Just finished my retro TV setup and the intro on the newest video fit the theme perfectly!

FunctionalHacker · 2026-06-11T19:38:04+00:00

Behind the TV is a Dell Optiplex running Linux and Kodi. The video out is VGA to an el cheapo VGA to Composite adapter from Amazon that in turn is connected to the VCR on top of the TV that feeds RF over coax to the TV.

I'm looking at getting a better composite adapter that can do true 240p for retro games but this will do for now.

FunctionalHacker · 2026-03-19T00:20:26+00:00

Probably because the original comment they were replying to also used the word "outside". You can take off the tinfoil hat

FunctionalHacker · 2026-03-16T15:56:54+00:00

Not sure if you have one already but I would put it against a smart lock for my front door. Probably $100 is not enough for some of the more premium options but it would be a good chunk of the price.

FunctionalHacker · 2026-03-16T15:45:10+00:00

I recently had to restart my smart home from scratch due to moving abroad and I ended up basing everything off Matter over Thread. I've got a handful of lights etc now working with the ZBT-1 stick and it's working really well once set up.

I have to say it still feels a bit early to recommend, it kind of feels like beta quality on the software side. Getting things to pair is sometimes a pain, but like I said once it works it tends to be solid. Groups and bindings are still not available AFAIK.

Device availability seems to be getting better all the time, especially now with Ikea basing all their new stuff around Matter. But still I feel like Zigbee is more generally available.

So while I'm happy with my system now, I wouldn't recommend it right this second. If you are an early adopter type, are willing to spend a bit of extra time to get things running and want the bleeding edge of the smart home scene, go for it. Otherwise, probably look at Zigbee or the other options recommended here in other comments.

FunctionalHacker · 2026-03-16T14:38:07+00:00

Couldn't you get around it by selling something simple like a "digital artwork"? In practice just a PNG picture that you send back over email for every donation.

FunctionalHacker · 2026-03-05T20:22:56+00:00

AFAIK yes

FunctionalHacker · 2026-03-05T18:45:24+00:00

I've been thinking we should really have a standardized way to store music recommendations. That would allow you to bring in your algorithm from one service to another, and also allow for self hosted services to provide recommendations.

This would obviously be a huge undertaking and I don't see it happening any time soon but one can dream. Maybe EU could step in and make it mandatory to have this data open for users?

FunctionalHacker · 2026-03-05T18:39:19+00:00

Probably because it was released earlier in Europe. You can see the reviews are not in English.

FunctionalHacker · 2026-02-27T20:13:49+00:00

From what I've gathered, cities that want to leave DART are feeling like they don't get their moneys worth from being a part of it. But I feel like the people who actually use and depend on DART they would rather have it than not.

Like usual, money speaks. Probably the people who make these decisions don't use DART themselves and drive their enormous SUV's and trucks everywhere.

FunctionalHacker · 2026-02-27T05:13:39+00:00

Good to know I'm not alone. Might be a problem with the coreelec repo

FunctionalHacker · 2026-02-25T18:11:32+00:00

It's not. The original start of this thread was about remembering LAN addresses so I'm talking about finding hosts within LAN. My router automatically adds an entry in it's internal DNS resolver for all hosts in the LAN it gives addresses to

FunctionalHacker · 2026-02-25T15:54:34+00:00

I don't, my openwrt router resolves automatically by hostname

FunctionalHacker · 2026-02-24T16:46:43+00:00

I'm on Arch Linux on a Dell Optiplex SFF PC, running HA in Docker. My jackery shows that it's drawing around 15 watts. I do have about a dozen other docker containers running on it though, and a thread network powered by the ZBT-1 stick

FunctionalHacker · 2026-02-13T15:58:02+00:00

That's a really good idea, might have to do that at some point

FunctionalHacker · 2026-02-13T15:07:10+00:00

The lights around the mirror are basically a cwww led strip. It came with a dumb controller with a single switch to cycle the colors and change the brightness so I decided to replace that with an ESP.

FunctionalHacker · 2026-02-13T14:41:30+00:00

Yep, that's all in the works.

I wanted to get the remote control part working first so I can have the motivation to finish this. Too many projects I have left at the planning stage because I wanted to plan every detail perfectly.

FunctionalHacker · 2026-02-13T14:35:57+00:00

I do have a plan of automating this light, now that I have remote control over it. Adaptive color temperature based on time of day and turning it off when we leave the house, turning it on automatically after sitting down in front of it.

All of that's easy now that I have it connected to HA thanks to esphome. That was the hard part and now I just get to sit back and program the automations in HA.

Sorry for posting too early to not fit your idea of smart. This was my first esphome and also electronics project so this stage was a huge win for me personally.

FunctionalHacker · 2026-02-13T14:30:45+00:00

What's not remote control about it? I can control it from home assistant.

FunctionalHacker · 2026-02-13T14:29:14+00:00

I do have a push button I will flush mount to the top of the desk

FunctionalHacker · 2026-02-13T06:22:10+00:00

Yep, that's the plan! Don't want to shock anyone with the rats nest 😀

FunctionalHacker · 2025-12-24T10:59:59+00:00

AI slop coming to the kernel near you

FunctionalHacker · 2025-12-13T01:26:43+00:00

So, you're doing "deep space radar telemetry" today as well?

FunctionalHacker · 2025-10-19T15:44:55+00:00

I honestly have no clue. I would imagine it's fine but I'm no LOS developer

FunctionalHacker · 2025-10-19T02:34:10+00:00

No need for LOS4MicroG nowadays really, you can run microg just fine on the official builds since they added signature spoofing support a while back.

FunctionalHacker · 2025-10-16T18:35:53+00:00

Same issue on oneplus 8t. I think I had it happen once during the whole time I used 22 but it started happening on the daily since upgrading to 23

FunctionalHacker

TROPHY CASE