Still To Be Determined

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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-ORSgi7uzySCXq8VXhodHB5B5OiQ
Chapters:
00:00: Intro
02:49: Reynold’s Holmes Interview
47:13: Feedback
Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evNiSMCU0lg
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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: Intro
03:20: Joel Jean Interview
41:02: The Super Soaker Mailbag
Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtmX0st3uOk
Support the show directly: https://stilltbd.fm/join/
Audio version of the podcast: https://stilltbd.fm
YouTube version of the podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@stilltbd
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Undecided with Matt Ferrell: https://www.youtube.com/@undecidedtechnology
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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: Intro
01:20: Paulus Schoutsen
52:08: Feedback - Updates
56:20: Feedback - What Happens with the Chlorine?
59:24: Feedback - Climate Change
01:01:00: Feedback - Poutine
Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPEtYL9F0Vk

Mentioned 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.fm
YouTube version of the podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@stilltbd
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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: Intro
05:06: Dr. Lonnie Johnson Interview
32:36: Previous Episode Feedback
Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhbPajWdgUk
Support the show directly: https://stilltbd.fm/join/
Audio version of the podcast: https://stilltbd.fm
YouTube version of the podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@stilltbd
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Get in touch: https://stilltbd.fm/contact/
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