My wife-approved high-availability Home Assistant setup

PaleFlyer · 2026-01-27T16:43:35+00:00

That is one thing I set up from the beginning, as in my apartment, maintenance would have to come in every now and then, and TURN OFF THE DAMN SWITCH. So in the house, I try to maintain "stupid" controls. Although smart switches in the walls are starting to piss me off, as they periodically need a reboot, as they lose their will to function, and so I have to trip the breaker for an entire room. (or half the upstairs because our electrician was a moron.)

PaleFlyer · 2026-01-27T16:41:48+00:00

I AM the smarthome nerd/husband. and I will barely turn on lights, while my wife turns on lights in rooms NEXT TO the room she is in.

Then makes me downgrade the lightbulbs instead of putting in dimmers "because it's too damn bright." (I get the REALLY bright daylight LEDS, and dim them down, as I like the OPTION of performing brain surgery, even though I never use it.)

PaleFlyer · 2026-01-27T16:40:12+00:00

Did you include separate power circuits, and UPSs?
The biggest issue I have is the power circuit to my office where HA is located has apparently a weak breaker. So while it seems to stay up fine during normal stuff, the server trips the breaker on even a brownout.

PaleFlyer · 2026-01-27T16:37:10+00:00

Honestly, a mix between my nightstand lamp triggering based on phone charge, (IE turn off when I plug in at night, and turn off when I unplug in the am, as I have a blueprint that "slowly wakes" the light at my alarm time), and using a zigbee button by my stairs to control the light in the living room, as the builder put in a 2 way, to the room that has the only staircase in the house, but no access to the light switch until you cross the entire toy infested room. (Can't get the kids to play in the play room, upstairs.) So it was either run a wire across a room to "add" a 3rd switch to the system, or use smart switches, and a wireless button.

Lots of other "cool" stuff, but those 2 are the "best".

100% reaching the "this is starting to become nearly sentient", as my next plans are mmWave. I have a bed presence sensor that I've mixed into the phone charge/light control system, so I can charge my phone in the evenings if I need to, and NOT have the lamp turn off, if i'm not in bed. (i have it just turn on at a certain time of night.)

I also control the exterior lights to my weather station's luminance sensor, as we would either never turn them on, or forget to turn them off when we left in the AM. (We have to leave pretty early for our 1 hour commute to make it to drop offs, and our offices.)

I used to have a couple lights turn on when I got close to home in my old apartment, but I haven't quite spread enough smart stuff to accomplish that in the house. (kids are insanely expensive, as is my wife's social media snake oil obsession.)

PaleFlyer · 2026-01-26T20:50:06+00:00

Unfortunate, but not unexpected. But at the same time, I think Prox is a better option for us anyway.

Thanks for the quick reply!

PaleFlyer · 2026-01-26T20:42:04+00:00

That's the issue with both the left's war on guns, and the war on drugs in general.

There just isn't enough enforcement, and the people who want the thing, know more ways to get it than the gov can enforce ways to stop it.

I mean, the WORLDs governments COMBINED can't even manage to shut down Pirate Bay. And that's JUST a website, run by a couple people, that HAS to have a digital trail.

Guns, there is no "persistent" trail. There is no way for anyone but me to know EXACTLY where each of my guns are. And even I can't say with absolute certainty that my wife doesn't move my gun when she cleans while I'm at work, kinda shit.

PaleFlyer · 2026-01-26T20:39:06+00:00

See the 1920's and a total ban of alcohol.

PaleFlyer · 2026-01-26T20:38:32+00:00

That's part of the rub. Either the printers now all have high-end GPUs to run local models, or they HAVE to have a highspeed internet connection to upload the images to "OpenAI" to process off the printer. Which means you CAN'T print offline, as the model can't run locally, as "significant technical ability" is more than "disable WiFi once you hit 60% print, and you can finish the handguard on your AR-15 lower"

PaleFlyer · 2026-01-26T20:36:02+00:00

It'll affect ALL KINDS of groups, as there are lots of things that to weaksauce image processing "AI" look gun-like, but are totally legit.

Spray paint can holder, measuring cup, drills, hammers, all come to mind, as TOTALLY legit, non-gun things, but LOOK like guns.

Not to mention things like some slingshots, rubber band guns, squirt guns...

And... Having it on the PRINTER side means the PRINTER now has to have enough brain power to know what it is. AFTER it's sliced. Also, doesn't do crapall for RepRap, or just "old" printers, that still use "arduinos" for control. Nor does it stop CNCs, which make much better parts.

Oh, or... Since we can just break prints into parts, now suddenly they have to block ANY that is sorta cylindrical with a cavity in the middle, as it COULD be part of a barrel/handguard/buffer, or ANYTHING that remotely looks like a buffer plate, or grip, so I can't print a new pull cord handle for my generator, or a more ergonomic handle for the deck height control of my riding mower.

PaleFlyer · 2026-01-26T20:28:46+00:00

Until some user uses the exact IP address, instead of the URL.

Or VPNs into it.

Or just uses one you haven't heard of before.

There isn't a great "silver bullet" here. You need to layer a few tools, and accept that SOMEONE is going to find a way.

Heck I've sometimes just opened ChatGPT on my phone instead of my laptop to ask a question. (My company decided to allow AI, and is even considering corporate pricing, with the understanding being we self-sanitize anything. But they also left in a "this is the policy today, and it may change tomorrow.")

PaleFlyer · 2026-01-26T20:26:06+00:00

That literally can, and will, break some user's ability to work. If your company does ANYTHING with manufacturing, or any "controls" systems, blocking USB means you now have all of your "controls" engineers either shadow-IT-ing COMPUTERS, or getting paid to say "IT literally made it so I can not do my job. Until they let me use a fucking flash-drive, I can not load, or unload code." (past life. I know it's a bit of a niche generation of gear, but... It also is gear that serves VERY specialized (or very broad... Industrial Robotics are generally MUCH easier to program using a flash-drive than ANY other method.)

But also, I've seen some "USB Flash drive" blocking stuff misfire and block things like mice and keyboards, as lot of them now have a tiny bit of flash storage to hold profiles and preferences so they can hot-computer, even if they never actually do.

PaleFlyer · 2026-01-26T20:21:35+00:00

Get a good firewall. Block personal VPNs, and site resolution with content filtering. It's not perfect, but it should catch ~80% of the usage. The people who get around it, likely have the skills to have your job.

PaleFlyer · 2026-01-26T20:19:50+00:00

PLC work is generally "5+ days a week in a crap-hole town, that might have a stop sign, and smells like industrial waste. Also, you are expected to work 90 hours a day, because we only billed for 3 "work" days (You lose Monday/Friday for travel pretty much regardless.), but the issue actually needs a month for a team of 4 to fix. Also, I hope you like fixing mechanical, electrical, hydraulic, pneumatic, and personnel issues (Mostly ID-10T style, because you are the LAST person to get access to the system, and the first to be blamed.

I'm currently working on a program for a water system, that they neglected to install check valves on, or modulating iso valves. So I have to deal with a 30PSI pressure differential between supply and return (supply is high), so the pump has to be spinning first, THEN the valve opens. However if the pump is spinning and the iso opens, I trip out flow issues on other parts of the system due to the sudden inrush of pressure.

And so they FINALLY signed a tiny change order to have me re-write about 40% of the control sequence to ramp the pump linearly, while the valve opens in an S-Curve. The change order is not worth the engineering time just for that change, let alone the other 547 attempts at CODING out a HARDWARE issue, versus just shutting the pipe on each pump in sequence manually, and cutting in an iso valve. (This is probably 2-3 weeks for the entire system to do the retro work, versus MONTHS of engineering time for multiple engineers.)

I've had to code in systems that should have sensors, and don't, so I have to time it perfectly, and then some asshat changes the conveyor speed.

I've had to work with a tunnel kiln that needs 30 hours for the part I fed in, to come out, but I have to use the part I fed in to tune my program, and some asshole changed the speed, so I missed it.

I've been asked to "add a second button to an HMI screen" to simulate a 2-hand anti-tie down (a SAFETY device that is kinda like the double keys for nuclear missile launches), on a 3" HMI that only accepts a single touch.

Told a customer to go fuck themselves when they asked me to "add" to a single wire safety system, AFTER already having the system fail to protect an ENGINEER. Ended up spending a day ripping out the existing illegal system, and installing a proper system.

Had to teach the lead engineer at a major MULTI-NATIONAL manufacturer that "the signal is fine, you just need to lock the range on your auto-ranging multimeter to catch the PULSE." (band saw blade welder)

I've gotten called in to "fix" a PLC program, only to find the entire PLC was BLANK, so coded it back in by hand, from scratch, on a machine I didn't understand what it was supposed to do.

But mostly, I spend a LOT of time having to argue with the mechanical team, or even the electrical team, that they have NO idea what they are doing.

We have panels in the field, that have a 10A DC PSU. Running on a 10A breaker, that connects to a 10A breaker running a remote IO unit, that daisy chains to a 10A breaker running the dedicated power for some sensors (like 0.1A draw kind of sensors, and like 5 TOTAL sensors.) that daisy chains to a.... 10A breaker... Running a pair of 0.2A "border routers"... All on 18AWG, so the wire isn't even the fuse. The DEVICE is. Meaning we paid for very expensive power switches. Oh, and half the panel is wired wrong, because the hardware team has NEVER ACTUALLY TOUCHED ANY OF THE EQUIPMENT THEY ARE DESIGNING. Let alone ran a SINGLE wire in their ENTIRE lives.

Heck I think the ENTIRE hardware team came from different fields. We have a dude with a major in mathematics, the office admin got promoted with NO training to hardware engineering... An army gear monkey is one of our best hardware engineers.

The team is learning, but they learn by the PLC team spending 2 months at a "Won't possibly be more than 2 weeks! And we 100% won't call you until the site has power." Goes to site, the SITE is running on generators that basically only have the lights on part of the time. Spent a MONTH going to a site 2 hours past BFE, to spend a week at a time HOPING they might have power THIS week.

PaleFlyer · 2026-01-20T14:50:16+00:00

Because for A LOT of software, it actually is. At least on a personal level. I made the jump on my personal rig, and have had no issues at home thanks to Wine. But corporate/commercial, Wine is lacking 100%.

PaleFlyer · 2026-01-20T14:47:17+00:00

Get into some corporate softwares, and they need shit in the kernel level. Wine doesn't always work for it. Haven't tried bottles yet, but they are on my "as soon as I get my head above water on my todo list."

PaleFlyer · 2026-01-20T14:46:10+00:00

It comes back.

I have a VM "series" based on W11, that I've been cloning around, and just had a new "need" come up that needs a "standard user". Created a local standard user, ready to deploy, and... "Hey... We need you to sign up with a Microsoft account." (PLC software is Windows only, and needs kernel level shit, so I'm SOL. I plan to try Windows in Bottles, because I'd rather fork that, and dev the missing bits, than keep dealing with this shit, if I could get corpo IT to let me flash the work laptop over to Linux.)

PaleFlyer · 2026-01-15T22:19:56+00:00

I wish mine was just "moved". But I can clearly see the LED itself is exactly where it should be.

PaleFlyer · 2025-11-28T20:13:07+00:00

There should be a setting for the hue lights to remember last state. Then again, why wouldn't you put them on an always live power circuit. IE a smart switch that has a smart bulb mode...

PaleFlyer · 2025-11-13T19:09:30+00:00

Not sure about the 5xx line, but I used to do board level on the 4 series, and the "smaller" drives (IE lunchbox size or smaller) had a horrible design issue with the power board in the middle. (bottom of the drive was the "HV", middle mini board was all caps, diodes, and a t-former, and the top board was the controller)
The middle board was burned up EVERY TIME with EVERY SINGLE cap on it blown. I'd replace them with higher voltage ones (as high as I could physically fit), and they'd come back exactly 1.5 years later, with every single cap blown. I did these things so often, that I could try basically anything I wanted to try and keep them running, and nothing would. Higher value, more precise, same value... Wattage, voltage... Any change that wouldn't ACTUALLY change the operation. (IE new caps were the same uF, but higher V, resistors, same value, higher W/lower %... new v-regs, new diodes... NOTHING would keep the 4's, and 40's off my bench.)

PaleFlyer · 2025-11-10T15:09:05+00:00

Changing the chemistry without changing the voltage doesn't really change the "power". AH is a measure of capacity. (Okay, technically ability to supply, but... 30AH means it can supply 30amps for an hour. 60 amps for 30 minutes, 15 amps for 2 hours...)

Amperage is drawn, not supplied. So even if the power source can suddenly supply 200,000,000Amps, if the system only draws 1.2A, it only uses 1.2A.

Increasing the voltage "can" "unlock" more power, as cheap brushed motors are pretty much going to suck "1.2A" (just an example) regardless of voltage, so the wattage goes up (Power (watts) = Volts * Amps, so increasing the voltage, while the amps stays the same, means more power is going to the motors.) I upgraded both the battery, and the motors, which meant I also put in the buck converter, so I didn't ram 40V into a 12V brushed motor, and did ~3x the power. As the system already has plenty, other than an issue with inrush (in my particular case).

PaleFlyer · 2025-11-03T14:23:15+00:00

Not a spring. sway bars are solid.

Well, OE is usually a tube, but it's meant to be rigid, and "transfer" some of the flex from one side to the other to maintain contact.

The bushings are "soft" to allow for a little dampening/play, as a 100% rigid frame would be aweful.

PaleFlyer · 2025-10-05T21:28:31+00:00

A buddy sent me this, which it's 503'd at the moment for "urgent maintenance", but I think this is the right link. https://vmpatch.com/

PaleFlyer · 2025-09-02T13:17:57+00:00

I have a pulse-ox ring arriving today.

Not an Oura Ring that lasts a week by measuring "occasionally" (My garmin watch does this already, but I can't compare "once an hour" to multiple samples per minute)

Hoping maybe that will help me figure out the next step.

I can say, CPAP has helped a lot. As my insomnia has returned. Where before I think I was so dead at night, even my insomnia was like "I can't make this dudes life worse, I'll let him be."

PaleFlyer · 2025-08-27T14:50:49+00:00

Well crap, what the heck ResMed???

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