THE BYTE

Welcome to the BYTE, where we serve up the latest home and tech news from the last week for you to sink your teeth into.

This week’s BYTE is focused on fears over affordability, a new trend for beach front property, a little more of an empty Nest, the latest home innovation for your best friends, and a new take on hands free technology. Enjoy!

Generally

What Else Is New?

Redfin conducted a survey in August 2016 that showed, surprise, people’s biggest concern with buying a house is affordability. Redfin paired this study with the release of a list of cities with the most affordable homes.

O.K., Any Other Results?

The study showed that:

• Millennials were the most concerned with affordability followed by size and quality/design;
• The main reason people were influenced to buy was that rent was too high;
• And overall, people’s decision to buy was not affected by the stock market, Brexit, or the election this year.

Also the top 3 affordable cities were Detroit, Cleveland and Baltimore, showing that if you want to buy an affordable home just move to an affordable place. If you don’t want to move, the study included really fun charts that show the rapid decline of affordable homes in several cities.

Run To The Hills

No More Coasting Through Life

New data suggests people are slowly moving away from coastal cities. For as long as humans have kept records, the majority of the global population lived on the coasts. This might not be true for much longer as more people are moving inland. As global water continues to rise and storms like this continue to happen, this trend may accelerate.

Take Notes

Empty Nest-ers

In the latest news from Alphabet, Google’s parent company, there will be several developers moving over to Google from Nest. The move came about because of Google ramping up its operations on trying to dominate the smart home market, specifically targeting everyone’s living rooms.

The Only Smart Home Tech You’ll Need

Acer just launched into the pet friendly smart home world with Pawbo+. With Pawbo+ you can skype with your pets and share the video on social media. There are also the add-on products aptly named, Catch, Munch, Punch, and Flash, for playing catch, giving treats, playing “whack-a-mole”, and recording your animals in the dark without hurting their eyes. Who knows, maybe this smart home tech will become the norm? Or will it be a “ruff” road?

Just Roll With Me On This One

Cowarobot has us wondering, has science gone too far? Cowarobot is the newest self-controlled, motorized suitcase. The suitcase comes with a wristband that lets the suitcase know where you are and will follow you at “an arm’s length.” The suitcase also has a camera and sensors to avoid objects and stairs. What might be the coolest, but non-necessary feature, is the button that tells your suitcase to find you, basically like the Batmobile.

Totally Unrelated

That’s One Tough Melon

If you were ever wondering if a watermelon covered in LineX (super-strong, spray on coating) could survive a 147 foot drop, today is your lucky day.