This is a brand new top of the line Bean Canyon Intel NUC. It has the new Core i7-8559U 4.5GHZ processor with an Iris Plus Graphics 655 iGPU. This NUC achieved a 12870 CPU score in passmark which is impressively high for any CPU, and is especially high for such a small, energy efficient system. […]
Making your home smart…er.
So you want an awesome smart home with automation and remote control but you’re not sure where to start? Don’t want to spend a lot of money? I’ll highlight some considerations at multiple price points to get anyone started with some smart home automation. The first thing you must consider is how you would like […]
Cheap 8TB Western Digital Drives
I still see far too many people paying way too much for 8-10TB Drives. This is a tutorial on how to shuck the Western Digital Mybook 8TB External hard drive. This drive can be found at bestbuy for anywhere from $130 to $180 when on sale. Unbox the hard drive: When prying the case […]
Home Automation: To hub or not to hub? Part 4 – Hybrid integration, security, final thoughts
Some of my devices require a hub and until I replace those, I will be using a hybrid solution. I have a bridge that connects my Z-Wave door locks and Z-Wave outdoor lights to the cloud. To make things more convenient, I use IFTTT to tie it all together. I Can control the lights and […]
Home Automation: To hub or not to hub? Part 3 – Advanced Integrations
For me, IFTTT has one glaring problem. You can create awesome triggers and actions as long as you are only needing a single action. I had set up a voice trigger to turn on the towel warmer in my master bathroom but I would have to remember to turn it back off after my towel […]
Home Automation: To hub or not to hub? Part 2 – Integrations
One glaring problem with not using a hub is integrating with other brands or platforms. A hub such as Smartthings, Wink Hub, etc. allows you to tie in Z-Wave, Zigbee, Bluetooth, and other technologies with a single control point. I’ve found an easy way around this by creating a virtual hub of sorts using IFTTT. […]
Home Automation: To hub or not to hub? Part 1 – Lights
When I first started playing with the modern iteration of home automation, not talking about X10 back in the day, I had to purchase a hub, or bridge, to communicate between the different products. I bought a very expensive light bulb kit with its hub that used the Zigbee mesh network, a couple of switched […]
Comparing home security cameras. Expensive vs cheap.
I recently purchased a handful of the super popular $25 (USD) Wyze Cams to keep an eye on my pets. After setting up the cams on my bird aviaries I noticed the quality seemed a lot higher than the $200 Ring doorbell camera I purchased 2 years ago. I decided to do a comparison of […]
Limitations and bugs when using Quicksync in Plex
I recently tested multiple Quicksync capable CPU’s in Plex and found some interesting bugs/problems. I would like to make the community aware of these issues in the hope that maybe Plex can work on fixing them :). First and foremost what is Quicksync? Quicksync is Intel’s answer to hardware transcoding on cpus with the iGPU (Integrated […]
How well can AMD GPU’s Hardware transcode?
I went out and bought an RX580 naively thinking it might have similar performance to the P2000 without the price tag. On paper things look very similar and in some cases slightly better for the RX580: On paper these two cards are similar and even if I were to have gotten half the performance out […]