TVA

I haven’t bought anything pre-built besides an Alienware laptop a decade or so ago, so, I have absolutely no idea what OP is talking about with:

• crystal-facet enclosures
• overall showiness

My cases are clean and I guess you could see the font on the video card if you looked into the case, but, the RGB just shines out and you don’t really have a reason to look in. The other two gaming systems I have in the house, I disabled the RGB and again, I’m not looking into the case frequently, so I don’t know that tacky fonts even register on my radar.

Keyboards/mice - again, RGB is all that’s really noticeable and that can almost always be turned off.

So, my guess is people don’t care for OPs prompt, but it kicked off their desire to talk about the only bit that is actually noticeable and that’s the RGB, if they didn’t disable it.

ETA: And that’s assuming people actually read the whole two sentences that OP wrote and didn’t just stop at the title.

“I’m just not a tech person! ::most annoying giggle imaginable::”

You don’t have to be a tech person to know how to use basic features on your damn phone! You’re not a mechanic because you know how to use the radio!

To make it worse, it’ll quickly get figured out and people will be calling in “oh my God! he’s trying to kill me”, get transferred to a person and be like “so, it’s 3pm in a Saturday and my neighbors are playing their music too loud!”

Right‽ If their terms of use indicate that they can collect this data no random PR promise can override/refute that! The only thing that can is an update to the T&C without this crap in there.

Looks fine for me with mobile app, Interstellar, fwiw, not even a little bit blurry.

I called Comcast and it was horrible

human, operator, GET HUMAN, person, technician, for fucks sake! Bomb? Give me a fucking human!

Nope, nothin, mashing 0 on the keypad also did nothing.

They’ve done this once before and walked it back.

Out of that decision and the backlash came the metrics, so they’d be able to make informed decisions before depreciating something.

Last time, I used Core (IIRC, it wasn’t even called Core back then) and was quite upset. Before they walked it back, I switched to the OS version and don’t really regret it. If their metrics now tell them that core isn’t worth supporting, it probably isn’t, but I definitely understand being upset about it.

It definitely sucks that the system that’s supposed to be about giving users freedom and options is removing some.

ETA: Backups also make this whole thing so much easier now. Back then, backing up and restoring core meant manually copying a bunch of files, but now, it’s a completely different and easier experience.

…and we’re back to it being woke

A lot of people don’t have a fully offline setup and still have at least some devices that talk to the cloud. If that’s the case, if they make any changes, HA has to also update in response to those changes, so they really can’t treat it as an ‘appliance’ that can just sit there.

HA devs are also pretty frequently updating HA to make it better (better dashboards, better methods to create automations, etc…) and if you update at least every couple of months you’ll be able to adapt pretty easily.

Mine will largely function without internet, at least it will for anything needed, but does still need WiFi, but, I still keep it up to date. They’re also constantly updating and adding services that it can tie into, so, keeping up to date adds a lot of features you may not have even known you needed/wanted.

2.1.4 is fixing things in 2.1.3 and when those broken things effect you because you decided to install a known buggy version, then you’ll shift the complaint that it shouldn’t have let you install the broken one that would have effected you.

Pay attention to the update notes and let the system take backups, that’ll cover you 99% of the time.

I had something similar happen with a Node-Red update a few years ago and I stopped allowing automatic updates and started reading the notes and being proactive about my updates and have had zero issues since because I ensure my system is ready for the updates first.

In my experience, Zoomers largely lack a lot of computer skills (specifically in troubleshooting), but, for me the huge difference between them and the older folks has been that the older folks will say things like “I’m just not a computer person ::laugh::” and refuse to be shown how to do anything whereas the Zoomer just doesn’t know, yet, but are more than willing to learn.

ETA: NOTE: that’s just the generalized trend … some of the most knowledgeable technical people I’ve met are Boomers and some of the best computer techs I’ve worked with have been Zoomers.

Yeah, my problem with it is that it’s always something. I’ve been giving it a go about once a year since they forked from Emby and everytime something has made me drop it.

If I’m having problems with it the handful of times I go to watch something using it, the people I share with DEFINITELY would and now I have to handle their auth crap myself as well.

I’ll probably prioritize just keeping a server going side by side now for a lot longer than a month or two at a time and try to find solutions to my problems. it’s never really been a priority before since Plex worked, but the writing has been on the wall for a while now that the enshittification is in full swing and now I need to make sure I’m ahead of it.

Blah, this sucks.

+1, definitely recommend VaultWarden and a VPN

My AmazFit Bip could do a month when it was new (it’s down to ~10 days now after a few years), so I would think a month from Pebble would be feasible.

I don’t understand using a watch that you can’t use for AT LEAST a weekend without power … as it is, I’m pissed off that I’m down to 10 days (it’s stayed steady here for 6 months or so, so, I’m hoping it won’t degrade too much more before the new Pebble comes out).

No, the Steam Link couldn’t actually play games natively and could only stream them from another system, this would be able to play independently of another PC but still requires an external screen and controller.

@[email protected] already took care of what SMART means and is good for, so, I’ll address what the spirit of your message instead.

For me, _almost _nothing in my house phones back anywhere with telemetry. Sure, anything that uses WiFi needs the network to run, but almost nothing has access to the actual internet because it’s on a VLAN that specifically blocks internet access.

If you plan out the equipment you buy, you can ensure it’s safe (the absolute easiest way to do that would be to only buy z-wave or zigbee equipment since by design that’s a completely offline ecosystem, unless you buy a controller for it that requires the internet). With WiFi, I basically only buy stuff that can be flashed to ESPHOME, which removes its online requirements and puts a completely different firmware on the devices … this is more work than most people would want to do though, but you can always buy devices that were already flashed by someone else. IIRC, there are even some devices that come that way from the factory and use ESPHOME as an option. Or, they’re devices where I bought the sensors and microcontrollers and wired them up myself and put ESPHOME on the microcontroller.

For me, I love walking into a room and the lights turning on. If it’s night, the lights are red to not jolt me awake. Later in the night, they’re dim and a bit more orangey rather than bright white. These are QOL improvements that I would not want to go back to not having.

My garage doesn’t have any of the standard RF “clickers”/4-digit-code-panels connected because they’re garbage, but I have a relay sitting on it that I can remotely trigger and open the garage. I have motion sensors so that if no one has been in the garage for the last 5 minutes and the door is open, it’ll close the garage door (this was because people kept forgetting it was open.) I have sensors to let me know when the windows are open at the same time as the heating/air conditioning to try and prevent burning money. None of this is internet enabled, but it is controllable over my network and my network is accessible over my VPN.

If the humidity is high in the bathrooms, it assumes someone is taking a shower and turns on the exhaust fans if they’re not already on. This can help prevent mold from growing. There are some real benefits to things being smart and I do 100% agree with you that apps that send data to companies on when we’re home/away and all that are BAD, but, if you plan ahead you can have your cake and eat it too, but the number of choices for equipment you’ll have will be lower, but at least your stuff will keep working regardless of internet access and regardless of whether the company that made the equipment is still around or not.

I have my bathroom fan turn on if the lid has been open more than 45 seconds … some things you just don’t (yet) know you need to be smart :-D

For me, all of our lights are smart (some bulbs with smart switches that talk to the smart bulbs and some just smart switches), but, everything needs to be able to function like it’s dumb … nothing needs an app to function. The wall switches will function as expected … home assistant adds additional functionality, voice commands add extra functionality, but, it all works as you’d reasonably expect it to if you just go and hit the wall switch.

For that second bullet point you can get them a smidge cheaper at thesmartesthouse

They’ve got a sale going on, might be worth looking into, but, sxan has really good points with his first bullet point

What next? A toaster with butter spreader built-in?

I mean, that’s at least a feature that you can look at and say “Huh, I’m not lazy enough to use it myself, but I’m glad it’s there for Granny who has arthritis and can’t hold the knife very well anymore” UNLIKE the AI which is basically just there for Samsung/LG to get money from Microsoft and for Microsoft … ??? … Profit???

Meh, there are always people who think their opinion is the only valid one. FWIW, I’m enjoying the hell out of S2 and liked S1 and the books. If you’re enjoying what you’re seeing so far, keep it going and hopefully you’ll keep liking it and if you don’t, you can always quit.