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Latest entry
The EU Just Unlocked the Chip That Listens for “Hey Google.” My Phone Might Finally Hear “Okay Nabu.”
Read the log: The EU Just Unlocked the Chip That Listens for “Hey Google.” My Phone Might Finally Hear “Okay Nabu.”Google kept Android’s low-power wake-word hardware to itself for years — that’s why local voice on your phone meant battery drain and a permanent green dot. A new EU decision forces the door open, and the Open Home Foundation helped push.
Recent entries
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The EU Just Unlocked the Chip That Listens for “Hey Google.” My Phone Might Finally Hear “Okay Nabu.”
Google kept Android’s low-power wake-word hardware to itself for years — that’s why local voice on your phone meant battery drain and a permanent green dot. A new EU decision forces the door open, and the Open Home Foundation helped push.
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Shelly Firmware 2.0.0 Reads Like an Apology Letter. My Relays Are Getting It One at a Time.
Shelly’s firmware 2.0.0 started rolling out on July 13 with an OTA auth-bypass fix, mandatory BLE pairing, and secure provisioning extended to Matter and Zigbee. After February’s open-access-point mess, here’s how I’m updating my relays — one at a time.
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Hue Bulbs Are About to Speak Zigbee and Thread at the Same Time. My Setup Has Opinions.
Silicon Labs and Signify are bringing concurrent multiprotocol to select Philips Hue bulbs — one radio, two live networks. It is real engineering, not a marketing slide, and it quietly changes who else gets to talk to your lights.
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21 Minutes of Outage a Year: Why My Home Assistant Box Still Needs a Battery
The average Swiss household lost 21 minutes of power in 2024. That number is exactly why sizing a UPS for a 12-watt Home Assistant box is a stranger problem than it looks — and why the box is not the thing you are really protecting.
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Frigate 0.18 Wants to Chat About My Driveway. The Local-First Question Is Whose Computer It Runs On.
Frigate’s 0.18 beta lands full UI configuration, switchable profiles, and an LLM chat agent that can search my cameras. Here’s what’s actually worth having on a modest mini PC — and the breaking changes I’m sorting out before stable.
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Zigbee2MQTT Stopped Trusting External Converters by Default. Mine Have Run Strangers’ Code for Years.
One line in the Zigbee2MQTT 2.11 changelog sent me on a security audit of my whole Zigbee setup. Here’s what changed, why it matters, and the weekend checklist that came out of it.
One house, going fully automated — documented honestly
No sponsor scripts, no spec-sheet worship. Just a working log of every room as it gets wired, what broke, and what I’d do differently. If it didn’t earn its place, it doesn’t make the site.
Read the full storyGear I actually use
Zigbee PIR Sensor
Fast trigger, two-year battery, and rock-solid local control. The one in every room.
Thread radio
Home Assistant Connect ZBT-2
The official HA stick, running OpenThread — the anchor of my local-first Thread network. No big-tech hub required.
Dimmable Smart Bulbs
Warm-to-cool tuning that actually holds state after a power cut. Worth the extra.
The newsletter for people building it themselves
One email when a new build log lands — plus the small wins and dumb mistakes that don’t make the site. Free, weekly-ish, no spam.