Home Automation
124 episodes · Page 3 of 6
#3966: Building Custom Furniture That Hides a 6U Server Rack
How to embed a proper 6U rack into living room furniture — rails, spacing, toddler-proofing, and cooling.
#3801: Your Apartment in 3D: The Open-Source Stack That Works
Blueprint to VR walkthrough using free tools. No CAD degree required.
#3792: Cloud Brain, Local Fingers: Decoupled Home Assistant
Can Home Assistant run in the cloud while Zigbee stays local? We explore the decoupled control plane architecture.
#3787: Proxmox vs Stock Linux for Home Servers
When rebuilding a home server, should you install Proxmox or just use stock Linux with KVM? We break down the tradeoffs.
#3775: SBC Clusters vs Virtualization: The Real Tradeoffs
Why physical isolation sounds great but virtualization usually wins for home servers.
#3544: What 4U Actually Means: Rack Gear for Home Labs
Rack height units, case costs, and cabinet types explained for home users and small businesses.
#3322: Desk Pets: Local AI on Your Desktop
Are desk pets useful tools or expensive Tamagotchis? We break down the local AI, privacy tradeoffs, and psychology behind these devices.
#3245: Why Integrated LED Fixtures Are Beating Smart Bulbs
Smart bulbs cram radios into metal cages. Integrated fixtures solve that—and Matter makes it seamless.
#3242: Where to Put White Noise Machines for ADHD Focus
Desk placement is wrong. Here's where to put white noise machines for actual sound masking that works.
#3230: Why Your RGB Bulb Is Useless for Sleep Lighting
RGB bulbs go dim in red mode. Here's the physics, the fix, and what to actually buy.
#3168: 30 BLE Tags for $60: DIY ADHD Object Tracking
Stop losing your stuff. Build a self-hosted BLE tracker system for 30 items at 1/8 the cost of commercial trackers.
#3097: Measuring Car Horns: Phone Apps vs. Court Evidence
Can a phone spectrogram app prove which car honked? Usually not — here's what you actually need.
#3058: How to Get 15 Hours of Light From Your UPS
Turn your UPS into an emergency light source with the right LED bulb, NUT, and Home Assistant automation.
#2844: How Many Pixels Do You Actually Need?
At what point does adding more pixels stop mattering to the human eye? The numbers are brutal for marketing.
#2843: Why Solar Gadgets Fail: The Missing Battery Buffer
Why your solar USB panel can't run a Raspberry Pi — and the fix that actually works.
#2821: The Trench Coat Is on Fire: Making Smart Home Parts Interrupt Each Other
Three engineering problems in a trench coat. Make Zigbee sirens, Snapcast speakers, and push-to-talk audio actually work together.
#2815: Free Cloudflare WAF: Is It Enough for Self-Hosting?
Skip Cloudflare Access and lock down Home Assistant with just the free WAF rules. Here's how.
#2764: Weatherproofing Electronics: Beyond the IP Rating Trap
How to run Ethernet outdoors without destroying your gear. Cable types, conduit tricks, and the condensation trap.
#2762: Thread vs Zigbee: Multi-Floor Smart Home Networking
Can you mix Thread border routers from different brands across floors? Yes—here's how it actually works.
#2759: Why Your Smart Home Can't Mimic a Hotel
Can Zigbee and Matter handle a two-story house with outdoor devices? We break down mesh hops, latency, and real-world limits.
#2670: When Your Projector's App Store Dies
Brightness, screens, and software longevity — what to look for when buying a portable projector.
#2668: When a Flamethrower Is Overkill
Tesseract, EasyOCR, or a cloud vision model? How to build a fast, reliable label scanner for real-world conditions.
#2646: When Your Door Won't Open: The Failure-Mode Philosophy of Smart Locks
Z-Wave vs Zigbee vs Wi-Fi for smart locks. What's reliable enough to trust with your front door?
#2626: The Trust Problem in Bedroom Automation
Smart glass vs smart curtains for circadian health — what works in a rental bedroom without owning the walls?