Initial research and first purchases The photograph below shows the initial purchases Ian made to start testing and learning about using fibre optics in the home. The following is a list of the components purchased, all from Amazon.co.uk as Ian likes their returns policies: Ian will try to explain why Read more
Whilst still testing the equipment to be used for the install of Fibre Optic in Sandra and Ian’s home, Ian was looking into additional pieces of hardware that would be required and how to go about the actual installation. The next purchases were as follows: The purchase of the ipolex Read more
Ian and Sandra had some Solar panels and inverter etc. installed in 2014. Ian did his research before choosing which solution would be fitted, receiving some keenly priced quotes to some bonkers ones. The silly priced quoted by some of the company obviously assumed Ian hadn’t done any research beforehand. Read more
We used to subscribe to Now TV as they have some good content, but we got fed up of the monthly ‘Boost’ charge of £6.00, which we feel is a total rip-off. Now we regularly get emails from Now TV offering special deals, the latest is entitled “your killer offer Read more
We have had our pond pump connected to Home Assistant for a couple of years, simple programming On at dawn, off at dusk. There were 2 reasons for this noise at night, and basically trying to run all we can from our solar panels. The pump was purchased as an Read more
We initially received 3 units ( WoIOSensorTH ) from SwitchBot to review, these are Bluetooth IP65 Indoor / Outdoor Hygrometer / Thermometers. Our expectation was that these should work of the box with Home Assistant, though this wasn’t the case, so we shared our feedback to the manufacturer. SwitchBot responded Read more
During 2023, Ian managed to get most of the infrastructure installed, electrical wiring wise. It was decided to install 4mm² single core cables in conduit, as this would allow a current capacity of up to 15-20 amps to be carried safely. Thinking ahead of where we would like to position Read more
In 2017, we purchased a Synology DS716+II along with two Seagate IronWolf 8 TB hard drives, which we set up in the NAS as mirrored drives using RAID 1. Our plan was to store all our FLAC music, movies, photos, and more on it. We also installed the Plex Media Read more
When we decided to replace our PLEX server, which was running on our Synology DS716+II, we did some internet searches, which provided a shortlist of replacements. We really liked the look of Emby, it looked like an almost direct replacement for PLEX. The monthly fee presented the main stumbling block. Read more
We bought our Nest Learning Thermostat in August 2014, adding 2 x “Nest Protect 2nd Generation Smoke + Carbon Monoxide Alarm (Wired)” in July 2015. One for the hallway downstairs and one for the landing upstairs. Impressed by the thermostat, we invested in the “Protects” knowing that they had a Read more