Recently I picked up an Aeon Labs Aeotec Z-Wave LED Light Bulb, Gen5 on sale from Amazon just to check out and compare to my Hue bulbs. I like Zwave as it’s generally easier to control from my HS system and I don’t have to kludge it or control from a 3rd party plugin or through…Read more
Home automation
DreamScreen TV
Browsing around Reddit this afternoon I ran across a relatively new product that looks to be pretty neat. It’s called DreamScreen. Basically it’s a series of LEDs that you stick on the back of your TV like you would with a Hue strip. The main difference is that with DreamScreen they include an HDMI splitter….Read more
Wink Hub Updates
I think I may have posted elsewhere that I have a Wink Connected Home Hub. Apparently they are currently beta testing a Vacation mode subscription that’s going to cost $9.99 a month. What the holy hell? If the Wink hub weren’t only using half it’s sensors, that only work half the time, on a hub…Read more
The Perfect Smart Home: What I’m Using…Part II
So in Part I I touched on most of the hardware I’m using and some of my software. I keep coming across stuff I missed and I’ll mention some of that here. So on to how all this works together. Down among the creepy crawlies that inhabit my garage and basement along with my son’s…Read more
The Perfect Smart Home: What I’m Using…Part I
SO I’m a big gadget geek. As far as phones, while there is nothing wrong with Apple products my personal preference is for Android. The platform is much more extensible and I can do 1,000 more things with my Nexus than I ever would be able to with Apple. But…this isn’t about that. I came…Read more
New Gadget
So my thermostat crapped out yesterday after 16 years. Luckily it’s the time of year where it’s not a humongous deal. Picked up a Zwave thermostat on sale at Home Depot, which is awesome. Putting the damned thing in proved to be a trick. Only four wires in the thermostat but the one I got…Read more
Gadget Blogs
I run a tech site. It’s just a small blog where I will occasionally post news and videos and such. I have never intended for it to be one of the huge gadget blogs, don’t consider it a ‘contender’ or anything like that. I just enjoy writing. I also run a very specific site targeted…Read more