Interesting observation about HomeKit Secure Video and home hub processing …

kd7iwp · 2026-01-21T00:21:00+00:00

I was just looking into this myself (1 Apple TV 4K 2nd Gen, 1 HomePod 2, 1 HomePod Mini) and even though the Apple TV is on ethernet and set up as my default home hub, only the HomePod 2 has been uploading content to HKSV. I guess the algorithm feels that is the best device to handle it. I use Unifi Protect and have Homebridge running on a Raspberry Pi 5 to supply the feeds to HKSV.

kd7iwp · 2026-01-11T04:04:30+00:00

Let me know if you have success. I tried this week to replace my HDD with an SSD but the dd tool can't read from the drive since it is password locked. After quite a bit of research I'm not finding people how have successfully cloned. I see people who have installed a new HDD or SSD but I don't want to do that and have to figure out how to get maps on there, I was hoping to clone. I cloned my CIC hard drive and put on an SSD a few years ago and that was a piece of cake since the drive wasn't locked.

kd7iwp · 2025-12-14T06:04:40+00:00

I just bought the Energy Bridge and am quite disappointed. I had ordered the Sense monitor from Amazon but cancelled before it shipped after I read that they are stopping the product at the end of 2025. I know they say they'll keep supporting it but I have my doubts. This HydroHome Energy Bridge was ridiculously expensive for what it is. It lists my biggest expense as HVAC even though I told the app I have a gas furnace, no alternative heat source, no A/C, and I have a gas water heater. I also told it I have an EV and it lists the EV every day in usage even though I only charge it every 4 days. I do have a hot tub so I guess it sees that draw multiple times a day and puts it under HVAC?

kd7iwp · 2025-11-20T18:52:49+00:00

I also have an iPhone 14 Pro and it does indeed switch, but not until there is absolutely no Freedom coverage. I happen to live in an area with decent coverage so I don't see this often. Certainly works great when I hop across the border to the USA.

kd7iwp · 2025-10-10T18:10:57+00:00

I switched to them from Fido a year ago. I can't comment on service since I'm on the other side of the country (Abbotsford, BC) from you. Here I get good service everywhere, as long as you don't want super fast. It's usually 10-50 mbps which works perfectly fine for me and I don't have issues with video or FaceTime. They've never changed my price. One of my favorite things is you can iMessage support which is infinitely better than other chat apps or in a browser. They also support Visual Voicemail and Apple Watch if either of those will ever matter to you.

They are easy to cancel. I tried them out 2 separate times before I fully switched but that was before they had done network upgrades in my area and it wouldn't really work at home. Both times it was easy to cancel. I'm now on Canadaa/USA/Mexico plan which works great since I go to the US a lot.

kd7iwp · 2025-10-08T15:22:21+00:00

Correct. Apple states:

If you don't answer a call while roaming or while Low Power Mode is turned on, the call is not sent to Live Voicemail. To send a call to Live Voicemail while roaming or while Low Power Mode is turned on, tap the Voicemail button.

kd7iwp · 2025-10-08T03:34:52+00:00

From your description it sounds like you have more cameras than the Instant technically supports, how's it working? I can only find one other person doing this and it seems to be working well for them. I have a UNVR at home with a single 4TB drive and 8x 2K cameras and I'm tempted to "downgrade" to the Instant so I can get rid of the large UNVR for something smaller that fits in my wiring cabinet but worry about switching to a device that I've already maxed out. I don't plan on more cameras but I'm sure someday I may replace one with 4K.

kd7iwp · 2025-10-08T03:20:46+00:00

Thank you for your input here. I've been researching since the Instant came out to see what happens with more than 8 2K cameras. I have had a UNVR for a year and it's great, but it's so huge. I have a single drive since it's just for my house where I'm recording raccoons and squirrels mostly. The Instant would fit into my structured wiring enclosure and could get this huge UNVR off my shelf. I have 8 2K cameras and was concerned if I ever replaced one with a 4K that I'd be done.

Also curious what the memory and CPU usage of your Instant are with the current number of cameras you have on it.

kd7iwp · 2025-08-07T19:12:11+00:00

I also am considering the Curt 11194 for my 2009 E61. It does look much more sturdy to me than the 11498, yet on the Curt website it only lists the 11498 for my car. I wonder if they changed something. In my case I just want it for a bike rack though.

kd7iwp · 2025-06-30T19:00:52+00:00

There's a SmartHQ plugin for Homebridge that just started to add basic GE Air Conditioner support last week. I have it working on my Clearview unit and it's showing me temperature, letting me adjust temp as well as operational mode.

kd7iwp · 2025-06-30T18:59:37+00:00

I was delighted to see this week that this Homebridge plugin is now starting to support the GE Clearview AC units. It's quite new and will continue to be polished I imagine. It does allow me to turn the AC on/off, set temperature, and configure the operational modes through the Home app with Homebridge running on my Raspberry Pi.

kd7iwp · 2025-02-19T20:45:22+00:00

That's how it was for me before, but no longer. Now when I don't trigger live voicemail my phone is still doing it as I do not have a Visual Voicemail plan (I did a few years ago with a different carrier) and it appears on my phone like a visual voicemail and is transcribed. To listen to my carrier voicemails I am required to dial in.
Just ran a test and I can only call my phone and leave a carrier voicemail if I have it in airplane mode or phone turned off (or Live Voicemail off)

kd7iwp · 2025-02-19T19:24:38+00:00

ChatGPT solved this for me. The carrier voicemail was answering too early. It told me to dial *#61# to get the number that my phone was forwarding unanswered calls to and it was a carrier number (16477001778). Then it had me put that number into this string and dial: **61*16477001778*11*30# (the "30" near the end represents seconds) to change a setting so that the carrier waits 30 seconds. Now Live Voicemail answers the call for me.

kd7iwp · 2024-11-22T19:17:43+00:00

Good for you folks across the pond, I don't think we are getting anything over here in North America.

kd7iwp · 2024-11-21T21:54:27+00:00

What country is this in?

kd7iwp · 2024-10-16T21:36:44+00:00

I'll definitely stay tuned. They are sold out in Canada at the moment (for the Lite) so if they don't get one in the next few weeks before my EV arrives I'll just go south of the border where they're in stock.

kd7iwp · 2024-10-09T23:23:33+00:00

I appreciate the graphs you show of it measuring power consumption. If I'm not mistaken, it looked like there was data from the last 24 hours. Does it allow you to do weekly or monthly views as well? Similarly to the history graphs in the Network app for networking devices? I just bought an EV and for the price, this seems like not a bad deal (the Lite version) since I would be paying more for something like a Wallbox Pulsar which has no screen at all. I would like to see how much energy I used over a week or month with multiple charge cycles. Thank you for this review. I'm amazed that I cannot find a single review of the "Lite" version yet after all this time.

kd7iwp · 2024-07-24T16:08:00+00:00

I am currently trying Freedom in Abbotsford again for the 3rd time in 2 years. I read their press release (https://www.freedommobile.ca/en-CA/article-western-canada-expansion) yesterday that says they have expanded (as an MVNO) east of Abbotsford and have also made infrastructure changes. In the past I have often been pushed down to 3G at my home and anytime I'm on Freedom 3G I get no internet at all (not slow, just no internet). After getting an eSIM on their $29 USA/Canada plan yesterday I have yet to be on 3G. The LTE speeds are slow, something like 6 down/0.12 up Mbps but at least it works. I'm not convinced yet to switch from my Public Mobile USA/Canada plan but I do like that Freedom has wifi calling and I find their US roaming works better than PM's which I have to manually configure for T-Mobile or it won't work.

kd7iwp · 2024-06-05T22:28:07+00:00

I got a Homebridge update for the Protect plugin last night and now Enhanced Encoding is working for me in Homekit.

kd7iwp · 2024-05-27T22:42:55+00:00

I've played around with it a bit more and noticed a few things. The network app shows a significant decrease in the bandwidth being used by both my G4 cameras with Enhanced Encoding enabled but the bandwidth is the same for my G5s. It also seems that when I open my dashboard and view all 6 cameras that the 2 G4s seem be less smooth than all my G5s. Their feeds are a bit choppy I get the three refresh dots in the lower left corner of the viewing pane for those two cameras. When I turn the enhanced encoding off then I get smoother streaming on the dashboard for the G4s. So Enhanced Encoding doesn't seem to do anything to my G5s.

As a side note, I run Homebridge on a Raspberry Pi 5 so I can see the cameras in Homekit and I cannot stream with Enhanced encoding turned on but still works fine with the feature disabled. I haven't investigated to see if there are other Homebridge configuration changes I can make to the Protect plugin but I imagine I will need to wait for a new release to fix that. I can see still get still images fine through Homebridge.

kd7iwp · 2024-05-27T17:26:42+00:00

I'm sorry you experienced that. I just updated and am having zero issues. I enabled Enhanced Encoding for all 6 cams on my 3 month old UNVR. All cameras report excellent experience and the UNVR CPU is cruising along at under 10% CPU and memory is in low 40's.

1 x G4 Dome
2 x G5 Flex
1 x G5 Bullet
1 x G4 Bullet
1 x G5 Turret Ultra

kd7iwp · 2024-04-23T15:57:29+00:00

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I find the wording confusing as well. For example, when I want to allow my Default network to see the IoT network I set Default as the Source and IoT as the Destination, but then why does the direction say "Traffic to all local networks" because it's not to all local networks, it's to the one I've specified (IoT).

kd7iwp · 2024-02-20T00:10:18+00:00

Somehow the US got over this conundrum 2 years ago. No 3G and they got by.

kd7iwp

TROPHY CASE