{"id":5703,"date":"2025-07-13T20:50:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-14T06:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/?p=5703"},"modified":"2025-07-13T20:50:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T06:50:07","slug":"mobileviews-570-live-by-the-iot-die-by-the-iot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/2025\/07\/13\/mobileviews-570-live-by-the-iot-die-by-the-iot\/","title":{"rendered":"MobileViews 570: Live by the iOT, die by the iOT"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none; min-width: min(100%, 430px); height: 150px;\" title=\"MobileViews 570: Live by the iOT, die by the iOT\" src=\"https:\/\/www.podbean.com\/player-v2\/?i=99snn-1904e66-pb&amp;from=pb6admin&amp;share=1&amp;download=1&amp;rtl=0&amp;fonts=Arial&amp;skin=1&amp;font-color=auto&amp;logo_link=episode_page&amp;btn-skin=7\" width=\"100%\" height=\"150\" scrolling=\"no\" data-name=\"pb-iframe-player\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-large wp-image-5704\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/MViews-570-Jon-me-1024x430.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"430\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/MViews-570-Jon-me-1024x430.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/MViews-570-Jon-me-300x126.png 300w, https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/MViews-570-Jon-me-768x323.png 768w, https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/MViews-570-Jon-me-1536x645.png 1536w, https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/MViews-570-Jon-me.png 1802w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The &#8220;MobileViews 570&#8221; podcast, featuring Todd Ogasawara and Dr. Jon Westfall on July 13th, 2025, tackles a crucial theme: <\/span><b>&#8220;Die by the IoT&#8221;<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. This isn&#8217;t just a catchy title; it&#8217;s a deep dive into the <a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/gadgets\/2025\/07\/belkin-shows-tech-firms-getting-too-comfortable-with-bricking-customers-stuff\/\">frustrating reality of smart devices becoming obsolete<\/a> due to company decisions. Jon Westfall shared his dismay over <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/9to5mac.com\/2025\/07\/10\/belkin-ending-support-for-most-of-its-wemo-smart-home-accessories\/\">Belkin&#8217;s WeMo smart home devices<\/a><b>, including a light switch he uses, losing support on January 31st, 2026<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, less than three years after some models were last sold. He suspects a recent sale he took advantage of was due to its impending discontinuation. This echoes his prior experience with <\/span><b>iHome ISP5 smart plugs, whose service was discontinued years ago, though they luckily retained functionality via Apple HomeKit compatibility<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Todd resonated with this, recalling a sub-$50 purple NAS-like device that became <\/span><b>inaccessible when its cloud service was unexpectedly shut down<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Both hosts strongly agreed with the sentiment of an Ars Technica article, &#8220;Belkin shows tech firms getting too comfortable with bricking customers stuff,&#8221; expressing their frustration with the <\/span><b>dependency on cloud-based services and the expectation that products should last more than two or two and a half years<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. They also noted that even major players like Microsoft (Azure IoT) and Google (Cloud IoT) have been <\/span><b>closing their IoT services for developers<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, leaving developers in a tough spot. A potential solution, as suggested by John, could be for companies to <\/span><b>release the code for discontinued devices to the &#8220;geeky IoT community&#8221; for ongoing support<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Beyond the looming threat of device obsolescence, Todd and Jon explored the evolving landscape of AI and exciting new gadgets. Todd discussed Perplexity&#8217;s Comet AI browser, noting its current requirement for a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/comet.perplexity.ai\/\"><b>$200\/month Perplexity subscription<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for full access, though a waitlist for a free version exists. They lamented the challenge of discerning the utility of various AI services like Copilot, Gemini, and ChatGPT due to their <\/span><b>constantly changing and inconsistent features<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Todd primarily uses <\/span><b>Google&#8217;s Gemini<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which he recently leveraged to find a &#8220;way fun&#8221; method to <\/span><b>import a photo of his line drawing into Procreate for digital coloring underneath the lines<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Jon, on a more creative note, is <\/span><b>co-authoring a musical titled &#8220;Happy Apocalypse&#8221; with AI<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. He also highlighted the practical application of AI, using his Plaud Note Pin (or transcribing Teams recordings via Plaud) to <\/span><b>summarize dissertation student meetings, proving highly useful for both himself and the student&#8217;s progress reports<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The podcast also delved into some compelling new hardware. Jon enthusiastically shared his experience with the <\/span><b><a href=\"https:\/\/us.kobobooks.com\/products\/kobo-libra-colour\">Kobo Libra Color<\/a>\u00a0e-reader<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which boasts a color E Ink display, a stylus (sold separately), and native connectivity to <\/span><b>Google Drive and Dropbox<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, offering a flexible, non-Amazon alternative to his old Kindle Oasis. He particularly praised the <\/span><b>stylus&#8217;s paper-like feel on the E Ink display, with low latency, making it ideal for note-taking, marking up, and highlighting<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Meanwhile, Todd acquired a low-cost <\/span><b>Arturia MiniLab 3 MIDI controller<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, a USB-C powered device with drum pads, sliders, knobs, and velocity-sensitive keys, which works well with GarageBand. Jon also recently picked up the <\/span><b>Wand Company Star Trek Original Series Tricorder<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, noting its high quality, functional disks, and voice recorder. Other brief mentions included Todd&#8217;s anticipation for iPad OS 26&#8217;s public beta, his past experiences with the Microsoft Spot Watch, Jon&#8217;s inexplicable phone time zone glitch, Todd&#8217;s interest in an E Ink touchpad concept for computer keyboards, and his fondness for the now-removed MacBook Pro Touch Bar. The episode wrapped up with the hosts looking forward to future tech discussions and adventures.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-5705\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/kobo-ereader.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"522\" height=\"583\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/kobo-ereader.jpg 522w, https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/kobo-ereader-269x300.jpg 269w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 522px) 100vw, 522px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Available via <a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/mobileviews.com-podcast\/id301171904?mt=2\">Apple iTunes<\/a>.<br \/>\n<a href=\"\u201chttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@ToddOgasawara\/podcasts\u201d\">MobileViews YouTube Podcasts channel <\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"\u201chttps:\/\/www.audible.com\/pd\/MobileViewscom-Podcast-Podcast\/B08K565TQS?qid=1640555789&amp;sr=1-1&amp;ref=a_search_c3_lProduct_1_1&amp;pf_rd_p=83218cca-c308-412f-bfcf-90198b687a2f&amp;pf_rd_r=TXEJVWB2VW471GJ9XQQ0\u201d&lt;\/a\">MobileViews Podcast on Audible.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The &#8220;MobileViews 570&#8221; podcast, featuring Todd Ogasawara and Dr. Jon Westfall on July 13th, 2025, tackles a crucial theme: &#8220;Die by the IoT&#8221;. This isn&#8217;t just a catchy title; it&#8217;s a deep dive into the frustrating reality of smart devices becoming obsolete due to company decisions. Jon Westfall shared his dismay over Belkin&#8217;s WeMo smart [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[126],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-podcast"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/ppKRG-1tZ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5703"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5707,"href":"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5703\/revisions\/5707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}