How to Responsibly Automate Your Home with Mike Gray

From elementary school music teacher to a Senior Cloud Engineer at Defiance Digital, Mike Gray has lived quite a few lives. He hit it off with Corey during the AWS New York Summit this past summer. What brought them together? Their mutual frustration at what dominated the discourse of the event: the current fascination with GenAI. Although Mike has his qualms with AI, he also enjoys working with it quite a bit. As a matter of fact, he uses it to help automate his home and appliances! From exploring what goes into consulting customers on cloud products, to the nightmare of having your kids hijacking your Alexa with an endless stream of children’s music, this episode features twists and turns, leaving no stone unturned.

Show Highlights:

(0:00) Intro

(0:40) Chronosphere sponsor read

(1:14) The responsibilities of a Senior Cloud Engineer at Defiance Digital

(2:07) Cloud product consulting

(3:27) The challenges of working with Kubernetes

(7:50) Mike's problems with AI

(9:33) Challenges with home automation

(15:38) Chronosphere sponsor read

(16:13) The joys of home automation

(18:34) Prefered hardware for home automation

(20:10) Home automation and the impact on your relationships and kids

(23:43) Going from teaching kids to the world of tech

(28:42) Where you can find more from Mike

About Mike Gray
Mike Gray is a technologist, currently employed as a Senior Cloud Engineer, with a focus on Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform.

In previous roles, he has worked with companies of every size, from single-digit employee startups to Fortune 500 companies. In a past life, Mike has worked as a professional musician and music educator.

Mike is also an active open source contributor, splitting time between OpenVoiceOS and Neon AI. Think of it as open source Alexa, but all your data stays at home.

Links

• Mike's website: https://graywind.org
• Mike’s email: mike@graywind.org
• Mike’s Twitter: https://x.com/saxmanmike

Sponsor

Chronosphere: https://chronosphere.io/?utm_source=duckbill-group&utm_medium=podcast