GE Appliances has a new smart air conditioning unit, and it works with Apple’s HomeKit. The GE smart AC unit connects with Wi-Fi and can be controlled with a iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Apple Watch. John Desmarais, Commercial Director, Window A/C, Portables & Dehumidifiers for GE Appliances, said:
Consumers told us they like how they can create their own schedules to keep rooms comfortable without wasting energy. We’re pleased to offer the very first air conditioners with HomeKit integration, bringing simple and secure control through the Apple Home app and using Siri.
Orvibo makes smart home products, and researchers found a leak in its database that exposed over two billion user records. This included usernames, email addresses, passwords, and precise locations.
The data breach affects users from around the world. We found logs for users in China, Japan, Thailand, the US, the UK, Mexico, France, Australia, and Brazil. We expect that there are more users represented in the 2 billion plus logs.
We first contact Orvibo via email on June 16. When we didn’t receive a response after several days, we also tweeted the company to alert them to the breach. They still have not responded, nor has the breach been closed.
Utterly ridiculous. It’s one thing to leak data, and other thing to ignore the problem and not fix it.
Some folks with Catalina on the brain want to know how to prepare. Some folks want to prepare to reinstall Mojave. Joe has advice for future-proofing your home, and the A-Lady wants you to whisper sweet nothings at her. It’s that kind of week here and John and Dave are your stalwart guides. Press play and enjoy learning at least five new things!
You want Cool Stuff Found? You want to know how to uninstall apps properly? What about the dangers of disabling SIP? John F. Braun and Dave Hamilton, your two favorite geeks, come together to answer all of these and more. Have a question? Send it in to feedback@macgeekgab.com or post in the MGG forums.
Mysteries are meant to be solved, and when it comes to the mystery that is your “System” disk usage as displayed by macOS, well, that mystery’s not even supposed to exist in the first place. Dave and John dig in to solve this plus a bunch of other questions sent in by you, dear listeners. Press play, listen, learn, and enjoy!
Wireless speaker pioneers Sonos today announced the upcoming availability of their first-ever set of public APIs available to all Sonos speakers, as well as the Sonos Amp, a new piece of hardware aimed at allowing folks to use their own speakers within a Sonos system.
Signify just announced two new additions to its Philips Hue smart light family: Philips Play and Philips Signe. Both are light strip-style lamps that add colored accent light to your rooms by trowing light on the walls. The Play sits on tables or TV stands, and the Signe sits on the floor and are designed to look good in places where the Philips Lightstrip isn’t a good fit. The Play will be available in October for US$69.95, or $129.95 for a two-pack. The Signe will be available in September for $169.99 or $269.99 for a two-pack.
HomeKit support without a bridge device is coming to Belkin’s Wemo Mini Smart Plug thanks to a free firmware update rolling out on Thursday. The change comes thanks to the HomeKit software authentication feature Apple introduced with iOS 11.3. That means once the firmware update is installed you can start using your Mini Smart Plugs with Siri and the Home app. For your other Wemo devices, including the discontinued—and much bigger—Wemo Smart Plug, you’ll still need the Wemo Bridge. You can get the Wemo Mini Smart Plug on Amazon for US$29.99.
Wyze just addressed one of the biggest requests from Wyze Cam users: Alexa voice control support. Firmware updates are available for the Wyze Cam v2 and Wyze Cam Pan that add Alexa support, along with a few bug fixes. The cameras are great for monitoring your home or business and include a microSD card slot so you can record activity without relying on cloud servers. They’re also surprisingly inexpensive at US$19.99 for the Wyze Cam v2 and $29.99 for the Wyze Cam Pan. You’ll need the Wyze mobile app to install the firmware update. Unfortunately, there isn’t a Wyze Skill for Alexa yet, so we still need to wait for that.
Signify released its Philips Hue Sync app for Mac and Windows on Thursday, giving Philips Hue smart light users a new way to control their lighting experience. The app uses Hue bulbs to add lighting and color effects in real time to music, videos, and games playing on your computer. It also works with televisions if you use AirPlay or connect via HDMI, which is great if your computer and TV aren’t in the same room. The Philips Hue Sync app is free and available for download at the Philips Hue website.
Philips Hue smart light users got a nice surprise Tuesday morning with a big update to the Hue controller app for the iPhone. Hue 3.0 sports a new interface that’s easier to use, controls for individual lights instead of just groups, an improved color picker, new scenes, the ability to use the art in a room to create light scenes, and more. The Hue 3.0 app is a free download at Apple’s App Store.
You have questions, Dave and John have answers. Today’s topics include malfunctioning AirPods, setting Apple Pay addresses, restoring a Recovery Partition, email and iMessage encryption, and much, much more. Download, press play, enjoy, and learn!
We’re still in the early stages of voice assistant technology so we can’t declare a winner yet, regardless of which you prefer. Based on what we’re seeing, however, Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant are putting Apple’s Siri in a serious catch up position.
