Episode 437: Goodbye and good luck

The farewell episode also tackled the inevitable question facing loyal listeners who have relied on the show for nearly a decade: where to find trustworthy IoT news and analysis going forward. To ease the transition, the hosts compiled a curated list of their favorite industry resources spanning podcasts, newsletters, and specialized media outlets. On the audio front, recommendations included the Mr. Beacon Show and The IoT Podcast. For daily reading, they pointed audiences toward mainstream and niche technology publications such as The Verge, TechHive, The Ambient, and the Journal of Innovation, published quarterly by the Industrial IoT Consortium. Communities like Reddit’s r/smarthome and r/homeautomation were also highlighted as invaluable spaces for peer-to-peer troubleshooting and real-world user feedback.

For readers tracking industrial IoT developments, the hosts recommended following the work of James Blackman over at RCR Wireless. Meanwhile, financial movements, startup fundings, and industry acquisitions can be closely monitored through Dan Primack’s Axios Pro Rata newsletter. Those searching for deeper, more philosophical takes on the intersection of the internet of things, artificial intelligence, and industrial design were directed to Iskander Smit’s publication, Target is New. While acknowledging that the broader tech media landscape offers many other valuable voices, the hosts kept the curated list concise to respect the bittersweet nature of the goodbye episode.

Bringing their eight-year run full circle, the hosts closed out the final episode by answering one last listener question. They shared their collective vision of what constitutes a "complete" smart home, reflecting on how consumer expectations have matured since the show’s inception in 2016, and offered their thoughts on the long-term innovations that will continue to drive the industry forward. It was a fitting conclusion to a run that, as one host jokingly recalled with an accompanying photograph from 2016, meant living a life where matching light switches in the home became a thing of the past.

Joining the podcast for this final retrospective was Jennifer Pattison Tuohy, a prominent smart home journalist from The Verge. Having known Tuohy for nearly a decade through her extensive coverage of the connected home space across various tech publications, the host welcomed a kindred spirit whose deep historical context allows her to see the bigger picture of the industry. Tuohy, renowned for her hands-on testing methodology and rigorous evaluation of every device she writes about, brought a wealth of insight to the final episode, breaking down the current state of the smart home market, evaluating the real-world adoption of the Matter interoperability standard, and discussing which business models are most likely to achieve long-term viability for connected devices.

During the discussion, Tuohy shared exclusive insights into upcoming initiatives planned by the Connectivity Standards Alliance, offering listeners a glimpse behind the curtain at the standards shaping the next generation of hardware. She also weighed in on the ongoing debate between foundational smart home infrastructure versus standalone consumer devices, and generously detailed her own personal smart home setup. Her analytical depth and comprehensive understanding of the ecosystem provided the perfect note on which to conclude the show’s historic run.