Search engines are good for what you might call "keyword searches" across websites. I'd say SEO spam has degraded quality of hits and made search results less reliable than even 5 years ago. There's a lot more chaff to winnow now in the main search services. You sorta need to discriminate on hits, and dig a bit deeper into the results to find that new nugget you didn't already see 3 or 4 times already in previous searches with similar, but different parameters.
I find the LLM AIs to be slightly better at turning up obscure info these days. The conversation sets some persistent context that's helpful when you need to dial in on obscure stiff like a driver issue, tuning problem or weird product spec. You still need to carefully vet your results, but the AIs understand technical jargon pretty well, and generally return some solid analysis for leas common scenarios.
They're also good for pick-and-shovel work in odd tech areas, but you really need to be careful with the results because they're confidently wrong in speculative conversation only slightly more often than they're confidently right.
That's just my opinion, but it's how I do search these days: use an AI to refine keywords, then use DDG or Google to find familiar sites with corollary content.
I'd said over on the Old Place back during the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD wsrs that people really liked their 7" optical media. I got down voted to hell for it then, but I'm glad to see I wasn't totally wrong.
Cheap, high density media has its applications. Tape is still the preferred long-term storage medium for backups in a lot of industy sectors because still stores gobs of data, it's dirt cheap, compact, light and it transports easily. If you don't need it to be fast, or you're regularly producing large scale data sets that are essentially disposable after some time, then it's a good compromise.
No reason this tech couldn't step into that niche when it hits the right price point.
You've got two challenges here: automatically controlling the fan, and detecting a suitable trigger for an automation routine.
The very first thing I'd do, though, is see if the landlord can do anything about it before you do anything else. Free air flow between two units may be a fire code violation, or there may be a blockage further up the exhaust duct if the other fan is developing enough pressure to bypass your damper.
As for your question...
Controlling the fan is perhaps the easier of the two. A 4-speed fan switch most likely implements a muktivalue resistor with discrete values-- each ON position allows a different value of current to flow through the switch to the fan motor, thereby controlling the speed. There are wireless fan controllers out there, but they tend to be driven by RF or IR remotes, which CAN be incorporated into a home automation system, but it takes extra steps. I'm not really familiar with the options for operating those controls from a smart assistant, but others here might have better info than me.
Since you want the assistant to turn the fan on low, it might be possible to shim in a mini smart relay that can work with a rocker switch, like a Shelly 1 or similar, wired in series with the rocker switch. Then you can leave the fan on low while you are not using it, and allow the assistant to control it on demand. I don't know how those switches interact with a multi position switch though, since they are looking for transitions of ON/OFF to energize or deenergize the load terminals. You'd need to research it more. And, of course, you'd be modifying the range hood wiring which might cause you other, nontechnical issues.
As for detecting a trigger condition, this is rather harder. The changes in temperature, humidity or airflow outside your range hood when the neighboring fan is operating will be slight, perhaps within the noise band for the sensor, so my may get false positives, or just not detect it reliably. If you could situate the sensor in the duct itself, then airflow may be a viable option, but again, that may violate code or terms of your lease somehow.
Detecting odors is an altogether different set of challenges. Most of the common gas sensors are looking for specific compounds, like carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, methane, hydrogen sulfide, etc. Food odors generally only contain trace amounts of those sorts of compounds. Your neighbors would need to consistently cook dishes that offgas one of these detectable compounts, which themselves would need to infiltrate into your air space in sufficient concentration to be reliably detected. I'm not an organic chemist and I am not saying it can't be done, but I wager a lot would have to be "just so" for your system to work as you describe it.
If it's not too intrusive for you to do so, you might just consider leaving the fan on low through mealtimes, perhaps using one of the micro relay suggestions in a timer routine on your assistant.
I think realtime media routed through the node back when I was running one, but that was quite a while ago now. It wasn't bad for my crew, but load scales exponentially in those sort of applications as you take on endpoints.
Probably for the best. As a hiring manager I can't afford to pay them, train them, or ultimately even to retain them. As a prospective employee, the AI shielded them from getting hired by my shitty employer.
I meant broadcast paging over the intercom system like "Dr. Whomever please report to pre-op," but I agree the old beeper style pagers were a bit sketch
Yeah, that's been a problem lately. Haier also recently issued a takedown against the maintainer who published the Home Assistant integration for their brands of air conditioners and other smart appliances.
Ford, Tesla, and several other smart device makers have similarly taken their seni-open APIs to license-only/closed source only recently.
Which is dumb because even if they DO want to monetize that data stream by selling it to data brokers, the people they've affected by closing those APIs represent a small fraction of their user base. It amounts to a rounding error in the revenues.
My day job is IT support that is in part adjacent to healthcare, and I can tell you a lot of healthcare actually relies on widgets connected via wireless and WiFi. Not just the mobile terminals they bring around for your charts, but also active elements like insulin pumps, chemo injectors, phone/intercom/paging systems, panic buttons.... A lot of it runs over wireless infrastructure, WiFi and other technologies, and is handled by a central controller that might be on-prem, or might be in the cloud.
Its a rough day for everyone when the WiFi is down or the Internet is out down in the wards
I used to live alone, and travel quite a bit for work. I started with sensors like water sensors in the sump area of my basement, window/door sensors, temperature sensors and a chincy USB web camera on the cats' feeding area to make sure they were staying fed and watered. It was peace of mind that things were OK at home while I was away, and let me call in help if something was awry.
After I started my family, I got tired of chasing people around to turn off lights, TVs and game systems when they were done, to turn on/off fans in the bathrooms and stuff like that. It was easier to just let the system deal with it. Couple of unsaved games getting lost later, and they got the hint.
Eventually we had new families on the block and neighbors started having packages go missing, so i installed cameras over my front & back porches to alert for deliveries, or at least provide instant replay for where DID that package go after it was dropped off? Its been as effective a deterrent as it's been useful to see how much traffic my front porch gets weekly. You'd be surprised how many solicitors come through sometimes.
So while I do lights and fans and sensors and stuff, I don't bother with things like window shades, automating coffee makers or wrangling Roombas.
Now I'm looking into deploying a small satellite system at my mom's condo because she lives alone and is getting older. We've talked about installing some PIR and mmWave presence sensors to detect activity, and also some assistance buttons in her private spaces. She doesnt want cqmeras, and she hasn't committed to it yet but she likes the idea we can check up on her remotely without her having to give up any of her prvacy or independence to an outside party.
So it's about more than just geeking out and being a creature of comfort. There are practical applications in security, energy management and health/safety to consider as well.
Oh, I use plenty of smart devices. I just make sure I select equipment that I can put on an isolated network without cloud access and operate through my self-hosted automation platform.
If it requires the cloud or a dedicated app for its basic setup and operation, its not getting installed here.