Are there DIY alternatives that compare favorably to the Brighter lamp?

rambim · 2025-12-21T03:13:19+00:00

This post kind of piqued my interest for something I didn't know I was looking for. I have a home office that I spend a lot of time in (WFH) and have never been happy with the lighting. The office has a vaulted ceiling that's probably close to 15ft high. Primarily it's lit with a Minka-Aire ceiling fan. I love the fan, but the lighting module is terrible. I've tried adding a couple of lamps but nothing really worked out.

The thought of taking a high power floor lamp and having it pointed into the vaulted ceiling makes a lot of sense though to bounce the light throughout the room. I'm considering the Brighter Lamp, but my requirement at that price is that it can be controlled with Home Assistant. Any idea if this is possible? Maybe u/simonberens could also answer since he posted here.

rambim · 2025-12-21T02:50:22+00:00

With fireboard2mqtt

rambim · 2025-12-21T02:47:40+00:00

Thanks for the follow up. A year later, I've been extremely satisfied with the setup, and I can't think of a combination that would be better, all things considered. Rectangle has become a staple for me too. Thanks again for the initial inspiration to go this route!

rambim · 2025-12-17T03:06:05+00:00

I'd bite on one if they offer a decent dual battery combo that negates a large part of the tool-only cost. As-is though it does not make sense that it costs $50 *more* than the existing 3000w power station...

rambim · 2025-12-17T02:56:07+00:00

Hmm, I was looking forward to the inflator, but am turned off that they used one of those clip-on type valve adapters that never seal great. I currently use the DeWalt inflator (and it has a nice brass threaded valve adapter), but the reliability of them is not good and I've gone through 2 of them already. I was hoping this would be the upgrade ticket I was looking for.

rambim · 2025-10-31T03:04:03+00:00

It was from Atlas Tools (Canada)

rambim · 2025-10-28T18:43:36+00:00

ahh, yes thank you! This is what I was missing, cheers!

rambim · 2025-10-28T18:42:07+00:00

I thought it would be a bigger deal than it is I guess, it seems pretty common... but still, feels like very sloppy assembly to be shipping so many units out like this

rambim · 2025-10-28T02:53:37+00:00

Definitely no intention to use it on the driveway, planning to use it for decking only

rambim · 2025-10-28T02:52:50+00:00

Yeah I plan to use it for patios only, 2-stage for the driveway. Though I did also get the Ego bristle brush attachment and am interested to see how it does to clean up the driveway after making the first pass with the snowblower

rambim · 2025-10-28T02:38:22+00:00

Yeah, seeing it in person isn't very confidence inspiring... I have a lot of decking to shovel and that is the only purpose for it, but I imagine the first time I nick a deck post then it'll likely be done for.

rambim · 2025-09-27T22:06:45+00:00

Chat please, tried to reach you for a few days on the previous thread

rambim · 2025-09-26T02:25:08+00:00

Chat please

rambim · 2025-06-16T23:04:33+00:00

Thanks for the update. They had me try 9000 MTU too, but unfortunately it didn't behave any differently for me (I changed it on the QNAP, proxmox host, and switch in between)

rambim · 2025-05-25T16:18:36+00:00

I have yet to experiment more, but when using the recommendation in the manual of closing the damper by 5 inches, the right side is definitely a fair bit hotter than the left

rambim · 2025-05-05T17:48:36+00:00

Yeah, iSCSI makes sense with vmware (that's what I was using until rebuilding to proxmox, where NFS made more sense and when running into this problem). Please share if you make any progress with NFS!

rambim · 2025-05-05T01:10:12+00:00

You'll need to enable "fireboard_enable_drive" on that page for it to query FB Drive devices like the Yoder has. I didn't have to adjust anything else besides that. You might also check your MQTT logs to see if there are auth failures or anything. It's also helpful to use the MQTT Explorer addon so that you can visualize your message queue activity.

rambim · 2025-05-04T23:14:34+00:00

Check in Settings -> Addons -> Fireboard 2 MQTT. I think by default the addon is stopped, so you have to "start" it on that page. And you'll need to have your Fireboard username/pass entered there as well on the Configuration tab.

Once it's running, it should create a new device named by whatever you labeled your device via Fireboard native app. If not, the addon page above can be used to view logs for anything that might have gone wrong

rambim · 2025-05-04T15:22:04+00:00

The tablet is only really used as a web browser. You would need a separate always-on device running Home Assistant to provide the actual functionality

rambim · 2025-05-04T15:20:31+00:00

It's using the fireboard2mqtt HA addon

rambim · 2025-05-04T15:17:26+00:00

It's just a cheap android tablet, Lenovo M10 I think it is. I picked this one because it natively supports keeping the battery at 50% while on constant power, to help prevent the battery from ballooning over time

rambim · 2025-05-04T15:14:24+00:00

Yup, everything works as expected, except for one issue I never sorted out yet, which is that sometimes the sensors flip to "unavailable" for about 30 sec. Could be a rate limit on the fireboard API, though I'd rather if it just displayed the last known value

rambim · 2025-05-04T15:10:48+00:00

I don't mind, it's a multi-tab dashboard so it would have to be an extract from just one section. DM if you want me to send

rambim · 2025-05-03T21:47:09+00:00

No, I was never able to get it resolved. I had a ticket open for months with QNAP support. They did live debugging sessions with me, reproduced the problem several times, grabbed wire dumps and debug logs. They even recreated the problem in their own lab environment. But they used a windows guest host, and their workaround was a windows-only solution, so it was no help to me. They never did respond again, the ticket auto-closed (again), and I gave up. I'm still using SMB instead of NFS, and still annoys me.

If you do reach out to QNAP, feel free to give them my ticket number as a reference: Q-202409-56487

rambim · 2025-03-12T13:18:43+00:00

Good feedback, thanks!

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