How about a bot that types slowly, so it can have time to consider what it’s going to say? Or perhaps a web page with an “Analyzing issue” status bar that takes several minutes to complete, because computers just do better if they’re given time to work on a problem?
Another example of Republican principles. Corporations are protected by laws but not bound by them, while the average citizen is bound by laws but not protected by them.
“We’re always looking for ways to improve our customer service experience.”
LOL!
The librarians I’ve talked to simply don’t know how any of this works. I’ve been told 3 times (the 3rd one today) that epub version of books are not available. Today it was a “trained computer aid that offers technology assistance” saying the epub format I download just last week is not available from the library.
Overdrive’s being phased out and being replaced by Libby according to the 2 libraries I frequent. I wonder if it will still be supported on Kobo OS once the website and apps are shut down?
It’s not just Amazon. Libraries (and Libby, the app they use) are also making it difficult to do anything but read in a browser or use Kindle.
The really amazing thing is that spez’s planet-sized ego created the whole user exodus. People were willing to pay a monthly fee to continue to use the site ad-free via our mobile apps. Hundreds of other companies remove ads when people pay fees, but all of that revenue is just gone along with a big chunk of contributors because spez had a tantrum.
Yes for both of my refrigerator sensors. There’s a concrete floor and multiple concrete walls between one of the sensors and the hub and it still works perfectly.
“NaziAI” has a real ring to it.
If you’ve not ordered from Aliexpress be aware their website is set up to display deep discounts for first time orders by default. Once you log in after your first order the discounts disappear and the prices are much higher.
Pretty crappy business practices, but when a product is 1/4 the price of buying locally, still hard to pass up. For $4 a pop I put leak sensors under every sink and toilet in the house. At the time they were $17 each on Amazon. Also be aware it is very easy to buy a wifi version instead of Zigbee because of the way the website is set up. Many Tuya wifi devices require always on Internet access.
I’m in the U.S. and it’s $4-$5. Free shipping with a $10 purchase. Surprised it’s so much more in the E.U.
Occasionally someone (me mostly) will forget to hit the start button on the washer only to come back an hour later to a washer full of dirty clothes. An automation watches for the power draw on the washer to remain above the “powered off” but below the “running” wattage for a few minutes and sends a “Washer not started” notification if that occurs.
Roku loves to push menu updates while the TV is turned off and we would randomly find a new menu entry for “Zombie Housewives of Beverly Hills” when turning on the TV. An automation turns on OpenWRT firewall rules blocking Internet access when the TV’s are turned off, and automatically disables those rules when the TV’s are turned on. Menu updates still happen but they don’t seem to happen as often and the automation works so well no one notices it. It also blocks the constant stream of data Roku sends to the company’s servers except when the TV’s are actually in use. Roku has voice activated remotes that are probably always listening (no matter what the company says) and it blocks that traffic too. Between that and Adguard Home’s blocking of all other UI ads the TV’s are almost completely deshittified.
I have a couple of old but high quality pieces of audio gear that are used with Spotify Connect. An automation powers on whatever amp / receiver Spotify is playing on using an IR blaster or wifi smart plug and powers them off when play stops. One receiver draws 80 watts when powered on and it was annoying when it was accidentally left on for a couple of days. This automation alone saves us a whole dollar or two a year.
Bonus 4th automation: I bought some Kasa smart bulbs that are really unreliable and randomly will stop responding to wifi commands. Usually 1 bulb out of the 3 in a ceiling fixture will remain on when an automation had sent a command to turn them all off. 3 different redundancy automations watch for mismatches between bulb states and when the offline bulbs wake up again (usually in 30 seconds or so), it resends the command to sync the bulbs. These automations have made the Kasa bulbs usable when they otherwise would have been trashed.
One of my main goals when setting up home automation was making sure the devices I’m using do not need cloud access. The only exception is an old Honeywell thermostat that I’ll replace eventually. Everything else, including security camera occupancy detection continues to work if the Internet goes down.
My router only has one open port and that’s for Wireguard. It’s set to a random port number and appears closed to external scanners so I believe my network security is reasonably good. Devices that like to connect to external servers like TP-Link cameras and bulbs are blocked by the router’s firewall.
For occasional external access I use Tasker to detect what network I’m on and then automatically connect to Wireguard when away from home. After the WG tunnel’s up it starts Home Assistant Companion. It’s not as seamless as Home Assistant Cloud, but for occasional use it’s fine.
Warning about Home Assistant: It’s ridiculously addictive. It is also so flexible that I’ve been able to implement almost anything that comes to mind and ended up with more sensors and automations than I ever thought I’d use.
Seems to be. It reads within 1 degree of a digital refrigerator thermometer.
I use the round version of the same Tuya temperature sensor in my refrigerator and with Home Assistant. For $4 I wouldn’t hesitate trying one in a protected area outside. As long as it’s not directly exposed to rain or sun it’ll probably work fine.
CVS and their deliberate, hostile business practices chased me away years ago when I was unable to stop them from auto-refilling prescriptions I did not need. California finally took action against CVS in 2020 after many years of their carefully engineered abuses.
Good to see the company’s crappy behavior continues unabated and there’s no reason to give them another try.
This one: https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/devices/TS0210.html
It very accurately senses when the dryer’s running, but required some tweaking to the automation to ignore the washer’s spin cycle. What kind of sensitivity issues are you running into?
If all you want to know is when the cycles are complete, it’s easy to do without trying to decipher Samsung’s wifi output.
The end of cycle signals on my LG washer and dryer can’t be heard in my living areas and LG smart app requires precise location permissions enabled all the time to function. Not gonna happen.
A power monitoring Zigbee plug was an easy solution for the washer but I could find nothing like that for a 220V dryer. A ZigBee vibration sensor did the trick even though the units are stacked.
I want to know how to switch groups.