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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 13th, 2023

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  • Not who you asked but I have a smartish home. There is no real need. It just affords convenience and for me lands pretty squarely in “hobby” territory.

    My lights turn on prior to sunset, and turn off after I go to bed. My porch lights dim at 10pm so I don’t disturb my neighbors as much. I have additional states of lights that are predicated on various scenarios. In short, I never touch a light switch, I never walk into a dark house, and my energy usage is reduced.

    My vehicle mileage and tire pressures are reported on a dashboard for me to monitor.

    My network statistics are monitored and graphed.

    Energy usage of electronics of interest to me are monitored and graphed.

    I have a software defined radio that I’m able to use remotely. Using a smart outlet I’m able to turn it on and off remotely as well instead of leaving it on 24/7.

    Unfortunately I have a camera that is cloud based my SO uses to monitor pets. Using a smart outlet I turn it on only when we are not home.

    Some of this can be accomplished with less smart means, some of it can’t, but it’s been fun to get it all setup.














  • At the risk of sounding like a shill sure! (I’m not, just a happy user)

    Kagi is a paid search engine. They just introduced a 10/month plan that made the news which led me to their trial. I signed up a day later.

    Because I’m paying money I have the feeling that I’m not the product unlike other free search engines. There’s likely no nefarious manipulation of search results and it’s refreshing to see new features rolling out.

    It’s not all roses tho. Your searches are now tied to you and who really knows what’s going on with your data behind the scenes. Everyone needs to make their own decisions based on their priorities.