This week was a big one for fans of the connected home. Amazon announced that its Siri-like personal assistant for the home is now available for anyone to buy, so Kevin Tofel and I did a fairly extensive review on the show. There's more over at Fortune (http://fortune.com/2015/06/23/amazon-echo-review/).

Kevin and I also talked about the big letdown that was the Nest announcement from last week, while also introducing a new connected device called Curb that's far more interesting for those worried about energy efficiency (http://fortune.com/2015/06/22/curb-quantified-house/ ).

And for those less excited about devices for the home, and more pumped about gadgets for your wrist, I spoke with Aarthi Ramamurthy, the CEO and founder of Lumoid, about what wearables are hot right now and who is wearing them. Lumoid (https://lumoid.com/) is a web site where you can go to rent wearables, drones and photo equipment, and Ramamurthy has some solid data to share about who's buying what. Listen up to hear her describe what may be the best job in the world for a gadget lover and maybe even find your next fitness tracker.

We spend a lot of our time focused on the U.S. market, but this week's show we review an IP camera from a French company and feature Dave Friedman, the CEO of Ayla Networks, discussing the Internet of things evolution in China. Friedman discusses a recent deal his company signed to provide the back end infrastructure that will let Chinese manufacturers connect their products to China's WeChat social network (https://www.techinasia.com/check-smart-hotel-room-controlled-wechat/). Friedman also offers to compelling stats on how much the cost of connectivity and cloud hosting has dropped in the last five years. Soon we'll add connectivity to everything!


First up Kevin Tofel and I riff on the ideas from this article in Wired (http://www.wired.com/2015/06/same-plans-tech/), which looks at the convergence of features in the big mobile operating systems and says we've basically come to agreement on what a smartphone should do. Kevin and I apply that same questioning to the smart home during the first half of our show talking about the role of the cloud, context and services. Then we hit some news from the Industrial Internet Consortium ( http://fortune.com/2015/06/16/emc-industrial-internet/) and analysis around HomeKit (http://zatznotfunny.com/2015-06/meet-homekit-the-hubless-hub/) that might make the AllSeen Alliance a little worried. Finally, we review the Netatmo Welcome camera which offers facial recognition (https://www.netatmo.com/en-US/product/camera). Listen up.

This week Apple disappointed the smart home aficionados at its WWDC conference by not mentioning much in the way of new HomeKit news and new devices. But Kevin Tofel and I discussed the challenges that Apple's HomeKit partners faced trying to accommodate Apple's security and hardware needs. This includes the Ecobee CEO's response to criticism about his older thermostats not being upgradable to HomeKit (http://fortune.com/2015/06/09/ceo-apple-homekit-mess/).

Since we don't have a guest this week, we spent the rest of the show discussing a new, $1,500 oven ( http://fortune.com/2015/06/09/june-smart-oven/) and what the heck is happening with Wink. The Wink platform is for sale and Quirky, the product development group that created Wink is getting out of the manufacturing business (http://fortune.com/2015/06/12/quirky-wink-funding-products/). Finally, we cover the Ring connected doorbell in our 5-minute review segment. Despite my enthusiasm for the connected doorbell, I learned that my doorbell isn't in the right spot on the to make the device as useful.

We now have four devices for Apple's HomeKit (http://www.zdnet.com/article/here-come-the-apple-homekit-devices-for-connected-homes/) and about as many slides detailing Google's own entry into the Internet of things with its Brillo operating system and Weave communications platform (http://fortune.com/2015/05/28/google-brillo-weaved/). Kevin and I discuss what we know about the Google strategy and more importantly, what we don't yet know. We also discuss some new research on the use of consumer connected devices in corporate It networks from OpenDNS and use our 5-minute review slot to talk about the Ecobee 3 and the Lutron Caseta devices that just launched in new, HomeKit compatible versions.

After the break, I interview Chet Pipkin, the CEO of Belkin, which makes the WeMo line of connected devices (http://www.belkin.com/us/Products/home-automation/c/wemo-home-automation/). We talk about WeMo's future in the connected home, why connected devices cost so darn much, and how long we can expect until our smart home experience become more automated. I also ask why my WeMo experience seems so glitchy compared to others. For all this and more, listen up.