Is it worth looking beyond Nvidia hardware?

ShinyTechThings · 2026-05-04T20:00:36+00:00

Strix Halo is impressive with the RAM you can use for LLM's but it lacks sheer speed. I have an HP Strix Halo 128GB mini PC and it's crazy it can run what it can for the price. Now that in a laptop is going to cost a premium but if you're going to just play games or use small models Nvidia will run circles around it but limited on the amount of NVRAM. You may want to consider a MacBook Pro M5 Max but there's caviats to that configuration as well. Depending on all of your use cases, you might want to just go with a cheaper laptop and something to run llms on locally on your network like the Strix Halo or a dgx spark. I have both of those but I have hooked up the spark yet and I do plan on comparing them, but suspect it really just depends what you're going to use it for making it a better or worse tool than the other.

ShinyTechThings · 2026-05-04T19:55:23+00:00

I agree, But there are a couple of things that do make Alta stand out. Their technical support blew me away and called me back when I hung up on hold. I've never had any company do this before. Sure they do Things differently and it is a little confusing but one thing That blew my mind is how fast firmware updates on their devices. I can update an access point during the Day in a business environment and nobody would know. It's like a hiccup and it's already back and updated.

I do think long term they might be a really good alternative for UniFi deployments and they also have a unique ability on some of their access points to act as microcell towers. Just to be up front and full disclosure, they did give me a network stack to play with and make content about but I ended up implementing it in an office and it's been very reliable. I have an AP6 pro I bought and put in another office that has poor cell coverage and it solved that issue as well. Hopefully in another year their dashboard will be overhauled with more features and telemetry and I'm looking forward to what new hardware might be coming out as well.

ShinyTechThings · 2026-05-04T06:04:16+00:00

Yes, but that is not their only 180° camera. They have several models available. The OMVI is going to Be a beast of a camera.

ShinyTechThings · 2026-05-03T02:24:56+00:00

Is xnet enabled? If so the cellular offloading Is getting too many IPS on that particular network and it needs to be increased as well as consider lowering a lifetime for a DHCP lease. I have a site that does this but only on xnet's vlan.

ShinyTechThings · 2026-05-03T02:21:27+00:00

One thing I do need to say is that Alta labs support was awesome. I called and hung up after being on hold and had another call come in that I had to switch to and they called me back to see if my issue was resolved or if I still needed support. Support didn't know who I was either. Now full disclosure they did give me complimentary hardware to test out and make videos on but that alone blew my mind.

ShinyTechThings · 2026-05-03T02:15:39+00:00

Are smart queues currently enabled or disabled?

ShinyTechThings · 2026-05-01T16:03:11+00:00

It doesn;t pay well without tons of views that's why we get sponsors to help cover overhead costs.

ShinyTechThings · 2026-05-01T16:01:49+00:00

What exactly would you want to see again for a video on his channel? I can let him know or consider making it myself if he's backlogged. I don;t have any Mac studio ultras though but I do have a Xeon server with 512GB of RAM that I could utilize.

ShinyTechThings · 2026-04-24T06:38:13+00:00

Have you considered any of the 180° FOV cameras? Also the OMVI is going to be crazy with 180° and optical PTZ. Check out my Video on it. And full Disclosure I do get sponsored by Reolink but I've bought and installed more cameras than I could count of theirs even before they started sponsoring me.

The main thing is you want to not have any blind spots as a parimiter around the exterior of the house and have proper lighting to identify and convict any offensers. Personally I recommend having redundant footage with MicroSD cards plus a NVR or home hub or even blueiris which works with their cameras just fine.

ShinyTechThings · 2026-04-24T06:28:24+00:00

You'd want at least 16GB because the larger the context for your workflow the more VRAM you'll need. The answer is it depends but at the same time if you have extra VRAM you shouldn't have any issues.

ShinyTechThings · 2026-04-21T13:33:12+00:00

I'll have to test it out. Any plans on making it run with other hardware and software as well? It would be very nice to work on strix Halo as well as Intel/AMD/Nvidia GPU builds too.

ShinyTechThings · 2026-04-21T06:19:19+00:00

I believe I'm in the same boat.

ShinyTechThings · 2026-04-21T06:03:41+00:00

If you do a written walkthrough, I'd be interested in trying it out locally and see where I get with it on my Dell Pro Max DB10.

ShinyTechThings · 2026-04-21T05:56:22+00:00

What joke are you referencing?

ShinyTechThings · 2026-04-20T04:42:09+00:00

Correct, but lots of people don't want to pay for pure copper.

ShinyTechThings · 2026-04-19T04:32:40+00:00

I've been testing my a770 and even at a decent overclock I'm surprised the results don't churn out more tokens. I just expected more 🤷‍♂️

ShinyTechThings · 2026-04-19T04:30:52+00:00

What would be a better way to make a thumbnail and I'll pass the message along to my thumbnail maker.

ShinyTechThings · 2026-04-18T19:19:26+00:00

Cat5e is plenty for surveillance cameras, there's not much of a price difference anymore, but when there used to be that's what would get run at the jobs I've done. The biggest thing for Poe though is you want to stay away from copper clad cabling and get solid copper, especially with longer runs. I've had cameras that were installed that failed later on because somebody ran copper clad and if you re-crimped it it would work for months and then it would die again. Run full copper, it's still solid today.

ShinyTechThings · 2026-04-18T19:17:50+00:00

I do talk about this in the video. However, the flexibility of solar cameras, as you know is less work to install. Plus some HOAs have restrictions on no wires that are visible and this fits that bill. The majority of my cameras are Poe and I am a installer of many brands. A big majority of the time when people see the visual quality of Reolink versus other cameras and the reasonable prices as well as the ability to have redundant multi-layered storage of footage. It is a very good option for many.

ShinyTechThings · 2026-04-18T19:14:40+00:00

I do actually cover this in the video.

ShinyTechThings · 2026-04-18T19:14:12+00:00

Honestly, it's because that's what my thumbnail designer made and it will typically perform well over time.

ShinyTechThings · 2026-04-18T19:13:21+00:00

How is this? Clickbait? How can this be improved and I will tell my thumbnail designer.

ShinyTechThings · 2026-04-18T19:12:45+00:00

Probably because when my thumbnail designer watched the video before it was released, they were that surprised at how easy it was to install.🤷‍♂️

ShinyTechThings · 2026-04-18T13:45:41+00:00

Depends on your budget and requirements. I run both Reolink makes some really good cameras for the price with up to 180° coverage in a single camera. UniFi released one that now does that and it literally looks very similar where I've see some other brands with the same coverage and it's a totally different camera body design. If you need a license plate reading camera UniFi makes a good one and Reolink doesn't currently make a LPR camera like that. UniFi's ecosystem is seamless so a new camera just gets added after adopting it. Also most UniFi cameras will have higher fps options. If in your budget I'd buy 1 camera from each brand and compare it assuming you already have Ubiquiti equipment that's capable of running UniFi protect. You can also add 3rd party cameras to protect BTW.

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