I think the smart plug may add a layer of inconvenience, since you have to lean down to the outlet to press it. The inconvenience is a feature in this case, though.
Thats's the great part about home assistant though...anything that can change states, with intent/meaning, is waiting to be tied to an automation.
Their routers are OpenWrt compatible by design, the factory firmware is based on owrt or you can flash upstream for a "pure" image. I've used them for many years and they're great.
Drop the idea that short form content like youtube shorts or tik toks or whatever is somehow ignoble and worthy of scorn. Recognize it's just a fun way to kill some time.
Internalized that? Cool.
Now find a comfy place to sit or lie down and binge that shit. For hours. Do it for as long as it brings you joy. Had your fill? Cool.
Keep doing this, whenever you've got some free time and there isn't something else you want to do more binge that short form "brainrot" content. Do not let the thought that you're somehow "wasting" your time enter your mind. You're having fun, and that's all that matters.
If you're anything like me once you've internalized the idea that it's just dumb short videos for fun and you've watched hours of them, you'll just get bored of it. Maybe you'll spend 20 minutes scrolling occasionally but your brain aint gonna rot.
I used to watch memes and images for hours upon end. Until at some point I just stopped and never did it again.
Over the years people would send some links. I looked at the picture, maybe laughed, and closed the tab.
As an example, I used to watch a lot of dance videos. Recently I started taking dance classes and the videos just hit different now. The bar is so much higher for me to feel impressed because I’m digesting the content much more efficiently now and so much content is just repetition with slight variation.
1. this level of preoccupation is a new and historically significant phenomenon
2. the time not spent on scrolling would be spent on something else more productive
Both seem plausible, but they also seem like a couple of those tricky conclusions that seem naturally right but would fall apart with some research. For example, I think it would be better if we all spent time at cafes instead, but it's hard to say that that would result in better societal outcomes.
I’m glad that you had an experience where you found the corner of your internet to be boring. I do not think this is the common experience.
And simply because you didn’t feel impacted by it, does not mean that it’s not bad. This is obviously hyperbolic, but your comment reads to me like someone saying, “I used narcotics all of the time when I was younger, and I’m fine now. So everybody chill out.” That doesn’t mean narcotics are ok.
Social media does change your brain. It doesn’t take much to find research on this, but here’s an example of a longitudinal study of US adolescents [0].
This type of online content is a form of a non-pharmacological “drug”, so to say, as it can dramatically impact reward system connectivity.
I think the fact that people are scrolling through this stuff and NOT getting bored or tired is interesting, people are different to me in some way I don't understand.
I found the article refreshingly short and to the point whilst being jolly amusing and informative. The bloke is German so English is a second language - very good skills.
That's a skilled technical writer, that is.
Bookmarked. More please!
Many years ago we gave our then-toddler an old digital camera to play with. Some time later, we looked at the pictures he took. We were horrified to find out that he took pictures of the outside of the house at night. As in, our toddler would unlock and open the front door, go outside (at night!), take pictures of the house, go back in, close and lock the door, and go back into his bed. I bought some wireless door sensors and created an automation where if the sensors are triggered between 10pm and 6am, the lights in our room would turn on to wake us up.
I expanded this later and today we have sensors on all doors/windows that kids can use to leave the house (we have 4 young kids). As it happens, these are the same doors/windows that burglars can use to enter the house, so this doubles as an alarm system (that we can activate when we leave the house and will notify us remotely if the sensors are triggered).
The best part is that with Home Assistant you are not locked into an app/ecosystem. Our door/window sensors are of a different brand than our lightbulbs, and we control everything from a single app.
The sensors are quite large and simple and the gent's windows tend to be left open more often than the other windows. One of the two gent's sit down toilets is generally preferred to the other for very minor reasons but it is preferred.
So, the battery terminals were getting slightly corroded on that window sensor because it was open more often to the outside environment.
I've rubbed a bit of silicone sealant into the crack between the two parts of the sensor and expect that it will survive better now.
The only downside is that the Safari extension is granted full access to my web browsing in order to facilitate the website blocking. They say they don’t capture any data and at this point do trust them (you may feel differently). For blocking apps, no private data sharing is required.
Quite easy, but doesn't help anyone but me. Though I like that it only disables blocking on my device and not my entire network.
If it is important, then if wifi/ethernet out then it should still work. So my doorbell used to have a link to a mechanical chime (Doorbird), the current Reolink jobbie does not but it is PoE and all my switches have UPS. The Reolink does have a separate chime that plugs into a power socket and a way better camera.
Oh and none of my home things ever get unfettered access to the internet. I have two VLANs for IoT: things is for most devices and sewer is for those that scare me somewhat.
I treat the whole thing the same way I do corporate IT and I do point Nessus at it. I have several Home Assistants that I look after - home and work and several customer ones too.
The OP's choice of smart plug is clearly designed to be mildly inconvenient to get at but also reliable. I'll put money on there being a monitoring function too.
That's a nerd that does things "proper like".
I started using PoE to DC power adapters for most of these use-cases. It lets me centralize my UPS to the utility closet, and offer a ton of runtime that way. My router + switching setup now powers my entire house including remote switches (PoE++ powered) and access points. Security cameras (and slowly now - security floodlights) are PoE powered as well. I have probably 12-14 hours of runtime off a large stack of UPS batteries, and could add a few days to that if I wheel my "whole home" UPS I never had the time to hardwire into the house yet into the room.
Items like the fiber NIU and cable modem are powered via PoE splitters into 9/12/24V outputs they require. I still have a few random bridges and other various devices I should convert as well, but I've been lazy lately.
I went with two lower port count "core" switches vs. one so I have redundancy there, so one going out will only take out half my network and I can still operate in a degraded mode - my AP density is such that it works fine, and I can re-patch the in-wall and PoE powered switches for workstations.
The only issue is that it kind of grows with a mind of it's own... I am up to an absurd number of devices on the network now.
I have two switches in my attic above those bedrooms and most of the rest of IT.
That means I can easily run cable drops along my attic and then under the roof to the outer walls of my house. I've run four Cat 5e to my garage and four to my sitting room.
Basically, I think we are both doing it right.
The biggest criticism of IoT is insecure and unreliable. If you buy any old tat and wire it up to Alexa well that's fine if it hangs together and it mostly does these days. If you squint hard enough, you can forget about Alexa being a bit of a security ... quandry.
There is no such thing as absurd when it comes to automation.
remuskaos•4h ago
I've used his idea and make a home assistant automation that temporarily disables adguard home to do the same thing.
NWChen•2h ago