Guides, explainers, and editorials for the modern smart home engineer.
Explainer
Putting your Home Assistant hub on a UPS protects it from the power blips that corrupt databases, and — wired to a shutdown automation —...
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Explainer
The single automation that makes a local NVR feel worth building is this: the instant Frigate sees a person — not a car, not a...
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Explainer
Smart water monitoring for the home is the habit of treating your water like data — watching usage, flow, and where every drop goes —...
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Explainer
IoT privacy comes down to one principle applied everywhere: minimize the data your devices collect, control where it goes, and prefer gear that keeps it...
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Explainer
The best mmWave presence sensors in 2026 are the Everything Presence One for fully local DIY builds, the Aqara FP2 for a polished zone-mapping experience,...
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Explainer
For a local NVR that has to record 24/7, PoE wins over Wi-Fi on the one axis that matters most: reliability. A PoE camera carries...
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Explainer
When a Home Assistant update breaks your setup, the calm fix is almost always to roll back: restore the full backup you took right before...
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Explainer
Helpers are the variables and memory of your Home Assistant setup. On their own, automations are stateless: they fire, do a thing, and forget. A...
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Explainer
The best camera for Frigate isn’t the one with the flashiest “AI” box art — it’s the one that hands you a clean, dual-stream RTSP...
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Explainer
A renter’s smart home should pack down in an afternoon and come back up in a couple of hours at the new place. If you...
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