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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: February 14th, 2025

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  • The way I have it set up, HomeKit (hey siri) has full control over the stuff people want to control. So hey Google open the blinds/turn on the lights always works. But the blinds might still close 30 seconds later if that’s when the trigger occurs. Homeassistant is my coordinator.

    Generally there’s limited use of HomeKit in my house because there’s a lot of automations. HomeKit only is a bunch of switches. I would set up Google the same way.

    I don’t have smart switches if I can’t easily come up with a good automation - either motion based (which doesn’t work if the sensor doesn’t face enough of the room or if there isn’t enough motion to trigger it eg sitting in office chair) or time based (you positively know that between x and y hrs you need the lights on). And the automation needs to be pretty reliable; if I’m overriding constantly I’ve done it wrong. The convenience factor of being able to turn it off from my bedroom doesn’t add up in my case.

    I also expose some switches to HomeKit that toggle things eg a water recirculating pump to toggle before starting the shower for instant hot water. But I’m a nerd.








  • As this is BIFL, at a significant increase in price, I’m a fan of Concept2 products. It’s a good company, making good products. As far as I can tell, they sell all the parts for their equipment going back 30+ years. I personally have over 6 million meters on qmy bike erg in addition to my family members. For me it was a bit of a dance getting it shipped out, but if you’re in USA it’ll be fine.

    The BikeErg is a basic machine (compared to a peloton with screen), is moderately costly, and makes white noise, but it is good quality and effective. Their rowers are the established standard, and worth considering as well.



  • Low tech options: a smart plug that power cycles if it can’t ping eg google and have your edge devices plugged in there, or a timer that reboots the firewall at 0200 daily. I haven’t implemented either of these, despite having a network other people rely on about 400km from my house. I should remediate that…

    I have decided dual firewalls are silly without dual internet and dual power, as both those things go down more often than my FW.

    I have two instances of pihole on two hosts, because I block dns outbound to the best of my ability.







  • Despite the captions Hemerocallis is not native to North America, but serves here as a colourful addition, adding some red depth.

    Sticking only to native plants doesn’t always give a pleasing result (especially in more extreme climates); it’s perfectly ok to mix them in with nonnative (noninvasive) species to add some variety. Having some native plants is better than a manicured lawn and entirely nonnative species!