Secret Santa for the covid age
Secret Santa is a popular tradition in offices and amongst other groups. The idea is that you buy a gift for another member of the group, assigned to you at random…
AppDaemon and when to use it
I’ve mentioned AppDaemon in passing and used it for my ZoneMinder camera automations, but what is it and why would you use it?
Staying in the know
Notifications are an important part of any home automation setup. There’s no point in having sensors and cameras monitoring your home while you’re out if there’s no way of being alerted when something happens…
Where am I?
Presence detection is a fundamental part of home automation and it was the reason I first got started…
The Home Assistant Android app
There is an official Home Assistant app for Android, and I’ve been trying it out…
A further watch comparison
Following on from my Samsung Galaxy vs Fossil watch comparison post a couple of weeks ago, I decided to do a proper comparison of the fitness tracking…
If this… then what?
IFTTT – If This Then That – has angered users by switching to a subscription model, but they’re not the first to go down that route and I’m sure they won’t be the last…
Which watch?
When I reviewed calorie trackers recently I mentioned, in passing, that maybe I needed a dedicated fitness wearable…
Some Home Assistant growing pains
A couple of recent releases of Home Assistant have had breaking changes that have affected me, and they’re a result of some growing pains…
Samsung and its ecosystem
Ecosystems. Everyone has to have one now. There’s the Apple ecosystem, Google has one, as does, to a lesser extent, Microsoft. Now Samsung wants to join the party…