This week we're discussing the future of smart home tech, and a tech standard called Matter that will allegedly unite all our disparate smart home devices under one virtual roof. Then, luxury textile and clothing maker Loro Piana and many other similar brands are leaning into a new trend: tracking the production of wool goods all the way back to the sheep whose haircut provided the raw materials. Lastly, John Mayer and Casio teamed up on another G-Shock watch collaboration. It's already sold out, but we'll talk about our thoughts on the design, and thoughts on collabs like this. And we finish up with a quick lightning round of our favorite new gear from the past week.
Matter claims to weave together all your disparate smart home devices, Loro Piana is tracking wool origins, and John Mayer's second G-Shock collab drops.
Episode Navigation:
04:50 – Matter and the promise of a unified Smart Home
22:10 – Loro Piana customers can track its wool origins
34:49 – John Mayer x Hodinkee x Casio G-Shock = a very desirable, approachable collab
Featured and Related:
Nick Caruso:
This is the Gear Patrol Podcast for Friday, December 17th, 2021. I'm Nick Caruso, and I'm glad you're here, because this week, we're discussing the future of smart home tech thanks to a new standard called Matter that allegedly, or does promise to allegedly unite all your disparate smart home devices under one virtual roof. Sounds like a pipe dream. Could be. We'll talk about it.
Nick Caruso:
Then we'll talk about where your wool is coming from. Luxury textile and clothing maker Loro Piana and many other similar of brands are leaning into a new trend, which is tracking the production of wool goods all the way back to the sheep whose haircut provided the raw materials in the first place. We'll talk about that, reactions to it, and whether it's going to be a bigger thing. Might be.
Nick Caruso:
And then lastly, in headlines, John Mayer and Casio teamed up on yet another G-Shock watch collaboration. It's unfortunately already sold out, but we'll talk about our thoughts on the design, thoughts on other such collabs, and thoughts on the future of John Mayer's influence on the watch world. And then we'll finish up with a quick lightning round of our favorite new gear from the past week.
Nick Caruso:
With me for this episode is associate director of production design, Henry Phillips, back on the pod after a short hiatus. Hey, Henry.
Henry Phillips:
Great to be back.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. We're glad to have you back. It's like a victory tour for an old, worn-out band. Anyway, hi. And also platforms editor, JD DiGiovanni. He's on the horn from sunny California. Or I assume sunny. You're inside. How's life, JD?
JD DiGiovanni:
Yeah. It may or may not be. I'm just so preoccupied with thinking of Henry as old and worn out. I'm appreciating that awesome burn on our coworker here.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. But Mick Jagger level. Mick Jagger is 80. Buddy can still hop around a little bit. That's the best of both worlds for you, Henry.
Henry Phillips:
I'll take what I can get.
Nick Caruso:
The holiday season is in deep swing, and unfortunately, COVID rearing its ugly head again with a surging variant, so I hope everyone is healthy and safe. It can be really tough to make decisions about holiday travel and traditions in the wake of all this crap, so please just be careful. I also want to note for listeners that we will not be publishing a new podcast episode next week, since our schedules are cramped with Christmas time off and all that good stuff, so savor this one while it lasts. And speaking of the holidays, guys, I'm not finished with my holiday shopping. That's my MO, but it's still embarrassing. Are you guys good at proactive gift-buying?
JD DiGiovanni:
Generally, yeah. I always feel like... I don't know. There's a part of me that is very fond of brick-and-mortar stores. I'll always do an initial pass online and then do the final pass in person in all the shops in my hometown. That's still pending, so I'm technically not done. It's a little mix.
Nick Caruso:
That's a good approach.
Henry Phillips:
I'm terrible with proactive gift-giving. Some years, the occasional year, it'll all come together and I'll be done by December 1st, but this year, I'm, let's call it halfway done. Halfway done.
Nick Caruso:
Okay. We'll take 50%.
Henry Phillips:
There's some time still for sure. I wanted to get a shipping container for someone, but that seems to be hard to come by these days.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. Sorry. That's a bummer.
Henry Phillips:
What are you going to do?
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. I always dream. I have this dream every year, which feels like a very adult thing, so I guess maybe I've finally made it. I was like, "I'll just buy gifts throughout the year, and I'll have them ready, and then it'll be November, and I'll wrap them, and then just bring them to people," and that's never going to happen ever. That'll never happen. But if there's anyone like us who's still shopping around or needs some ideas, I'm going to drop a link to Gear Patrol's gift guides in the show notes. Tons of ideas, even if you're late to the game. A lot of options there. I know I'm going to be perusing them quite a bit, probably immediately after we stop recording.
Nick Caruso:
Enough of that, but also on a similar vein. Our first story is about smart home products. I say similar vein or relevant, because I've been trying to set up my parents with various gadgets that'll help them out, like automated lighting and power and security stuff and thermostats, but it's tough to get all one brand of stuff. And worse yet, when you have several brands mixed up, it's a headache to coordinate and control them all smoothly, certainly not in one place. And The Verge has been leaning heavy into reporting on this new tech called Matter, that is "developed by Amazon, Apple, Google Nest, and Samsung alongside many other smart home and smart home adjacent companies, including Wyze, iRobot, Signify, which is Philips Hue, Ecobee, and more." Matter is this communications protocol, or something along those lines, that will allegedly make it easy to weave together multiple smart home brands and devices. This uses tech that already exists, your Wi-Fi connection, your Bluetooth, all that stuff, to just make everything talk to each other with no cloud, no internet connection needed.
Nick Caruso:
To date, what we call walled gardens around individual companies' tech have made this impossible. Apple is famous for this walled garden. You can't really use other stuff with their stuff. And that, in turn, has slowed the uptake of smart home integration. It's everywhere, but it's not very cohesive. Matter is like shared infrastructure, like the federal highway system, where every model of brand of car can run on it. Anyway, this is supposed to be up and running by the end of '22. It's faced a little bit of delays. Henry, I'm going to go to you first to get you back into the swing of the pod. Are you familiar with the trials and tribulations of smart home device potpourri issues?
Henry Phillips:
Thankfully, not as familiar as I imagine many homeowners who have tried to make the big smart switch are. I've got my three or four smart light bulbs, and somehow, both Google Home and an Apple HomePod, and they all seem to vaguely play together. It's using a Wi-Fi standard, so it's using a little hub dock that's connected to my Wi-Fi router, which is not exactly elegant, but is what it is.
Henry Phillips:
I think part of the reason I'm so afraid of diving further into the smart home world is not only do I live in an 800-square-foot apartment, but it is really intimidating. There's so much, and there's so many brands and standards. Will this work with this, work with this? I can only imagine trying to do a house with more than five light bulbs and the misery that must come with it.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. We're, all three of us, in similar boats, right? We have small dwellings. Like you said, I've actually commented to my mom, and several other people, mom, because we had family moving around recently. I was like, "I don't understand how people have big homes and furnish them. You have many couches? That's weird." The same applies to tech. I have a few bulbs and can't imagine more. JD, what about you? Are you a smart homer?
JD DiGiovanni:
Yeah. Well, unlike Henry, my concern about smart home equipment stems more from the Disney Channel Original Movie, Smart House, than it does any issues with integration or walled gardens. Great flick. No. Actually, yeah. Look, same thing. I live in a studio apartment. I have no couches. I think I know people who have homes with three couches.
Nick Caruso:
That's too many couches.
JD DiGiovanni:
Yeah. I have probably, I don't know, three light bulbs. When it comes to that big coastal city media bias thing there, I think that I'm definitely guilty of not actually partaking in it. I do think it's interesting, though. I think this story is really compelling to me, because it's a reminder of the extent to which technology does not exist and is not developed in a vacuum, right? At the core of it, there are people in competing interests. I think what's really interesting to me about this goal with this setup here, this Matter, is that it seems like a bunch of different companies are trying to come together and transcend that, transcend the narrow interests they all have in the short term to be dominant in the market and actually create a standard in which everyone can play.
JD DiGiovanni:
I think most people who seem to follow tech and consumer technology more closely seem to be skeptical of that. I don't. Generally speaking, I just love it when people get along, so I'm really hopeful and rooting it on. But who's to say whether it'll work or not? I definitely do think that it'd be interesting to see if the world of tech, which has been accused of pretty often just dominating something and never actually living with multiple folks, or multiple different competitors, which is why these issues around monopolies became a big thing up to the point where the federal government's considering pretty strict regulation of certain companies. I wonder if this could be a bellwether and help, I don't know, lead the way in terms of thinking about how companies can actually set a standard and allow for more than one other person in a room. But we'll see.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. We don't need to go down a political conversation at all with this, but it does almost seem like something that the government has to enact, right? This is infrastructure. I should say it seems like that big of a project that it all almost seems like on the scale of federal government. I don't mean that the federal government should do this, but that is to say, yes, the uptake of tech more and more is relying on infrastructure that just doesn't exist. I'm thinking of EV charging networks. They just don't exist, so it's hard for EV culture to really take off. What do you think? What do you guys think about how smooth this would be? You're saying it, JD. It's like an ideal future state. It makes sense, it's reasonable in many aspects. Also, Eric Limer, our tech editor, brought up the fact... He was like, "I can't see Apple being really super jazzed about making it easy for Amazon's devices to work with theirs." Yeah. What do you guys think?
Henry Phillips:
You wonder. In a sense, it's hard for me not to compare this to the real bread-and-butter standards that we all live with day to day, like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Those are standards that were arrived at by weird nonprofit consortia that just feels like is in a hollowed-out volcano or something.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah, I think JD's right.
JD DiGiovanni:
With a lot of smart light bulbs and couches, probably.
Henry Phillips:
Exactly. These companies are willing to give up this short-term idea maybe of, "I need to sell more HomePods than Echos." Hopefully, they're all hoping that the more people who get enticed by the idea of smart home infrastructure, because it is the one major hurdle is overcome, the idea that you can't connect these things with that thing, then maybe it creates a playing field where brands can compete on their own merit rather than having to deal with, "Oh, I'm stuck in this one." It seems like it'll massively benefit consumers, so I'm really excited about that. Hopefully, by the time Matter is put together, I'll have another light bulb or two.
JD DiGiovanni:
Yeah. I do wonder. I guess the theory behind this is that... Okay, one of the impediments towards broader adoption is the fact that these things aren't talking to one another. I think that's probably true. It'd be interesting to see after this actually happens, because I'm not an adopter of this technology, as I said earlier, if it still just doesn't become a thing more broadly. I think there are real savings to be had in energy. You can save on your electricity bills. I know some tricky ways you can set up water meters so you can have a better idea of how much you're actually using, and you can be more conscious about your spending. I think that stuff makes sense.
JD DiGiovanni:
But a lot of ways, the benefit of these things seems to be you don't have to walk around in your house and flipping switches; you can do it with your phone. That benefit to me is narrow and maybe a little superficial, where it's like, "Okay, neat. I can do it with my phone." But look, it's not that big of a deal for me to go walk into a room I forgot to turn the light off in and just go do that myself. Maybe I'm being too negative about the benefits this technology has to offer, but it does feel, in a lot of ways, that we get to a point with the development of tech and consumer technology and services too, think about food delivery, ride hailing apps, or grocery delivery. It's just like, why do I need my groceries in 15 minutes? I guess it'd be nice, but it, do I really need it that quickly? At what point is there serious diminishing returns when it comes to optimization? And I guess that's the heart of my question about smart home adoption, is whether or not the benefit is really there enough for folks to spend more on a light bulb or to worry about trying to sync up an app with their sink.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. Do you mean a sink with water, a smart sink?
JD DiGiovanni:
Yeah.
Henry Phillips:
That's was a clever bit of a [crosstalk 00:16:13] there.
Nick Caruso:
It was. At the very end, it was a button. Yeah. I think that brings up the question, what... It's interesting to consider the different use cases for smart home stuff, right? If it truly is just that you have 10 rooms in your house and you want to be able to turn on the lights, that seems like a light switch problem. You can buy all sorts of light switches, and they all work with each other already, because they use wires.
Nick Caruso:
But if you want to do something like... If you have tunable white lights and you want it to do something different in the morning versus the evening, or you want to do a music home speaker setup or whatever, or maybe you have multiple sinks and you want them all to sync up... I don't know. I couldn't do it as well as you, JD. There are different people I could see using this kind of stuff for a lot of different stuff. It depends on how hard into smart home you are. I think just lite adopters probably don't care. Not light bulb adopters, but L-I-T-E diet adopters, diet smart home, might not need this kind of stuff as much as people who just go ham. The Disney movie could have done well with Matter. I don't know. This is about a year away, we think. Henry, what do you think? Any last words on this? Use cases? Who's this going to be for? Is it actually going to work for them?
Henry Phillips:
I think so. It seems like the there's very little downside to come of this other than it may get slowed down by a bunch of intercompany bickering. If you were to renovate a home or build out a new house, I think people would seriously consider... You're not going to go full attacking virtual assistant, but maybe the blinds are automated or your sprinkler system or something. It could be all number of... Or locks. Locks and cameras. Those seem like they're getting a lot more pickup than maybe the more esoteric stuff. Locks, thermostats, stuff like that. If you're going to buy a new one or install a new one, sure, there's convenience to be had in being able to control with an app or set schedules and stuff. I could see it just becoming a slow and steady adoption with maybe some notable exceptions that just never become smart, because the smart versions suck.
Nick Caruso:
Like sinks?
Henry Phillips:
Like sinks or light bulbs. I'm sure there's a smart sink that I can voice control to begin. I never want a part of that.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. I could yell from here to turn on my kitchen sink.
Henry Phillips:
You have to walk over to the sink and wash your hands.
JD DiGiovanni:
My landlord replaced my sink, my faucet, with a smart faucet. It's a touch faucet. You touch it, it'll start, and if you touch it again, it won't. It's the most atrocious thing I've ever used in my entire life. Usability is terrible. I'll be washing the dishes, and I'll bump it by accident, and it'll turn off. It'll turn off randomly when it's on. It's the perfect example to me of over-optimizing something that's already great. Sink, there's a faucet, you twist it, it's on. You twist it the other way, it's off. Man, oh man. Isn't that great?
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. We already peaked in terms of faucet tech.
JD DiGiovanni:
Man, wheels are really good at rolling. You don't got to do anything more.
Nick Caruso:
But imagine if you could roll them with your voice.
JD DiGiovanni:
What if we made you pay more to have it do the same thing, but worse?
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. Friend of mine have one of those touch faucets that actually glows blue when it's cold and red when it's hot.
JD DiGiovanni:
I think we have the same faucet.
Nick Caruso:
There's a mix, a purple area in the middle. Yeah.
Henry Phillips:
Oh, God.
Nick Caruso:
I was like, "What?" I went over there. I was like, "What the hell is this?" There's an easy way to tell if it's cold water. You put someone else's hand under it. All right. Well, we're getting off the rails, but I am realizing finally that I do want a fully automated home. I'm picturing this. Make a Disney movie about me if you want, but I do want to be able to just think about my bedroom lights coming on, and they do it.
Henry Phillips:
I just want a semiautomatic home.
Nick Caruso:
A single action home?
JD DiGiovanni:
Yeah. You got to get a license for that in New York, too.
Henry Phillips:
[inaudible 00:21:30] home.
Nick Caruso:
Okay. See, this is why we can edit stuff. None of this can air. Well, okay. We'll have to wait with bated breath for Matter to come along and deal with our sinks with our dumb analog hands in the meantime, and we'll probably have to revisit this in a year or so when I can automate a podcast from my, I don't know, from the shower. No, we don't need a shower podcast.
Nick Caruso:
Let's move on before this gets bad. The second story we have is from The Times of New York, the storied institution of editorial success. It outlines what seems to be, I think, personally, a mini trend, if not a whole new product paradigm on the horizon, which is tracking the origin and production and supply chain, everything, delivery, whatever, of individual garments. In this case, the story from The Times, specifically wool clothing by the luxury brand Loro Piana. Many, many other brands specifically in the wool space, which is a phrase I've never used before, wool space, have taken on this kind of thing lately, too. I think that's largely due to how cute it is to think about the sheep that gave their wool for your shirt.
Nick Caruso:
The way this works varies. There are some brands who have literally sewn tags into the tag in your garment that identify what sheep, what bale of wool, what farm, et cetera, serviced as the source for the materials. Others are using blockchain apps so that the actual herders can trace wool that their sheep are producing and what ends up happening to it. And then still others, there's this brand I've seen a lot called Sheep Inc., have actual plastic-ish tags, round tags, embedded into the garments so owners can and swipe their smartphone and track the origin of their cardigan or whatever. There's a lot here, and it seems to be a spreading trend from my POV. Going to go to JD. Does the idea of tracking the origin and progeny of individual garments, or maybe even other products, appeal to you? Is this a viable thing that we're talking about?
JD DiGiovanni:
I get the impulse. I think that the fashion industry is pretty often talked about, and it's pretty well documented how wasteful the industry can be, how abusive it can be when it comes to labor practices. We live in this global economy, and it's really difficult to track where stuff's made, how it's produced, who's producing it, whether or not they have decent living conditions and working conditions. I think that the attempt to build some way of tracking it and using it as a selling point doesn't seem bad to me. I think it's good that folks are willing to... There should be a profit motive for companies to say, "We're doing things above board, and we can prove it."
Nick Caruso:
For sure.
JD DiGiovanni:
How effective that's going to be, I think, is probably going to be in the details about how it's actually produced. I don't know enough about blockchain technology to say whether or not this, that, or the other strategy that's being used is going to be effective or can be cheated. But that's the tricky part about, whenever you have a selling point, this happens a lot with organic or carbon neutral or carbon negative products, is that there's a lot of greenwashing that goes on. I think, if this becomes a more common strategy for clothing manufacturers to talk about that they can trace their products from origin, from the source, I think you'd be silly to think that you wouldn't come across much fakes who are trying to do the same thing. I don't know. That's just my take on it, I guess, is that it seems like a positive step, it seems like it's coming from the right place, but how effective it's going to be, I think we may just have to wait to see. I don't know.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. And obviously, this information is built in. I guess that's what I meant to allude to when I was talking about how cute sheep are. This desire for information tracks very one-to-one with the fashion industry and clothing particularly, because it's a product or a material that is grown, sourced, tracked, used in very specific ways, and it's not very complex, whereas something like the steel that was rolled for my Hydro Flask cup here is a different story. I also don't really care where that steel came from. I don't think ore mines are cute. Henry, what do you think? Pros, cons, interests, not interesting?
Henry Phillips:
Yeah. I think the cynic in me thinks of this as a really great way to make sustainability really nicely marketable for luxury brands. If you as Loro Piana can say, "Hey, look at this Mongolian shepherd and this exact sheep who is thriving in his rolling hills and has provided your $4,500 sweater," if you can tell that story, that's a great thing to then pass on to your customers who can tell their insufferable story about where their sweater came from.
Nick Caruso:
That's exactly it.
Henry Phillips:
That's cool. I do think the core premise behind it, this idea of accountability at a really micro level, is awesome, because yeah, sure, you had the sense that if Loro Piana was selling a $5,000 sweater that it was probably done the right way, but it's nice to be a little bit more sure of that. I think it would be hard to see Zara doing this anytime soon. They might realize that they don't want to and then find no need to, but if people start to demand it, if people want this kind of radical transparency, then I think that'd be amazing.
Henry Phillips:
We've seen hints of us in a much broader sense from brands like Everlane, who are really transparent about, "Here's what it costs." They ran into some trouble because they would tell you cities, but then they would always refuse to disclose factories. Things got a little weird there. The idea that sustainability is a marketable trait is obviously nothing new, but to be able to take that a step further is really is cool. I have absolutely no idea how this integrates with the blockchain. I'm even going to spare everybody jokes around that topic and just say that I'm... Exactly the same conclusion as JD, where I'm excited for the positive potential and maybe wary of the hokiness that could come with.
JD DiGiovanni:
It's definitely going to be super easy to make fun of. It wasn't that long ago that the whole farm-to-table stuff was still new, and there were these jokes about how you're at a restaurant, and before you kind of tuck into your plate, "What was his name? What was the animal's name? I want to know. What was his favorite color?" There's something that's super precious about it. I don't know. This is the tricky thing about all this stuff. The goal is totally above board to want to have a more ethical way of consuming, but it can be turned into this thing where it's... Sure, it's about ethical consumption, but effectively, and in practice, it's just another status symbol that can be lorded over or shown to be some evidence of your own piety. Yeah. One would hope that, whatever trend this is, it would not be relegated just to brands like this one we're talking about. That could be The Gap, right? Or it could be Zara. Probably won't ever be Zara. They seem pretty content with their moral ambiguity. But everything else, I don't know.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. I tend to always analyze this stuff from a cynical point of view, but I have written here, is this virtue signaling? Is it just luxury bragging rights? That does tie back to a half joke I made in some notes to you guys, I guess, yesterday about the story. The question I wrote to you is this, do we think Kendall Roy cares about the name of the goat that provided the wool for his polo shirt? I say that because Loro Piana is who the wardrobe people for Succession used for a lot of his clothing. But I think the answer to that question is no, he doesn't care, but yeah, he's going to tell you. That's the person who will corner you and be like, "Yeah. I really like this suit. It's Vicki from Mongolia. Gave its second month wool," whatever the hell. That's annoying. It is kind of fun, though.
Nick Caruso:
The other end of that spectrum is something like Mercedes-AMG uses hand-built engines in their cars, and famously, on every one of them, the person who built your car, one man, one engine is their thing, the one who built the engine for your car signs it on a metal plaque. It's like, "Yeah, this is my E63 AMG Wagon whatever, and Hans Gruber was the mechanic who finished it." I don't know. Maybe this is my car bias, but I think that's really cool. Not everyone would. If I told that to my girlfriend, she'd be like, "That's the dumbest shit I've ever heard in my life. That doesn't matter." I don't know. If it's used for true virtue, this is a cool thing. If not, if it's just bragging rights, that's dumb. That's too bad.
Henry Phillips:
I remember I actually... It was you and me, Nick, who visited that engine plant in Affalterbach-
Nick Caruso:
That's right.
Henry Phillips:
... for AMG. They would say that people would come visit the factory and try and meet the people who made their engine. I hope that that becomes a thing with Loro Piana and sheep. You get this tourist industry into Mongolia as people who are immaculately dressed try and track down the sheep that provided the wool for their sweater.
JD DiGiovanni:
Sounds like a movie pitch, man.
Nick Caruso:
God, it's also-
Henry Phillips:
Trip to Mongolia is coming.
Nick Caruso:
It also sounds like those programs where you can adopt a cow somewhere or whatever. Sally Struthers.
Henry Phillips:
Adopt on the condition of being able to use its skin for something.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. This is Bessie, the cow I adopted five years ago. She will be a jacket soon that I'll give to my kids. Okay. Well, we'll have to see. We can all pool our money for a Loro Piana polo shirt and brag about it someday.
Nick Caruso:
The last major story we're going to about this week is a different kind of bragging right, but along the same lines, I suppose, if you're a lucky customer. It's about John Mayer's latest G-Shock wristwatch collaboration with Hodinkee. It's the Casio G-Shock reference 6900-PT80, a familiar silhouette to G-Shock connoisseurs. John Mayer is, of course, a musician. He has done a collaboration like this before. Last year, he was behind a G-Shock collab whose design was based on a vintage Casio keyboard. This year's the same story. Different keyboard, though. It is based on a Casio PT80, hence the name of the watch, which is a keyboard from the mid-'80s, so more or less the me of keyboards. I actually wrote that joke out for you guys. The watch is an off-white color, kind of like the cases on monitors and desktop computers of that vintage. Some of the colors surrounding the portions of the dial and the color of some of the text graphics are lifted directly off that original keyboard as well. This is a $180 watch, and like I mentioned way up top, it's already sold out, because it was a limited run. Henry, did you get a John Mayer watch?
Henry Phillips:
I did not. Should I have gotten one?
Nick Caruso:
No? Okay. I don't know. You tell me. What do you think about it?
Henry Phillips:
It's cool. I like it. I never quite got around to the big, chunky G-Shock thing. I like Mr. Mayer's music. It's cool. It is cool, and I appreciate that these watch brands are finding different sources of inspiration, and it's fun to realize that Casio, you can reference a Casio keyboard or a Casio watch, and I hope that there's a Yamaha piano motorcycle thing coming down the line. But it's cool. I like it. I like the visual style, and I can always get down with some off-white things. But no, I did not snag one, and I don't feel too much regret.
Nick Caruso:
Okay. JD, did you end up with one? And if not, are you regretting it?
JD DiGiovanni:
Yeah. I am not allowed to buy more watches. It's against the rules for me. But man, oh man, would I have bought this if I had less self control? I think it's really cool. In general, I really like this more accessible type of watch being hyped. I think that the advent of watch Instagram and watch publications with very good taste and very good shots have just really broadened the appeal of men's wristwatches over the past five, 10 years.
JD DiGiovanni:
So much of the watch market, when it comes to the publications in general and the stuff that people really lust after, it's just super expensive stuff. It is inaccessible for the majority of people on the planet. But having someone who appreciates great watchmaking like John Mayer does... He's been on a handful of... He has quite the watch collection, for listeners who don't know, and he's fancied himself a collector for a long time. But having someone with that level of taste bring that love of this type of accessory, essentially, to a broader group of people, I think is great, and it's something I really hope to see more of. Yeah, you can like it or not like it, but one thing you got to say when you're looking at this watch is that it's a well-considered watch. It looks, I think, attractive to my eye. Yeah. I don't know. It's great. I guess, long story short, my take here is that John Mayer is helping democratize the love of watches, and it's just another reason to love him. I'm a John Mayer fanboy, man. It's ridiculous. I think he's great.
Nick Caruso:
I guess that should've been my first question.
JD DiGiovanni:
Yeah, man. He's cool. [crosstalk 00:39:34].
Nick Caruso:
Yeah, he's cool. He's also just a sick musician. He can shred a guitar-
JD DiGiovanni:
Yeah, man.
Nick Caruso:
... like a god. Yeah. I'm on the fence about the style here, but I can fully appreciate it. I also think it's funny. On the G-Shock website, there was a limit of one per household, and it said that on the product page in bright red letters, which was really funny. This reminds me of other similar collaborations, as I'm sure it does you both, but I'm a sucker for the NASA-branded Timex watches that have come out and other stuff, but I'm not sure I could actually buy or wear one. I really love them, but I'm not sure I could do it. I don't know. Maybe I'm in the middle of you two. Henry, is that how you feel, or are you just opposed to...
Henry Phillips:
I don't think I'm opposed to the idea of a collaboration watch. I like the idea of a collaboration watch, I think. I'm trying to think of any that have really struck me. I like the ones where it's... Even if it's a made-up story about how the brands worked together to create a functional thing, real or not, it doesn't matter to me. But like Tudor came out with this one recently that was for the French Navy, and the French Navy has digital watches and iPhones and stuff. That's a nice story, and I desperately want one.
Henry Phillips:
Yeah. I like the NASA ones. Yeah. I have one watch, and it's a Speedmaster because of Buzz Aldrin wearing it a few miles away. That's the reason you like it, is because it's got this built-in... Let's call it a collaboration. It says space on it. Yeah. I think the nature of collaboration in watches is alive and well. It's cool to see it coming from other sources and feeling really community-based in a lot of ways. The reason that Casio is tapping G-Shock and the reason that... Sorry. That Casio is tapping Hodinkee and that Hodinkee is tapping John mayor is this weird community-based... You're tapping the people who are on the inside and creating something that is very insider-y, but also, like JD said, it's a $200 watch that, if you really, really want, you can get right now for $400. That isn't some sort of $90,000 or $6.5 million collaboration that is complete unobtainium. Yeah. It feels a lot like sneakers, in a good way.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. The unobtainium... God. Jay-Z was just photographed with that Tiffany-
Henry Phillips:
And Patek.
Nick Caruso:
Is it Patek? Yeah.
Henry Phillips:
Yeah.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. This is definitely on the other end of that spectrum. But that's a great point about the price, too. The accessibility of hype culture is pretty cool. Frankly, G-Shocks are great watches, too. I have a couple. It is kind of a bummer. We have to wait and see, I guess, but to your point, Henry... Just a blending of points from both of you. It's very accessible, but because these are limited edition, they're already going to be bought up and resold for a ton of money, which is kind of a bummer. But hopefully, more people than not hold onto them and enjoy them the way JD couldn't.
JD DiGiovanni:
I think, even if you can't get this watch for MSRP, there's some signaling that does go on when Hodinkee and John Mayer are like, "This G-Shock is cool."
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. Yeah. That's a fair point.
JD DiGiovanni:
Just in general, it's just like, "Listen, it doesn't have to be super expensive to be cool." You got to have to find the thing that works for you and fits and feels right, and I think that's enough. It doesn't have to be expensive. I think that's the message to me that's at the core of a collaboration like this, and that's something I appreciate. Yeah, man, Timexes, they're great. G-Shocks, perfect. Let's go. Best watch collaboration, in my opinion, still Mickey Mouse on a Timex, dude.
Nick Caruso:
Hell yeah. Yeah, those pointing arms.
JD DiGiovanni:
Nothing can beat that.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah, for sure. No, I always love when a brand or an outlet like Gear Patrol, whomever, endorse a pretty common or accessible product. It's very relatable, for one, but it's also just like, "Yeah, of course I like this $10 spatula. It is perfect." Yeah.
Henry Phillips:
And for what it's worth, a small shout-out to the folks at Hodinkee. I think, for a long, long time, they did a lot of collaborations that were hilariously over... Not overpriced, but on the expensive end of collectible limited edition watchmaking that were $30,000 and $60,000 watches. They've done some really amazing stuff with Swatch and with Casio to create really fun watches where you can get into that idea of there are a limited number of these things. I think they did one with Hamilton fairly recently.
Nick Caruso:
I know someone else who did.
Henry Phillips:
Yeah. Well, they learned from Gear Patrol about Hamilton, obviously. Yeah. The idea that you can create this hype limited edition watches with the same consideration that they always use. There's a lot going on here, and that's always been the case with Hodinkee stuff when they start working with watchmakers. Yeah. Huge props, and more $200 stuff.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. I'm into it. You hear that, John? I know you're listening. Cool. Yeah. Good takes all around. I approve of all of this. We're going to leave all of them in.
Nick Caruso:
That is it for the main headlines this week, so let's quickly turn to a newer segment we've been doing. Our favorite product drops of the past week. We, Gear Patrol, publish a daily column called Today in Gear that features a handful of these quick-hit product news items, new releases, updates, and there's a lot to love. This is where we have a chance to quickly surface a few. JD, you want to start with this? What new gear is on your radar right now?
JD DiGiovanni:
Yeah, totally. I'm actually back in my hometown of Chico, California, which is where, as I told everyone I knew as soon as I left my hometown, is where Sierra Nevada is brewed. Told them that half out of pride, half out of some attempt to locate my upbringing in some broader cultural context. Anyway, this great brewery, Sierra Nevada, has gone ahead and collaborated with a whiskey maker out of Alameda to do a fun take on their Ruthless Rye beer, made it whiskey. I think they put them in barrels in 2013, so now, eight years later, it's finally coming out. I am trying to deputize my brother to go pick them up. They're releasing this at the factory in Alameda on Saturday, this coming Saturday at 11:00 AM. Probably shouldn't say that if I want to have a chance at actually getting a bottle. They're going for $75 bucks, and looks great. I don't know. It's always fun to see a maker that you're really a big fan of trying something else with a brand or another maker in this space that knows what they're doing, and to see if you can't identify or locate some element of what it is you love about, I don't know, Sierra Nevada in something like whiskey. Yeah.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah, I like that like. A little hometown pride. If anybody wants to pay JD a huge premium, he'll deputize his brother to try to find you a bottle, too. Just skim a little off the top. Yeah. Love some whiskey. Henry, what are you jonesing for right now? What's on your radar?
Henry Phillips:
Yeah. It's a week of collaborations, isn't it? My pick of this week's gear is this espresso machine that is being done in collaboration between Rapha and this company called Rocket Espresso, a relatively young espresso machine company from 2007 that was always intertwined with the world of cycling. Their founders are this guy from New Zealand and an Italian who are both big cyclists, and they've always had sponsorships and weird integrations with the cycling world, so it's only natural that they would produce a $3,700 espresso machine in collaboration with Rapha, the perennial cool kids of cycling clothing. It's really rad-looking. It's this matte black steel with these off-white dials and these pink indicators. It's a limited run of 100. It will surely make really excellent espresso. The only gotcha, aside from the fact that it's many thousands of dollars, is that you have to be a member of the RCC, or Rapha Cycling Club, which is kind of like a Costco for cycling. You got to spend $100, but you get all sorts of cool access and the ability to purchase really awesome espresso machines.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. This thing is really pretty.
Henry Phillips:
It is.
Nick Caruso:
All the details. I love Rapha, the pink details they put on their duds.
Henry Phillips:
[crosstalk 00:50:32].
Nick Caruso:
I love seeing that kind of thing carry on here. Yeah. It's interesting you bring up another collaboration. We're all over the map about how we feel about them, but this is...
Henry Phillips:
It's pretty.
Nick Caruso:
So pretty. I'm not a biking Costco member, unfortunately.
Henry Phillips:
There's still time.
Nick Caruso:
There is.
Henry Phillips:
[crosstalk 00:50:53] surely not sold out yet.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. I don't know. You think John Mayer has one? Guys, I found a thing, too, I want to talk to you about. It's not a collaboration, so I'm sorry, but it is hometown adjacent and time-keeping adjacent. Depending who you are, you pronounce this differently. Shinola, Shinola. They have a new chronograph called the Canfield Speedway. It's a pretty-looking little watch here. It's blacked out, mostly. It's 44 millimeters, so it's huge. It's an automatic, of course. It has the tachymeter, this coin edge around the bezel, and tiny little color details, kind of like the espresso machine. Straight-up automotive inspiration, right? It's an homage racing. That's what this kind of thing is used for. Shinola is a Detroit company, and I'm a proud-ass Michigander. Put all these things together, and I'm into it, even though the West Coast is superior to the East Coast. Actually, the north is Lake Superior to everything, but it doesn't actually matter. Just want to make sure I get it right here. Not a cheap watch. It's just under $3,000, but it's so pretty. I'd gladly sport one, since I couldn't get one of the John Mayer collab, Casio's. That's how I feel about it.
Nick Caruso:
That's the gear on our radar right now. That's from Today in Gear over the past few days. The Todays in Gear? Today in Gears? Up to you how to say it. That is it for the episode. If you want to never miss a Today in Gear installment, make sure you sign up for our newsletter, or just check the website every day, and you will never be disappointed. For any other information on anything we discussed in today's episode, check out the links to everything in the show notes, including gift guides for those of you who are still shopping around. Subscribe to the podcast, give us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts. It's the holidays, after all. And find us on social media gearpatrol, one word, is our handle everywhere. And you can email us at podcast@gearpatrol.com. Henry and JD, thanks for all your insights and opinions and great jokes. I always appreciate them.
Henry Phillips:
Thank you, Nick.
JD DiGiovanni:
Of course.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. We'll see you next time. Reminder to everybody we're not going to be here next week, so you've got two weeks to listen to this episode or re-listen to it, which I bet you will do with your family on Christmas morning. And listeners, we'll be back with a final 2021 podcast episode on Friday, December 31st, getting in at the last minute. For now, this is the Gear Patrol Podcast. I'm Nick Caruso. Until then, take care.