Still To Be Determined

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310: Is a Smart Panel Worth It? With Reynolds Holmes

A smart panel adds a few thousand dollars to an already expensive project, so Matt asks the awkward question straight out. Reynolds Holmes, VP of Product at SPAN, answers with a test: will you add an EV, a battery, a heat pump, or a new AC in the next ten years? If yes, he argues the future proofing pays for itself, and he explains why judging the decision on twelve months of old utility bills is backwards math. Matt also pushes on privacy, local API access, and what happens to your hardware if SPAN ever disappears.Watch the Undecided with Matt Ferrell episode, Why is Disney World Grinding Glass Into Sand? https://youtu.be/o5AeXRChgVQ?list=PLnTSM-ORSgi7uzySCXq8VXhodHB5B5OiQChapters:00:00: Intro02:49: Reynold’s Holmes Interview47:13: FeedbackWatch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evNiSMCU0lgSupport the show directly: https://stilltbd.fm/join/Audio version of the podcast: https://stilltbd.fmYouTube version of the podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@stilltbdYouTube membership: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4-aWB84Bupf5hxGqrwYqLA/joinGet in touch: https://stilltbd.fm/contact/Follow us on:Mastodon - https://mastodon.social/@mattferrellBluesky - https://bsky.app/profile/mattferrell.bsky.socialUndecided with Matt Ferrell: https://www.youtube.com/@undecidedtechnology Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

309: Is Perovskite Solar Finally Here? Joel Jean - Swift Solar Interview

Perovskite solar has promised a revolution for over a decade, so is it finally real? Matt and Sean talk with Joel Jean, co-founder and CEO of Swift Solar, the US startup spun out of MIT and Stanford. Joel explains how stacking a perovskite film on top of silicon lifts a solar cell's efficiency ceiling from 30 percent to about 45 percent. He also breaks down the three "tooth fairies" every new solar technology has to solve: performance, lifetime, and cost. So is perovskite tandem solar finally ready for your roof? Or is 25 year durability still one miracle away?Chapters:00:00: Intro03:20: Joel Jean Interview41:02: The Super Soaker MailbagWatch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtmX0st3uOkSupport the show directly: https://stilltbd.fm/join/Audio version of the podcast: https://stilltbd.fmYouTube version of the podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@stilltbdYouTube membership: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4-aWB84Bupf5hxGqrwYqLA/joinGet in touch: https://stilltbd.fm/contact/Follow us on:Mastodon - https://mastodon.social/@mattferrellBluesky - https://bsky.app/profile/mattferrell.bsky.socialUndecided with Matt Ferrell: https://www.youtube.com/@undecidedtechnology Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

308: Why 2 Million People Ditched Alexa & Google for This - Me Included

Most smart homes hand your house to Big Tech. Home Assistant is proof they don't have to.Matt and Sean sit down with Paulus Schoutsen, the software engineer who started Home Assistant, the largest open-source smart home platform in the world, now running in over 2 million homes. It runs locally, it keeps your data inside your house, and it doesn't stop working the day a company decides to shut off its servers. We get into why Paulus gave the whole project away to a nonprofit instead of selling it, how the energy dashboard turns your solar and battery into something genuinely useful, and whether a normal person can actually run this or if it's still a power-user thing. So is the open, local smart home finally good enough to replace Alexa and Google? Or is handing your house to Big Tech still the path of least resistance?Chapters:00:00: Intro01:20: Paulus Schoutsen52:08: Feedback - Updates56:20: Feedback - What Happens with the Chlorine?59:24: Feedback - Climate Change01:01:00: Feedback - PoutineWatch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPEtYL9F0VkMentioned in this episode:Home Assistant (free, open source): https://www.home-assistant.io/Nabu Casa / Home Assistant Cloud (~$80/yr, funds the mission): https://www.nabucasa.com/Open Home Foundation: https://www.openhomefoundation.org/Support the show directly: https://stilltbd.fm/join/Audio version of the podcast: https://stilltbd.fmYouTube version of the podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@stilltbdYouTube membership: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4-aWB84Bupf5hxGqrwYqLA/joinGet in touch: https://stilltbd.fm/contact/Follow us on:Mastodon - https://mastodon.social/@mattferrellBluesky - https://bsky.app/profile/mattferrell.bsky.socialUndecided with Matt Ferrell: https://www.youtube.com/@undecidedtechnology Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

307: From Super Soakers to Heat Engines with Dr. Lonnie Johnson

The inventor of the Super Soaker, Dr. Lonnie Johnson, joins Matt to talk about his most ambitious project yet: the JTEC, a heat engine with no moving parts that converts low-grade waste heat straight into electricity. They get into how it actually works, why Johnson thinks it could run far more efficiently than what we use today, and the long road from a 2003 idea to the first commercial unit. Plus how a billion-dollar water gun quietly funded a quarter-century of clean-energy research.Chapters:00:00: Intro05:06: Dr. Lonnie Johnson Interview32:36: Previous Episode FeedbackWatch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhbPajWdgUkSupport the show directly: https://stilltbd.fm/join/Audio version of the podcast: https://stilltbd.fmYouTube version of the podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@stilltbdYouTube membership: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4-aWB84Bupf5hxGqrwYqLA/joinGet in touch: https://stilltbd.fm/contact/Follow us on:Mastodon - https://mastodon.social/@mattferrellBluesky - https://bsky.app/profile/mattferrell.bsky.socialUndecided with Matt Ferrell: https://www.youtube.com/@undecidedtechnology Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.