Software engineer (video games). Likes dogs, DJing + EDM, running, electronics and loud bangs in Reservoir.

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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 11th, 2023

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  • Just to play devil’s advocate, why do you want to automate your lighting? I’d consider myself an advanced HA user (been using it since 2019 and have coded several custom integrations and built custom hardware) and never bothered with automating my home lighting. I’m always walking past the light switch as I enter or exit a room anyway, so it’s not a big inconvenience.

    The real wins I’ve gotten from HA are smarter home security (door locks/sensors/cameras etc), climate control, energy management, garden irrigation, and remote control of “dumb” devices like my garage door and motorised front gate.

    Edit: thanks for the insights all! Seems having kids and older houses are common reasons for automating lighting.


  • For couch gaming, the discontinued Steam Link hardware is still king IMHO. I tried switching to the Android app on my smart TV and have had nothing but trouble with connection quality (even over a gigabit wired connection) and maintaining 4 controllers connected to the TV at once. It seems extremely sensitive to host hardware and software issues, which often change underneath you with TV updates. The Android hardware and software it runs on is just too variable to ensure a consistent reliable experience, and Bluetooth controller support is often hit or miss.

    The Steam Link hardware was amazing as it did exactly what it needed to do, and most importantly was tested more thoroughly than the thousands of Android devices that all have their own quirks and specs. I hope they bring it back.













  • I’m no expert but just helping you kick the tires a little bit - for the audio outs, are you thinking of just running speaker wire from an amp in the server closet to the ceiling of all of the audio out locations?

    For what it’s worth, I’ve dabbled with wifi/Bluetooth speakers and while they generally work well, there always seems to be some software update or connectivity dropouts enough that I’d much prefer a wired system to eliminate over-the-air issues for a long-term robust solution.





  • I’d love to see a Linux distro attempt to implement a migration wizard for Windows users. Do all the heavy lifting for them, including walking them through what personal data and accounts they want to migrate across, creating a bootable USB installer, then running said installer and copying across their data for them. Maybe even detect and install any apps they’re using, or suggest FOSS alternatives. In practice I imagine this would be a nightmare to try and implement effectively, but it’d be pretty cool to see.