I’ve mentioned a few times that we’re building a passive house (fence just went up, Yay!). One of the “different” things about passive house is that everything is electric – everything. In a recent discussion around HVAC in passive houses, I mentioned that using natural gas (NG) would be a really bad idea. The other person asked, why. Having spent […]
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There is no substitute for a excellent subwoofer in your setup when want to feel the music. SVS Sound is well known for delivering brilliant subs, for a reasonable price. I have SVS kit in my home theater / audio room – love it. The just announced 17-Ultra R is a step up in price compared to their previous generation […]
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I got tired of waiting for the NACS (J3400) to CCS adapter that Ford promised me back in February, so I picked up an A2Z TYPHOON PRO. It only took a month to get here :).
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Every so often I run across someone advocating for residential DC EV slow charging. It seems like a great concept if you have solar panels. Doing this would bypass the DC-AC-DC conversion between the PV and your car; unlocking sweet, sweet efficiency right? The problem is that while that is conceptually accurate, in practice it’s a more complicated, especially if […]
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Remote controls are an area of deep personal interest. There are so many things that need to get nailed on the hardware and software sides to create the perfect one. Sofabaton nailed the hardware with the X1S.
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Yesterday, I made the mistake of clicking on an xkcd Facebook post and reading some of the comments. Today, you get to pay for my indiscretion 😛.
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In the previous video I mentioned that I built a variety of ESP32 media speakers in Home Assistant via ESPHome to use as doorbell chimes for Unifi Protect. This video walks through the different devices, including how I ended up putting Air Quality (AQ) sensors in most of the designs. Links to STL/Code below. Index Intro: 00:03 Home Assistant Protect […]
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It annoys me that Ubiquiti doesn’t allow me to use the speaker in the AI Theta speakers. This video outlines one way to fix that oversight.
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In general I like my Ford Mach-E (or Mustang Mach-E, or MME, or whatever), but every now and again I run into a rough edge because Ford is really bad at technology. Today’s rough edge is in how they manage credentials for the Phone As a Key (PAAK) feature. For those who aren’t familiar, PAAK lets you use your phone […]
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Last night I participated in a panel discussion around building sustainable homes that was sponsored by NextHaus Alliance, the folks who are building our passive house. This is totally why I was included in the discussion. It makes sense to put your customers in front of a bunch of people and have them talk about why they selected your business, […]
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