Category Archives: review

Mattos RGB Trim permanent roofline RGB pixel install

[Late post] I finally got around to installing permanent under eve roofline RGB lights, and I’ll share me experience and opinion of the Mattos RGB Trim I used. See my previous post and post on RGB holiday lights for background. I pre-ordered Mattos Engineering RGB Trim in December 2021 and received the shipment end ofContinue reading “Mattos RGB Trim permanent roofline RGB pixel install”

Moving from UniFi-USG and Circle to Firewalla

I replaced my aging UniFi Security Gateway Pro and slow Circle Home Plus with a Firewalla Gold Plus, giving me gigabit speed firewall and parental controls in a single easy to use and actively developed device. Why Firewalla? We have 1Gbps internet, and I want a feature rich firewall that can operate at line speed.Continue reading “Moving from UniFi-USG and Circle to Firewalla”

Installing FLAIR Smart Vents to keep room temperatures balanced

Every year on the hottest days and coldest nights, with the HVAC on, our bedrooms are either too hot or too cold, and I installed FLAIR Smart Vents to try and remedy the situation. In this post I am sharing my experience with the FLAIR installation and configuration, and my opinions and mini review ofContinue reading “Installing FLAIR Smart Vents to keep room temperatures balanced”

Cooling an Overheating MVMe SSD

The SSD in my Windows 10 system started reporting failures, and as luck would have it, died while I was cloning it to a new drive. I suspect death was caused by overheating, and I addressed that with my new setup. This Windows 10 system is in a NCase M1 v5 SFF case with anContinue reading “Cooling an Overheating MVMe SSD”

Abandoning GreenEye for Sense

I planned whole a house energy monitoring setup when we built our house. But in all these years I never completed the Brultech GreenEye installation, I officially called that plan abandoned, and instead installed Sense energy monitors. First a bit of a history, skip to the end if you’re not interested in my procrastination journey.Continue reading “Abandoning GreenEye for Sense”

Phyn Plus Smart Water Assistant – Early Impressions

Phyn Plus is a “smart water assistant”, a device that monitors water usage, and can automatically shut off the water supply when a leak is detected. I am familiar with whole house water monitoring and leak detection devices, like the widely available and advertised Moen Flo Smart Water Shutoff, but until very recently I’ve neverContinue reading “Phyn Plus Smart Water Assistant – Early Impressions”

Moving from Unraid to Proxmox VE

I finally took the plunge and moved from from Unraid to Proxmox VE. I used to love Unraid, but at some point the easy to use web management UI and app store ecosystem simply lacked capabilities I needed for deployment automation and configuration tasks. Then there is the problem with the poor IO performance, thatContinue reading “Moving from Unraid to Proxmox VE”

Moving from W2K16 to Unraid

I have been happy with my server rack running my UniFi network equipment and two Windows Server 2016 (W2K16) instances. I use the servers for archiving my media collection and running Hyper-V for all sorts of home projects and work related experiments. But, time moves on, one can never have enough storage, and technology changes. SoContinue reading “Moving from W2K16 to Unraid”

Monoprice MP Voxel 3D Printer Setup

[Update] After using the printer for about two weeks, I returned it to Monoprice for a refund. I would suggest you stay away and look elsewhere, or wait until Monoprice addresses the serious issues; Polar Cloud disconnects while printing, IO timeout error breaks camera function, and the deal breaker is hangs during printing, with the touchContinue reading “Monoprice MP Voxel 3D Printer Setup”

PurpleAir Sensor Installation

I’ve had a Ambient Weather WS-1400-IP weather station installed for some time, reporting to Weather Underground. During the fires of previous years, I considered getting an air quality monitor, but I could never find anything worth the installation effort. During this year’s fire season I saw several ads for PurpleAir, advertising that they collaborate with WeatherContinue reading “PurpleAir Sensor Installation”