would love for somebody to just like blow my mind here. That's, that's everyone's charge for next time. It's just like, do slightly better. We're still at a point where the, the Ray-Ban metal ones are the like best sounding ones we've tested. Maybe in the history of this segment on the Vergecast.

• 1:03:22Speaker 06

  Still haven't ever tried those myself, but I want one of those nuclear colors.

• 1:03:26David Pierce?

  They look awesome.

• 1:03:27Speaker 06

  Glasses look awesome.

• 1:03:27David Pierce?

  Yeah. Um, I have two pairs now and I don't want one of them. So you can have one of my pairs. Uh, next time I'll, next time I'm in New York, I'll bring you my pair and you can, you can just have it. They look stupid on my face anyway, so we'll, we'll make it happen.

• 1:03:40Speaker 06

  I appreciate it.

• 1:03:42David Pierce?

  All right. We should take a break. Chris, thank you as always. Please apologize to everyone in the coffee shop for us.

• 1:03:47Speaker 06

  I will right now. As soon as I'm off here. Thank you. Thank you both. Appreciate it.

• 1:03:53David Pierce?

  All right. We got to take one more break and then we're going to do a question for the Vergecast hotline. We'll be right back.

• 1:04:02Speaker 02

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• 1:05:02Speaker 05

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• 1:05:32David Pierce?

  All right, we're back. Let's get to the hotline. As always, the number is 866-VERGE-11. The email is [email protected]. You can hit me up personally on Threads or on Signal. We try to answer at least one hotline question on the show every week. And actually, I think we're due for like a full hotline episode. We've gotten a lot of fun stuff. We're in deep gadget season right now, so we've gotten a lot of gadget questions. We'll probably get to all of those at some point in the very near future. But for now, we have a question that feels so, so very Vergecast-y. Let's hear it.

• 1:06:02Speaker 08

  Hey Vergecast, this is Jeff from North Carolina. Um, I was listening to your latest episode on Meta's new glasses and I'm wondering, um, I remember, I believe it was Scott Galloway made a comment that any product that you're wearing on your body that makes you less attractive will never succeed. I'm wondering if you think with the Vision Pro and then now the Meta Smart Glasses, this will apply, that if you don't look cool in them, no one's gonna buy them. Love the show, thanks very much, bye.

• 1:06:33David Pierce?

  Alright, there is only one person on earth who can answer this question. Uh, the Scott Galloway of the Vergecast, I call him sometimes.

• 1:06:40Nilay Patel?

  Brutal.

• 1:06:41David Pierce?

  Neelai Patel.

• 1:06:42Nilay Patel?

  Why would you invite me here to insult me to my face?

• 1:06:47David Pierce?

  Hey buddy.

• 1:06:48Nilay Patel?

  This is my own show!

• 1:06:51David Pierce?

  I didn't even prepare you for this. You didn't even get to listen to this ahead of time. This was just, uh, this is everything I wanted to.

• 1:06:56Nilay Patel?

  Hey, would you like to walk into your own house and be slapped in the face?

• 1:07:01Nilay Patel?

  Amazing.

• 1:07:02David Pierce?

  Uh, so I love this question for two reasons. One, because I think it's a good question, and two, because it, it threatens the very core of Neelai Patel's theory of wearable bullshit, which is just, this, this just says, actually, it doesn't even matter if it doesn't make you look cool, it's out. So I wanna, I wanna know your thoughts on, on this particular take with these devices.

• 1:07:21Nilay Patel?

  Well, you will recall that the, the matrix of wearable bullshit has a minus 100 face penalty.

• 1:07:29David Pierce?

  Right.

• 1:07:29Nilay Patel?

  Which is basically what we're talking about here. Cause you can put all kinds of stuff on your body that makes you look uncool. People wore fanny packs all day long.

• 1:07:39David Pierce?

  Fair.

• 1:07:40Nilay Patel?

  Just walking around. They're not even wearing them on their fannies, from what I'm told.

• 1:07:43David Pierce?

  Yeah, they're slings now.

• 1:07:44Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's, it's, watches, incredibly subjective fashion choices.

• 1:07:48David Pierce?

  True.

• 1:07:49Nilay Patel?

  Uh, clothing itself, shoes, the, the way people talk about shoes in this world. Uh, all, all kinds of ideas about things you put on your body. It's really just, do you have it on your face that sets people aflame, right? That's the thing we're talking about here. Is it on your face? Is it in your way? And the, the matrix of wearable bullshit is fiddliness versus utility. And then there's just like this, like, big penalty for face somewhere in there that brings you way below the line, and then you have to offer vastly more utility to get back above the line, so that people wear it every day. Regular glasses.

• 1:08:27Nilay Patel?

  On your face, they take the penalty, but they're pretty useful to most people. So they they come back up. And now we've, you know, over decades, we've turned glasses into fashion accessories.

• 1:08:38David Pierce?

  Well, OK, so that's That that's the thing that I keep thinking about, thinking about this, because there's basically two ways to look at this. One is, uh, these things will never be cool. And the only way they're ever going to work is if we make them so phenomenally useful that it doesn't matter. Right? And I feel like, I don't know, like wired headphones is probably a good example of that, right? Like, I don't know that a pair of ear pods is like, cool, but they're like, simple and they're useful and we all just kind of got over it. Right? That that crossed the threshold with utility, not with cool. The other option is that in some way, someone figures out how to make these things actually objectively

• 1:09:18David Pierce?

  cool. And then and then it flips, right? Like in glasses, some people like how they look in glasses better than how they look without glasses. Like, that's a real thing. We have made them a fashion object. And that seems like a much harder road for any kind of technology. But is maybe the actually most effective way to get there is just make them objectively cool. Figure out how to make it like, iconically awesome to have ski goggles on your face. And then none of the rest of it even matters.

• 1:09:47Nilay Patel?

  But but this is, I think, what Apple tried with the Vision Pro. They tried to make it cool. And it fell on its face because it just, we can't be.

• 1:09:54David Pierce?

  It just isn't.

• 1:09:56Nilay Patel?

  Well, if ski goggles, there are some ski goggles that look cool. I've certainly seen, like, sweet pictures of 80s people wearing ski goggles. They look cool as hell. Have you ever seen the movie Ski School? Highly recommended. Anyway, um, my my point is, one, you should watch Ski School. Two, even the people who think they look better in glasses that don't, don't.

• 1:10:21Nilay Patel?

  They have not created enough of a market for like clear glasses. Like there's a little bit of a market for clear glasses. Right? Like on prescription or non-prescription clear glasses that you just wear as a fashion accessory. Like a little bit. But it's as a signifier, as part of another outfit, right? It's supposed to be part of another vibe that you're sending out. Not just, I wear these every day, all day, like my shoes.

• 1:10:44David Pierce?

  Right. As pure fashion statement, there's not much there.

• 1:10:47Nilay Patel?

  So you just, I think for a tech product, you need to vastly increase the utility of the thing. Like AirPods, they're so useful and I care about them so much and they provide me so much value every single day as a product that I will overcome the fact that they're in my ears all the time and people can see them because they're white. And like, regular over the ear headphones are fashion statements in different ways, right? They look different. There's different ways you can style them. There's different ways you can wear them. Remember when Beats came out? The Beats were not the best sounding headphones. It's like Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre had one idea for what headphones should sound like and it was super bass heavy. And they were a fashion statement at first because they came in all the colors. Like they were the first headphones to like really push that idea.

• 1:11:31Nilay Patel?

  And they were a phenomenon in their time just for that. I think with smart glasses, yep, you gotta make the form factor smaller. Yep, they've got to be. Yep, they've got to look more like regular glasses. You've got to solve the battery. You've got to bring the fiddliness way down and the value way up. They got to be able to do more things. And then somewhere in there, you might overcome the penalty of it being on your face. But I still think that the core tenet holds, which is if it's really, really useful, people will get over the fiddliness. And part of fiddliness is like, is this shit on my face?

• 1:12:04David Pierce?

  Right.

• 1:12:06Nilay Patel?

  And whether or not that you want to interpret that in the Galloway fashion of, does this make me more attractive? That it's, it is up to you to decide if that is the type of utility you desire from a product.

• 1:12:17David Pierce?

  Fair. And I guess to be fair.

• 1:12:19Nilay Patel?

  The Post Malone is out here being like, you know what? Face tattoos. That's how I'm doing it.

• 1:12:23David Pierce?

  Listen, some things are attractive to some people. Every, accounting for taste. No one is attracted to the Vision Pro, I think is, is basically the only true statement I can make at this particular moment in time. I, okay, so the, the hundred point deductible is on a scale that it's, it's an apple.

• 1:12:42Nilay Patel?

  It's not like a tax return.

• 1:12:44David Pierce?

  I apologize. The 100 point deduction is, is like it's, it's apple chart crime. It's out of nothing. Uh, but what I wonder is, is have we, have we not hit it enough? Like, should it be a 200 point deduction? Like, I am starting to think that this thing might be harder to surmount even than I had thought. Cause even like, I look at the Orion glasses, which are smaller and much closer to being normal glasses. And then somebody puts them on their face and they still look kind of stupid. Like they're cool because they're cool technology, whatever. But like, in no way are they like cool looking glasses. And that is like the bleeding edge of the bleeding edge of where we are in terms of being able to make these things awesome. Like, should we be,

• 1:13:25David Pierce?

  should we be dinging these things harder for their face wearing issues for the foreseeable future?

• 1:13:32Nilay Patel?

  Well, I would say one of the most fiddly things about the Orion is that you need to work at Facebook and apparently have $10,000 in order to have one.

• 1:13:39David Pierce?

  Yeah, it's pretty silly.

• 1:13:40Nilay Patel?

  It's very fiddly. Like whether or not it's in your face, like, doesn't matter. Like it's, it's a product you can't buy. You need to grow crystal lenses in the basement of your underground Hawaiian lair, apparently to have them. Very fiddly. Like you're just in the hole and then you're a little bit further in the hole. I think a better example is the Ray-Ban glasses that Meta is doing, where their utility is not that high. Right? Like, they can take some photos, they can do some AI stuff. People actually like the photos. People like listening to music on them, but they're not very fiddly.

• 1:14:13David Pierce?

  That is true.

• 1:14:14Nilay Patel?

  They're just, they're just Ray-Bans.

• 1:14:16David Pierce?

  They're mostly glasses. Yeah.

• 1:14:17Nilay Patel?

  And so even they can overcome the face penalty because their fiddliness is so low. Right? And then, and then you get whatever utility you get out of it. And they, they kind of just curve right back up to glasses. Maybe a little bit under regular glasses because they have a little more fiddliness to them. But they, they're, I think they're just on the same curve as regular glasses, which also take the 100 point face fiddliness deduction.

• 1:14:42David Pierce?

  I'm going to be so interested to see how the clear ones end up doing in the real world, that like limited edition one that they came out with, because my like threads algorithm is filled with people who are obsessed with it. My threads algorithm is also filled with like nerds.

• 1:14:55Nilay Patel?

  And it's also owned, I would point out, by Meta.

• 1:14:57David Pierce?

  It is also owned by Meta. That's a very good point. So I think the, the question of like, I have a pair here that are essentially indistinguishable from normal Wayfarers. Like you would never look at me twice wearing them. They just look like Wayfarers. That is a huge victory. I think the, the clear ones look a little more like gadgets. And then so I think how those sort of percolate out into the world is going to be really interesting because there is this like, all the way at the other end of that spectrum is Google Glass, which is like the gadgetiest gadget of all time.

• 1:15:26Nilay Patel?

  It also offered almost no utility. I just, everyone forgets this about Google Glass. You had a little display on your face that was not very useful at all.

• 1:15:35David Pierce?

  No, it like told you, you had a text message. My phone buzzes when that happens.

• 1:15:38Nilay Patel?

  You were just in the hole. It was like, it would be like, turn left. It's like when you were doing Google Labs. And it's just, none of this is useful at all. So the, the, the real thing that I think the, the Ray-Bans have accomplished is they've gotten closer to the curve as of regular glasses. Though what's really interesting is the clear ones you're talking about have the next generation of transitions lenses in them, Gen S they're called, which are supposed to go from sunglasses to clear much faster than before. And the idea is that that will make you want to wear them all the time. I don't know. You know, like, are people going to buy these things that look like Wayfarers and then just like wear them around their office? Because they're getting so much value out of wearing the Meta Ray-Bans. And I think

• 1:16:23Nilay Patel?

  the answer is no. I think you're still on the same curve as just regular sunglasses. So we'll see. I think that's the most successful of these products because they've gotten to the same sort of value equation as a regular set of sunglasses.

• 1:16:38David Pierce?

  Yeah, I think that's right. And that's, that's a good example of, I don't know that, like, your sunglasses generally make you look like cooler and more attractive, but they are like useful and they look good.

• 1:16:49Nilay Patel?

  I think historically, in, in the history of culture, people have thought sunglasses make them look cool and attractive.

• 1:16:54David Pierce?

  No, they just like make you mysterious because nobody can see what you're looking at. And that-

• 1:16:58Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Sexy and dangerous.

• 1:17:01David Pierce?

  How do you feel about your sunglasses?

• 1:17:03Nilay Patel?

  I'm just saying, I think this is how most people feel about sunglasses.

• 1:17:07David Pierce?

  That's no, that's fair. So maybe, maybe we're on to something here that there's maybe the new, the, the, whatever seventh dimension of the theory of wearable bullshit.

• 1:17:18Nilay Patel?

  I think I'm down to just two. It's two in the face deduction.

• 1:17:22David Pierce?

  But there's also like a sexiness quotient.

• 1:17:25Nilay Patel?

  No, I disagree. Two, all two subjective. It's fiddliness versus utility and then face.

• 1:17:31David Pierce?

  So do we put sexiness under utility? Is one of the utility, like a possible utility? Just it makes me look hot as a hell?

• 1:17:38Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, perceived utility. It's all, it's all in there, which is why face is such a, wait, is face a fiddly? Face is utility deduction.

• 1:17:46David Pierce?

  Okay, I think that's right.

• 1:17:49Nilay Patel?

  That seems.

• 1:17:49David Pierce?

  No, it's a fiddly deduction. Face is very fiddly.

• 1:17:54Nilay Patel?

  So it just depends on which axis is which. Whichever one brings you down below that curve, like hard, and then you've got to like, you've got to pay it off with utility. So it is a, it is a utility deduction.

• 1:18:06David Pierce?

  Okay.

• 1:18:07Nilay Patel?

  Right? You put it on your face, you suddenly need to deliver vastly more utility to get back above the curve.

• 1:18:12David Pierce?

  Right. And one of those utilities can be sexy.

• 1:18:15Nilay Patel?

  Looking hot. Yeah.

• 1:18:17David Pierce?

  All right. There we go. We've solved it. And as always, if you listeners can figure out how to graph this for us, please, dear God, we'll let you sponsor the lightning round for free.

• 1:18:27Nilay Patel?

  And just, we've mentioned it before. So there's regular glasses. This is the, the first thing to put on your chart is regular glasses, which are quite fiddly. Especially if you need them to see the fact that if you lose them, you can no longer see is really quite fiddle.

• 1:18:44David Pierce?

  Yes.

• 1:18:45Nilay Patel?

  Like you gotta keep them clean. You can't lose them. You don't want to scratch them. You gotta, you gotta wear them all the time. Very fiddly. Utility off the chart. You're, you're, you're way above the curve of success on this, on this whatever quadrant chart we're doing. AirPods also in the chart. Good, good thing to graph, right? People like them, but they make you look like you have AirPods in your ears. Apple Watch, first gen versus the current gen. First gen is so fiddly.

• 1:19:09David Pierce?

  Yep.

• 1:19:10Nilay Patel?

  Not a lot of utility. So fiddly, below the curve. And they, they, they evened it out to where they are now. So like, that's the chart, right? You just gotta, if you're gonna put something on your body, it's gotta be so useful. It's worth the time and attention. And then you've got face, face deduction.

• 1:19:30David Pierce?

  Face deduction is the title of Neelai's memoir. The face penalty.

• 1:19:34David Pierce?

  All right, we did it. Neelai, thank you as always. I'm still mad about the Scott Galloway thing. I want to be very clear about this. All right, that is it for the Vergecast. Thank you to everybody who was on the show today, and thank you as always for listening. There's lots more on everything. We talked about all of Jen's coverage of Matter and Thread and the video doorbell. She actually wrote about a smart door just yesterday. Great stuff. All that is on the website. All of Chris's reviews of these various headphones are on the website. I think the wearable theory is mostly a Vergecast thing, so you know, keep it locked here for all of the updates on Neelai's insane wearables theory that basically doesn't make any sense. And if you have thoughts, questions, or feelings, or anything else you want to talk about, other

• 1:20:19David Pierce?

  headphones, you want us to try other ways to put terrible audio on the Vergecast, you can always email us at [email protected], or call the hotline 866-VERGE11. We love hearing from you. Please keep all your questions coming. This show is produced by Liam James, Will Poor, and Eric Gomez. The Vergecast is a Verge production and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Neelai, Alex, and I will be back on Friday to talk about all the weird stuff going on in OpenAI, because that keeps happening, some strange lawsuit stuff with Epic and Google and Samsung, and a whole bunch of other stuff. See you then. Rock and roll.

• 1:21:03Speaker 10

  Your heart can tell you a lot about your health. Apple Watch Series 12 measures your heart rate every five seconds with the most accurate heart rate sensing in a wearable. So your vitals app, now with heart rate variability, can tell you when something is off. And your readiness score can let you know when to rest and when to push. Hear the story in every heartbeat with Apple Watch Series 12. The features described are for wellness purposes only and not for medical use. iPhone 11 or later required. Based on Apple conducted study of heart rate accuracy, August 2026. Visit apple.com slash applewatchseries12.

• 1:21:34Speaker 11

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