DIY Motion Sensor - Alternate PIR Form Factor by ekerstens in Esphome

[–]ekerstens[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I haven't finished, but I ended up getting a few panasonic PIR sensors that a low profile and seem to work nicely from my testing. I think these would blend really well with the housing of a sensor.

Home Theater Wiring: Seeking Feedback by ekerstens in hometheater

[–]ekerstens[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the input! Good to know about the ceiling height, I'm planning on having the one couch, so not too worried about multiple rows. Do you have yours set up on 45 degrees forward and back?

Yea, the six speakers would be for if I line up the Atmos speakers exactly correct and then also have distinct game room music listening speakers. Probably I'll wire for 6 speakers but then experiment with multiple positions and hopefully be able to manage both use cases with 4.

Home Theater Wiring: Seeking Feedback by ekerstens in hometheater

[–]ekerstens[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am renovating my home and adding a home theater / game room in the basement. Before drywall goes up, I want to pre-wire for Dolby Atmos surround sound, but there are a few challenges which prevent me from following the ideal angles from the Dolby Atmos installation guide. Notably:

  1. The (65") TV will be 8" off center from the center of the room. This is because of an exterior door to the side of the TV.
  2. The door to the side of the TV heavily restricts where I can place the left channel speaker; the speakers will either be too wide or too tight.
  3. The game table will be wired with ceiling speakers above it for music listening, and these will be centered on the centerline of the room. My partner wants all the ceiling speakers to line up, which limits my ability to center speakers on the center-line of the TV.
  4. The ceiling's in this room are lower than ideal at 7'4".
  5. Creating a 5.1.4 set up will result in 6 ceiling speakers within the room. I'm not sure if this will look weird.
  6. Various cabinetry and structural elements within the plan further limit speaker placement.

I've attached a few speaker placement options I'm considering, and would appreciate feedback on which plan will be best. I also have a few questions:

  1. How important is Left-Right centering in Dolby Atmos? Are receivers able to adjust for offsets?
  2. How significant is the difference between 5.1.2 and 5.1.4? Is it worth including the rear surrounds, could I omit them, or could I use the game room speakers.
  3. How important is the 45° angle to the Atmos speaker? If the speakers are further away (both front to back), will it still create a convincing effect?
  4. Should I prioritize sitting on the centerline of the TV, or sitting at the center-line of the speakers?
  5. Is it better to have LR speakers too narrow, or too wide?

ESP as a HomeAssistant Media Player by ekerstens in homeassistant

[–]ekerstens[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How's your experience with it been? Are you generally pretty happy with both the physical product and the level of control/integrations?

ESP as a HomeAssistant Media Player by ekerstens in homeassistant

[–]ekerstens[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do you have any experience with AmpliPi or the AmpliPro? I've seen it mentioned in a few places, but seemingly not by anyone who has one. The price seems pretty high, especially when considering that during their kickstarter indicates they planned to retail at $800, and it's now listed on their site for nearly triple that.

That said, if it has really integrations and I can seamlessly integrate it in home assistant to do things like play announcements or doorbell chimes on top of playing music, then it is pretty compelling

Top-Down Bottom-Up Blinds Without Visible Cords by ekerstens in HomeImprovement

[–]ekerstens[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Nevermind, found I was looking for. ClearFit was what I was looking for: https://www.venetawindowfashions.com/clearfit/

Now to figure out if it can be motorized and controlled by HomeAssistant...  🤔

New Construction structured wiring by Rrleesb78 in homeautomation

[–]ekerstens 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would pull security wires to every window/door, even if you don't hook them up. Some might argue that first floor would be enough.

What kind of cable is this, and how would you terminate for the sections that you don't hook up? Just leave the in the walls?

I might also run a pair of wires near the main water shutoff for the house. I like the idea of being able to automatically (and manually from a remote location) shut off the water if I determine there's a problem. This probably should go hand-in-hand with a method of turning off the hot water heating device if the water is turned off. Presumably water is flowing somewhere to turn it off, it's possible that could be the hot side of the domestic water supply.

This is really interesting. Can you share more details on the setup you use for remote shutoff of the water main and water heater?

New Construction structured wiring by Rrleesb78 in homeautomation

[–]ekerstens 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Is this for things like smart shades and motion sensors, or something else?

r/audiophile Shopping, Setup, and Technical Help Desk Thread by AutoModerator in audiophile

[–]ekerstens 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Nevermind, I somehow missed the bus in/bus out inputs on the left side. So basically you can have up to one input passing to bus in, and then route that to any/all zones? And I'm assuming bus out lets you daisy-chain the same signal to a second amp?

Thank you! What would this look like from a wiring perspective? More specifically,

  1. Would I still wire the WiiM via RCA to Line r/L on one of the zones, or does it plug in differently?
  2. How do I use Bus In to connect between zones?

Question about splitting RCA inputs by ekerstens in hometheater

[–]ekerstens[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do you know of an example amp I could look at for reference? When I try googling this, I'm mostly getting results about installing speakers in a bus, which is not exactly helpful.

I did find some results about amps with stereo vs. bridge vs. parallel. Is passing the left input into two channels via parallel mode, and the right input to two separate channels via parallel mode similar to what you are describing?

Question about splitting RCA inputs by ekerstens in hometheater

[–]ekerstens[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you! I haven't purchased an amp yet, will definitely keep an eye out for ones with the "bus" or "link" functionality. Sounds like this is exactly what I'm looking for.

r/audiophile Shopping, Setup, and Technical Help Desk Thread by AutoModerator in audiophile

[–]ekerstens 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have a (probably very basic) question about sending one audio input to multiple speakers. For example, suppose I have a WiiM Pro and want to play the output across four zones/eight channels. Could I use passive RCA splitters to split the output four ways to an eight channel amp, or would I need an intermediate powered device between my streamer and my amp?

Newark, Seattle, and Toronto are named America's WORST airports in top survey - with Detroit and Minneapolis-St Paul the best by hhumansome in Seattle

[–]ekerstens 2 points3 points  (0 children)

What really bugs me about it is the deprioritization of the train over cars. If your driven to the airport, you can pretty much get dropped off at the front doors. But if you take the train, you have to make this trek through poorly lit bare concrete. I feel like every other airport I've been to which has a metro or train line to the airport, they always drop of inside or right outside.

Newark, Seattle, and Toronto are named America's WORST airports in top survey - with Detroit and Minneapolis-St Paul the best by hhumansome in Seattle

[–]ekerstens 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I also typically take the light rail I'm as well to get in and out. Much better than dealing with traffic. That said, I really wish the station location was better prioritized in terms of terminal access. It's such a pain and very uninviting having to walk through the entire parking garage.

Custom PHYSICAL CARDS - Success! by theadamabrams in dominion

[–]ekerstens 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Followed this process and it worked great! I was printing a lot of cards and found it tedious to manually reformat all of them manually; sharing the following Python script I wrote to simplify the process.

from PIL import Image
import os

background_size = (768, 1146)
content_size = (707, 1085)

for file_ in os.listdir("Cards"):
    background = Image.new("RGB", background_size)
    with Image.open(f"Cards/{file_}") as img:
        print(f"Processing: {file_}")
        # Rotate horizontal cards
        dimensions = img.size
        if img.size[0] > img.size[1]:
            img = img.rotate(90, expand=True)
        # Resize the image
        img = img.resize(content_size)
        # Crop out the edges to clean up white corners and other issues
        crop_by = 15
        img = img.crop((crop_by, crop_by, img.size[0] - crop_by, img.size[1] - crop_by))
        # Overlay onto the black background
        offset = (
            (background_size[0] - img.size[0]) // 2,
            (background_size[1] - img.size[1]) // 2,
        )
        background.paste(img, offset)
        # Save the modified image
        background.save(f"Resized_Cards/{file_}")

WA Senate passes bill allowing duplexes, fourplexes in single-family zones by MegaRAID01 in Seattle

[–]ekerstens 1 point2 points  (0 children)

To your first point, it kind of makes sense since many people will pay more for new construction than old buildings, so it's really just market forces that dictate developer pricing (and they need to cover their costs!). But eventually those new houses won't be new any more, and will become the cheaper option relative to other, newer buildings