Here we are again, the fall weather is upon us and there are new iPhones out in the wild. Apple recently announced the iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Pro, and iPhone 14 Pro Max. Later this year the iPhone 14 will get a big brother named the iPhone 14 Plus. It’s easy to tell that Apple has a long term strategy with the iPhone. They meticulously add new features that seem like a big deal at first, but are actually very small improvements year over year. This allows them to continue to release a new phone every fall and get people (like me) to buy it.
What’s new on iPhone 14 Pro Max
The iPhone 14 Pro Max is a lot like the 13 Pro max and even the 12 Pro Max. Same shape, size, and materials. The biggest difference is the screen notch has been replaced by a rotated lowercase “i” shaped cutout called the Dynamic Island. I feel like this has a lot of potential in the future, but without any third-party app integration, it’s just a cool demo. The OLED screen has been updated to be brighter and be “Always-On” when not in use. This is similar to the Apple Watch where the screen dims but still shows some lock screen elements. I frequently have my iPhone sitting on a table in-front of me and now I won’t have to tap it to see what’s going on. Having devices where the screen is always-on is soon to become the norm. In the near future we’ll look at devices that don’t have the screen on as antiquated.
Baseball scores in the Dynamic Island
There’s a new main camera sensor (again) this year, but this time they quadrupled the megapixel count from 12 to 48. This doesn’t mean a whole lot, but allows it to gather more details and present you with a better image. I’ve found that when you want the most detail, use the “RAW” option to get a 48mp image as opposed to the Apple processed 12mp version.
As a semi-professional photographer I use multiple tools for my hobby. With an iPhone, I always have a great camera in my pocket. Since 2007 I’ve been taking photos with my iPhone and updating that camera as fast as Apple introduced new features. Because of the ever-changing smartphone camera market I started to track what type of photos I was taking with my primary camera. Now that we have at least four cameras on flagship smartphones I wanted to know even more which lenses I was using and which I didn’t really care for.
I started tracking these numbers in 2018 when I moved from the iPhone X to the iPhone XS. The iPhone XS had a much better camera over the X which was more of an industrial design change than a focus on photography. Each year since, I’ve counted up my photos from the past year and noted which lens was used. Now I can look back and see which phone I took the most photos with and which lens was the most popular that year.
Over the years my overall iPhone camera usage has gone way down since the iPhone X. Not sure why other than the pandemic. The majority of my photos come from the Main/Wide/1x camera but that share has gone down as the cameras have multiplied and offered different perspectives.The first zoom or telephoto lens was added to the iPhone back in 2016 when the iPhone 7 Plus was announced, and since then it’s been a unique addition allowing you to zoom into subjects without digitally cropping.
With the addition of the Ultra-wide camera on the iPhone 11 Pro, a third rear lens was available to split my photography between. It was recently updated to include macro photography on the iPhone 13 Pro, which explains the large bump in share of my photos this past year. In contrast, the lack of progress on the front-facing camera reflects in my reduced use. If you are the type of person that takes a lot of selfies though, that camera will get a lot of work.
Model
Main
Telephoto
Ultra-wide
Front
iPhone X
2702 / 80%
467 / 14%
-
198 / 6%
iPhone XS
2183 / 74%
646 / 22%
-
128 / 4%
iPhone 11 Pro Max
1458 / 64%
369 / 16%
318 / 14%
141 / 6%
iPhone 12 Pro Max
1094 / 67%
218 / 13%
220 / 14%
104 / 6%
iPhone 13 Pro Max
900 / 52%
291 / 17%
444 / 26%
88 / 6%
Totals
8337 / 70%
1991 / 17%
982 / 8%
659 / 5%
Ever year Apple has a story to tell about how the camera is better/different on the new phones. With every upgrade I say I’m going to make a better effort to take more photos but the numbers don’t lie. Over the last 12 months, I only snapped 1,723 photos which was the lowest amount of iPhone photos per year I have record of. To compare, I have saved about 300 photos from my professional camera, Sony a7III, so overall it was a down photos year. I plan to improve on that over the next 12 months.
Remote controlled curtains have been around for ages but only recently has that same technology been translated into a smart product. Much like blinds and shades, most of us have at least one set of curtains in our house and depending on where they’re located, you may want to automate them. Opening and closing of curtains can have an impact on both the climate and light in your home, but the primary function is to block nosey people from looking into your room.
The first time I learned about smart curtains was from SwitchBot who I believe was one of the first to market with a smart-assistant controlled curtain controller. Originally they were priced too high for what I wanted to spend, and like a bunch of other products, were only geared toward the Alexa/Amazon smart ecosystem. Even still as I write this today they don’t support Apple Home (fka Apple Homekit).
The smart curtain controller is simple. It rides along various types of curtain rods and rails and pushes or pulls your curtains. The drawback is that if you have two sets of curtains on a window, you need two controllers to push/pull each side. This doubles the cost as most controllers are sold in singles. The controller either connects to the track of your rail or rides along the rod like suspended roller coaster. There is also the compatibility of the type of rod or rail you have for your existing curtains. The compatibility varies from manufacturer and most can’t do a telescoping rod as the wheels can’t overcome the height differences.
When Aqara started selling their curtain controllers I was immediately interested. They’re product connected to my already existing Aqara camera hubs and that connected to Apple Home. They were discounted on Amazon during their initial launch so I thought I would give them a try, and if it wasn’t something I wanted or didn’t work right, I could return them. They arrived pretty quickly and while bulky, they were easy to install.
I have a bay window in my living room that lets in a lot of light throughout the first half of the day, but also faces the street I live on. This window has your traditional dual curtain rods with a shear set covered by an opaque set of curtains. Putting four controllers on each set of curtains wasn’t cost effective for this setup so I opted to buy two controllers for each side of the inner-most opaque curtains, while leaving the shears to manual adjustment.
The Aqara controllers work well and have yet to fail in the two months I’ve been using them. One odd thing about the Aqara models are that I needed to group them as one accessory in the Apple Home app to get the two controllers to work together. They’re exposed as left and right modules to Apple Home allowing you to operate them individually, but I have no use case for only opening one side. I have not yet needed to charge the batteries and as of writing this they currently sit at 80% so they should last about a year before needing charged.
Controlling them from the Apple Home app or by using Siri is very easy. Usually I just shout into the air, “Hey Siri, open the curtains” and within a second or two they start moving. I currently only have one automation set on the curtains and that is to close them in the evening. In the Apple Home app I have the automation set to: 15 minutes after sunset, close the curtains. This allows the most amount of light until the sun fades and then closes for privacy. In the winter months I can see having a schedule automation to open the curtains in the morning when heat is less of an issue.
While having smart curtain is great and convenient I don’t think it’s yet cost effective to have it on every set of curtains in your house. It’s nice on one or two, but there may be no need to automate curtains that are rarely changed or within easy reach. The smart curtain controllers are a great example of retrofitting smart objects on existing dumb things to make them better. Having a robot push or pull curtains open is a glimpse into the future of how tiny machines can make everyday items better.
John Mayer is by far my favorite musician and what better way to exercise that fact by creating a top 10 list.
I first discovered John Mayer in college when Daughters was at the height of its popularity. I had thought John was just a fleeting pop artist, but when a coworker 15 years my senior mentioned how good he is, and I must check him out. I started with the only two albums he had out at the time, Room for Squares and Heavier Things. Both of those pop albums were not the Mayer we know today. Outside of his hit singles, I was instantly drawn to Why Georgia and Neon where he flexed his guitar skills. Having an early appreciation for John Mayer’s deep cuts positioned me, as a fan, for the release of his masterpiece Continuum.
I’ve listened to the Continuum album probably more than any other music album in existence. Every song is great and conjures indivdual feelings, much like Usher’s Confessions. Since his third album, I’ve been a fan. More than 15 years later, he’s still putting out classic music and living up to what I would call the greatest guitar player of my generation.
I’ve had the pleasure and opportunity to see John Mayer live in concert twice in the past five years. Listening to his studio recordings are great, but being in an arena with him live brings it to a whole new level.
My favorite band Dirty Heads recently released their eighth studio album which prompted me to update a long-running spreadsheet I’ve maintained. I like spreadsheets, stats, and organization so I paired that with my love of music and starting keeping track of my favorite band’s songs.
A few years back while listening to Dirty Heads’ back catalog I had wondered how often each singer in the band appears on their songs. Enter Microsoft Excel and a few hours of listening. I went through every song they’ve released and collected data based on who/when a singer is heard.
Over the last year, I haven’t really kept up with the spreadsheet and they haven’t released much new music. When the Dirty Heads announced a new album, Midnight Control, I was excited to update my list. The day that the album was released I went through the eight new songs and logged the data. After the updates, I made a graphic that I could share on Reddit and Facebook’s Dirty Heads groups.
I’ll probably continue to maintain this spreadsheet as the Dirty Heads are an independent band without the large following of a band like Maroon 5, so someone needs to do it.
The summer months offer a lot of natural light, but letting in the light comes with heat tradeoffs. There are ways you can automate blinds and shades to give you the natural light you need, when you need it, without having to touch your window dressings.
After working from home during the pandemic for a year and a half, I decided to upgrade my office blinds. The existing blinds where cellular shades that came with us in the move to this current house. They were fine, but I wanted something powered and better looking. Since I was looking at powered shades, I figured why not just get “smart” blinds too. The smart blind market is a premium one and I was immediately turned off when it starting getting pricing. Luckily Ikea exists to give us affordable options in the home decor space. I settled on the Fyrtur motorized roller shades in gray. Because of the size of my office window, I needed their largest offering of 122x195cm (48×76 3/4″). They fit the width perfectly, but are way too long, so I deal.
Ikea’s smart system links to their Tradfri hub to communicate with any of the major smart home ecosystems. When I purchased the blinds, the Tradfri Gateway was out of stock everywhere. As of this writing, Ikea has announced a new version coming in Fall of 2022. Obviously I bought the shades anyway thinking to myself “I bet I can get this working without the Ikea gateway”.
In a short amount of time I received the roller shades from Ikea and installed them above my office window. They have a very utilitarian aesthetic but do a great job of blocking the light. Black out shades were not something I needed, but it does work well. The motorized rolling shade was nice and the simple interface allowed me to set a lower limit so I could one-touch close them and not have them extend all the way to the floor. They came with a little handy remote that can open/close the shades without having to touch the large crossbar at the top. Funny thing about the remote is that the included wireless transceiver needs plugged into power for the remote to work. After searching again for the Ikea smart home gateway, I started the journey of making these dumb blinds smarter.
After some Reddit research I learned more about the Fyrtur blinds and that they communicate over the Zigbee wireless standard. This was great because I have a few Zigbee hubs in my house. First, my recent Aqara camera purchase has a Zigbee hub built in. A quick web search lets me know that the Aqara Zigbee hub is a closed system and only works with Aqara Zigbee accessories. Next, I went to my eero 6 pro wireless mesh system which also has Zigbee built-in. The eero Zigbee implementation is piggybacked on Amazon which means you can only add Zigbee items that work with Amazon/Alexa. The Ikea system does not work with Amazon. Lastly, I looked at some other ways I could get this connected by using a Homebridge plugin, my LG TV’s hub, or even “hacking” the smart system in the Ikea shades. No dice on either of those, so back to Reddit to get more answers. After posting about my predicament, someone recommended to me an open Zigbee hub that I can plug into my Homebridge Raspberry Pi via USB.
The USB Zigbee gateway that I purchased was the Conbee II. This is a pretty interesting project and the configuration is a little tricky. I made a walkthrough on how to get this working over here.
Motorized shades closing
My office shades were now connected to the Zigbee hub and I connected that to a Homebridge plugin which added the shades to Apple Home. Now that they were in my preferred smart home ecosystem, I could do some automations. When I start working at home, I have an automation that runs from my Stream Deck to start my day. I added opening my office blinds 35% to that script. Also, my ‘Good Night’ scene closes the blinds. As we get into the cooler weather with less light, I will add some more automations to close them with the setting sun.
First, before you roast me for talking about diet soda and exclaim how it is killing me, read this.
Basically, if you don’t drink a ton of it and still maintain a healthy lifestyle, it’s not bad for you. Who knew?
I prefer “diet” or “zero sugar” type sodas because of their perceived sweetness without impacting my glycemic index and adding to my overall daily calories. I would even go as far to say that I prefer the taste over traditional, full-sugar sodas. I enjoy a good soda pop but I don’t want to me left feeling like I just ate a bag of skittles.
Lost of love here for Coca-Cola company, and not so much for PepsiCo. I’m staying with widely available selections in the US and not considering any seasonal or special editions. Before you ask, yes Diet and Zero/Zero Sugar products actually taste different and are sold simultaneously.
Have you ever been so enamored with a TV show that when it’s over you feel like something is now missing from your life? Me too!
Like any other summer, my wife and I are watching less TV. Entertainment schedulers know this and make less new content available during the warmer months. Because we’re watching less and want to spend more time enjoying the weather, we gravitate towards shorter, less complicated, TV series. Usually sitcoms that are around 30 minutes are the sweet spot because of the usual large amount of episodes available and easy viewing.
This summer we are getting daily doses of Parks and Recreation. Yes, the same Parks and Recreation show that first aired in 2008 on NBC. Having only seen a few episodes here and there we decided to watch the entire series, in order. We’ve done this previously with shows like Seinfeld, The Big Bang Theory, and Modern Family.
The main cast of How I Met Your Mother
Last spring, summer, and fall we watched How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM). All 208 episodes. That show took me by surprise with how witty, heartfelt, and relatable it was. Even a year after completing the watch-through, I stand by it being the best network comedy show of all time. When the show ended, not only were we looking for a new regular show to watch, it felt like something was missing. Over the previous eight or so months, the show was a major part of our lives. When it was gone, there was a hole.
Not all TV shows, movies, or entertainment can make you feel this way. In fact, there’s probably only a few in your lifetime. I don’t think it’s wrong to feel this way either. The creators and actors of the show want you to feel. They write and act it in a way to invoke emotion. Different shows will hit with different people but there was something about the story and characters of HIMYM that imprinted on me. After we watched the entire series I took a long look at my life. Obviously one of those introspections was ”why am I having any feelings about a dumb TV show?” Someday I’ll write about the emotions that came out of this or start a feelings blog where I can really go there.
Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman) is my favorite TV character to date.
We’re about half way through Parks and Recreation and while I don’t feel this will have the huge impact on me like HIMYM, I’m already dreading the end. These TV shows, allow me to escape for 20-ish minutes and live in their fun-quirky world. The end is always disappointing and never what you think it should be. We’ve even avoided watching final episodes in a series so that we can feel that it’s never really over and we will always have just one more episode. Schitt’s Creek is a great example of this. We’ve never finished it even though we loved the series. Someday we’ll go back and spend time with the Rose’s again.
Parks and Rec is a show that I looked over for many years because I thought of it as a bad spinoff of The Office. While some of that is true, it’s very good on its own. If it continues at its current pace, in my perspective, it will be top-10 best shows of all time. Another someday project is list my top-10 best TV shows of all time.
What are some shows that made you feel this way? We’re always looking for another TV series to add to our summer playlist. Usually we look for something that we haven’t seen the entirety of and has a long run. If you haven’t yet watched How I Met Your Mother or Parks and Recreation, you should.
Additional great TV show recommendations:
Love – Netflix Seinfeld – Netflix King of Queens – Paramount+ The Office – Peacock Brooklyn Nine-Nine – Hulu
As a tech enthusiest and an information technology professional, I‘m always looking at technology first when looking at a vehicle. If I had to rank infotainment (what the industry calls the vehicle’s screen, software, and entertainment package) on a list of most important features it would definitely be in the top three. Not only am I a tech enthusiast, I’m also a car enthusiast so I’m always looking at what’s new in the car world. I’ve thought about buying several vehicles and decided against it only because of the technology implementation (looking at you Ford Explorer).
My current vehicle, 2022 Toyota Tundra Platinum, has the best technology package in a truck as of the time I bought it. Even better than the F-150 Lightning (which I’m still ”in line” to buy). The F-150 Lightning has the same infotainment as the non-electric F-150s with the exception of the added controls for the EV.
Ford Explorer ST Backup Camera View
Here’s what is wrong with most of today’s in-vehicle technology:
Large screens with bad use of space
Not utilizing integrated cameras effectively (see photo)
Trying to pack options on the screen that no one wants or uses
Not prioritizing the majority of drivers that use Apple CarPlay or Android Auto
Instead of filling the screen with the functions you are currently using, most manufacturers leave space for other controls, split screen, or messages. The same applies to mirroring you phone to the built-in display.
The 2022 Toyota Tundra has the cleanest large screen infotainment I’ve seen to date. This was major factor in why I purchased this particular truck, especially after pre-ordering an F-150 Lightning, and never owning a Toyota before. The Tundra’s infotainment is simple and thoughtfully laid out on the giant 14-inch LCD display in the center of the dash. There’s not a lot of bloat either with a modest selection of four different modes, plus Apple CarPlay or Android Auto.
When using Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, it takes over the entire screen giving you the most screen real estate to see your maps, music, or podcasts. My previous vehicles from Stellantis had a bottom navigation bar with CarPlay enabled to allow you to navigate away from CarPlay without having to do anything. Toyota’s implementation, like others I have seen, put a Toyota icon on your homescreen that when tapped, takes you to the built-in vehicle controls. This allows your phone mirroring experience to be more immersive . When the truck’s cameras are activated you again see it fullscreen and are able to see multiple cameras at once. Most of my in-car use is CarPlay so I never use the truck’s built-in functionality so the fullscreen experience was important to me. Hopefully soon Apple updates Carplay to better use the large amount of screen space I have now and make the elements fit better.
Digital rearview mirror camera
Front and bird’s eye cameras at a stop light
2022 Toyota Tundra technology overview
Pros: UI elements utilize large screen Fullscreen Apple CarPlay / Android Auto Responsive and high resolution No bloatware or complicated views Landscape orientation Digital rearview mirror
Cons: Can’t use in-vehicle WiFi hotspot and wireless CarPlay simulteanously CarPlay elements not made for such a large screen Uses Google Maps, but not an online version 360º camera view only available in park [P] Most camera views only available in drive [D]
In my short four months of owning the Toyota Tundra, it received one software update that was mainly bug fixes, but that doesn’t prevent them from adding features via an update. Hopefully they can add some cool stuff I haven’t thought of, but this is a promising start to a car brand that I once wrote off due to their interest in technology innovation.
Having a working Homebridge implementation was very helpful as I didn’t have to setup another device and could just focus on getting the shades to work.
Install and setup the Ikea Frytur shades
Pair the remote with the shades and make sure they work
Plug in the ConBee II to the Raspberry Pi via USB
Install deCONZ software on the Raspberry Pi
Connect to Raspberry Pi over SSH
Set user USB access rights sudo gpasswd -a $USER dialout
Recently I made a change to my daily driving vehicle, read about it here. My new vehicle doesn’t allow me to park inside my integrated garage which changes how I enter/exit my house. Previously, after parking in the garage, I could enter the house through the interior door to go inside. Now, I have to park out in the weather and go through my front door. Because of this change, I had to take a long hard look at the current smart lock on my front door.
When moving into my current house I purchased a smart lock that was the best available at the time. The Yale Assure SL had all the bells and whistles including HomeKit integration (via August), touch keypad, guest accounts, no key access, etc. Since then, I’ve had nothing but troubles with this lock which mostly was how fast the batteries would drain. The 4 AA batteries lasted between 7 and 21 days and more times than not, the door would be unlocked with dead batteries. When I was only parking in the garage, and not entering/exiting through the front door, this really didn’t impact me. At one point about year ago, I contacted Yale about the battery draining issue, and they sent me a new lock. The replacement lock didn’t help the issue and I was back to always having dead batteries.
Frustrated by this and using the front door more than ever, I set out to fix the problem. The latest and greatest technology for smart locks involves a new wireless standard called Thread but also a way to a better way unlock the door with your phone called Apple home key. The only available lock with this technology is the Schlage Encode Plus. Of course this lock cannot be found in stock anywhere and is not available to order (it’s also ugly). I needed a solution I could implement now and not wait for something to be manufactured.
I decided I would try a similar lock to the Yale Assure SL but had Google/Nest as the integration/backend. I went to my local Best Buy and picked up the Nest x Yale – Smart Lock with Nest Connect. The install and most of the parts were similar to my outgoing Yale lock so that made install a breeze. Setting up the lock in the Nest app was very easy and I was up and running within minutes, unlike the August implementation.
Door sensor with custom 3D printer bumper.
A couple of missing features that I was accustomed to on my previous lock were auto-unlock and a door sensor to detect if the the actual door was ajar or not. The August integration of the previous lock used your phone’s GPS to determine when you left or arrived your home, then lock or unlock your door. The idea behind this was great, but regularly failed. When the lock had battery power, upon arriving home, my door wouldn’t be unlocked. Due to the nature of Bluetooth and WiFi, my phone would also struggle to unlock the door, standing directly outside of it. That being stated, I was motivated to get these two features back, in another way.
The door sensor was pretty easy. I already have an Aqara Zigbee hub on my network so I can easily add their cheap sensors. I purchased a Aqara Door & Window Sensor and added it to my network and Apple Home. The sensor has two parts, one that goes on the moving object, in this case the front door, and the other piece goes on the static object, the interior wall. When the two pieces get close enough for a magnetic attraction, the sensor detects that it is closed. Upon installing the two sides on my door, I realized the door-side sensor was too far from the other sensor when closed. After a couple hours, I designed a 3D printed extension for the sensor, and now it lines up perfectly.
Next I had to tackle the auto-unlock feature. The Nest lock does have an auto-lock function, but it’s only time based. Once the door is unlocked, it will auto-lock in 15 minutes, or a preset time duration of your choosing. It doesn’t know if the door is open or closed, so if you leave the door open, it will still lock.
Previous to getting this lock, I purchased a Starling Home Hub that smartly integrates (almost) all Nest products into Apple Homekit. This is a much better solution than running a Nest plugin in Homebridge, plus you get a few extra features. When I added the new lock to my Nest account Starling Home automatically added it to Apple Home and I was able to control it immediately. This led me to using Apple Home and Apple Shortcuts to achieve my auto locking and unlocking goals.
First, I had to setup a plugin in Homebridge to allow me to have a dummy switch (read about why here). After that, I setup another dummy-type switch in Homebridge that triggers on a set time duration. This allowed me to constantly check if the door was open or closed, then act on it. All of this is done in Apple’s Home app with their built-in automation. It allows you to trigger actions based on your phone’s location, which is perfect for when I leave or arrive at home.
This locks my door when my phone detects that I’m out of range of my house. The DoorChecker automation also checks if the door is open/closed. If it’s open, it will not lock the door. In addition to when I leave my house, the DoorChecker automation runs every 15 minutes to ensure my door is always locked when closed.
Before I sold the Wrangler, I made a video of the Top 10 Reasons I’m Selling My Jeep Wrangler. I figured I would express that even though I made that video and sold it, I’m still going to miss my Wrangler.
These are the top 10 reasons why I’m going to miss my Jeep Wrangler.
10. Maintenance Doing your own maintenance on your vehicle is something enjoyed by many and the Jeep Wrangler makes it easy and enjoyable. Over the four years I’ve owned my Jeep, I performed a wide variety of tasks in my garage without issue. The oil plug and filter location makes oil changes a breeze. The last time I did an oil change, it took me about 15 minutes and 10 of those minutes were letting the oil completely drain. The overall ground clearance of the Jeep made rotating and swapping wheels easy as well. I even replaced the front brakes last year and was surprised at how easy Jeep made it. It’s like they knew most people get in there and tinker with stuff so they make it self-service friendly.
9. Fun-factor Having a Jeep Wrangler is fun. It’s much more capable than your standard SUV and comes with a lot of cool tricks like the removable top and doors. It rides and drives like a truck so you get that feel for it too. Overall the Wrangler is fun to drive around, even with its compromises.
8. Off-road Coming from a series of boy-racer type cars, having an off-road capable vehicle is a dramatic shift. Not having to worry about curbs, parking barriers, and potholes is nice. I never officially took my Jeep to an off-road trail or mud pit, but I did take my mall crawler off the road. Wether it was in my yard, the random dirt road, or the occasional grass parking lot, I can say my Jeep went off the road.
7. The Jeep club There’s a large (unofficial) club of Jeep Wrangler drivers and owners. The day you start driving a Wrangler your in this club. Just about every other Jeep driver waves at you and gives you the feeling like you are in a community. I’ve had countless people come up to me and start a conversation based solely on the fact that I was driving a Jeep Wrangler. It’s weird, but at the same time I think I’ll miss it.
6. Ruggedness Everything about the Wrangler is rugged. It looks rugged, the interior has rugged textures, and most of the time has all terrain tires on it. You can leave your top down/off in the rain and not have to worry about anything getting damaged. I recall a time I was at work and my soft top was down and my doors were off. It poured for probably an hour. Afterwards I went out to asses the damage. I pulled the plug in both floorboards and the almost three inches of water drained out. The sun then dried up everything else and by the time I left for the day it was dry. No damage done.
5. Convertible Speaking of having the top down, you may not realize this, but the Wrangler is a convertible. Optioned with either a soft top or hard top (I had both), the Jeep’s top can be removed or retracted for an open-air experience that’s like no other. Taking off all four doors and having the top down is one of my favorite summer activities in the Jeep.
4. Aftermarket accessories As one of the most popular vehicles in the United States, there are a lot of aftermarket accessories for the Jeep Wrangler. You can change almost anything the Jeep with the available third-party market. I added pre-runner lights to the grille, swapped the grille inserts for matte black finish, added a smaller antenna, wired in a 30″ light bar on the hood, upgraded the spare tire carrier to support bigger/heavier tires, added brighter reverse lights to the back bumper, and wired a LED brake light ring inside the spare tire.
3. The look I really like the look of the current Jeep Wrangler. Prior to model year 2018, the Wrangler looked ugly and outdated to me. When they redesigned it, I was immediately interested in being a Wrangler owner.
2. Stick shift The manual transmission, standard, and stick shift all mean the same thing. Shifting your own gears is a dying art as most cars today come with an automatic or dual-clutch transmission and only two pedals. In 2013, I decided to buy a Ford Focus ST that only came in manual transmission. I thought myself how to drive it and then never looked back. Since then, I’ve had two more vehicles both with stick shifts. The number of new vehicles being produced with standard transmissions is at an all-time low and with the electric revolution coming, it may go away for good.
1. The color I’ve always wanted a green car. It’s my favorite color and you rarely see cars any color except white, black, gray, or red. My previous two vehicles have been yellow/orange and blue and I finally got my green car. Mojito! the name that Jeep gave this version of green is an exciting color and gets noticed everywhere I went. It was a limited run color so there aren’t a lot of Jeeps around with that same color. Someday I hope to see more green vehicles for sale and I’ll do what I can to get another one.
The used car market is at an all-time high and I did what any American would do and tried to take advantage of it. My daily driver has been a 2018 Jeep Wrangler (4-door) for the last 46 months. While I always like to shop around for my next vehicle, there hasn’t been much I was excited about. I usually keep my vehicles for two to three years before I get bored and trade them in on the new hotness. This Jeep has been an exception and might be the longest I’ve ever driven one continuous vehicle. Selling to Driveway wasn’t my first choice, but they were the highest bidder.
You’ve probably seen all the online companies emerging that want to buy your car and pick it up for you. The popular ones being Carvana, Vroom, and Carmax, but I decided I was going to get prices from all of them. It’s an easy process to get a quote on selling your car. You just give them information about it and they give you a price instantly. Most of the time they honor that initial price throughout the buying process.
Last year I saw the announcement of the Ford F-150 Lightning, all electric pickup truck, and I was immediately enthralled with an electric truck. Ford took “pre-orders” of the Lightning models only to announce later that they wouldn’t be able to make that many quickly. Recently this year, Ford let me know that I won’t be getting a Lightning in the next 12 months. While sad about that, I was excited by the thought of having a truck, so I started looking at my options. All the while I was keeping an eye on what the value of my Jeep was. I never thought that I would sell it to a 3rd-party, but more likely would trade it to a dealer on a new car/truck.
In February of this year I told myself my next vehicle was going to be a truck, so I decided to actually keep tabs on my Wrangler price. Since then, the prices haven’t changed much, but I was pretty much going with the highest bidder. I found the prices to be all over the place and didn’t expect Driveway to be the leader. When I got quotes from each of these vendors I used the same information and options to make it fair across the board. I also used fake contact information because I didn’t want bothered and just wanted to see the price.
Service
Price
Driveway
$40,477
Carmax
$38,500
WeBuyAnyCar
$37,045
KelleyBlueBook
$35,550
Carvana
$33,280
Vroom
$32,479
CarBrain
$26,730
Peddle
$18,745
My price tracking from the nine services I contacted
Promo image from Driveway.com showing how easy it is to hand someone your keys
You can see how close the big names are, but hilariously CarBrain and Peddle are very low and not sure who would actually take that price. In my research I also learned about all the different companies that will offer to buy your car. Prior to this I didn’t know Carmax and KBB did the online buying thing. Additionally I also learned about services I’ve never heard of like CarBrain and Peddle. There are some out there that I didn’t bother looking at mainly because they didn’t offer instant quotes online without talking to someone. My time is worth more than what you’re probably going to offer me. Initially I thought Vroom or Carvana would be one of the companies buying the Jeep, but Driveway surprised me.
I recently got word that my truck of choice was on it’s way from the factory to a dealer near me. This meant it was ‘go-time’ for me to sell the Wrangler to Driveway. I went through the online quote process with my real information and somehow it was lower (by $1,000) than the previous number I had. This was fine so I completed all the additional information requested. Shortly after, I was texted by a person from Driveway confirming details. Here’s where it starts to get shaky… this is the timeline of what happened next.
Thursday March 31st – Text conversation from John at Driveway: “Hello Ben, this is John from Driveway.com. I’m reaching out regarding your 2018 Jeep All-New Wrangler. We sent you an offer of $40,477. Are you interested in moving forward with selling that vehicle?” Why yes John, I am. “Can I call you to explain the process?” Over an hour later John called me and talked me through what would happen next. I had made an appointment online for the next week to meet someone at a dealer near me to inspect the vehicle. Then they would schedule a date to come pick it up later. I asked a few questions about logistics and timing because I didn’t yet have a replacement vehicle. He assured me they were backed up and it would be 1-2 weeks before they came to get it.
“So… the person we had scheduled to pick up your Jeep next week can’t drive a stick shift”
Friday April 1st – Phone call from Jamie at Driveway: “We need to get approval from you, for your bank to release the payoff information on your car loan.” I was on the phone with Jamie for a while before we concluded that the bank might be closed for the day so we’d try again next week. Jamie also informed me that it might be too soon for them to get me a check for next week’s appointment. This is when I found out that the “inspection” appointment I made was the pickup my vehicle and take it away, appointment. I told her this was too soon and I needed to reschedule. So she was able to get my appointment rescheduled for the week after next.
Monday April 4th – Phone call from Susan at Driveway: “So… the person we had scheduled to pickup your Jeep next week can’t drive a stick shift, so we need to schedule someone who can drive a stick shift.” Susan even made me chuckle by calling it a “millennial anti-theft device” and I agreed, even though I’m a millennial.
Tuesday April 5th – Phone call from Susan again: We rescheduled the pickup and I had some more questions answered, because at this point basically everything changed. We scheduled the pickup on Monday April 11th and instead of it being at a nearby dealer, it was at my house. I told her that previously I thought it was somewhere else and she didn’t have record of that same information. No big deal, home is better for me. I asked about the payoff information and she said it looked good. She told me that they would provide me a check on Monday with the difference between the purchase price and my loan payoff, even though I thought I was getting a wire transfer. I also asked her to confirm the price. Susan said they had a lower price than my initial offer, but she was able to see that John mentioned the higher one, so they were going to honor that.
Tuesday April 5th – Phone call from Susan again: “Hi Ben, I have the bank on the line to confirm your information.” I talked to a representative from the bank I financed the Jeep through and confirmed everything. So now maybe we were actually ready and set for Monday.
Sunday April 10th – I received a reminder email from Driveway about my appointment on Monday. This was the first time I had an official appointment notice for the updated day/time. It was nice to know it was still happening. The email stated I needed to have my driver’s license, registration, keys, and all persons named on the title/registration needed to be present. Luckily that’s all me so I was ready.
I did some last minute gathering of all my personal belongings and left a few presents behind for the next owner. I didn’t bother cleaning the interior or exterior of the Jeep. I learned a long time ago that spending your own personal time cleaning a vehicle for trade/sell doesn’t actually return any additional value. I also left all my stickers/decals on the exterior. They can remove those.
I learned a long time ago that spending your own personal time cleaning a vehicle for trade/sell doesn’t actually return any additional value.
Monday April 11th – I got a call around 10am from Brian at Driveway. He was confirming some details and times. I told him I was able to meet earlier and so we planned for 11am. Shortly after 11, he arrived via Uber and greeted me.
The entire process took less than 15 minutes. He started the car, took some photos, looked around, and then gave me the check. He opted not to do a test drive since he was happy with what he saw. I had to sign some power of attorney documents (standard for vehicle sell/trade) and the sales documents. He removed my license plate and attached a dealer plate, then drove it away.
That deal is now done. They’re going to payoff the remainder of my loan and deal with my bank directly. The check I received is a difference between the sale amount and the payoff.
I had a lot of hesitation going into this process as I’ve never sold a car to anyone but a local buyer or dealer. Selling your car to an online service can be scary, but Driveway made it mostly easy the entire time. There were a few hiccups of scheduling, pricing, and information, but in the end it worked out. I can honestly say I would do this again tomorrow if I needed to. The only thing I lost in the deal was the tax benefit of trading in the Jeep at the same time of buying a new vehicle. The tax savings was about half of the difference Driveway offered, so still worth it to me.
On this day in 2020, my company sent out an email with details on alternative work strategies for the next 14 days. This meant we were being kicked out of the office and forced to work from home. The CDC and our local government were issuing guidance surrounding the impeding COVID-19 global pandemic. Two weeks was the average timeframe floating around for the lockdown. We had originally planned for a technology test day where most people would work from home to test the strength of our remote infrastructure. At this point, we weren’t a heavy work from home company and more of a in the office everyday type of workforce. This technology test day never happened and we were thrust into the work from home life for the next two weeks. As you probably know, it didn’t last two weeks. In fact, my company has still yet to define how the future of working will look, whether that’s full-time work from home or a mix of in-office and at-home work strategies. Over these last two years I’ve learned a lot about me, how I work, and how I can do my job from anywhere.
Shortly after starting to work from home, the two week estimate grew into “TBD” and we started to settle in. I posted an article (Working Whilst Home) and also shared it with my company. This was my take on effective time and space management working at home coming from a previous telecommuter. This article still holds true two years later and I’d encourage you to read it before we dig into what has happened since.
