The other day I noticed that my Onkyo Receiver was not showing up in Home Assistant, nor was the Onkyo Remote app on my phone able to connect to it. After some searching I came across this post suggesting a solution. The fix is to edit the receiver’s name in its Network Settings and remove…
The last part of this series covers setting up the Home Assistant iOS app and enabling notifications. Future posts about Home Assistant will be more ad-hoc now that I have most of my smart home requirements already in-place. This is the process I followed to get the app installed and connected with my Home Assistant…
I’ve been dabbling in smart home devices over the past couple of years, and while many of them do enhance quality of life, I have some concerns. Namely, a dependence on cloud services, eroded privacy, security vulnerabilities, and a lack of interoperability. A smart home should be smart. It should know what you want/need at…
I’ve been working on my first mobile app (download Pool Wise for iOS today!) in my spare time for the past 18 months or so. Being a web developer, I decided to use Cordova and stick with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript rather than learn to code native iOS and Android apps. Getting a prototype up and running…
I’ve been working on an iOS app using an upgraded mid-2009 MacBook Pro, but I ran into a roadblock the other day when I wanted to test the app on a real device instead of just the iOS simulator. My iPhone is running the latest iOS 10.3 as of this writing, but the version of…
Like many tech-savvy thirty-somethings my household has acquired quite a few Wi-Fi-connected devices over the past few years: Fitbit Aria Wi-Fi scale Wireless printer Smart thermostat Apple TV/Roku Smart HDTV Wi-Fi baby monitor Wi-Fi security cameras Smart phones, tablets, computers etc. Our network had gradually become highly populated with devices, and I didn’t even notice. When I upgraded our router…
Ever since smartphones started adding video recording capabilities, I’ve seen a lot more videos recorded in “portrait” mode. This happens when you record a video while holding your phone upright instead of sideways. Depending on the phone, the video recording app you used, and how you are playing it back, the video may end up…
So I just discovered this handy tip and thought I’d pass it along. iPhone will auto-dial conference codes for you if the number is written in a particular format in the location or description fields of a calendar event. The phone number and conference code will be colored to show they are a telephone hyperlink.…
I’m a huge Mass Effect fan, and I was excited to learn that the final installment in the Mass Effect trilogy was going to include a meta-game system that would influence the outcome of the game. I’ve always thought it would be cool to be able to somehow interact with a game even when I wasn’t actually…