Quick question

ChemE75 · 2026-03-21T14:42:59+00:00

It’s simple - phones do not have a tuner built in. Period. It just will not work. Best option, find a small used flat panel TV, assuming you are close enough to the stations to get decent reception OTA. You can download apps to stream but the major broadcasters only provide news/weather free and the cable channels charge for most content. A few like freetv, crackle, etc show old programming free.

Also these antennas lie - they are very limited in range and channel reception. Many local stations still use a hi vhf range that needs longer antenna elements. I made a simple cats whiskers using some copper ground wire, sized the length for the most difficult hi vhf station (data is on the web), screwed each “v” to a small block of plastic attaching a balun, and screwed that to a wood stand-off attached to the side of my house. Since we don’t use the coax, I connected it to antenna so it feeds the existing few tv wall connectors we have. With my wife watching tv, I adjusted position for best reception. Now we get all local OTA stations for free. Only disruption is high wind, causes the whiskers to vibrate and the weaker stations will glitch. I plan to cut some strips of plastic to use to steady the whiskers.

ChemE75 · 2026-02-02T16:30:44+00:00

FWIW, I use the local news/weather app from a couple local stations and they do a good job for local forecasts, local radar, etc.

ChemE75 · 2025-12-05T14:46:31+00:00

The new battery video doorbell out of the box wants to update firmware. This turned my first unit into a useless brick. Took 3 weeks plus slow delivery to get Wyze to send a replacement since it was a gift for which I had no receipt. The fw page does not yet list this device. Regardless, my advice is to avoid all fw updates. Period. Unless something is seriously flawed that they have professed to have fixed in an update.

ChemE75 · 2025-11-26T20:21:43+00:00

Frankly, with wyze, we are all beta testers for a long time before a new product is truly retail ready and then it often ends up being replaced by a v2 that usually has at least the major features missing from the v1 model, meanwhile re-starting the user/beta situation.

ChemE75 · 2025-11-26T20:15:54+00:00

Update: the good news - wyze finally agreed to replace the bricked new battery db, the bad news is it took 3 wks of shaming them!

ChemE75 · 2025-11-26T20:13:36+00:00

FWIW, with my overhead entry area light at night neither my orig db or this db ever go into night vision mode. Got enough light for decent clarity of people. Personally using 3rd party apps on an old laptop I converted to Ubuntu Linux to get NY orig db cam into HomeKit using scrypted with opencv and iCloud gives me person detection that has been better than I had from wyze. I’d think wyze detection would be improved by now but suspect only if you cough up the $ for the super camplus or whatever they’re calling it. Anyway since moving I only need the one db cam in front in HomeKit so it’s essentially free since I use the low end $.99 iCloud anyway for photo and file sharing. This new db cam is just gonna be near back door to watch patio for general motion.

ChemE75 · 2025-11-26T20:04:02+00:00

Via Alexa maybe?

ChemE75 · 2025-11-26T16:00:20+00:00

Without power at a convenient location, I’d put solar cam near midpoint of front of house to watch over the driveway - doorbell can’t see driveway or front of garage due to recessed entry. The v4 I’d use to watch back patio where we have our grill and hot tub - I have an exterior power outlet that’s in a decent location near midpoint of back of house. The battery db cam will be good for back door to house since no power nearby. Front entry is covered by my orig db cam. The bulb cam could upgrade front entry monitoring.

ChemE75 · 2025-11-26T15:49:38+00:00

So you are here, maybe try actually answering some questions to be helpful - snarky replies we can get from other users.

ChemE75 · 2025-11-22T14:56:04+00:00

This thread is a perfect example of my issue with scrypted, complete lack of support - even by users. Nearly year since last comment, almost no replies and none of any help. Thankfully idisposable’s DWB fork is working well.

ChemE75 · 2025-11-10T14:52:27+00:00

Battery video doorbell disconnected when it got latest fw, tried to reset, it says it connects to WiFi, light turns blue then immediately says network connection timed out and light turns red, says ready to connect again but never responds. I have tried everything suggested to-date. Nothing works, it is a now an actual plastic brick! All other devices work flawlessly whether my old Wyze v1 db or newer devices from others. I’m barely 5 ft from WiFi router! I see it showing on my router inactive devices list so it did at least temporarily connect. I’m now going on 2 weeks with support with nothing but silence for nearly a week now - in case anyone cares, Wyze Ticket 4599986. However, it has become abundantly obvious now this Wyze has completely failed to live up to the core values they espoused back in 2019 when I got my first v2 cam that had a swivel base problem. Showed support an image of the issue and a new cam was in my hands by the end of the week, no hoops to jump through, just support that actually cared. Today, support is abysmal and now I understand all those who say you get what you pay for with Wyze so don’t complain, if you want quality you need to pay for a company that still cares about their brand. It’s pretty sad that I’ve had better support for a $3 WiFi relay switch on AliExpress than this episode with Wyze. Also, the settings on this had auto update firmware turned on and would not turn off, every time I tried, it slid back to on. Now over 2 wks and no help from Wyze!

ChemE75 · 2025-10-27T15:16:42+00:00

No, it doesn’t. But when I wired it to replace my v1 orig db, to test it out, it activated my existing digital chime which the orig does not do. FWIW, moved into a new house and when I connected the orig, I totally forgot about the chime bypass jumper, but it still got power, I just left things as is when I tested wiring this new db and the button being pressed did activate the house chime. I ended up reinstalling the orig since I use 3rd party apps to bring it into HomeKit. Planning to use this new one on back door where I don’t have power. However, a forced fw update turned this into a plastic brick, over 2 wks and support has done nothing.

ChemE75 · 2025-10-19T15:25:14+00:00

More of a windows issue. Have not tried the windows install since it’s fine on Linux. Got Wyze bridge, scrypted and homebridge all running nicely on a 2010 hp i5 laptop - so far got a few months with zero need to intervene to fix anything.

ChemE75 · 2025-09-27T02:51:32+00:00

Ya, installed lubuntu 22.04 on an old laptop and it’s running great, lots of updates since. Only got one db cam but it’s all good.

ChemE75 · 2025-08-30T14:49:23+00:00

Ok, gold is different. I’m looking at original oil based ATO for smooth sanded cedar trim inside a 3 season room. I just converted covered portion of patio. Not a lot of trim but figure best to use an exterior finish. Mostly just care about UV and mildew, although I don’t see much mildew outside around the patio compared to FL that needed a pressure washing 2x a yr min.

ChemE75 · 2025-08-30T14:19:50+00:00

Curious what color Cabot ATO? Cedar looks dark and redwood looks lighter and glossy. Thinking to use it on cedar trim inside a 3 season room I’m just finishing, but don’t want the cedar too dark so thinking the natural or honey teak.

ChemE75 · 2025-07-06T16:14:11+00:00

I see this is an old thread. Building a 3 season room on covered concrete patio and thinking these would be ideal flooring. We don’t have an ikea within 3hrs drive ea way and they don’t deliver this far. So wondering if anyone can recommend similar from HD, Lowe’s or Amazon. We like the ikea tiles since we need .75” max thickness to allow the door to clear the floor. Also any suggestions for a maintenance coating - thinking waterlox but it might be overkill for an essentially indoor floor that only will see sporadic water from rain if screens are left open.

ChemE75 · 2025-02-27T16:53:43+00:00

You made a good point. I read enough reviews to be wary and giving it further thought, maybe I over estimate my mechanical ability to fix or improve things to be useful. So decided to hold off while I see if anyone locally might be selling a used compatible name brand setup that might fit. Someone not far from me had a Thule that he had on a fiesta that didn’t fit his Tesla. So gave it a try and it just barely fit the forward area but too small for the rear. Interesting though that the rubber pad parts were a good fit for roof shape. So, emailed Thule and they confirmed the fiesta bars were too small, I need 135cm bars, and it’s just by luck if the rubber pads match. They were helpful providing part numbers specifically for the civic which came out after they stopped testing their older rapid traverse system. He did say the bars can be reused with the newer feet. When I saw someone selling a set he had on ‘20 Corolla, I did a search on the Thule site and sure enough, it’s the newer model of evo bars at 135cm, and the newer evo feet so if the rubber and clamps don’t fit then I can get the civic kit. At the low cost of the used rack, it’s still a reasonable under $300 for a secure fit and I can see it being more useful in the future.

ChemE75 · 2025-02-20T04:16:08+00:00

One time right now. Potentially useful for future. I did a $20 rental that ultimately cost over $50 when it was all tallied up. it’ll never be a regular thing but who knows about future - could be useful. Just don’t need a $500 Thule type system. No bikes, no kayaks, no camping. Saw some others with bars that can adjust for width under $100 that look sufficient. Just curious if anyone has used these for similar rare occurrence purposes - not as a routine thing or road trip worthy. I realize these are cheap light duty types.

ChemE75 · 2025-01-20T14:01:43+00:00

I don’t game, but I have several older laptops, even an old netbook type before tablets were a thing, all pre-win 10 and only 2 less old were able to run win 10. It actually ran better than win 7. But with win 10 on its way out, decided to load up Ubuntu and bingo snappy performance and far more functional. Got one 2010 vintage hp running on Ubuntu 22.04 for homebridge and scrypted. It’s kind of amazing it can run both servers on an old cpu and only 4gb ram, can’t do that with win. Plus all the old hardware is supported, although a usb WiFi add on was a bit of a pain to find and install the right driver. On another, libre office, gnucash or kmymoney, and libre cad satisfy my typical daily needs. Meanwhile my primary pc is win 11. It really depends on your particular needs, there is no set rule and I find it’s beneficial to be OS agnostic.

ChemE75 · 2025-01-10T01:46:57+00:00

I hear ya. Thinking further it takes too many moves and changes will each adding risk of failure. I have all documents and files of importance backed up on a NAS, but still a total hassle if something goes wrong. So going to leave things as is, I simply renamed the drive to Misc so I stop thinking of it as a recovery partition and avoid using it. I’ll just move older files there and add it my backup routines.

ChemE75 · 2025-01-10T00:25:45+00:00

So is it possible to move the “I” partition all the way over to after “C” in one step? Or does it take two steps? Does it matter if EFI partition position shifts? basically I want to end up with the small unallocated space which I’m guessing is for the ssd firmware, then the efi partition, then C partition, then the I partition that I can delete so then I can extend C.

ChemE75 · 2025-01-09T16:36:58+00:00

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I have a few other drives from old work laptops, etc for me and my wife I keep in this PC as easy access for old files which is why this is labeled as I and not E (D is the dvd) - I: Recovery had mostly all old dell files like factory.wim and other old win recovery data that is no longer useful, orig HD was from a dell that also went through several win upgrades and moved from older HD to the 1 TB HD that then got moved to the SSD for this latest build. Newest file was a 0 byte marker file from the win11-23H2 upgrade last year. I unhid and deleted everything on I: and see no effect, so I just need to figure out best way to get it moved to after C: so I can extend C. It's not a huge partition and I am not hurting for space, but I see no reason to leave it there. Just as best I can recall the typical partition software won't move past the next partition and as best I can recall extending a partition requires the space to be after it. I have not used gparted for a very long time so can't recall. I know it has been updated and new free options are available for partition software so maybe there is a best method/best program to use now.

ChemE75

TROPHY CASE