dewme

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dewme
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  • Apple no longer selling 2015 Apple TV HD

    dewmedewme
    The biggest benefit of the Apple TV HD for me is the optical audio port. I have a DAC plugged into the optical audio port so I can listen to my Apple Music collection on my old analog receiver and speakers. It works great. I know you can buy an HDMI audio extractor to get back to optical audio but I always wonder whether those devices muck with the HDMI video signal in any way. I suppose Apple doesn’t worry about supporting these offbeat scenarios with 40 year old analog HiFi systems, but I’ll keep enjoying it for as long as I can and for as long as my ATV HD is around to serve my needs.
    appleinsideruserwatto_cobra

  • New Apple TV 4K with A15, HDR10+, more storage debuts

    dewmedewme
    insync88 said:
    Didn’t the last Apple TV 4K have thread ?
    Yes, but it only works with HomeKit devices that support Thread. Supporting Matter expands the number of supported devices considerably, which addresses one of the biggest downsides of HomeKit. There are probably still going to be some advantages that HomeKit has over standard Matter but for a lot of rudimentary devices like simple sensors, lighting, locks, etc., a generic Matter device is probably going to be good enough. 

    What we don’t know is whether Apple will retrofit Matter support into the previous generation Apple TV and HomePod mini. If they do, then the previous generation ATV 4K is arguably a better value than the neutered version on the latest ATV 4K. 

    Being a bit of a stickler … adding more Thread devices to a mesh does not make the system more reliable. It makes it more available. 
    Alex1Nwatto_cobraPatchyThePirateV.3

  • New iPad requires USB-C Apple Pencil adapter for pairing & charging

    dewmedewme
    I have to agree with those who think Apple cut a little too deep by foisting the Apple Pencil 1 on this new iPad. I know they wanted to create price space for the iPad Air, but even the Apple Pencil 2 seems like a last-gen product at this point, while the Apple Pencil 1 is downright primitive. The charging doohickey, i.e., techno-wart, for making the Apple Pencil 1 work with the new iPad only accentuates the severity of poor decision making on Apple's part. They should have known better.
    williamlondonbloggerblogAlex1Ncurtis hannahmuthuk_vanalingambyronl

  • Ikea HomeKit hub with Matter support set for November release

    dewmedewme
    Thanks again @dewme. So as AppleTV supports Thread and Matter, what does this Ikea router add to the party? Or is it providing similar functionality, but for folks who don't want/have AppleTV?
    Support for Zigbee devices.

    Edit:

    Just noticed that both the latest Apple TV 4K and HomePod mini technical specs have the following exception noted: 

    "Not compatible with non‑HomeKit Thread devices."

    Hopefully this will be resolved once all the Thread spec is ratified and Apple issues a firmware update. If Apple doesn't add support for non-Homekit Thread devices I'd consider this a major failure on Apple's side.

    Hopefully the IKEA hub can support non-HomeKit Thread devices. 

    I really hope that when Apple rolls out support for Matter they update HomeKit and their Thread edge routers to support all Thread compatible devices, not just Thread devices that use HomeKit.

    I guess we will see what Apple’s real end game is whenever they roll out support for Matter. They can make their Home App a full fledged Matter client, they can stick their HomeKit application layer on top of a full Matter stack (like they’ve done with Thread in HomePod mini and ATV 4K), or the can run Matter and HomeKit side-by-side with the new Home App being an aggregation/integration layer.

    The Matter standard expects the connection endpoints to be talking Matter and Apple expects the connection endpoints to be talking HomeKit. I don’t foresee Apple giving up anything when it comes to HomeKit, so the better scenario for the most number of end users would be for the new Home App to be an aggregator/integrator so it can manage non-HomeKit devices as full fledged members of a home automation system along with its HomeKit devices.


    appleinsiderusercg27watto_cobra

  • Ikea HomeKit hub with Matter support set for November release

    dewmedewme
    Er, wasn’t one of the benefits of Matter that hubs weren’t needed?
    This device isn’t really a “hub” in the traditional sense of a communication (e.g., Ethernet) hub. It’s more of a hub like you see with Thunderbolt “hubs” on the market that provide a single centralized device that incorporates connectivity to multiple other communication networks and buses like USB, HDMI, Ethernet. 

    Matter is an application layer protocol that runs on top of multiple communication layers, the most important are IP based ones being Thread and WiFi. If all of your Matter devices are WiFi based and your client is on WiFi and supports Matter, then yeah, you don’t need a separate “hub, router, gateway” type of device. 

    However, if you want to access Matter devices that use Thread from a WiFi client you need a border router to route between WiFi and Thread. It’s still IP based end to end, but the WiFi and Thread link layers, physical layers, and IP address spaces are not the same. 

    This “hub” device also supports Zigbee devices, which are not IP based. Going from WiFi to Zigbee requires a gateway because it’s bridging protocols. 

    Matter devices can also communicate via Bluetooth. 

    So this Matter “hub” is actually a border router and gateway that allows Matter compatible clients to communicate with wide range of Matter compatible devices as well as legacy Zigbee devices. 

    cg27beowulfschmidtwatto_cobra