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  • _Dear Friends,_

    My snow plow woman texted me to tell me my front door up on Prickly Mountain was wide open. Of course, she closed the door for me and I was able to lock the door remotely with my Kevo lock app. I am really having fun playing with home automation stuff and that is the next big initiative from Small Dog. We are building home automation centers in two of our stores and bringing in a bunch of new products that are HomeKit compatible. I am going to have to make the break from Alexa at some point but right now she is controlling my lights and thermostat and the ceiling fan. Oh yeah, and she also controls my outdoor irrigation system with the Rachio.

    I was working in the store down here in Key West the other day and the primary objection to the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros is “port-fear”. Many customers have legacy USB equipment and are uncertain about how the move to USB-C will impact them. Personal experience sells and I tell customers how USB-C actually simplified my setup and in most cases that “port-fear” gets turned around. With my MacBook Air, I would have to plug in three cables each morning – display, power and USB for my keyboard. Now, I plug in one USB-C cable which goes to a small hub that has display, power and USB.

    We planted a papaya and a mango tree down here after becoming jealous of the trees covered in fruit at our neighbor’s house. We are hoping our green thumbs work on those!

    This week’s “**Kibbles & Bytes exclusive**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002549? features the new 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar. This unit features the 2.7 GHz i7 processor, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD drive. Available in either Space Gray or Silver we are bundling it with AppleCare. In fact, if you buy this MacBook Pro this week we will give you AppleCare for only $100 which is a **$150 savings!** Get the MacBook Pro Touch Bar with AppleCare for only “**$2899.98!**”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag900002549?

  • Cool New Products Coming to Small Dog!

    Below is a short recap of some of the products Don and I saw while at CES and are products we are looking to bring to Small Dog Electronics in the coming weeks. The big focus is bringing in home automation products that work specifically with HomeKit. We know there are all kinds of home automation products that work with several kinds of devices like Amazon Echo, Google Home, Apple Home Kit. We’ll be focusing on Apple HomeKit.

    At CES Don and I spent a lot of time meeting with several home automation companies all of which had either just announced or already carried HomeKit enabled products. As you know with the construction of our first home automation center in South Burlington later this month, this is going to be a large focus for us in the coming year. Emily and I are working closely to come up with and work on some promotions as well, like the Diversity campaign that starts mid January. We see this as a huge opportunity to as we’re already Apple genius’s! It makes sense to carry and help customers install smart home and home automation products to work with the devices they already own and we sell.

    Honeywell

    The Lyric thermostat will be our go to HomeKit enabled thermostat for our customers. EcoBee has proven to be impossible to get through distribution (though we are still trying). Lyric has two modes at $149 and $199, cheaper than EcoBee and offers almost the same features. This helps to complete the whole HomeKit option for us. Things like remote access, scheduling, geofencing and scene creating are all possible with the Lyric.

    Withings

    We already carry a few of their products, blood pressure monitor and camera/air sensor. Their camera has been updated to HomeKit, it is also much smaller than we expected. I was very impressed it brings up a live feed in the HomeKit app on iOS, two way talk is available and air sensor as well. This will be demo’d in SB when available. They also have a new thermometer and scale to their lineup.

    August Locks

    August locks has a HomeKit enabled lock that installs over an already installed deadbolt. This makes it extremely DIY and easy for customers to install. This is a great choice for customer with second homes or everyday use. For second home owners they can send pass keys and for AirBNB users they can offer to send a lock when a renter comes to the property. Very slick so check it out. These are available through our distributors and we’re in the process of setting up authorization.

    Kwickset

    Another lock company you should be familiar with as we carry the Kevo now. They released a new HomeKit lock called Premis. Same idea as August Locks but is a whole new lock and is still considered DIY installation. With built in code you can issue to those whom you need to allow access into your home or office. Another bonus, you will get a notification that someone you granted access to the lock has entered the building. Electronic keys can be given directly to anyone you wish to be able to use it all the time while others can be given out for specific periods of time. These locks can also trigger a scene, unlock and turn lights on for example.

    Elgato

    The two new sensors will be in stores this week, an indoor and an outdoor sensor. These sensors are great to put around the home in addition to thermostats as they monitor much more than just temperature. Great for our customers as a weather station or just someone wanting to monitor air quality in the home. Also perfect for second home owners as you can remotely monitor the environment at home.

    First Alert

    You guessed it! This is the company that makes smoke and CO2 alarms. The great part besides HomeKit is they speak with each other. This means if one goes off it will tell you where the issue is, instead of them going all crazy and not knowing where the issue may be. It can also trigger scenes like if the alarm goes off in the kitchen, it can trigger your bedroom lights and stairway lights to turn on and then unlock your front door. Very Cool!

    All of these great new products on top of our already great selection of home automation products like Lutron, Sonos, Incipio and Elgato we’ll be able to offer a complete solution for almost every home need!

  • IT Refresh

    Howdy from your friendly IT department!

    Since we have a lot of new staff and things change over time, I wanted to take this opportunity to reiterate some of our IT policies.

    * For security and PCI compliance reasons, you should NEVER EVER send social security numbers or credit card numbers through email. **There are ZERO exceptions to this.** If you find yourself wanting to, please speak to me immediately, because either you shouldn’t be doing it at all, or there is a better, secure way to accomplish what you are trying to accomplish.
    * No one but SDE staff are allowed in the back areas or near server/telecom/tech equipment. If someone is coming to do work (Paul Beard from alarmnet for example) I will have preauthorized this via email to the store manager. If there is someone you don’t know asking for access to equipment, you MUST confirm with a manager first. If the manager(s) haven’t received preauthorization from me, please call me immediately.
    * If you ever have to call the alarm company for assistance when arming/disarming the building, you MUST report this to me via email. I get alarm summaries every day and while it will be clear that you called, it’s not always clear why. I need people to report this to me with an explanation so I can resolve the issue.
    * When reporting issues, please make sure they’re being funneled to me through a single point of contact like a manager. It does not work to have several people all reporting the same issue to me. The point of contact doesn’t necessarily need to be a manager if one is unavailable, but it does need to be just one person.
    * The SDE Demo network is to be used for demo equipment on the floor only as well as Argos installations. The passwords for this network will be changing, and no longer given out. The Smalldog.com wifi will receive a higher bandwidth cap so that staff and customers can better use that.
    * You must always reach out in helpdesk or via 666 after hours if K9 freezes on you or you need to force quit. It takes me moments to resolve it, and helps prevent database corruption.

    Some stuff that has been working well?

    I really appreciate people using the 666 extension to reach IT assistance after hours. It works really well and makes supporting you a lot easier for me.

  • Customer Returns

    During the holidays we saw an increase in returns (this is normal) and as a result we also some more errors on customer returns. Please remember the following information when taking back a product return, these are our general rules. There are some exceptions and some products can not be returned. Below is a shortened version of our policy, a highlight reel of things to pay attention to.

    Was the item purchased within 15 days?
    Does it have all the accessories and packaging?
    Is the item “defective”?
    Have you identified the original invoice?
    Did you note WHY the item is being returned?
    If they want a refund does the product qualify?
    Are you refunding in the original form of payment?

    Common errors we have seen:

    Refunds going back to a wrong credit card
    No notes on invoice saying why it was returned
    Verifying the original form of payment
    Failing to turn off find my iPad

    Computers and iPads that come back to us with a problem, we need to help the customer to work with the service department. These products need to be processed as a repair and once there is a diagnosis we’ll work to find the best resolution. 99% of the time these issues are handled by the service department via warranty repair service.

    Please take a few minutes on every return, managers and sales staff alike, to double check the proper return policy procedures are followed. Our return policy can be seen online here.

  • Earned Sick Time

    Effective January 1, 2017 all staff of Small Dog Electronics are eligible for paid sick time. Previous to January 1, 2017 only full time employees earned paid time off in the form of CTO time. Full time staff will continue to earn CTO time, there are no changes to benefits for full time employees as CTO covers the new law changes.

    Part time employees will now earn 1 hour of time for every 52 hours worked and can earn up to 24 hours in a year. You can view I complete policy and updates on our wiki under benefits of being a Small Dog Employee. Please remember that you do need to be on the Small Dog private network to view this wiki documentation.

  • Celebrate Diversity

    Small Dog Electronics is celebrating the diversity of those around us and the diversity of the products that we sell. As a company we are not just about selling Apple computers, there’s a whole lot more to us! As many of you know we’ve been working hard to get the word out about home automation offerings, so these next two weeks we’ll be focusing on the diversity of the products we sell with a primary focus on the following products:

    iPad
    Apple TV
    Lutron
    Kevo BT locks
    Home Kit
    Incipio Command Kit
    Elgato Eve weather stations
    August Lock

    These next two weeks or so we want to bring attention to the diversity of the products we sell and will be offering 10% off all consulting services with the purchase of any home automation products. We are not offering discounts on the products themselves. All retail stores should do their best to create a focused display in their stores featuring home automation products that they have available in their stores. On our website we have a homepage banner and landing page set up to feature the diversity campaign and the products we are highlighting.

    This short campaign is running from Monday January 16th through Saturday January 28th.

  • It was great to get back home to Key West after the show although the island had a big power and internet outage that seems to have done some damage. Our phones at Small Dog were out for a couple of days and a bunch of my home automation gear had to be reset.

    I really find the home automation stuff interesting and I like playing around with it at my house. Now that I have found HomeKit compatible locks and thermostats I will have to change some stuff up because ultimately I like Siri a lot more than Alexa.

    I am still struggling with tropical gardening. My citrus plants, orange, lemon and lime just don’t seem to want to produce. I spent some time trying to figure out what was going on and I think it is mostly pests like ants, leafminers and aphids so we are trying some organic solutions to combat those bugs and fertilizing a lot so the plant has the strength. Very different than Vermont where you toss a seed in the ground and just watch it grow.

    Thank you for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!

    Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,

    Don, Emily & Hadley

  • Breadboard Breakdown

    Because I’m kind of a nut for all this electronics stuff, I have a few old PCI cards sitting next to my desk as office decoration. One of them is a 4MB VGA graphics card from ~15 years ago. Another is a 10/100 ethernet card from roughly the same vintage. They are useless today, but they look cool, and are pieces of history. While looking at one of them, I thought it might be interesting to explain what all the little pieces on them do. Computer PCI cards are often pretty sparse for visible components though, so to facilitate this article, I’m including a picture of a breadboard I had at home. It’s kind of a mess, because I was experimenting with several things all at once, but there are basically two circuits. One is a boost converter (tucked away on the left side) and more towards the center is a 555 timer circuit.

    This is a much better example of components that are easily visible. You can see their shapes clearly and I can do a much better job explaining how everything works because I built it, but the same components work basically the same way on any hardware, including my PCI cards.

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    # First we have a black rectangle with metal legs coming out of it on either side. This is a 555 timer IC (integrated circuit). This particular packaging of the chip is called DIP (dual inline package). There are other packages like SMT (surface mount technology) that can result in a smaller physical footprint, but they are much harder to use on breadboards or by hobbyists who can only use their hands. This is the same 555 chip I mentioned two weeks ago in my turn signals article. I’m not doing anything fancy with it here. It’s just configured to generate pulses to drive an LED.
    # This isn’t super visible here, but it’s a black package, with a metal back and 3 metal legs. It’s an LM317. This chip is a simple linear voltage regulator. It’s used to drop voltage to an adjustable value efficiently and easily. When dropping voltage like that in a circuit, heat may need to be dissipated. The LM317 has a metal back so that a small (or large) heat sink can be attached.
    # There are actually 6 of these visible on the board. This one is an electrolytic capacitor. It stores charge and then can release it very quickly. Capacitors are often used for buffering choppy signals (among many other things) or providing a more continuous voltage when output may drop for very brief periods. There are two capacitors on the lower left that are doing exactly this. The boost converter circuit outputs an inconsistent voltage if a load is connected drawing power. The capacitors help buffer this while the circuit has time to charge up again and deliver another pulse. This all happens ??very?? rapidly so the output appears relatively constant. There is also a ceramic capacitor on the board as well. The tiny blue thing above the 555 IC is also a capacitor.
    # This semi-circle black plastic component has 3 metal legs beneath it. It is a transistor. I could write several articles about transistors and their many, many uses. They can be used as electronic switches, amplifiers, drivers, and countless other things. In this circuit I was using it as a simple LED driver. This isn’t really necessary to run an LED, but it was a helpful exercise in learning how to calculate the transistor circuit that I needed to use.
    # This black cylinder is a diode. A diode is a device that only lets current pass through in one direction. Usually the direction is indicated by one end being a different color. In this case, it’s the silver cap on the lower side. This particular diode is called a Schottky diode and is characterized by a low forward voltage drop. Generally about half that of a standard silicon or germanium diode. All diodes will cause a drop in voltage because of how they are constructed, but sometimes it’s necessary to have as little drop as possible, as is the case in my boost converter circuit here.
    # This metal donut with a coil of wire around it is a toroidal inductor. Inductors come in many shapes and configurations (some look just like electrolytic capacitors). An inductor is also an energy storage device, like a capacitor, except instead of storing charge directly, it stores energy in a magnetic field. When the magnetic field is allowed to collapse, a current is generated. This allows for a different kind of circuit buffering. Here, it’s being used as an integral part of the boost converter circuit.
    # Tucked underneath the inductor is a MAX757 switching voltage regulator IC. This is brains of the whole boosting process. Essentially it provides the fast switching necessary to boost a voltage signal higher than the input. For example, with my setup here, I can take a voltage as low as 0.7VDC and based on how I have the circuit built around the MAX757, it will boost it up to 5VDC. It will actually accept any voltage between 0.7VDC and approximately 4VDC and produce a fairly smooth 5VDC output. Some switching voltage regulators (like the MAX757) are adjustable, meaning by configuring circuit values around the regulator, you can change the output. In my case, the output voltage is controlled by a simple resistance divider. By swapping in a different resistor value, I can change the output from 5VDC to 3.3VDC. These switching regulators can also be used to reduce voltage, just like the LM317, except they are more efficient because the extra energy isn’t converted to heat.

    Hopefully this was an interesting explanation of a range of components. It’s certainly a lot to cram into a short article!