[00:00:09.11] - Gordon
Hello.
[00:00:09.20] - Taylor
Hello.
[00:00:10.05] - Gordon
My name is Gordon from Drayson Design.
[00:00:11.29] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.
[00:00:14.00] - Gordon
And welcome to "This Week with Taylor and Gordon," a weekly podcast and vidcast where we talk about things that have affected our businesses over the last seven days. And thank you so much for joining us. And welcome to all those new people that we got from our trip last week, which we shall come to in just a moment. How's your week been?
[00:00:33.12] - Taylor
It's been very good.
[00:00:34.12] - Gordon
Yeah, it's been a busy week. We say that all the time. And we tried to do an episode, but, well we thought we might try and do an episode, but we were both very busy and just didn't manage to do it last week. You know, we had all these good intentions. We always do, don't we?
[00:00:53.07] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:00:54.02] - Gordon
And then we just get really busy and, you know, we're just not able to do an episode. So here we are back again after two weeks. And let's get straight into our topics. Would you like to go first or shall I?
[00:01:05.08] - Taylor
You can go first this week.
[00:01:06.26] - Gordon
So this week I'm going to talk about Pop! The Bubble Convention. Now, this is where Taylor and I were last week. We were basically filming the whole of the conference or the convention, which we got there on Tuesday evening last week. We were there filming on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and then the show on Saturday evening. So it was a huge event. The talks that were going on on the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were in up to four rooms at a time. And we had to film all sessions which were 45 minutes long with sort of 15 minutes break between them, and then a lunch break of about an hour. I didn't get a lunch break many days. Did you?
[00:01:57.14] - Taylor
I tried to take a break.
[00:01:59.10] - Gordon
Okay, well, that's good. So Taylor took two rooms, I took two rooms. And I mainly only had one room to deal with because the other room was either a room that was extended to the room I was in, so it was a bigger room if there were more people needed, if we needed the space for more people, or it was a bubble lounge, and that was just sort of a place to hang out and do bubbles with your friends. So I only really had one room, which is just as well because we were taking all the footage and all the recordings that were internal on all the microphones that we gave the speakers and putting them into the computer. And the aim was to try and do it between the sessions so that it gave me the opportunity to then edit those during the next session. That sort of didn't really work very well on the first day because we were using DJI Mic 3s and there's no connection. We couldn't figure out how to get the audio off them. So they have internal recording and we just couldn't figure out how to get the recordings off.
[00:03:11.21] - Gordon
Turns out you put them both into the charging box, leave the lid open, plug in a USB C and they show up as drives on your computer, which is great. And we figured that out first thing on the, on the second day that we were there. So I managed to get all the audio from the previous day off so I could then edit all of the rooms three and four, which Taylor was doing and in charge of. We had three cameras. I had my DSLR in my room that was recording onto my Ninja Blade and that has been upgraded so we now have an SSD in there, 2 terabyte SSD and that worked really well. We had some corruption when we were filming the pantomime and I don't know quite what the problem was with that, but I had absolutely no corruption at all. Everything that I've done and I haven't quite finished, but everything I've done came out wonderfully and beautifully without any corruption. So I was very pleased with that. You had an iPhone 16 Pro that you were using in one of the rooms and then in the last room, because we only had three sessions at any one time going on, even though there were four rooms, which is just as well because, you know, that was busy enough.
[00:04:28.25] - Gordon
But the last room had the DJI Osmo Pocket 3 running. Now each of these devices were capturing ambient sound and the microphones that we had on each speaker was capturing the sound for them. So when I was synchronising them all together with Final Cut and making multicam clips, it was taking the audio from the microphones, it was taking the audio from the cameras, syncing them all together, and I was basically just lowering down as far as I could the ambient sound, unless I needed the ambient sound for example, when people were asking questions, and keeping the audio from the microphone from the speaker nice and high. In fact, I boosted it and that came out really, really well. You could hear the speakers nice and clearly. You could hear background noise of people in the audience, so you knew they were there, but it meant that the speaker's voice was coming through nice and clear, which was the most important thing. Now, after the three days, I managed to get two of the days worth of videos edited and uploaded. They had a reasonably fast internet speed, so that was good. I can't remember what the speed was. Do you remember testing?
[00:05:47.28] - Taylor
I think we got about 80.
[00:05:49.12] - Gordon
80 up.
[00:05:50.14] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:05:51.20] - Gordon
Okay, 80 upload. So that wasn't too bad. They were going up quite quickly, and they were about 4 to 500 megabytes per file once I'd compressed them. So it didn't take too long for them to upload. And then I started on the next one, and I got the first two days worth done, which was about 27 videos. And the last day only had four sessions. Then the Saturday we had, my 360 camera, which creates huge files. That was out in the park where they were bubbling in the park. And then the evening show I've yet to do as well. And that is two cameras. And I used my tape camera for one of those and the Ninja Blade with the DSLR for the other camera. So those need capturing and also editing, and synchronising. So still a little bit of work to do, but, boy, was it hard. Not hard work. It was. It was hard work. It was long days, but yeah, it sort of took all the equipment we needed. Eventually. Yeah, there was a couple of things that I didn't have that other people did have, so that was really good. We managed to fix that. There was a keyboard issue and there was a mouse issue, but we managed to figure that out. In fact, I think I borrowed yours, didn't I?
[00:07:16.12] - Taylor
Yeah. And then you found yours.
[00:07:17.22] - Gordon
And then I found mine. Yeah.
[00:07:19.10] - Taylor
At the end of the convention.
[00:07:20.17] - Gordon
Yeah, I know. Just as we were packing, I found my mouse, which is so funny, but I'm glad I found it because that's one less thing I've now got to buy and replace. My keyboard is a wired keyboard, and I removed it from the computer room into the kitchen so I could test it all and make sure that I had all the cables and everything was working and my keyboard just wouldn't work. It made no sense. I ended up having to get a very old keyboard. And that did work. And I took that with me, but it wasn't ideal because it's, you know, it's a lot more clunky when you type on the keys. And I wanted the really nice keyboards that they use because it's a lot easier. And you had one which was wireless and that worked. So we managed to do that, which was great. So, yeah, I'm hoping to try and get most of the footage edited so that we can upload that next week and then that's that project finished. But yeah, so far so good. Any comments about the event? Because you were there helping which was really lucky.
[00:08:28.23] - Taylor
It wasn't something that I was kind of interested in, as in that wasn't the reason why I went, but I did find it interesting.
[00:08:36.20] - Gordon
And you still managed to get sort of your normal week's work done effectively because you were only having to start and stop cameras and then move them in. So it was like a little break from your work. But the rest of the time you could just come and help, couldn't you?
[00:08:52.08] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:08:52.26] - Gordon
Sorry. The rest of the time you could just do your own work. So we didn't really take away too much of the time that you needed to work on your projects. So that was really good. And we made some new friends, didn't we?
[00:09:05.01] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:09:05.22] - Gordon
Some of them will have started following us now on our YouTube channel for This Week With. So welcome. I know Harvey, who was a great help actually. Harvey was doing other video. He was doing like a more documentary style and he was just wonderful. He helped move cables and power supplies and, you know, offered all of his equipment all the time. Whenever we, you know, were looking to think, try and figure out how we were going to do things, he supplied us with drinks, which was lovely, all out of his own pocket.
[00:09:42.21] - Gordon
And so if you are watching this, Harvey, thank you very much. We are really grateful to all the help you gave us while you were there. You were just wonderful. And you know, we've got a story about Wetherspoons. If you see either of us ask us about that, we'll tell you about it. Way too long to go on the podcast. So that was my week. Tell me, what are you, like, what would you like to talk about?
[00:10:06.14] - Taylor
So this week I have been upgrading a couple of things for my smart home.
[00:10:11.27] - Gordon
Okay, that's good.
[00:10:13.08] - Taylor
So first of all, we went to Ikea on Sunday and they have brought out some new buttons and other smart things. So I went and bought a couple of them to give them a try and see how they worked. But I also had a couple of use cases for them where putting them in places that are useful but also being able to use them to trigger routines and things like starting my day, for example, having them automatically open all the curtains or turning on all the lights, you know, starting, unlocking the front door or whatever it is so that my, you know, flat is ready to go for the morning. And then I also bought a relay. So it's a smart relay. And what it does is it goes in the back of a light switch and it allows you to make your dumb light switch into a smart switch. A lot of people would kind of say, "why do you need that? You can control it from your phone." But a lot of people that come around don't know you have smart tech in your house. And so they will be looking to use the light switch.
[00:11:25.26] - Taylor
And what happens is they press the light switch and it doesn't do anything, so they press it again and they end up turning and cutting the entire power to the light switch. And why that is an issue is because if you have automations and routines set up, if your power has been cut to the light switches or the light bulbs, none of your automations are going to work. So what I wanted to do was to be able to add the functionality of a normal light switch that people are used to, but make sure that it's not going to break any of my automations, break any of the routines that are set up to work in the flat. And the other one is that the bathroom doesn't have, or I can't put a smart bulb in the bathroom because it has a kind of proprietary custom fitting with LEDs and things like that. And so what I can do is I can put a motion sensor in there and I can have it so that it can trigger and simulate somebody pressing the light switch. And this is a way that I can then control the bathroom lights, even though they aren't smart lights, and make them smart.
[00:12:34.05] - Gordon
So when you walk in, the sensor will see you and turn the light on by triggering power to your sensor in the plug and then when you leave doing the opposite.
[00:12:46.24] - Taylor
Exactly. And the bathroom also has a fan which you can actually control and turn on and off, but it's only powered on when the light switch is on. So the fan won't run if the power to the light switch isn't basically on. And so I can put one in there as well so that if I have any humidity, if it goes above a certain threshold, you can have it turn on the fan, but obviously you have to turn on inside of your automation the light to the bathroom, which is fine because you can then just turn it off once it's finished. And you just make sure that when you want to turn the fan on, you have to turn the light switch on as well.
[00:13:24.20] - Gordon
Yeah. And also if you've got, you know, the need to have the fan on for a little bit longer after you leave the bathroom, then you can do so, you know, if you've had a shower, for example, or you know, somebody's, you know, been to the toilet or whatever, and you want to get rid of any odours so you can, you can have it so it turns the lights off effectively, but leaves the fan on?
[00:13:50.28] - Taylor
So the light switch has to be on for the fan to be able to run.
[00:13:53.17] - Gordon
And therefore the light has to be on. Ok.
[00:13:55.04] - Taylor
But it can keep the light on until the fan is finished and then turn the light switch off with the fan.
[00:14:00.18] - Gordon
Yeah, okay, that's very good.
[00:14:03.02] - Taylor
So, yeah, just looking at ways to kind of automate things and make things a bit more user friendly. I also plan to add some light strips above and below the kitchen kind of, or above the kitchen counter. And again, that light switch is actually controlled on the other side of the room, which is a bit of a pain because it's nowhere near where you are. But also if I want to have them come on automatically when I walk in the room at night, for example, it's quite a nice thing to have, but I have to make them smart to be able to do that. Currently they are wired to a broken smashed light that used to kind of work, but doesn't really anymore. So I want to get that replaced and get a electrician in to.
[00:14:51.12] - Gordon
And that's another good use of the switches that you bought from Ikea, right?
[00:14:55.26] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:14:56.07] - Gordon
So these are called Bilresa, I think that's correct. And they do several different types. This is using Matter and connect to Home Assistant. I also got one and I was playing with it during the week. My switch, I've got one in my office now. And the switches, it has two switches, two buttons, I should say, on the switch. So you can single press, double press and hold for three seconds. So each button gives you three different switches you can turn on if you like. So that's six in total. Six actions you can take. And so I've got mine in my office. The top button, single press turns on my lights. So if for whatever reason my automation hasn't seen me and hasn't turned on the light, sometimes if I walk out of the room and then come back in again just as the sensor has triggered, saying, "there's no one here, turn it off." There's that little gap of time where it doesn't then see me and it leaves the lights off. So I can now just press the button and the lights will come on. If I want to turn them off, because maybe I'm wanting to watch something on the screen on or I want to watch something on the tv, the single tap on the second button will turn them off. If I double tap on the top one, it will turn my TV on and the Sky box and change my sound system to use the TV so that it does that automatically all in one go. And then double clicking on the bottom button will. Will reverse that and turn it all off. And then holding on the top button will boost my heating in the office, which is a feature I already have, which basically sets it to 2 degrees higher than it's currently set to. So you can get that boost for half an hour. And then single, sorry, holding on the bottom button or the second button turns all my lights to my watching TV setting, which is blue lights. Now, I don't necessarily want to trigger that when I turn the TV on because I might be doing work and just having the TV on in the background, but if I specifically want to sit and watch something, I can then just press and hold on the second button and all my lights go blue, which is a great colour to use when you're watching tv because it really brings the brightness down, but you still have a bit of brightness in the room. So you're not just staring at a TV screen, which is, you know, not necessary in your case because you've got your ambient lighting.
[00:17:34.27] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:17:35.20] - Gordon
But, yeah, they're really good. I'm going to set one up in the lounge as well so that it will turn the TV on and turn the TV off so that we don't necessarily have to use Alexa. So if, for whatever reason, Alexa is no longer working or, you know, an update has killed it, which we've had in the past, then at least we've got the buttons you can just press. And they're really good because they've got little sticky bits and a sort of metal bit that you can put anywhere. And then these are magnetised and they've got rechargeable batteries in them.
[00:18:06.14] - Taylor
Nice.
[00:18:07.06] - Gordon
So they've got lots of new devices in Ikea. So go and have a look. They've got door and window sensors, they've got water sensors, they've got a Matter hub and I think there's a few other things as well. So go and have a look at those. But, yeah, really good. Well done. Anything else you want to say on that?
[00:18:26.22] - Taylor
I don't think so.
[00:18:27.21] - Gordon
Thank you for joining us. As always, if you're on YouTube, please like, share and subscribe.
[00:18:35.06] - Taylor
You can also go to our website thisweekwith.co.uk to find all of our past episodes.
[00:18:39.26] - Gordon
And if you would prefer to listen to us, we're on all the major podcast platforms and your smart speaker. Just ask them to play "This Week With Taylor and Gordon," and you'll get our latest episode. All being well, we'll be back with you next week at 1pm on Friday. Until then, my name is Gordon and I'm from Drayson Design.
[00:19:00.19] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.
[00:19:03.04] - Gordon
Goodbye.
[00:19:03.22] - Taylor
Bye.
