App Enabled Sprinkler Controller by Rachio

I had been meaning to install “modern” sprinkler controllers for the longest time. My daughter got me the Rachio 2.0 for my birthday, but honestly the project stayed pretty far down the list because I was a little daunted by the effort of it all. Then my neighbor put one in and told me “how easy” it was...he was right. 

I set out this morning to put the project into touch with a screwdriver and an iPhone. The instructions were essentially:

1. Install the app on your phone
2. Plug in the controller
3. Walk thru setup for WiFi
4. Take out the wires from the current controller, put them into the Rachio controller
5. Walk-thru zone setup and testing

The whole thing took 20 minutes. 

I did end up ordering the outdoor cover for my backyard Rachio (its outside) and have put a 2nd one on my wish list for the front yard. 

The walk through on zone setups was amazing. 

And now, we are ready to save water (smarter watering by zone, time of year and current weather). 

And a side bonus: if the dogs are barking at your neighbors, a quick flip of your phone sends them out of the sprinkler zone (Jeff taught me that one). 

Inbox by Google

I've been trialing Inbox by Google since January. Previous to that I was a devout Apple / Mac / iPhone mail user. I was often conflicted between the features that worked well (VIP group, for example) and how poorly the features worked with Gmail (using the automated inbox rules often conflicted with Apple's approach).

InBox has iPhone and web-based clients. I was able to easily "import" my Gmail rules into my account. As the app has continued to improve over the past few months, they have added both the ability to adjust the rules on the fly as you drag messages to folders and the ability to auto-classify messages based on your behavior with them into a small set of standard categories. 

Admittedly, it took awhile to wean myself off my old approach, trying for a period of many weeks to use InBox and my primary interface but then using my old MacMail and AppleMail to ensure I didn't miss anything. 

Recreating key folders in InBox was easier than Gmail (the rule interface is just simpler).

But having fully switched over, I would tell you it honestly saves me at least an hour a day on my work email and makes it easy to check my personal email every few days.  Further, the facilitated triage helps me get to the right emails first--which makes all the difference.

Revisiting AT&T vs. T-Mobile

I have had about 6 month to experience T-Mobile both here in LA, around major cities in the US and Canada and in London (see my blog for the the switch experience).  The entire time I have done this, I have had an AT&T phone with me (I know, silly), but when I left the country, I would put a local SIM card in that phone (Vodaphone in London for example).  Some conclusions so far:

• T-Mobile is significantly cheaper than AT&T for international travel.  Even after they responded to losing customers for international travel, implementing a plan similar to carriers in Europe ($10 per day but allowed to run off the normal monthly data plan), T-Mobile ends up being $100-200 cheaper per trip for me.
• T-Mobile lets you tether in their unlimited plan, AT&T does not.  #FAIL for AT&T.
• AT&T is still "faster" in most situations for downloads (i.e. trying to download the same video before a flight) -- even when both have same number of bars on LTE, etc.
• AT&T has significantly fewer dropped calls.  T-Mobile will has dropped my call with 2-bars in a plethora of situation.  Ironically, in these locations (often my house), I switch to the IP phone client Bria (app on iPhone) and the data carries the call better than the voice plan.

What would make me move "back" to AT&T?  They would need:

• Tethering for their unlimited plan
• Reduce or drop the daily international data charge from $10 to $5 or less.
• AT&T would have to stop "threatening" to reduce my data speeds to 2G after 22 GB have been used in the billing cycle.  Even though they appear not to follow-thru on my family, I cannot take the risk of need a critical file and having it take hours to download because they have throttled me on their "unlimited data" plan.

Stay tuned...

Getting up to speed on AI

For the last 8 months, I have been an avid reader / listener to just about every decent book, podcast and TED talk on the subject of artificial intelligence.  During discussions about AI, I often get the question, "What would you recommend I read to get up to speed on AI?"  Since I have a long commute and like to hike / jog, Amazon's integration of their Kindle and Audible products (they stay in sync) is perfect.

Here are my suggestions:

• Watch this 13 min TED talk by Andrew McAfee (2013).
• Then read (or listen to) his book: The Second Machine Age (2016)
• Read (or re-read) The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil (2006).  If you get bored from technical details quickly, focus on the first few chapters before he starts building a proof for his position.  I know its now 11 years old--trust me, worth the read anyway.
• Kevin Kelly writes a great book (The Inevitable, 2016) about the 12 trends that will affect our lives.  There is also a good summary on Amazon here.  And a great TED talk for the relevant bits.
• Calum Chace has 2 worthwhile books, but his book about the economic impact of AI is a better read.  The Economic Singularity, 2016.  Surviving AI, 2016.
• If you want a scary read, try Nick Bostrom's Superintelligence, 2014.
• If that isn't enough, these can round out your thirst for more perspectives:
• Rise of the Robots, Martin Ford.  2015.
• Our Final Invention, James Barrat, 2013.

Apple Music vs. Amazon Music

I have written about the "slide of Apple" a few times over the past 18 months (search issues, Siri bugs, etc). But I never thought I would see my once coveted Beats music service fall by the way side.

I wasn't looking for a new music service. In fact, while I have been incredibly disappointed in Apple's management of what used to be a great music service, I was hopeful it would improve. Sure the Sonos debacle upset me, but it more or less did what I needed even if the curated play lists seemed to be unattended. 

 

But then three events occurred in my life at about the same time:

• Amazon launched an introductory (and cheap) Unlimited Music service for Alexa at $4.99 per month. While I could use Blu-tooth to play my Apple Music to Alexa, it was easier to ask for music directly by Alexa. It was fun playing with her ability to call up songs "that go like...", and calling up a "Top Christmas Music" playlist was intuitive. But I still jogged, travelled and drove with my Apple Music, relegating Amazon music to one device in my kitchen. 
• Then the Echo Dot 2nd generation came out and suddenly I had one in every room in the house. Not a great speaker, but easier to play music with voice commands vs. Apple Music with Blu-tooth. So I upgraded to the full $8.99 version. 
• And then I upgraded my iPhone. And Apple's slide put the final nail into their own coffin -- because our family of four has more than 10 Apple devices and (in their infinite wisdom) you are not allowed to delete a device from that list except from the device itself -- which is long gone to Gazelle by the time you find this out -- I was suddenly stuck without a working music service. Faced with a long flight to London and terrible / expensive data service there while traveling, I was forced to try Amazon music as a replacement and quickly learn how to master the subtle differences.

And it was better. Much, much better. 

Playlists that you follow are actually updated often. 

Playlist names are intuitive. 

Lyrics are available while you listen. 

You can directly control which songs download and at what quality. 

Search actually works. 

And suddenly I was happy again with my music service. 

So having started my journey with Apple on an iPod more than a decade ago because of music, Apple Music was suddenly and unceremoniously replaced in my life by Amazon Music. 

And the long slide continues...

AT&T vs T-Mobile

I had been an AT&T customer for many, many years. The whole family shared a large data plan and we often used their international data packages on our frequent trips to London and Cabo. 

But recently, despite my many efforts to reduce data costs while traveling, our data bills while abroad became ridiculous.   I would use wifi at the hotel and the office and frankly not even use my "US" phone for email or browsing and still end up with data charges in the hundreds of dollars. 

 

At the same time, my family plan continues to come short each month of our needs and there is no next step cost effective plan for increasing the data package. 

So on the advice of a good tech savvy friend, I made the switch to T-Mobile's ONE plan. $75 per month all in for unlimited data (without AT&T's throttling) including SD streaming (on a small iPhone, do you need HD) and international data ("up to LTE" speeds). 

I have to say I was skeptical. I was worried I would have crappy voice service/signal around LA and terrible data speeds in London. 

However, it has turned out to be a great experience both for voice and data both locally and while traveling. Frankly, I should have done it years ago. 

If you really need HD video streamed or guaranteed faster speeds while traveling, they have a plan for the ($25 surcharge for ONE PLUS). 

If you have data cost issues at home or while traveling, I highly recommend giving T-Mobile a try. 

The new @Amazon #EchoDot

I bought the first generation #EchoDot when it came out. Had to buy a Bluetooth speaker to go with it (not much savings vs. a full Echo). I found a consistent hum on the speaker side and the travel use case was pretty much a failure (took it to a few hotels in the US but wifi setup took 10-15 minutes each time). 

The new dot with built in speaker is a great device. Perfect for locations around the house where you either have music solved (Sonos) or it is not really required (study). 

 

I am pleased enough that I plan to put one in each major room in the house -- which is possible at $50 each vs the Echo's full price of $180. I am hopeful the Sonos integration promised in early 17 will live up to their hype.  Having it everywhere let's me easily turn lights on and off (WEMO), manage my Nest thermostat and of course get Alexa's help at every turn (weather, remote for our TV, re-ordering consumables, etc). 

Amazon Alexa vs. the Amazon Dash

I got the the Amazon Dash in several branded buttons when it first came out last year. It was an interesting experiment but as time marched on, I would say it is not really much more efficient than picking up the phone. I have had plenty of occasions where someone clicked the button accidentally and others when it was clicked only to find the product it was tuned for was not available. In both cases it means you need to open the app on your phone, eliminating the efficiency for which it stands. 

Alexa on the other hand gives you immediate feedback on your request. She will run thru two similar options if there is any confusion before booting you to the Alexa app for further resolution--which is still more efficient than just opening the Amazon app on the phone. In the image above, I ordered the first products via the Dash and the 2nd two from Alexa. Alexa confirmed the right dog food and then confirmed it was shipping Prime and its arrival date. 

Alexa gets more useful every week. 

Siri keeps getting worse

Am I the only one who thinks the voice enabled assistant has continued to get worse over time?

When I first started using Siri years ago, my biggest complaint was her inability to understand what I said (esp in a car) and therefore having to repeat myself. However, that got better over time. Much better. 

But in the last 2-3 months, Siri keeps getting worse:

- when I ask to text someone a phrase (my most common use case @ roughly 25 times a day), it shows the words on screen as I dictated it but somehow skips the first 4-5 words as it converts it to the actual SMS - at which point I have to "change" and repeat it all and she gets it right

- it often cannot find key contacts I use everyday. Often it cannot find a contact I just used. Even when I attempt to sort thru "all the Dave's" for example, the one I am asking for is just not in the list 

Compare these obvious mistakes which did not used to occur with the amazing performance of Amazon's Alexa, and it leaves me wondering if Apple has lost its way.  Certainly, between this degradation, the challenges with native search from the home screen, and the lack of features in the phone compared to Samsung, I am for the first time considering an Android phone. 

My Experience and Views of Tesla Autopilot

While I feel like anyone who has tried to read a balanced version of the media several weeks after the story broke can read the facts for themselves (example here), I felt compelled to give my friends and colleagues a perspective and some first person (and slightly subjective) data:

- first, I have been using autopilot on my Model S since the very first day it launched. My guess is that I have been clocking 2k miles per month on the SoCal highways (mostly the 101 and the 405) and I have also been to Vegas four times and Phoenix once. 

- when it first launched, it was soooo beta. I blogged about some of the incidents previously and driving at speeds greater than 60 mph without your hands on the wheel or at least prepared to quickly take over is wreckless

- I do find it incredibly helpful in my everyday stop and go traffic on the 101 and 405 to/from work, but would openly state that the adaptive cruise control is the more valuable portion while the in lane steering still needs improvement
- I have had several potential accidents avoided where some jack ass suddenly jumped into my lane without looking/caring and the autopilot hit the brakes that split second ahead of me

- in LA, there are often cement barriers next to the HOV lane I drive in, so even a slight mistake by the autopilot could result in a trip to the body shop

- the fleet learning is real. Areas of the road that previously caused challenges have been fixed over time, but there are still plenty of places and times of day (sunset) where the car forces me to take control (appropriately so)

- my best use cases are:

   A) stop and go < 40 mph. I relax and let the car do its thing for the most part

   B) long highway driving (sans barrier) where the autopilot seriously reduces fatigue

   C) helping me thru distractions (incoming urgent text, an engrossed phone call, changing my podcast or music)-- which always happened before autopilot but was a much bigger risk

And I would openly state that anyone who believes they can drive at full highway speeds and not pay attention (which would include ignoring the many warnings of the system) is incredibly cavalier and will likely end up as a negative statistic soon.  But for the rest of the adult driving population, this is an incredible driving enhancement that reduces long range driving fatigue, reduces stress in traffic, and reduces overall probability of accidents.

Traveling with Streaming Video

So far the best experience I have had is the Amazon FireTV stick. I recently had the occasion to be in 105+ degree Phoenix and then London for a few nights with family. No matter how good the pre-home entertainment release content from the hotel is, it's always nice to catch up on an episode of a series you are watching together.

I carry the Fire stick in my bag with remote. It takes about 2 minutes to find the HDMI and USB (for power) ports and even the pain-in-the-ass Wi-Fi hotels throw at you. 

I did require an HDMI connector swivel from BestBuy (my gen 1 stick came with one but I misplaced it), but otherwise all has been seamless. Keep in mind that your content is unlikely to stream for most titles as part of any package (Netflix, Amazon Prime or otherwise) when out of the country, but you can "buy" them and then have access. 

Makes travel life just a little more like home. 

What the heck is #PokemonGo?

Had an interesting experience this weekend that reminded me of

geocaching a few years back. My teenage son and daughter, their friends and even my neighbor were all enamored with #PokemonGo on their iPhones. An augmented reality game, it allows them to walk / drive around the neighborhood and catch the little creatures sobthey can later do battle at local "gyms" -- which happens for some reason to be at a local church and behind a local Target. 

What is fascinating is how quickly is has become a craze. Last night the kids drove a few miles to a few "Pokemon stops" and then to a gym--at 11pm!

And today, for the 2nd time this weekend I was asked if I was up for a 5km hike. 

It will be interesting to watch this unfold...

The Tile - finding your lost keys solved

I experimented with the Tile last November to see how small (or big) it actually was and how effective it was at finding lost keys or other items. 

I was impressed enough that at Christmas I gave a number of them out as stocking stuffers and secret Santa gifts. 

Connecting it to your iPhone app is dead simple and using the app to find the lost item attached to the phone is also easy. I would say that if your tile is buried in a wife's very full purse, it is very hard to hear it ring until you are really close, but the in and out of blutooth range helps you triangulate the location quickly just by walking around the house with the phone. This method is less effective if the lost item is actually in your car, but knowing that is a location to check again reduces the required time to locate items. 

The best example of a real world lost item recovered happened a few weeks ago when my wife dropped her keys between a hotel and her first rest stop while returning from a volleyball tournament. The app kept showing the keys as lost, but once another phone with the Tile app came into range of the keys, a location was sent to my phone and were able to physical redirect our look and find the keys. 

We have been using Tile on every pair of car keys in the house and have even experimented with it in wallets that are often misplaced between purse changes. 

While I would love to see a smaller footprint, a louder noise generator, and the ability to pair to more than 2 phones, I would highly recommend the device to anyone who is prone to lose spare car keys, mail keys or house keys. 

Apple Music finally arrives for Sonos

Many of the tech blogs today raved about the arrival of Apple Music for Sonos. While I will admit the UI and UX are good, I can't help but feel incredibly frustrated by Apple and what seems to be a more common trait of theirs: mediocrity. 

I am a big fan of Apple's products, but by no means a fan boy (iTunes for example is still a terrible UX for any media and even the latest Apple TV implementation is a serious disappointment). 

However, this is more of a damaged goods story in my view. Apple acquired Beats in May of 2014 (more than 18 months ago). They launched Apple Music on July 1st of 2015 to much fan fare -- but failed to warn those who "upgraded" from Beats (which was an amazing service) that it would break Sonos (it was buried in the fine print). 

So now a full 7 months later I finally have a music service back on Sonos that is similar to the reason why I subscribed to Beats in the first place - except none of of saved Beats favorites transferred. 

So in the end, Apple took an amazing product, broke it for 7 months, and then launched a similar service - but somehow maintains fan fare for today's launch on Sonos. 

I hope this does not portend of things to come...

The WiFi enabled Video Doorbell by Ring

I had been meaning to try this device for quite sometime, but it's predecessor (the Bot) had too many issues to justify an install. I looked high and low for an alternative and then this summer Ring deployed their newest product (now called "Ring").

I would say right off the bat that the install was incredibly simple. Took me less than 20 mins, came with the right screw drivers and even a video to demonstrate the installation procedure. 

The doorbell part works beautifully. When someone rings, it not only sounds the normal chime but also alerts any iOS devices with the app installed, allowing someone to see the person at the door on video, hear them and speak to them (awesome if you are in the back yard or not at home when a package requiring signature arrives). 

However, the other touted feature is the ability to detect motion at your door and record a brief video while alerting you (a security feature). I experimented with various ranges of distance but nearly all of the distances have too many false positives (i.e. the wind moving a flag, etc). When it is dialed back, it often misses the video capture of real motion because the device does not have the horse power to start video capture quickly enough. 

The video playback feature is commercially reasonable. Less than a few dollars per month to have every 30 second video accessible in the cloud. However, about 1/3 of the time, the encoding / transcoding of the video fails in various parts of the video. I can't tell if it is the hardware or the service they are using for the transcoding and deployment to the service. 

Conclusion: if you need a replacement door bell with a video option, this is worth the effort. However, if you can wait until the next version (better processor, faster recording start, better motion/IR sensing algorithm), I would wait. 

The new Amazon FireTV Stick

My new and improved FireTV stick arrived this week. I wanted to test a few things with this $39 device (includes Voice remote) including its Wi-Fi performance, the voice remote itself, the new Alexa functionality, the new iOS app, it's "Instant Start" capability and the ability for "anyone to install". 

I am still very pleased with the full-on Amazon FireTV in my living room -- the 4K rendering from Amazon and Netflix are gorgeous on my 78" Samsung 4K set. 

I had my 12-year old do the install. Took him less than 5 minutes with the hardest part being the WiFi password. Simple as advertised. 

The Wi-Fi performance (now dual band) is much better than the previous stick 1080P looks great over my Apple AirPort Extreme Wifi. 

The voice remote is every bit as functional as the full FireTV version and much better than not having the voice search. 

The new iOS app is also great, including the access to voice search and Alexa. Works easily with both of my FireTV devices. 

Finally, the instant start works as advertised.

My view -- much better than the previous version and frankly much better than the Apple TV. I have always been a fan of the content-oriented UI vs an App-oriented approach. 

Amazon has been running sales all weekend on both version of the FireTV...a great Christmas gift.

My first week with Tesla AutoPilot

First of all, let me say right up front - this is definitely still BETA. Keeping your hands on the wheel while driving 75 mph is definitely a requirement.  My first impression is that AutoPilot is currently driving like a teenager--over correcting most of the time and correcting too often (not to mention occasionally scaring the crap out of me). However, automatic cruise control started this way last April and got better and better over a few months and I would honestly say now it is amazing. 

In its current state, these are the use cases I think make sense:

- "the reach". How many times without auto pilot are you trying to grab something, trying to open something, etc, and doing insane things like holding the wheel with your knee? A no-brainer. 

- LA traffic. Rush hour often means stop and go traffic between 0 and 40 miles an hour. This is a perfect use case for auto pilot - relax, listen to an audio blog, make a blue tooth call. 

- "the long drive". Even with your hands on the wheel, there is comfort in the car looking out for changes. I will say that there are times you feel like you are fighting it (i.e. It wants to be in the middle of the lane but as a motorcycle passes in between traffic you want to move to the left), and ironically it drives more accurately in the nighttime than the day (I think that has to do with the reflective lines being easier to distinguish vs. the washed out daytime view). 

I think we are 18 months or more from being able to comfortably drive at 75 mph on a highway without fear of the autopilot misreading the lines on the road and sounding the very alarming collision alert signal so ou can quickly take control. 

My 4K living room update (10 months later)

In December of last year (2012) I finally wrote up my 4K experience and the result wasn't pretty.

During that time, content was only available from either the Samsung hard drive that came with the TV, or Netflix, Amazon and MGO apps on the Samsung TV.  Netflix would constantly crash, Amazon would constantly buffer (despite bandwidth being available) and the MGO app let me download the content but would never let me play it back.  Even if/when it worked at all, it meant my sound was going thru the TV speakers, not my 7.1 surround sound system.  I concluded then that it could not take off with consumers until some OTT box maker created a 4K decode chipset so a consumer could route through their home entertainment reeiver and have a higher quality app experience (the apps built for TV chasis get the least amount of development effort and have always had subpar performance on all TV platform...in my experience).

Well 10 days ago I finally received my new Amazon FireTV with 4K capabilities. 

While I surprised that Apple did NOT come out with the capability, I was not surprised at its very sharp picture and continued leverage of a content oriented UI (vs. Apple's "app centric" approach -- even with universal search).

I unboxed it 10 days ago right before a long trip to London, but found a problem immediately with the 4K playback tied up in the way HDCP 2.2 was handshaking between the FireTV, my Onkyo NR-636 Receiver, and the Samsung UH9000 series TV.  So I did a little reading last night in the Uber on the way back from LAX and Crutchfield of all sites gave me all of the information I needed.  It turns out that even though ALL of the manufacturers here have been smart and are providing update-able firmware to prepare for what is now HDCP 2.2 (prevents in-stream copying of 4K content), their user manuals were incredibly poor at describing the simple fact that of the 4 or 7 HDMI 2.0 ports they had only one (1) was HDCP 2.2 compliant.  Samsung (below) was forward thinking in their approach to the UHD television generation and created this single "smart" input device for the UHD range which is not only updatable via the internet automatically, it is a replaceable device (in the event a hardware update is required for something in the near future) in a way that does not require a new TV.  But, they are terse in their description of that they call "MHP" on their HDMI 4 port, which is turns out is the ONLY HDMI connection that will pass through HDCP 2.2.

Onkyo is a bit more straight forward in their documentation, but again only have a single port in (under HDMI port 3 for some reason) and an HDCP 2.2 compliant "out" HDMI port.   However, they are good enough to clearly document that even on the back of the receiver itself (and in all of their documentation on their own site and at Crutchfields).

So, making all of this work (after a bit of reading) requires:

• Amazon FireTV (or other 4K device supporting Netflix UHD and Amazon UHD).
• An Onkyo TX-NR636 receiver (or better -- the NR636 is roughly $499 now).  I did update the firmeware for this, which gave me Dolby ATMOS and supposedly improved the HDCP 2.2 handshake.  The FireTV needs to be connected to HMDI 3 (STB/DVR).
• The Samsung UH9000 series TV (the 8000 will do 4K only at 30 Hz).  The Samsung TV needs to have one end of the HDMI cable in HDMI port 4 (MHP) and the other in the Onkyo out (no other choice really).

From start to finish I probably had 30 minutes invested in the reading, 30 minutes invested in pulling cables in and out of ports, 30 minutes in updating the Onkyo firmware (via USB), and 30 minutes re-programming my Harmony Ultimate Home remote system (previously everything had been through HDMI port 1 on the TV, not 4, because I had no idea what the MHP reference from Samsung was on that port until I read the Crutchfield guide).

The downside for the industry here is rather obvious.  This just eliminated a huge chunk of consumers (too much effort required) and has eliminated my capability to get another 4K device (Blu-Ray, AppleTV, Roku, cable/telco provider or otherwise) since there is ONLY ONE PORT on the Onkyo and on the Samsung.  In fact, I could not find a model in the current Onkyo line-up that supports 2 inputs to the receiver that are HDCP 2.2 compliant (perhaps a physical way to prevent stream copies)--and Onkyo is definitely leading the industry in video switching.  This will definitely slow down 4K as consumers will be forced to choose their local cable/telco (assuming they ever get their crap together) vs. their favorite OTT solution.

Apple Pay in the UK

In the last 4 days I have used Apple Pay here in London more times than I have in the U.S. in the last 4 weeks. 

When I was last in London in July, hardly anyone took Apple Pay as it had just launched. But this week, largely thanks to Verifone taking contactless payments, I used it for just about everything--coffee, a black cab, sandwiches, my Heathrow Express ticket, dinner, etc. 

The irony is that because the U.S. Cards are still 'chip and sign' vs 'chip and PIN', they are frankly a huge pain in the ass here, requiring the waiter or barista to run off and find a pen most times, delaying the transaction, etc. In other words, using the Apple Watch or iPhone requires no signature and is MUCH faster than not using it. 

Now if we can just get a similar widespread deployment in America...

How a flat tire made me love #Tesla more

I had a slow leak in one of my tires over the weekend. Filled it up, but two days later it was back down to half of the right pressure. I was anticipating a nightmare challenge to get this fixed the day before a long trip to Europe because there is NO SPARE for the Tesla Model S. 

So I called Tesla Service. 

What an awesome experience. A tow truck came to my house and put a loaner tire on my car. Took 8 minutes of my time.  I never even heard of this concept. 

The next day I got a call from Tesla Roadside assistance. They are coming by the house again to swap the original rim and new tire for me at my house. All for $395. I never - and I mean NEVER - got out of my BMW Service Center that cheap. Ever. That price included the service on both ends and the amazing tires they use. My BMW tire were at least 50% more per tire, etc. 

Wow. If I wasn't already a fan...