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.