Studio711.com – Ben Martens

One big reason why I waited for a 2016 F150 instead of getting a 2015 was because the 2016s were going to come with the new Sync 3 system. Sync 3 includes options for Android Auto and Apple Car Play. I’ll be focusing on Android Auto because that’s what I use.

My truck came from the factory with Sync 3, and while that was an upgrade to the original Sync, what I really wanted was Android Auto and I didn’t have that version of the firmware. Late last year, a firmware update for Sync 3 which adds Android Auto and Apple Car Play leaked online. I saw hundreds of people reporting success installing it themselves, but I was a little nervous to brick an expensive piece of my truck. So I waited. And waited. And waited.

This week I finally saw the update appear on the Ford Sync website. I quickly downloaded it onto a USB key and headed out to my truck. The install took 20-30 minutes, but when it was done, I had Android Auto! It’s pretty slick. You can easily switch back and forth between Ford Sync or Android Auto. Maybe I should pause to explain what Android Auto is…

The common problem with fancy head units in vehicles is that by the time you buy one, it already feels obsolete. And in 10 years? It’s almost a joke how far technology has progressed leaving your fancy head unit in the dust. But we carry around phones in our pockets that get upgraded every few years, have internet connections, and have way more capabilities than head units. So why don’t we just use the head unit as a dumb display and use the phone as the brains of the head unit? That’s exactly what Android Auto does. When you connect, an app starts up on your phone and is displayed on the head unit. It’s a simplified interface with bigger buttons and a reduced set of capabilities for safety. But even with those restrictions, it’s AWESOME!

For example, I can touch the voice button on my steering wheel and talk to Google to send text messages, ask the internet a question, etc. I can pull up the maps and say “Find the nearest Dairy Queen”. A list shows up on the screen, I pick one, and it finds the route with the least traffic. My podcast app integrates with the system as does Spotify. It’s super slick and very snappy. If you want to see it in action, I’ve included a couple photos below but you can also head to YouTube and find lots of demo videos.

My only complaint at this point is that you have to plug in your phone to use Android Auto. They technically do support Bluetooth connections, but I don’t know if that’s just coming later or if it requires slightly different hardware. It’s not the end of the world because I often plug my phone in while I’m in the car anyway.

The best part is knowing that this interface will keep getting updated and improved, my maps will always be up to date, and I don’t have to pay any silly subscription fees to get live traffic on the maps in my vehicle!

Lately my cell phone has been getting two or three spam calls a day. Even when it’s not that bad I’m still getting one every day or two. Technology to the rescue!

There’s a free app (Android, iOS and Windows Phone) called Truecaller. It replaces your phone app. When you get a call, it looks up the number to determine if other users have marked it as spam. You can even tell it to block the call completely if it’s really sure that it is spam.

This app has been a big help for me. Previously I’ve answered pretty much every call because I don’t know if it’s a call from our alarm monitoring company or not. (Those calls come from a variety of different call centers.)

It still annoys me that we haven’t been able to solve the problem of spam calls, but at least this helps me reduce the amount of time that they suck out of my day.

“Where’s my phone?” is a common question in our house, and I’m guessing we’re not alone. Assuming you aren’t able to have someone call your phone for whatever reason, here are two alternatives we use.

1. We have some WeMo light switches in the house. I hooked them up to IFTTT. If we hold down the light switch button for more than 2-3 seconds, it will call our phones. If the ringer is off, that might not help a lot.
2. Type “Find my phone” into Google (or visit the Android Device Manager page). This is where you’d go if you lost your phone and want to wipe it remotely, but it also has a “Ring” feature that will ringer your phone even if the volume is turned off. I’m guessing there is something similar for iPhones too.

Calling our cell phones is one of the main reasons we still have a landline, but we’re looking to drop that (and switch our alarm monitoring solution) so we’ll switch over to these alternatives.

Last December, I wrote about how I had done some programming on our new SmartThings hub to automate our home a bit. My favorite customization is that our thermostat automatically turns down when both Tyla and I are away from the house (based on the location of our phones) and then automatically turns back up when we return. It occurs to me that I should probably disable that when we hire a babysitter and both leave for the evening.

It all works smoothly, but using the default APIs available with the SmartThings, I can only tell the thermostat to go to a specific temperature when we return. I can’t say “resume your normal program” which is what I really want since the thermostat automatically turns down a bit at night. I suppose I could program all that in the SmartThings hub too but it seems like overkill when the thermostat already can do that on it’s own.

So to avoid that overkill… I spent a couple hours figuring out how to make my SmartThings application authenticate with the Ecobee API and call a “resume program” method there. Basically I wanted to see how hard it was to call into the detailed API for a specific device when I hit a limit in the generic API provided by SmartThings. Turns out, it wasn’t too bad.

I continue to be happy with this SmartThings hub and would recommend it, especially if you’re a programming nerd who likes to tinker. It’s a fun little sandbox and all this code is probably saving me some money on our heating bill.

We got a Chromecast back in 2014 and while I thought it was a neat device, it ended up in my old gadget box in the closet.

Now that we have Android phones, I pulled it out again. Our new phones combined with all the improvements they’ve made to the software in the last 3 years has really made a difference. This thing is awesome!

The basic idea is that when you’re watching a video or listening to audio on your phone, you press a button and it is “cast” to the Chromecast device that is hooked to your TV. The Chromecast then takes over and plays the video. You can use your phone to browse around and it won’t interrupt the video (though you can also use your phone as a remote control to pause, fast forward, etc.)

I’m amazed at how many apps support this! The obvious ones like YouTube work great, but so does Spotify, my favorite podcast app, and even our security camera app. Duplication of a computer screen to the Chromecast also works infinitely better than it used to. Chromecast doesn’t support Amazon Video (or vice versa… whatever… Google and Amazon are fighting), but I can play a video on my desktop and cast it to the TV. It works great. Granted that’s a limited use scenario since we have other devices hooked up to the TV that play Amazon Video, but it’s cool that it works.

If you have Android or iOS and you have need for an easy way to show pictures, video and audio from your phone onto your TV, Chromecast should be on your shopping list. It’s so cheap it’s almost a no-brainer.

My parents have an O-gauge model train running around their tree. It’s a relatively new purchase, but it was there when we were home with Elijah and he LOVED it. Tyla and I have always thought about getting one for our tree so we decided to pull the trigger this year.

I was visiting Eastside Trains with Elijah a few weekends ago to kill some time and I saw the Great Northern Mountain Mover set. Great Northern is the railroad that ran the caboose that we stayed in earlier this year. I liked that it was related to a family vacation… and I also liked that it was deeply discounted. Tyla and I often do a family Christmas present instead of giving each other gifts so we decided to make this the family gift.

As we expected, Elijah LOVES it. It came with just enough track to get around the tree but that’s plenty to keep him entertained. The box says for ages 14 and up, but he has been good enough with it that we have let him play with it unsupervised a little bit. It takes a lot of coaching but he’s a pretty responsible little kid.

Once he’s old enough that we trust him to not destroy Tyla’s big Christmas village, we’ll set that up with the train. The train should be the right scale to match the village and we’ll have a nice little Christmas display every year.