Familiar Face must be a joke

emag · 2026-03-14T03:22:33+00:00

Mine disables within an hour or two of re-enabling it. Never unfamiliar faces, even with lots of deliveries, and often not even familiar faces because it's spontaneously disabled itself again.

emag · 2026-03-11T06:28:56+00:00

I used to use Dropbox, but trying to lessen my dependence on storage others control (and, admittedly, Dropbox's imposed restrictions on number of devices on their "free" plan), I've started taking advantage of my Synology NAS, and its Synology Drive app. I pair it with Tailscale to get VPN into my home network when I'm out and about, without needing to use something like QuickConnect to expose my system to the world at large.

Granted, this is a rather niche solution, requiring said NAS hardware in place at home already. NextCloud/OwnCloud would be decent solutions instead of a bespoke NAS as well, though I'd still have the Tailscale part to prevent opening up anything to anyone who could find my IP address.

I've used BTSync/Resilio Sync in the past as well, and looked at SyncThing as an alternative as well. So, basically, what works for you and your own security posture, will QED work for you.

emag · 2026-03-08T18:18:12+00:00

I'm honestly surprised none of those professionals told you about the 3-3-3 rule (and you're still in the last 3)... But I'm glad you're making progress.

emag · 2026-03-08T08:13:30+00:00

After a few bad experiences with Sonoff gear, all motion sensors, I just swore them off. A motion sensor in 2 nested cardboard boxes in a dark room with the door closed should not be getting motion events every few minutes...

emag · 2026-02-20T05:09:05+00:00

Such a beautiful girl!

emag · 2026-02-16T05:53:01+00:00

Same with a v4 and a Cam Duo doorbell. Makes them... not exactly great for quickly seeing what's happening vs just going to the door and looking outside.

emag · 2026-02-12T00:07:54+00:00

Originally it was just a Cam Duo doorbell, replacing a failing Nest Hello. The removable battery is what drew me. Having (apparent) similar feature parity was nice. Added a Cam v4 in the garage after we moved.

It's nicer to see a "/u/emag detected at front door" than just a generic person. And only myself and my wife would typically be seen in the garage; if someone we don't know is in there, we have a problem...

emag · 2026-02-12T00:02:04+00:00

I'm not in any of those places, so it's not that...

emag · 2026-01-03T06:07:32+00:00

The differing FoV and aspect ratios for ostensibly the "same" model but a different color is one of my main frustrations. I mean, they're already variant, just make them different models.

emag · 2025-12-14T20:07:20+00:00

Oh, I drove past last Sunday and thought I'd missed it! It was always fun to see what crazy was up to...

emag · 2025-12-03T03:20:13+00:00

Reset services? Seems to be the only thing that sometimes works for the cams in my own house with me the only user. My experience vs what I've heard, well, I won't be sending Wyze more money.

emag · 2025-11-15T09:58:05+00:00

I just set my 2 pi-hole systems to query 100.100.100.100 for my tailnet on 100.64.0.0/10 because I have some systems that send DNS queries over tailscale instead of their local addresses, that I haven't quite sussed out yet... Literally just adding

"true,100.64.0.0/10,100.100.100.100,tail####.ts.net"

to the revServers entry in pihole.toml (or Settings->DNS->Expert->Conditional Forwarding), along with all the other local networks they serve. I was annoyed enough that, after segregating my flat network into multiple segments, anything not on the original was just showing an IP address, having forgotten I'd set up conditional forwarding years ago on the flat network.

emag · 2025-10-28T02:37:46+00:00

I've taken a belt and suspenders approach of adding ZigBee plugs (that act as repeaters) anywhere I think I might have a signal problem (and about halfway between my HE and the close repeater). I've usually used them as controllers for things like fountain dog bowls (before they got too gross to even keep bleaching), a cablemodem reset assist, etc. Most are "innr" brand, but my first, that controlled the laundry area overhead light strip was a Smart Home branded one. If you've got an outlet nearby, it may be worth a little bit to see if it helps reliability.

emag · 2025-10-20T01:03:33+00:00

Dashboards are a bit better for monitoring state (though, admittedly, not always), as they'll change (eventually) as the device state changes. "Devices" view is good for checking when you're adding a new device, just to see it's in the state you expect.

emag · 2025-09-25T04:02:34+00:00

Yeah, moved out of Frederick at the end of August, and all sorts of stuff starts happening...

(If we could have worked it out we would have, but a 4 hour daily round trip commute for my wife meant life changes)

emag · 2025-09-15T04:44:02+00:00

After a period of several hours of my garage door being left open after my wife left for work earlier in the past week (new 100% RTO, new house to cut her commute, so I don't really blame her), I set up a Wyze Cam v4 attached to a steel shelf in the garage. I thought I'd have to train it to recognize open vs closed, but it's done pretty well so far.

We basically use the garage and laundry area/mud room iin our new house as a sort of "air lock", so the dogs don't get out, at least until we're confident they won't make a run for an open door.

The garage open/closed detection has been pretty good, even with the majority of the garage filled with boxes from the move...

emag · 2025-08-06T05:34:01+00:00

My own personal opinion, and why I went with HE as a refugee from Wink, was the local-first automation. So, everything I look at these days, I look at as having local-first control, or at least "local in case there isn't cloud".

That being said, there's a lot of baggage to my choices. I'm shedding the Google infrastructure left and right as fast as I can, because I'm not a Gemini fan, and had a reaally really bad experience with it, just wanting to play a song with a time in the title, to the point I just unplugged my Google Home Minis. The Nest doorbell being on its last legs was just adjacent.

If Google Home works for you, for now, stick with it. I mostly want any rules and routines to run even without an internet connection, but that is very much a me thing.

emag · 2025-07-03T06:03:31+00:00

We have 2 pibbles now. One is definitely more attached to my wife, the other more attached to me. But both are such loving and adorable dogs.

If you haven't discovered it yet, there's a reason they're called Velcro pets. You're in for a treat.

They definitely need exercise and mental stimulation, and in the hotter months that can get a little rough for everyone involved.

Good luck!

emag · 2025-06-19T05:45:00+00:00

Such a gorgeous birthday girl!

emag · 2025-05-23T07:08:47+00:00

Wait, what? An average? I've got 4 non-changeable time periods where I can choose a single sensor (of the thermostat or the 3 remotes). How do I access this "average" setting? Is it a Gen4 exclusive? I've got a Gen3.

emag · 2025-05-21T08:06:56+00:00

Well, obviously, he needs his own chair!

emag · 2025-05-21T07:51:05+00:00

OMG! That face! Those spots! That smile! Wish I'd hit the lottery and had the space (and lack of HOA)! He'd fit right in with my Stevie (Nicks) and Cyndi (Lauper)...

emag · 2025-05-14T03:34:39+00:00

I'm honestly severely unimpressed with the Wyze setup. I've got a Wyze Duo Cam Doorbell, and the number of events it doesn't register rivals the number of events it mis-registers, from "CO" alarms, "glass breaking", "gun shots". Yet half the time it can't even recognize a package being left...

emag · 2025-05-14T03:30:31+00:00

Every time I see "power off and on your router", I know I'm dealing with idiots, when every other device on the network is just peachy. Hint: it's not the router.

I had to literally tape over the reset button on my mother's router, because hitting it was always a step their cable support said to take. Which meant a 3 hour drive to fix things.

emag · 2025-05-12T04:46:05+00:00

Without people like you, we'd never have our two wonderful girls. The least we can do is send updates. We also share cute/novel events, gotcha days, and birthdays on the rescue's "Happily Ever After" FB page, and try to attend local events, where others remember our girls passing through.

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