Product design requires considering lots of different things. How things look; how they work; how people will understand how to use them. Here’s one probably not on a lot of designers’ lists, though: the insect enticement factor. Maybe that needs to change, because as The Verge’s Will Poor discovered, the way your gadgets are designed and made could have serious implications for what might decide to live inside them.
A buggy Sonos mystery
On The Vergecast: critters in speakers, the AI podcast revolution, and a complicated smart lighting setup.
On The Vergecast: critters in speakers, the AI podcast revolution, and a complicated smart lighting setup.
is editor-at-large and Vergecast co-host with over a decade of experience covering consumer tech. Previously, at Protocol, The Wall Street Journal, and Wired.
On this episode of The Vergecast, Will tells us about his post-vacation Sonos discovery, how he discovered he’s not the only person on the internet trying to get the ants out of his speakers, and what he ultimately learned about insects and electronics. Some of the wild conspiracy theories are just that — but some might be for real.
After that, The Verge’s Andru Marino joins the show to talk about the boom in AI-generated podcasts. Andru has spent weeks listening to the jovial NotebookLM bot-hosts talk about everything from news to recipes to esoteric gadget instructions, and has learned a lot about why this medium works so well for people. And what it takes for a human to make a good podcast.
Finally, we answer a question from the Vergecast Hotline (call 866-VERGE11 or email vergecast@theverge.com!) about smart lights, with help from The Verge’s Jennifer Pattison Tuohy. She explains that there are smart bulbs, and there are smart switches, and there’s often not much way to do both.
If you want to know more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are some links to get you started:
- “Ants nesting in Sonos One……Help!“
- “ANT Colony in my Sonos One”
- Oh no, Google is turning everything into a podcast
- Google’s NotebookLM AI podcasts add ‘interactive’ mode for some Q-and-A
- Steven Johnson on Google, NotebookLM, and AI research
- A guide to getting started with smart lighting: When to use smart switches and smart bulbs
- Inovelli smart switches
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