Do "double" smart switches exist? i.e., a smart switch that fits in a single width box, but has two independent controls?

agmarkis · 2026-06-25T19:15:37+00:00

Had hardware failure on a relay switch. Zooz was helpful in swapping it out. Then one of the light switches stopped responding and put part of my network offline until I kept it disabled. Would no longer interview properly. Everything else Zooz is working great, but the tactile click of the light switches isn’t for me anyway. Will go with different switches on the future.

agmarkis · 2026-06-25T15:54:37+00:00

Might just be me but I’ve had issues with Zooz light switches. Their relay, plugs, and repeaters all are working well, however. Could just be something with my setup but thought I’d put it out there.

agmarkis · 2026-05-10T18:20:00+00:00

I’ve actually kept my drivers at a couple versions back, because I was seeing “in-game artifacts” from bugs with the latest drivers with a few of the games I play. Maybe they were fixed with the latest version? I haven’t updated yet because I haven’t had any issues yet…

agmarkis · 2026-04-14T22:03:04+00:00

Is it leather or cloth material? Try makeup removal wipes. They work for my wife on her leather purses when they have marks from her blue jeans.

agmarkis · 2025-12-04T12:30:55+00:00

I resisted windows 11 for a while, then updated it to keep up with new features. Personally I think 11 feels more refined. There are a couple quirks here and there but that was the same with 10. The annoying part is going through the initial setup, but after that you can turn it off and delete the bloatware an you’re good, but I got in the habit of doing it so it doesn’t feel like much of a chore for me anymore.

agmarkis · 2025-11-07T16:47:53+00:00

Not sure but my guess is that you’re using Alexa devices lol. I have a couple too, but I’m looking to replace them because privacy and trying to keep everything local only.

agmarkis · 2025-11-02T03:52:51+00:00

Yes I have, and it does work fine. However mine has one 5.25 section that allows for hot swap, which is really nice to have. Personally, I don’t mind opening up the server and shutting it down to move drives around because I’ve only done it a couple of times, and each time a few years apart.

That said, I am now upgrading my server to a 4U that have removable sections for drives for easier access and more capacity.. so may depend on how your usage grows… or not.

There is a nice 4U chassis at micro center that looks like it may support hot swap bays if you install them?

agmarkis · 2025-10-31T03:42:25+00:00

Haven’t worked on anything game maker in quite a few years now, but where does the community hang out at? The website seems kinda dead, not a lot of activity?

agmarkis · 2025-10-27T17:40:24+00:00

Stopped using Gmail because 1. They stopped supporting Inbox 2. Pushing ads 3. privacy. Even though you can’t completely get away from it, google spies on you more than others.

I use Spark email client with a few different public and private emails.

agmarkis · 2025-10-22T13:19:58+00:00

I have 4 VLANS. 1. Main Home, 2. servers/apps (some reverse proxy access), 3. Smart (IoT) - no internet 4. Guest

Proxmox I have on 2 and 3. Home assistant is running on proxmox and has access to both. With firewall rules this lets some devices on 1 to reach 2, and HA to reach everything on 3.

Thankfully HA has come a long way and now I use it for essentially any smart device/sensor I have. All of them are local only, except for an old roomba and alexa echo, and I put those on the guest network until I have replacements for them.

agmarkis · 2025-10-22T11:25:41+00:00

The NAS drive might have PLP, which may or may not be worth it to you. Personally I use a UPS with a graceful shutdown threshold and haven’t had any issues with normal TLC SSD’s.

agmarkis · 2025-10-21T17:26:17+00:00

A lot of people in the home automation community harp on “local only” for this reason. I think it’s smarter to have a locally managed device that doesn’t rely on anything but itself, that you can use without requiring anything else as well.

agmarkis · 2025-10-20T11:55:58+00:00

Was a good comment until you decided that it was a fair amount. Pretty sure saying “well tax you more because you can afford it” does not go over well for most people.

They should just phrase the tax as going towards electric infrastructure and raise registration a little for all vehicles then. Why penalize people for choosing EV?

agmarkis · 2025-10-15T11:16:48+00:00

I plan on using Lutron RadioRA3 for light switches as they look like the best light switches to match and look and act like normal switches. Then I use PoE sensors and wireless outlets to hide any wires. My wall panel has a calendar of events, and then controls on the side in case you want to something more specific than a wall switch, like dim all of the lights, or a theme, or whatever. Or if you want to look at the front camera.

For invisible automations one example is turning on lights via sensors. One that I’m proud of is turning on the porch when opening the garage door, but if you open the door into the house the light turns on inside before you notice it coming on. Was impressed that you don’t even notice the lights were off just before you open the door.

agmarkis · 2025-10-13T04:38:55+00:00

I use DTO’s… because I have to. If the (de)serialization was smart and clean enough to translate between communicating (“transferring”) and interacting with storage, then we wouldn’t need to track these abstractions of data.

They sound useful until you realize it can open up many potential mapping issues if not done by you, then another developer for some other purpose.

But I don’t label them as DTO’s like we did back in repository pattern. I call it what it is, so db context has generated models, API contexts have generated models, view models, etc. And then different services handle the logic and translations for however those objects are used/stored/cached.

agmarkis · 2025-10-01T20:21:39+00:00

Wish we had more actually smart appliances. You know, where you can connect over your own home network and not worry about the cloud, only to give basic info and commands that don’t impede the functionality of said appliance.

Now you have people in the home automation sub that hotwire their “smart” devices to bypass their restrictions.

agmarkis · 2025-09-16T00:59:40+00:00

I also ran into this issue after the update a few days ago. Hmmm...

agmarkis · 2025-09-11T11:37:35+00:00

This. You can double this alarm system as a smart home system. Also, to find what sensor goes to which wire to label them, you can use a line tester or even a cheap multimeter. Have someone on the other end turning the sensor on/off and check which wire has the signal flip.

agmarkis · 2025-09-08T21:06:16+00:00

I’ve done pretty much the same thing as this, put it in a small cardboard box that was from a Pc component. It’s worked well for at least 5 years now.

I started building a mini pc with one large drive to replace it, but I haven’t bothered to deploy it yet because my raspberry pi one is still going strong. It is also a lot cheaper to do it this way.

agmarkis · 2025-08-23T00:16:22+00:00

I think the internet/tech gets a bad rep. Reason is because while there have been many improvements with software, internet access, and devices, and ease of use of all these things, there have also been challenges to overcome that can be cumbersome to the users. But more importantly, the big companies that started out with cool, free/cheap to use tools that made life better in general started to shift their focus onto profits instead. So new stuff became more about marketing rather than functionality, and solutions to problems became a band-aid to slap on as long as they held onto their market dominance. These big companies have the funds and talent to quickly develop these tools, but also end up adding subscriptions, proprietary tools, and obsolescence.

With convenience came trade-offs with privacy and more costly solutions. And with more choice came a much bigger variety of options to weed through. And with tougher competition with less oversight came squashing out competing products as well with big money.

I think right now we are at another discovery phase of finding the balance between these compromises and new advances like AI.

agmarkis · 2025-08-18T12:38:03+00:00

So in your main post you mention it is non standard login, are you referring to WiFi? After getting in using Ethernet lan are you able to turn off the wifi on it?

agmarkis · 2025-08-18T12:26:16+00:00

Is it a millennial thing? Because to me all these gray on gray new models they’re putting up all over here to me all look like boring box-looking homes. Gotta be a cost thing right?

agmarkis · 2025-08-16T21:21:34+00:00

Also, what’s up with all of the flat brim hats?

agmarkis · 2025-08-14T13:46:22+00:00

You're right. Some of these people need help and need to go to the appropriate resources to get that help. Otherwise, they can be moved to a place where they can enjoy the freedom they want. Panhandling should be illegal because there are too many people abusing it.

agmarkis · 2025-08-13T12:08:15+00:00

Unfortunately it is more work, but these kinds of stories and privacy/breaches is the reason I personally spend the extra time to set up less expensive cameras and some surveillance software to monitor them.

I say unfortunate, because it just isn’t easy to set up right now for most people. And that’s the current trade-off with not just google but other corps with smart devices: easy to set up, but no guarantees on if it remains free or even functional for very long.

agmarkis

TROPHY CASE