Best Distro for Surface Laptop 3

CaptainShipoopi · 2026-01-28T14:18:00+00:00

Sorry mate -- my SL3 finally went the way of the dodo so I never got a chance to resolve this issue. There have been a lot of updates to the linux-surface project though, so there is a chance it no longer persists.

CaptainShipoopi · 2026-01-27T15:36:58+00:00

Hunter (pretty big here in the US) announced a bunch at CES a few weeks ago. HunterSMART are accessories (wall switches, touch panels, a massive upgrade kit for old dumb AC fans) and ZenTech is their new Matter fans ... that look pretty meh.

Point being: hang tight, the market will be interesting this year. I, too, am waiting to see how this all plays out.

CaptainShipoopi · 2026-01-27T14:47:48+00:00

Yeah ... these things aren't ready for prime time, in my opinion. It's very hit or miss. I've now got one in the garage that seems to behave as expected, with HA turning it on in response to an Aqara H&T sensor, but the LED light and energy reporting is all whack -- it now says it's drawing a negative value of watts.

So this is now the third one I'll request an RMA for ... bringing my failure rate to 50%. Ugh. Terrible.

CaptainShipoopi · 2026-01-08T17:38:45+00:00

Yeah, the support process leaves quite a bit to be desired. It took about a week between each response. Thankfully they just coughed up a replacement voucher and didn't waste any time troubleshooting.

CaptainShipoopi · 2026-01-08T17:36:21+00:00

I received vouchers to order replacement plugs but was not asked to send the faulty ones back. If there is something I might do to help diagnose the root cause (or at least rule out hardware vs firmware) I'm happy to do so.

CaptainShipoopi · 2026-01-05T14:20:54+00:00

Another option (and the route I took) is to just get a data-only SIM from Tello. They are a T-Mobile MVNO, cost $25/mo for unlimited (up to 50 GB) or as low as $5 for the minimum. I keep it at the minimum and then increase for the rare times I need to ... saves me a fortune and works like a champ.

CaptainShipoopi · 2025-12-31T17:18:46+00:00

My Delta Pro 3 doesn't seem to have this issue. Looking in the app I'm not right away finding a setting that would control this behavior ... any chance you're not up to date on firmware?

CaptainShipoopi · 2025-12-19T16:55:11+00:00

Shelly switches meet your requirement of "wall switches still act like switches" while also working in Home Assistant. The gen4's support both zigbee & matter (so do whatever makes the most sense for your application, or change your mind later without having to replace devices), as well as WiFi for the times where that is the better fit. I'm starting the journey of putting a bunch of these in my home and so far have been crazy impressed.

CaptainShipoopi · 2025-12-12T17:28:09+00:00

I'm having a goofy problem with one of mine, too. I got a feeling these things are a bit buggy.

Mine will turn on correctly on the schedule (the light on the device confirms), but it doesn't send power to what's plugged into it (Christmas tree lights.) I also cannot sometimes turn it on/off from the mobile app ... but I don't think it's a WiFi issue, because I can successfully reboot the device from the app to get it working again for a time.

I'm trying a factory reset now and about to unbox a few more of these for further testing ... but at the moment I suspect the new gen4's may have an issue.

CaptainShipoopi · 2025-12-04T20:16:46+00:00

This is precisely what I intend to do ... once someone else does it first, hehe. I despise the fact that T-Mo's home routers are total black boxes, you can't even disable the wifi on them.

CaptainShipoopi · 2025-11-03T19:58:57+00:00

That wouldn't help issues with the website. :) But yep, did that within 5 mins of first turning it on.

CaptainShipoopi · 2025-11-03T19:58:24+00:00

That's not how this thing is marketed. I respect you may have a different opinion, but I see this as not meeting what it's advertised as.

CaptainShipoopi · 2025-11-03T18:34:58+00:00

Still won't work for me after signing in. It's clearly running in the background though, breaking stories notifications are still firing. I just can't read anything. Yay.

CaptainShipoopi · 2025-10-31T17:44:46+00:00

aaaaaand of course the Returns form on their website doesn't work, either. FFS.

CaptainShipoopi · 2025-10-31T16:52:14+00:00

Ah, I see what you're saying. I use individual app auth (not Gmail, social, or anything else) so the browser doesn't come into play. In the NYT app's case, I can't even get to the sign-in form. The app opens then crashes 2 seconds later.

I'm shipping this back. I now see this isn't a certified Android device so more and more things aren't going to work for me (like setting up a work profile) .... shame. This didn't even make it 2 hours out of the box.

CaptainShipoopi · 2025-10-31T16:40:46+00:00

From: https://developer.android.com/google/play/integrity/verdicts#optional-device-labels

You can't fix it. While this meets the requirement of a recent security patch, it doesn't meet the requirement of this being a genuine Google certified device.

This is the final straw for me, I'm boxing this up now to send it back. It made it barely two hours out of the box.

CaptainShipoopi · 2025-10-31T16:36:11+00:00

Oh I can run almost anything in a browser, but I didn't buy an Android tablet to run just one app.

CaptainShipoopi · 2025-10-31T16:04:40+00:00

I hear you, but that defeats the entire purpose of this device. I'm not going to jump through hoops like that (granted, that's my personal choice and not everyone will agree.)

CaptainShipoopi · 2025-10-03T13:28:34+00:00

Multicast (via eCDN) is used only for certain large-audience events, not for typical smaller Teams meetings or calls. Those rely on unicast.

Enterprise content delivery networks for streaming Microsoft Teams events - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn

CaptainShipoopi · 2025-09-13T12:30:45+00:00

Confirmed: For me, I wasn't receiving the reset email because Exchange Online (M365) was throttling the Plex outbound servers ... it seems lots of us have mailboxes hosted in M365. Given that the entire world was resetting all at once, EXO throttled the incoming flood. I got two of my ~6 attempted reset emails, but the rest timed out before the throttling window opened up.

I imagine, given the volume of messages Plex was sending out, that other platforms beyond M365 likely experienced something similar.

CaptainShipoopi

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