In this episode, we begin with a discussion of the all-new, $99 Ear (1) noise-cancelling earbuds by the brand Nothing. Then we pick apart the concept of car companies charging customers subscription fees to activate equipment that's already installed on their car. Lastly, Airstream and Pottery Barn have collaborated on a very pretty, very expensive 28-foot trailer and we debate its merits.
Will Price joins JD and Nick to discuss $99 AirPods Pro competitors, car "feature" subscriptions, and the Airstream x Pottery Barn collab.
Episode Navigation:
02:19 – Nothing Ear (1) ANC Earbuds
16:25 – Subscriptions to Unlock Car Features
32:58 – Airstream x Pottery Barn Special Edition Travel Trailer
Featured:
Nick Caruso:
This is the Gear Patrol Podcast. In this episode, we begin with a discussion of the all new $99 ear (1) Noise Canceling Earbuds by the brand Nothing. Then we pick apart the concept of car companies charging customers subscription fees to activate equipment that's already installed on their cars. Lastly, Airstream and Pottery Barn have collaborated on a very pretty, very expensive 28-foot trailer, and we debate its merits.
Nick Caruso:
Thanks for listening to the podcast. If you like what you hear, we hope you'll subscribe and shoot us a five star review. I'm Nick Caruso, and I'm glad you're here. Let's get started.
Nick Caruso:
All right. Friends and colleagues. It's here again the news never stops, keeps going, and we're going to discuss it. Friends we have on board, Will Price. First time on the group pod, the roundtable. How's it feel?
Will Price:
I feel great. I'm excited. I have a big shoe, actually. Well, knowing Henry, not really the biggest shoes to fill. But I will fill them, nonetheless.
Nick Caruso:
Is that a dig at Henry's knowledge base or his shoe size?
Will Price:
His shoe size, actually. Tall guy, small shoe size.
Nick Caruso:
Interesting.
Will Price:
That's not my best joke.
Nick Caruso:
It's fair. Mine neither. JD, always a pleasure, of course.
JD DiGiovanni:
Hey. How's it going, guys? Glad to be here again. I actually have an update on something we talked about in the podcast last week. Folks, at Stone reached out and helped us clarify. Last week I said that Stone was fined by the TPV, for trade practice violations. That is not true. Stone paid the TPV for tax violations, just some mistakes they made in their filings.
JD DiGiovanni:
A distinction with a difference, wanted to call that out and they've apologized there. But for those listeners who hadn't caught the updated version of the pod, there you go.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. Everybody who started immediately boycotting Stone Brewing for its tax because they're tax law nerds. You can call off the dogs.
JD DiGiovanni:
Exactly.
Nick Caruso:
Cool. Good. Well, we're all ... That's we were talking about their hard seltzer. I'm still eager to try it. I didn't change my mind. In terms of this week's ... ooh. New York there. Oh, New York horns. Okay. Let's get in the stories.
Will Price:
[crosstalk 00:02:35] in this.
Nick Caruso:
It's always good. Okay. Let's get into it. We've got three stories as huge. We're going to start with this one. It's a product announcement. It's been splattered all over the web this week, particularly, of course, in tech and audio file circles. The company Nothing, which says it is a "Company removing the barriers between people and technology to create a seamless digital future." General description, generic description, has just revealed its $99 true wireless earbuds.
Nick Caruso:
They are called ear (1). That's the word ear and the numeral one inside parentheses. The specs seem promising. They're made of transparent plastic. They have a 34-hour battery life or 24 hours with noise canceling on. There's a microphone for taking calls, or charging battery case, gesture controls, companion app.
Nick Caruso:
JD, we were talking about this last night a little bit this morning. It's obviously a very familiar formula and the benchmark is, of course, Apple AirPods. Do you think these put up a big enough fight to matter or they will when we get our hands on them?
JD DiGiovanni:
When I first saw the hyper on this on the web, and it really has been everywhere, for a while, the people ... mine is company just have a very good bead on how to do the right promotion online, got to give them props for that.
JD DiGiovanni:
My initial reaction was pretty skeptical. It's quite a big swing to try and be like, "All right. Let's be competitive with Apple. You got to have some real faith in yourself there. I think there's reason enough that the company has that kind of level of confidence. I think one of the cofounders here, the founders of Nothing is Carl Pei.
JD DiGiovanni:
Those of you familiar with consumer technology, relatively intimately, now, that's the cofounder of OnePlus, which is a disruptive smartphone company that he ended up leaving that company and I'm thinking the past year or so. But he since teamed up with teenage engineering, it's a Swedish company that does synths, very popular synths that are very cool and well-designed.
JD DiGiovanni:
It's found a good deal of backing. Some of those include Neistat, they popular blogger. Yeah. They've come out with this very height affordable end of the spectrum in terms of wireless earphones, pods. Honestly, they look really cool. I think ... that seems to be what the real selling point is, is that these things ... they have a 24-hour charge with the case, but they have a four hour charge by themselves.
JD DiGiovanni:
They're very light. They weigh about 4.7 grams. They have a relatively decent feature set. They're IPX, water resistant. They have app controls, Bluetooth 5.2, gesture controls, and active noise canceling, among other things. They had this whole thing going for them. I think the more I was looking into it, the more I started wondering to myself, are these ... the differentiating factor is the price on one hand. Secondly, it's just the look.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah.
JD DiGiovanni:
That actually seems to make a difference. If you're walking around with Earbuds in all the time, if you have something that maybe strikes your fancy more based on the look, then $100 doesn't seem like a crazy leap. That may sound like decadent of me, you say. But what point is wearable tech, just in the same category of accessories, like necklaces or earrings or anything like that.
JD DiGiovanni:
I don't know. I guess that's just the question I have. I think that the answer might be yes. But I'd be curious to hear what you guys have to say about it.
Nick Caruso:
I've got plenty. I'm going to defer to Will Price, because I'm a gracious host to a first time guest.
Will Price:
That's really kind of you. Yeah. The look is very ... I think at first you look at and you're like It's got that transparent thing going on, you can see all like little components. It reminds me of the ... I had a backpack like that when I was in the 10th grade.
Will Price:
But in between the 10th grade, when I was exceptionally uncool and now remaining uncool, there's something Virgil Abloh, and Tom Sachs and other designers and, sure there's many more, have come out with various products that are see-through and transparent. That is now definitively I think we can say cool. But beyond that, what is just like in this, I guess, I do think they look pretty good.
Will Price:
They also look different enough from a pair of significantly different enough from a pair of AirPods, or Jaybirds, or whatever other popular brands are out there that they don't feel like they're trying to be like fake AirPods, which for the first year, a couple years, maybe after the release of the AirPods. That's really all that was on the market.
Will Price:
It was just other white or slightly off white headphones that sit in your ears and kind of like, "I paid one-fourth the price and they work sort of thing." I think it's cool. I think the idea of ... I also think that ... you hinted at this JD, that the specs, they're okay, but they don't necessarily matter. I agree with that, especially just with this category in particular.
Will Price:
Right now I'm wearing these big fat over-ear headphones that have ... I look like I'm going to fly a C-130 at any moment. With these performances is really important to me, the fullness of sound, a 300 ... Running through like a preamp and all that kind of stuff. But when you just think about the function of what if you're near wireless AirBud or ... AirBud?
JD DiGiovanni:
Fair enough.
Will Price:
... EarPod whatever is, you're moving around, you're on the go. That you are likely, you are more likely to do things like lose them or drop them or whatever. In that respect, it is more like ... This is almost like ... I don't want to call it the fast fashion to Apple's high design, because it's not a one-to-one comparison. But it's closer to that than I thought when you first brought this up.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. The looks really are ... I mean it's the looks and the price, like we've mentioned. The looks are interesting to me almost as much as the price. I think the price actually wins out a little bit. They're 99 bucks, right? Somehow they've managed to make them $99, 99, and 99 Euro. Depending where you are, you may get ...
Will Price:
Sorry to interrupt. The exchange rates or you may get a little bit of a deal.
Nick Caruso:
But I've had cheap earbuds before. I've not had cheap noise cancelling earbuds, but cheap earbuds, and they're usually cheap for a reason. They're usually cheap ...
JD DiGiovanni:
Airbuds though?
Nick Caruso:
No. No. Talented golden retrievers are our price premium across the board.
Will Price:
There you go.
Nick Caruso:
But the look really is interesting to me. I've been loath to even jump on the AirPod train at all. I've never used AirPods. I've used AirPods Max the over years, but I've never used the earbuds. I think part of it was that I was just didn't want to conform and have the white, little dongles in my ears is mind control devices. But I like the looks of these.
Nick Caruso:
For 99 bucks, I can see myself jumping on board, particularly if they do perform as well or pretty much as well as the AirPods because it's actually the AirPods Pro these are compared to, the noise canceling. Those are 250 bucks, two and a half times what these costs. I think you combine the iRobot kind of looks with the supremely affordable price and context and it's pretty good product. Just depends how they actually work.
Will Price:
Actually, it makes a lot of sense to ... You mentioned the folks behind this ... one of them big minds this is from the OnePlus team who's ... I don't know, builds themselves at that company, builds itself as a titan killer, makes like great ... really high performing products that are relatively affordable.
Will Price:
That is this. But the fact that they paired up with teenage engineering, which is if you Google them, you'll see they have a very specific aesthetic that is just very ... it sounds like what the name sounds like. It's cool. It's got this undeniable cool weird authentic factor to it. That to me makes a ton of sense, because if it had just been OnePlus home, it makes Apple ... Everyone's Max competitor.
Will Price:
I really think it could have just been like, "Oh, this is an affordable ANC earbud, wouldn't have the drive. It wouldn't have people genuinely talking about it beyond just like, "Yeah. It's a good alternative to this popular product." It's removed itself from the sleepy tech conversation and into something more interesting, I think.
JD DiGiovanni:
Yeah, entirely. I mean, I think the thing that I'm going to be looking for in the coming months is just, is this the beginning of a trend of not necessarily offering anything that's technically that much that competitive compared to the higher end ends of things. But has a distinct enough look that it prompts people to be willing to keep their other pair of earbuds in the drawer and get something that like looks cooler or is more attractive?
JD DiGiovanni:
That's that seems to be the big question and it's living in my mind. Another big question is these are clear cased. The case is clear. The plastic is clear. I don't know about you guys, but your gunk in my pods is a real thing. I think that on the shelf, it looks really cool. But like, I don't know, that might not be the most appealing looking thing.
JD DiGiovanni:
Then, too, I know clear plastic scratches and cracks and can be unattractive. I'm going to be curious to read, too just how long the attractiveness of a clear plastic really lasts after purchase, and just see what folks like reviews are.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. That's a good point. I mean, to Will's reference of the backpack. I want to say was in middle school. Maybe before that, I got ... I don't remember, what it was like a raffle ... or not raffle, a fundraiser money, you get points and stuff and you can spend it in the silly little chintzy store.
Will Price:
Oh, my gosh. Highlighted my childhood. Yeah.
Nick Caruso:
Super cool childhood. I remember saving up every point or dollar or whatever. I bought a clear corded phone, like a touch tone phone.
JD DiGiovanni:
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Nick Caruso:
You could see everything in there. It was so cool. Yeah. There's another great example, and a lot of the Nintendo controllers. I'm not suggesting that these are ... this is a juvenile look, but I do think to your point, JD, it is ... it comes and goes. It's very, very much a fad. This is kind of gets old. That's why white, simple AirPods still look as good as they did when they came out. That was a very specific look and they wear on you.
JD DiGiovanni:
It's a risk. But I mean, I was looking at the size of Apple's AirPod business. Apparently, they make between $20 ... or $10 and $20 billion a year just off of the AirPods. It's like, yeah ... this company is taking a risk, taking a swing at this. But the potential upside is pretty big. I could see why you're trying to make a splash and just like really make statement there.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. Well, I mean, my final thought on this is that I'm very interested and very well may pull the trigger. I have some Powerbeats Pro, the things that go around your ears and are really intense. These are a neat alternative to those for more casual listening.
JD DiGiovanni:
Last bit of see-through tech, do you guys ever have a see-through N64?
Nick Caruso:
[inaudible 00:15:47]
JD DiGiovanni:
Yeah. I felt like an absolute king in my neighborhood growing up because I'd have a see-through N64. Yeah.
Nick Caruso:
Which color?
JD DiGiovanni:
Sorry?
Nick Caruso:
The clear color or ...
Will Price:
They have a teal or a purple ... Yeah.
JD DiGiovanni:
No, it was clear. I wanted the purple. But apparently it wasn't available. It was a Christmas present. My dad isn't going to sit around at the store for more than 10 minutes. He picked up the good one.
Nick Caruso:
That's fair. I've got an N64 mere feet from me right now. How do you feel about that?
JD DiGiovanni:
Smash Bros on the menu.
Nick Caruso:
Nope. GoldenEye, multiplayer all the way. Nothing else matters. Sorry. Only Oddjob, no weapons slaps only. We have paintball. Okay. Well, we've covered that. I think it's really intriguing product. We'll be interested to see ... We'll make sure the tech guys, I'm sure, will get their hands on, ears on those sometime soon.
Nick Caruso:
Next story is some automotive news, which I'm sure everyone listening is shocked to hear me talk about. But it's this time around from both BMW and Tesla and a few other manufacturers, but specifically those two. This demand story is car feature, subscriptions, subscriptions to the features on specific cars. Monthly charges, to use features on the car that you own. You own a car, then you subscribe to things on them.
Nick Caruso:
BMW wants you to subscribe to things like heated steering wheels, and adaptive cruise control. Tesla is rolling out this subscription model for its quasi-automated driving technology, which has, perhaps unsurprisingly been met with controversy and has become somewhat of a debacle. But I think from my POV, the main point here is that the physical mechanisms that ... Or if the physical mechanisms that make these features possible are literally already inside the car that you own or purchase, whether you subscribe to the feature or not.
Nick Caruso:
If you pay for the feature monthly, the company activates the stuff. If you don't pay for it, it's just sitting there taunting you. That's why ... I think it's a pretty interesting topic because I think it sucks, because subscriptions to the features, there's also a subscription model for cars themselves, which I can speak to also. But the feature subscriptions, there are profits to be had. It's easier to install every feature on a car than activate them on a cart.
Nick Caruso:
But it also feels just a little insulting that the concept of having this dead, deactivated, luxury features on a car that I had pensively own, and it's physically in my possession, I don't know. I think if the features are there, they should be standard or enabled and included in the price.
JD DiGiovanni:
It is so sad to see this model reach out into ... Another example of this which I think drives a lot of people in a very different space crazies. There has been huge conference controversy in recent years over the size of video game downloads. Big titles like, whatever, Call of Duty, or name any big multiplayer title.
Nick Caruso:
GoldenEye.
JD DiGiovanni:
Maybe not. GoldenEye for the N64. These new modern games, they're absolutely massive and download size. Hundreds of gigs, and there's a lot of issues with that beyond just like it takes really fucking long to download. But that's one of the larger ones in tech ... just slows down your computer. But the reason they're so large is not just because all these different new graphic fidelity technologies are big. It's also because they're preloading all these things that you have to buy and pay extra to access afterwards, the microtransaction model.
JD DiGiovanni:
You can see that on a micro scale all overthe mobile gaming market, too. But it's the big ones that are doing this, because you buy this huge $60 thing and you're promised all this stuff and then all of a sudden if you want to make your character, whatever, like pink-colored, or you don't. You are downloading that skin regardless. That is exactly what this sounds like in the car world.
JD DiGiovanni:
But somehow even more insulting because it's a car ... it's a such an expensive thing you buy. It's actually kind of hilarious to consider that you wake up on a cold morning in Minnesota, or wherever the hell you live. You're like, "I really like my steering wheel to heat up." You got to call up Tesla and be like, "Hey, I'd like to activate steering wheel heating in the night that run you through the monthly rate and take your credit card."
JD DiGiovanni:
They're like, "All right. It should turn on that." That is such a ridiculous premise.
Nick Caruso:
It's like when you search for a movie or something on a smart TV and it's like, "Yeah, you can watch Indiana Jones, the Temple of Doom, it's $3.99 to rent." You're like, "Oh, it should be streaming. I have seven subscriptions already."
JD DiGiovanni:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. It's the presence of this in cars is really ... it's almost like ... the boiling water is getting ... If you drop a frog in a pot, the water has been slowly heating up and heating up and heating up. All of a sudden, you have to like download steering wheels or something to actually use your car after you purchasing it. It's everywhere, right now, the subscription model.
JD DiGiovanni:
I've really been trying to think through how I feel about it, because I think my initial reaction is like, "I hate it." I want to be able to buy something and know if I have it or not. Not have it be so determined by what I'm paying, a monthly rate. I guess really the question I'm trying to sort through is, is this a trend that's being driven by convenience to customers? Or is it just being driven by the upside for companies?
JD DiGiovanni:
Because I can actually see a way in which this could be helpful, just trying to think through it. Okay. If I buy a car, and I don't want to get the craziest trim level, I can just buy the car that I can afford at the moment. But let's say down the line, financial situation changes, or after purchasing it, I actually do figure out like, I want to download the rear wheel drive or something like that for a month, because I'm going to be driving up to the mountains or something like that.
JD DiGiovanni:
It's nice. You could just download it, instead of having to get a different car, or get a different trim level, or be upset that you didn't have it. I can see a world in which it's actually pretty convenient for the consumer where it's like, "Okay. You can like maybe get things that you want them and drop them when you don't, instead of having to get a whole new vehicle."
JD DiGiovanni:
Maybe there's even a way which you can pitch on as being more sustainable. But I think my real concern on this stuff in general, just subscription models, is that I think that people are really bad at measuring long-term, or just people are really bad at long term thinking, period. But like, if you say it's $10 right now, and it's just $10 every month, it's like not a big deal. But all of a sudden, like a few years in, if you pay $360 for it ... I think I've got my math right there.
JD DiGiovanni:
But it sneaks up on you. I frankly don't trust a lot of these companies to keep the financial health of their consumers at the forefront. I really think they're just trying to show investors or show board members, how high their monthly take is based off of the subscription stuff. I think it's, in some ways, it can be a good trend for consumers in terms of just convenience. But I would expect people to abuse it.
JD DiGiovanni:
I would expect companies to abuse it and to trick people into thinking that they're buying something for cheaper than it really is. That just leaves me feeling a little concerned. But then again, I'm always kind of concerned. I'm an anxious guy. Who knows?
Will Price:
Nick, is there other features like this feature gated vehicles or whatnot? Are they like ... Is the price intentionally lower than others? Like is it that kind of situation where it's like you're ... it's only like these things are only available through the more lower end more budget friendly cars. I know, we're talking about like BMW and Tesla, but even those companies do have that kind of category covered.
Nick Caruso:
You mean kind of like ... Does Ford have this model? Is that what you're asking?
Will Price:
No. Just if X car is ... all these new features are behind a paywall, for lack of a better term, Is the car now more affordable to buy it initially.
Nick Caruso:
Oh, I see what you mean. Well, that's kind of ... I mean, I think it depends pretty wildly or widely. I mean, it's tied into JD's point. I think that this favors the manufacturer far more than it does the consumer, even considering all the conveniences that you mentioned, JD, which are very valid points. I mean, it would be cool to be able to just like call up a feature when you need it, and get rid of it when you don't.
Nick Caruso:
But I think it's a cynical thing. It's luxury or at least premium carmakers charging ... Their manufacturing exclusivity where you have this ... You've already bought their product, but you have to pay a little more to get the good shit. This is how I've been thinking about it. Imagine you just upgraded to a new phone, new iPhone, 700, 800 bucks, whatever, however that plays out for you.
Nick Caruso:
But you have to pay ... But to use the front facing camera, you have to pay $5 a month. It's like it's right there. I bought it. It's right there. It's an expected feature of the product. It should either be built into the full price or not there at all. I can understand this in pure technology terms like infotainment system upgrades, whatever. Ford does that a lot. I know what's their sync system, and have just infuriated my parents over the years, their cars.
Nick Caruso:
But functions particularly like super convenient, common safety, adjacent stuff like adaptive cruise control, if it's there, it should be available. In a BMW, for sure. It's standard on a Subaru Outback. You buy us base Outback for $26,000, you have that and a suite of safety technology. If you're buying a BMW you should get typical stuff, regardless of what the price is, even without the features and activated, it is a little cheaper. It's a BMW.
JD DiGiovanni:
How sure are we for this future? I mean, it is just here, and this is life now, that there's no stopping these car manufacturers, of just making you pay for what is essentially already in the car? Is this nascent? Or is this early enough that it's maybe not ... We're not totally so far down the road that there's no turning back?
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. I think you're onto something there. It's pretty nascent at this point. I'm sure they're in a way beta testing it.
JD DiGiovanni:
Yeah.
Will Price:
I'm sure we'll see some version of this rollout more permanently, particularly as we get electric cars that are mostly computers with wheels. But what I alluded to earlier is the actual car subscription models where a company, like Audi, introduces a model where you can pay a monthly fee, and then have access to a car and swap out your car, whatever insurance is included, maintenance is included. A lot of manufacturers tried that; Audi, Cadillac, BMW, Mercedes, and they all drop the programs.
Will Price:
One I know that's still going as Volvo and it's pretty cool. Actually priced out of Volvo, like an XC40, their small SUV, 700 bucks, you can subscribe to one. Two-year contract, insurance, maintenance, cleaning ... I believe cleaning it all included. What the hell is this? It gets me so mad, I specked out a different one on my own. That I think is pretty equivalent to the one that they're offering for that 700 bucks a month.
Will Price:
Just to lease the car was $677 a month with forte down. It's a huge deal relatively, in that sense. But that's a long tangent to say that I think they're trying this and I am sure we'll see it in some form. But if it's heated steering wheels and stuff, I don't know.
JD DiGiovanni:
My hope is that like the reaction from not just like automotive journalists, but mostly just people who drive cars is so negative that it's banished into the shadow realm. There's been a couple examples and completely unrelated spaces of bad ideas getting absolutely like posterized, stonecroft ...
Nick Caruso:
That's right.
Will Price:
... media or whatever websites and those ideas then going away. Google, European Super League if you're into soccer. But I really hope that ... because the sound of this and given I don't have a new car right now and I probably won't anytime soon. The sound of this is just like leaves the absolute worst taste in my mouth. I think it can like ... every time I try to rationalize it, I said that I just returned to the fact that it just ... to me, it's a disgusting thing to build a product.
Will Price:
It's almost like Nothing return to videogame analogies. But if you buy the Madden every year, and they always wonder like, "Oh, this new feature that new feature." For every new feature they bring in, they remove two old ones so that three years down the line they can bring it back. They've designed these things and they're just not on the product. They're not available. It's just a sickening cycle to [inaudible 00:30:36].
JD DiGiovanni:
My sense of it, is that this will ... This is just hits too many of the right notes for how the human brain works about having a shorter term kind of easy access to something for what seems on the front to be a low price, and then getting caught in something for too long. It works too well for companies for them not to try it. I'm afraid we're just going to end up in this nether realm where it's like ... maybe in between zone where it's just like, it works really well in terms of functions and how it works for companies. But it's really bad for people.
JD DiGiovanni:
It'll just get fought over on the federal level for regulation forever and nothing will get fixed.
Will Price:
[crosstalk 00:31:22] and we'll all die. Yeah.
JD DiGiovanni:
Maybe us kvetching about it enough can turn the tide. But I'm skeptical.
Nick Caruso:
I'm willing to run the tape out fetching about this. I mean, there's so much more ... to your point, Will, about automotive especially just like grumbling about this, too. I'm not going to I couldn't even begin to touch on the Tesla thing which is just infuriating to me, the whole story.
Nick Caruso:
But let me just wrap up with a couple of the titles of these posts that we're referencing that I think we all read. One is Tesla charging 1,500 for hardware they already paid for," customers, hardware they already paid for. Another is BMW wants customers to pay a subscription fee to use features the car already has installed like a heated steering wheel or adaptive cruise control.
Nick Caruso:
That's a title of a post and someone took their IRA out in a 20-word title just to drive home how crappy this makes you feel. I don't know.
Will Price:
I'm glad to see glad to see the reaction is not like a welcome embrace at the very least. Yeah.
Nick Caruso:
That's right. I'm going to get in into my basically what amounts to a Flintstones car and context and drive pitchforks and torches down to BMW headquarters. They're protesting at the gates. All right. Well, thanks for letting me vent, guys.
Will Price:
Of course.
JD DiGiovanni:
We're here for you, Nick.
Nick Caruso:
Thanks. I don't have to pay extra for the moral support.
JD DiGiovanni:
No. You'll see my [inaudible 00:33:02].
Nick Caruso:
It will show up as a ghost charge, I'm like, "What the hell?" Canceling it is more of a pain than just letting it keep charging?
Nick Caruso:
Okay. Third story. Sort of adjacent to that story because there are wheels involved, Airstream, everybody's favorite retro, futuristic, luxury aluminum camper trailer brand, has announced a new collaboration with Pottery Barn, the house, the Home Goods retailer furniture called the Airstream x Pottery Barn travel trailer.
Nick Caruso:
This launch actually follows a launch of co-branded furniture, Airstream Pottery Barn furniture that's sold in stores. This trailer is 28 feet long, which is huge. It's that familiar Airstream look and shape. But inside is completely decked out with pottery barn furniture, and amenities, and that catalog aesthetic.
Nick Caruso:
I've seen strangely seem different cost estimates. But for reference, the original trailer, 28 foot Airstream, you can buy and then you would customize the interior yourself from the factory. It starts at $101,000, which is no joke, right? But the pottery barn collab is priced over $145,000. That's a little context for you. I feel I dripped in a lot of my own bias in my tone of voice there, which I shouldn't have.
Nick Caruso:
But, Will I want to go to you as our in house home and design guru among many.
Will Price:
I think your tone was mostly just like a carryover from our last conversation.
Nick Caruso:
It was, right.
Will Price:
I'm not going to hold against you.
Nick Caruso:
I should have dunked my head in some ice waters or something.
Will Price:
Yeah. Airstream and Pottery Barn are ... in a ... let's talk about what this is in a vacuum, which I think you did, almost to a tee there. It's a big, huge ... Yeah, It's a huge Nothing trailer, 28 feet. It's really expensive and it looks ... if you've ever been inside a Pottery Barn or been to their website, it looks exactly like that. It's like tope beige with some light blues and grays. There's soft linens and blankets and grayish particleboard.
Will Price:
It's what you expected. It looks exactly like Pottery Barn, which is what it sets out to do. That's in a vacuum what it is. It's also quite expensive, of course. But I don't think Airstream is noted for being a budget friendly company by any means. What I think is interesting is that there are two things. These companies both have done extremely well for themselves.
Will Price:
Sorry, my dog just burped next to me
Nick Caruso:
Rosie?
Will Price:
Yeah. Not interrupting the pod. It's gross. These two companies have done extremely well for themselves to the pandemic and to be fair before the pandemic as well. Airstream particular is doing really well and then the world collapse. People were all of a sudden driven away from one another and especially for people in cities, people were trying to escape whether it'd be through homeownership. Some people even as desperate as going to like the kid home in a-frame space to have a house put up really quickly somewhere "off the grid."
Will Price:
Airstream combined with it's like really cool vibey aesthetic, and it's a good company. Not going to pretend like they don't make good products, has done extraordinarily well. Not even just in reported sales figures. You can even just look at things like search trends across Google, more people are Googling Airstream. ... or rather there were like, there's a 300% increase in 2020 from the year prior.
Will Price:
T's still holding far higher than the average was in 2019 and 2018, what have you. People are really interested in these things right now. The RV and the camper space, and the trailer space in general. The combination with Pottery Barn at first I was like, "Okay. Cool, whatever. It's got this newlywed trailer vibe, whatever. If you can drop 150 on a trailer, then by all means.
Will Price:
But it's sort of ... I almost use the word sinister or maybe cynical, those aren't right. But it is a homier Airstream is what it is. If you look inside the traditional Airstream lines there ... it's not to say they're not comfortable, they look fine. But then they don't have that this is like a place you live aesthetic.
Will Price:
I think that this Pottery Barn collab deeper than just buying sheets, blankets, softgoods, I don't know, et cetera, et cetera for your Airstream and or for your regular house. It kind of to me, is like a moment of the digital nomad thing has glowed up to the point where Pottery Barn is like, "Yeah. I guess we'll get into that a little bit." You could feasibly live in this trailer.
Will Price:
If you Google like "Can I live in my Airstream if I'm like dozens and dozens of stories about people like the smallest size, they're willing to live in, blah, blah, blah." Most of those people are talking like 18, 22 foot et cetera, et cetera. This is a 28 foot trailer that is far more cushy and fitted to be honest with more ... it looks more like a traditional home wood. This could be your home instead of like owning a home.
Will Price:
Sad as that sounds, it's more and more appealing right now ... or it's more appealing right now than it's ever been. Yeah. I think that's an interesting thing to think about as we move into this ... people, digital nomad is the buzzword, but transient is the other. If you don't have to live anywhere, where do you live? The answer was something like this is like ... everywhere, with roads.
JD DiGiovanni:
I'll be honest. The main thing I started wondering about as soon as I saw this was just like, what other furniture companies would do? I want to see a design competition with ... I want to see the pottery barn version. I want to see the Miller Knoll version, I want to see CB2.
Will Price:
You got the name right. Well, done. [inaudible 00:39:24]
JD DiGiovanni:
Hey, man. I work at a gear side. I'm on top of things. But it's just interesting to see Pottery Barn's aesthetic, just put into a tin can, essentially. It's almost like a dollhouse. But mostly, I think the thing I found myself wondering about is just like, what you already touched on. Is this like the high watermark in terms of perception and like use of road tripping and just like being out in a way from your central point, or is this just like more of a sign of things to come?
JD DiGiovanni:
Could we actually reasonably expect more collabs like this between Airstream and other furniture companies, or just other types of more mobile, or ... I don't know, otherwise less permanent living situations.
Nick Caruso:
Makes me wonder what's the best collab that could come to be with Airstream and what's the weirdest? I could see them pairing with all sorts of different ... I mean not just furniture, but like also different manufacturers. I can see like an Apple Airstream with their aesthetic inside and like an office, you talk about remote work, a lot of options there, or whatever. What's that company with the massive beanbags?
Will Price:
Oh, the Lovesac.
Nick Caruso:
Lovesac, yeah. Get a Lovesac airstreams, it's just one big airbag.
Will Price:
I will say, just you're up-to-date on Lovesac, they actually make more sofas now than they do, than they do beanbags. I don't know. I'm just throwing that out there. They're actually they're pretty cozy. But I don't know that loves. I don't remember what it's called. It used to have a funny name. I don't know if it still does. But it was like a took up like 500 square feet of space, like one beanbag and you could pile an entire family on it. I want three of those inside the airstream and that's literally it.
JD DiGiovanni:
Literally larger than my apartment.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. That's sounds problematic for a few reasons. I also now have to link to Lovesac in the description. Thanks to myself. I've used airstreams before. I've been lucky enough to test out a couple and they really are incredible. I mean, they're gorgeous. The manufacturing quality is so good and they strike such a desirable unique, wonderful profile. You'd love to see him travel down the road.
Nick Caruso:
$145,000 is a lot of money. I mean, it's a lot of damn money. It's a house in some places. This is a room with ostensibly $45,000 worth of pottery barn stuff in it. I don't know the calculus is a little tough for me to wrap my head around. But in terms of living out of this, I think I could. But I don't think I could see myself camping out of this. I don't think I could pull this into a park, state park in the summer for a week and live in my pottery barn across from tents and stuff.
Will Price:
Yeah. It feels like more of you would rent a really pretty area to park your little Airstream by itself, more picturesque, maybe?
JD DiGiovanni:
Housing prices are so expensive right now. It almost feels like a deal. I don't know what-
Will Price:
It's sad that that's the case, right?
JD DiGiovanni:
Yeah.
Will Price:
145, I was like, yeah, everything Nick's saying makes sense. But I guarantee that people are going to these shit out of this, you know. I have no doubt in my mind that it will, so.
Nick Caruso:
[inaudible 00:43:07] the cost of a tow vehicle and all your future subscriptions. You're going to be well over 200K.
JD DiGiovanni:
Yeah. Between that, the tow, DLC, and the Netflix broke.
Will Price:
Like when did Spirit Airlines start becoming like the guiding force of product design? That's my greater question. Because like, now, I think, a credit card swipe when you're in the bathroom of your Airstream like it's just not ... Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm still angry from ...
Nick Caruso:
[crosstalk 00:43:36] two segments now. Sorry. JD, I interrupted you. You're going to make a point, though, about ...
JD DiGiovanni:
I asked a question earlier about is this a trend of ... Is this high watermark for the way of living over the past like year and a half of just being more nomadic and being maybe more removed from any particular place, or is it a sign of things to come? Honestly, I think I have an answer for my own question. I'm not sure if I have a lot of evidence for it. But it seems to me to be a sign of things to come.
JD DiGiovanni:
I mean, so long as housing is as expensive as it is in the United States. If this trend of working remotely really persists, I think we're going to see a lot more of this type of stuff. I'm not sure if Airstream is going to roll out a huge number of collabs with different furniture companies. But more than just being a kind of individual release to evaluate, it does strike me as a sign of the coming trend of more of a maybe higher touch.
JD DiGiovanni:
Not to say that Airstream by itself isn't high touch enough. I think you're right, Nick. They're beautiful. But maybe a more tailored approach to living more remotely. Not first folks who don't have any other option per se, but just who maybe aren't willing to like or don't see the point in settling down at any one place. I'm not sure if it's like a great feature. But like, it definitely seems to be the one that like the facts on the ground support.
Will Price:
Also, I mean, it should say like there's more to that that ties into the success of where that trend rather than just like the pandemic or whatever, like the look of an Airstream is like extremely well. Like I think Nick described it as like retro-futurism, which is I think a good description like that. It's beautiful, right? That's one thing.
Will Price:
I don't know. I think there are too many forces working toward like something like this being like alternative homeownership that even if Airstream isn't the brand that capitalizes and makes that a reality, there's no doubt in my mind that this will be like, the way this category is pushed, beyond just like the, "Oh, we're going on a summer road trip" kind of thing, which is I would say a gut check as a sad feature. But whatever, picket fences and for everybody, I guess.
Nick Caruso:
Gosh, we have a lot of downer segments today. Anyway, the future is going to be terrible, but beautiful, and mobile. Let's cut it off there. We could probably really ... I want to end on a really positive note. I want to get the ear (1)s in my ears. That's my happy send off.
Nick Caruso:
Thanks, everybody for tuning in, all our listeners out there. Hopefully you like what you hear, like what you have heard and want to hear more. You'll subscribe to the podcast and give us a nice little five star rating. You don't have to pay extra to rate us, that feature is included. You can also let us know what you think about any of the stories, any of our comments, any of our opinions today or weigh in with your own, submit your own stories.
Nick Caruso:
You can hit us up on social media, handles gear patrol, one word. You can comment on posts on the site, and you can email us at podcast at gearpatrol.com. If you have any questions about anything we covered today, want more information, find the link, do some reading some research, check the show notes or the post on Gear Patrol where you are listening to this podcast and read to your heart's content.
Nick Caruso:
JD, Will, thank you so much for being here today. It was a pleasure to have you both, of course, and chat through all our Gear knowledge.
Will Price:
Thanks for having me, Nick. I appreciate it. I love talking [inaudible 00:47:33] and pay for play subscription models with you anytime.
Nick Caruso:
There we got this kind of a wit. I wanted at the end of the pod here. Thanks everybody for tuning in. Really appreciate you being here. I'm Nick Caruso, and until next time, take care.