IOT
82 episodes · Page 3 of 4
#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?
#2608: Can You Wire Your House Like a Hotel?
Can you wire your house like a hotel? Here's what KNX costs, how it works, and how to connect it to Home Assistant.
#2597: Voice Control for Renters: $25 Per Room, No Wall Damage
Distributed voice control on a budget with wake words, centralized processing, and zero wall damage — perfect for rentals.
#2566: Why Your RGBW Bulbs Get Dim in Color Mode
Cheap bulbs aren't the whole story — physics limits how bright color LEDs can get. Here's what to buy instead.
#2479: The Screaming Baby Stress Test
Choosing the right headset and control method for dictation when you're holding a baby who won't stop screaming.
#2365: Building a Custom Home Alarm Panel with ESP32
Discover how to build a tactile, local-control alarm panel for Home Assistant using ESP32, Omron buttons, and Zigbee sensors.
#2364: The $1000 Military Clock You Can Build for $30
Learn how to build a precise dual-timezone clock using an ESP32 microcontroller, LCD displays, and USB-C power.
#2358: ESP32 vs Raspberry Pi: The Microcontroller Mindshift
Why your smart thermostat doesn’t run Linux—and why that’s a feature. The surprising differences between microcontrollers and single-board computers.
#2330: Offloading Attention: The Case for Ambient Notifications
How USB lights and DIY setups are rethinking notifications to reduce screen overload and tap into your peripheral vision.
#2326: Voice Control Simplified: Home Assistant’s Local Stack
Discover how to build a reliable, vendor-agnostic voice control system for Home Assistant without relying on Amazon or Google.
#1941: Why You Can't Zigbee-Wi-Fi Your House
The "mesh" promise fails when you hit the coordinator bottleneck. Here's why multiple hubs don't work like Wi-Fi.
#1934: Why Pro Routers Still Won't Touch Your Light Bulbs
Your Wi-Fi 7 router handles everything except smart home radios. Here’s why the “one box” dream is still stuck in 2026.
#1933: Building a Phone Chain to Signal Underground
Old phones can create a lifeline when signals fail, but physics and hardware impose harsh limits.
#1852: The BCI Inflection Point: Trade-offs Between Implants and EEG
We trace BCIs from 1970s EEG caps to today’s high-bandwidth implants, comparing Neuralink and Synchron’s invasive vs. minimally invasive approaches.
#1768: Why Can't My Phone Work in a Bomb Shelter?
Thick concrete kills cell signals, but SMS and mesh networks can break through the silence.
#1281: How to Tell If Your IoT Device Is Actually Spying
Your smart bulb might be doing more than just dimming the lights. Learn how to spot suspicious "calling home" behavior in your home IoT devices.
#1280: Laptop Farms: North Korea’s Invisible Hardware Backdoor
Discover how North Korean operatives use "laptop farms" and IP-KVM hardware to bypass security and infiltrate the US workforce.
#656: When Open Hobbyists Meet Industry Standards
Herman and Corn dive into the shifting landscape of smart home protocols and why Ethernet coordinators are the future of home automation.
#642: Why Your Car Is a Hostile Computer
Think building a PC is hard? Try wiring a car. Herman and Corn explain how to upgrade your ride’s tech without frying the CAN bus.
#594: Digital Dust: Can NFC Tags Survive for Decades?
Explore the science of NFC longevity, from EEPROM bitrot to physical durability, and learn how to future-proof your home inventory system.
#577: The Shadow City: Why Sewers Are Civilization's Last Frontier
Explore the hidden world of urban infrastructure, from Victorian brickwork to AI-powered robots and the battle against the "fatberg."
#461: DIY vs. Pro: Is Your Smart Home Actually Secure?
Explore whether DIY smart home setups can truly replace professional security systems in this deep dive into hardware, reliability, and redundancy.
#458: Why Your City Won't Freeze When a Server Dies
Ever wonder how the power grid stays balanced? Herman and Corn dive into SCADA, PLCs, and the tech keeping our modern world running.
#434: The Great Sunsetting: When 2G Dies, Your Gadgets Become Paperweights
Why is your GPS tracker now a paperweight? Explore the global 2G/3G sunset and the rise of 5G's new "invisible infrastructure."