@shane_kerr@starlabs yeah, I know that's a common thread with brand new products from Star Labs; since they're a small shop and are actually manufacturing unique devices (versus using a white-label product like most other small companies), they can take a loooong time to get off the ground. :(
Here's hoping it ends up being a dope device, though!
I continue to believe Zigbee delivers on the important things that Matter and Thread keep promising, but actually:
• mature
• widely available
• affordable
The one thing Matter over Thread devices can claim is that they work without a hub… except they don’t; the hub still has to be built into your Nest display, Apple HomePod, etc.
I have hundreds of low power, local-only smart devices from a dozen or so brands and it all… just works together.
Matter over Wi-Fi sounds neat but my wireless network is already over-congested, and a self-healing, self-managed mesh network is a whole lot nicer to work with.
It took me years to get over the “but I don’t want a hub!” line with Zigbee, and I regret wasting so much time on Wi-Fi devices. Zigbee is just better in every way.
This thread (ha) brought to you by my new smart devices this week:
• IKEA air quality sensor
• IKEA air purifier
• Lumary wafer light
• Aqara door/window sensors
The one newer smart device we have that isn’t Zigbee is a Meross garage door opener, but it works locally thanks to HomeKit (also an unsung hero of the interoperable smart home).
But it all works beautifully with Home Assistant, locally, and with my own automations to make things work exactly how I want.
@tuhgy I should really maintain a page on my website or something, but… I have a few dozen bulbs, a dozen door/window sensors, a dozen motion sensors, a bunch of climate sensors, some plugs, a few buttons, and a few air quality things all from probably 10+ manufacturers... running through a Sonoff Zigbee stick plugged into my Home Assistant server.
For climate sensors, I’d recommend Sonoff; they have small squares you can stick anywhere or ones with a display which is nice in some places.
@tuhgy for lights, I have had the absolute highest reliability with Cree bulbs (make sure you get Zigbee ones), but I think they’re just single-color (e.g. warm white, not tunable white or RGBW). I like the IKEA bulbs for their price but I don’t love the RGBW ones' color reproduction, and the tunable white spectrum is pretty limited. Philips Hue will be the best color, but are way more expensive.
• Sengled, because they’re not repeaters (so they don’t improve the network)
• OSRAM, Signify, or Sylvania: these are all from the same manufacturer and have given me nothing but trouble
Other than those that I’ve found, any Zigbee bulb ultimately should work fine—and I think my problems above are more prominent due to how many devices I have.
I got my Pixel tablet today and just got it set up. It's a nice piece of hardware absolutely let down by the not great state of android apps on tablets. I really like the dock tho. Honestly I'm not super concerned about the apps because I don't use tablets for much. The only reason I got this one is because the Google store offered me more money than I paid for my old base model iPad as a trade-in. I mostly just use it for D&D.
@micah the biggest thing for me is that it’s always charged, plus it makes a pretty good little media consumption screen (read: Bluey) for the kids in the afternoon. :) I do use it quite a bit for Google Meet and YouTube as well, but I just don’t really use a tablet that much in general.
Did you get the killer accidental deal for trading in the 6th-gen iPad? Katie has one collecting dust, and we just missed it; apparently they corrected the trade-in values today.
Gemini Nano with Multimodality just got announced! This new, 3.8B parameter is designed to run on-device and can process not just text input but also audio and images. It’s coming later this year “starting with Pixel” and will be used for:
Clearer descriptions with TalkBack. TalkBack will soon be able to automatically generate more useful image descriptions. This will help people with visual impairments who can’t see images, especially when those images don’t have alt text already.
I have a WordPress blog but honestly the interface isn't meeting my needs very well any more -- text entry on the web is just laggy enough that it makes writing frustrating, and the app did so many api calls that I got auto-blocked by my host... None of this is insurmountable but also I'm getting tired of it. And the ongoing issues with the CEO hassling trans people and the corporate AI moves have made me less inclined to work around problems.
Anyone got blog software they love? I'm debating going back to some kind of static site thing but think I need a way to write drafts from my phone and have them live on the server.