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Gadget Wisdom

Category: Lifestyle

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How to Choose the Brain for Your Home: Options for a Home Automation Hub

 

You can do Home Automation without any sort of hub. I still have one, the Wink hub. I chose it over Smart Things, the biggest competitor, for various reasons, but both have their place.

However, I have been moving to my own homebuilt system. I centered on a project called Home Assistant.

There are alternatives…OpenHAB, which uses Java, but Home Assistant has a good combination of ease of use and flexibility, so I am going to focus on it.

Home Assistant has a very active community of people and developers, which is an advantage. It is a Python based implementation and there is a distribution specifically for the Raspberry Pi making it easy to get started. New releases with new features happen about every two weeks.

I’m running it on an always-on system I already had, rather than a Pi, and I’ve spent a lot of my spare time building in support for items…and I keep adding piece after piece of integration.

Next up, my first integrations.

Published on October 8, 2017
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Starting with Security and Lighting

The two areas that I see a lot of interest in controlling are security and lighting. With the introduction of the Amazon Echo and its ilk, people want to turn their lights on and off with their voice assistant. It is often the gateway drug into more insanity.

One can start with just screwing in an alternative light bulb.

The other one, the more elusive for me, is security. I’ve never had a traditional security system with monitoring. But I’m increasingly interested in building my own. But it is hard to figure out what that is.

Paying for monitoring is not something I am prepared to do. You are paying a company to notify the police. I can do that. Notifying the police isn’t something I want to be automatic, because over 90 percent of alarm calls by police are false and there are actually fines for false alarms in New York City, where I live, and many other places.

We have one of the best security monitoring devices on us most of the time…the cell phone. If I can be notified by my phone and review the information, then I can make decisions based on that action. I’m going to talk about various notification options as well.

Recently, a family friend had to drive back home because their alarm was tripped. It was a false alarm, but the second that week.

Some of this, I am learning about as I go. So, I welcome anyone correcting me or giving me advice.

Published on October 3, 2017
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Home Automation Obsession: Introduction

For the past few weeks, I’ve been in the midst of an ever escalating home automation kick. It started with one repair, and spiraled into a massive upgrade.

But, I feel the need to document it. Partly because of what happened last time. Years ago, I had X10 home automation devices in my home. I had a control mechanism hooked up to a computer.

And then I ripped it out and didn’t look back. But why did I do that? Let’s see.

  1. The computer control mechanism was serial and no one was using serial ports anymore. The newer USB controllers happened to be less than compatible with my operating system, Linux.
  2. X10 used power line signaling as its primary source of control. This meant that any noise on your electric lines…including your washer/dryer, would disrupt signals. Noise could be interpreted as instructions to turn things on and off.
  3. The protocol dates from the 70s and isn’t as robust as it could be.

 

A lot of the stuff I’ve switched to now is Zigbee, Z-Wave, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth. I assume most people know what Wi-Fi and Bluetooth is, so let’s cover the other two.

Z-Wave dates from 2001, Zigbee from 1998. Z-Wave has greater range than Zigbee, both are mesh networking protocols, offer encryption, and require pairing with a radio in order to function.

The Wink hub, which I use, has both Zigbee and Z-Wave radios. The new Amazon Echo Plus announced this week has a Zigbee radio. Increasingly, people are looking to add these radios into routers, voice assistants, etc, to give those devices the ability to control smart devices.

Being as I am afraid of being left behind if a company or standard bites the dust…remembering X10, I’ve connected my Wink setup to a computer based setup and equipped that computer with a bluetooth, z-wave, and zigbee radio of its own. This means I could transfer devices over to it if Wink shuts down, and I can build a Frankenstein-like network of devices that the computer can connect, even if their manufacturers are not interested in doing so.

So, for the last few weeks, I’ve been adding integration after integration…before I actually set up any sort of automation. Lowes has been running a clearance sale on Sylvania smart bulbs(I went to three different Lowes and bought what I wanted) and I’ve added more controlled lights.

Amazon boxes have been coming every day bringing new pieces to extend this system, and I’ve been connecting up other connected devices, such as my weather station, weather forecasts, Google traffic data, etc so I can use it to have decisions made.

Even my personal website could theoretically send a signal when something occurs…Imagine my lights flashing when I have a comment or something.

So, a lot to cover.

Published on September 29, 2017
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Should Cable, Internet Companies Be Required To Let You Cancel Service Online?

Should Cable, Internet Companies Be Required To Let You Cancel Service Online? (Consumerist)

Just about any pay-TV or Internet service provider (often one in the same) lets new customers sign up online. You can do the whole process — check your address for availability (even if the c…

Published on April 3, 2016
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Google Discontinues Google Wallet Card

Important update about the Google Wallet Card (google.com)
I have a Google Wallet card and am a bit disappointed about its termination. I didn’t use it enough to justify having it though, but a prepaid debit account can have its advantages if you want to keep money separate from other accounts. They are right though, there are many alternatives.
Published on April 3, 2016
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RadioShack’s VP Of Stores Keeps Reminding People That It Still Exists

RadioShack’s VP Of Stores Keeps Reminding People That It Still Exists (Consumerist)

RadioShack declared bankruptcy last February and closed around 2,300 of its stores. Around 1,700 of the company’s stores didn’t close, though, and the Shack’s leaders want you to …

Published on April 3, 2016
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Cubetto – Hands on coding for ages 3 and up

Cubetto – Hands on coding for ages 3 and up (Kickstarter)

A playful programming language you can touch. Montessori approved, and LOGO Turtle inspired. Learn programming away from the screen.

Published on March 28, 2016
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Pinboard Switches from One-Time to Annual Fee

Bookmarking site Pinboard has announced that effective January 1st, 2015, it will discontinue the one-time signup fee and instead offer a $11/year plan, as well as the existing $25/year archival plan.

However, anyone who is an existing member, or who signs up before January 1st, will be grandfathered in.

As someone who has 32,000 bookmarks in Pinboard of articles I found of interest, I would recommend the service. It is flexible enough to be whatever you want it to be.

For me, as an archival customer, it is a record of every online source I read and found of interest that I know will be there(as it is archived on the Pinboard server). I can search that for any article I remember reading.

Other people use it in other ways. It can be social, it can be a Read It Later service…I used to use a Read It Later service, when what I really wanted was an archive.

So, if you are interested, give it a try before the price goes up.

Published on December 15, 2014
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The New Home Theater Rack

The Storage of Electronic Components is always a hard thing. For years, my audio components have been housed in a Ikea Besta Media Cabinet with ventilation and wiring holes cut into the rear panel. This created some support issues, as the cabinet wasn’t designed for the function I was using it for.

I could have hacked the thing more, but opted for replacement, as the color Besta I use was discontinued, and thus replacement parts weren’t going to be an option in the future.

All of my home networking equipment, cable modem, router, etc, happen to converge under my stereo system, which contains a receiver, Blu-Ray player, DVR Cable Box(under protest from the cable company), etc.

I needed something that was structurally strong, open for ventilation, and easily adjustable. I looked at a variety of commercial media cabinets, relay racks, etc before deciding on Elfa.

Yes, Elfa…I switched from Ikea, the Swedish home furnishings company, to Elfa, a Swedish shelving company. Elfa is owned by The Container Store, which happened to be having its annual Elfa shelving sale.

So, why Elfa? While they offer the traditional easy hang closet type shelving, they offer a freestanding option, which is what I used. While I went for ventilated shelving, they offer solid shelving as well as decorative pieces.

I did go for a simple industrial look, but I didn’t have to. I found examples online of people using the same shelving for TV stands and other functions as well.

In the end, Elfa, even with a 30% off sale, was more expensive than the Besta solution I had, and comparable to assembled media cabinets. I could have gotten a pressboard or glass cabinet of similar design.

But what appeals to me in design is modularity. I will replace a component, need to adjust the height of shelving, need to replace wires…a modular layout permits me to do this. A fixed layout means I am limited.

What solutions have you come up with to solve this sort of problem? What do you think of this one?

Published on March 3, 2014
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RIP Google Reader

Today, July 1st, Google Reader is officially gone.

Image representing Google Reader as depicted i...

Om Malik, of GigaOm, asked the question…Google killed Reader instead of updating it. If this is such a wise decision, why are so many companies scrambling to get into this space?

The truth is, Google Reader was based on the Inbox model. You’d see everything. Nowadays, there is too much information, too many sites. My feed reader is rarely empty. But the same can be said for my Twitter stream.

The option to have a more curated experience is the business these people are getting into. Build a better experience and the signal generation will allow for better ad targeting, which is why people are scrambling.

In the end, Google Reader is gone, and those who wanted what it offered will just have to move on.

For those of us who run websites, the question is how to have people learn about and follow our work. And RSS is a big part of that, and will likely continue…although I wouldn’t trust Feedburner. That’s a Google RSS product too, after all.

Published on July 1, 2013
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