When I couldn’t find anything that seemed to work for me I decided to go with a “hands-free” approach. My alarm will arm-home when everyone has been home for 15 minutes. It arms-away when everyone is gone. It disarms when someone gets home. If armed-home and an exterior door is opened with presence detected inside by that door it disarms. I haven’t had a mis-fire since I started it.

lol - that won’t work for me, I live in Texas and that means my light would always be deep, dark red. Cool concept though.

As I replied to another who suggested ESPHome - I don’t want a bunch boards and wires stuck everywhere and unless I am misunderstanding it I’ll need to get into 3d printing to make enclosures for stuff. I can see going there some day but no room for a makerspace in this house until the boy moves out.

You don’t need to unlock your phone to fire an event in HomeAssistant. My iPhone needs to be awake but will still scan and run shortcut while locked.

I don’t do NVR - my servers are all low power except my PleX and I have so much storage dedicated to that I just can’t see adding more. All cameras have SD storage and I have key events backing up to cloud.

Done all that except the Xmas stuff - my neighbor across the street puts up incredible holiday lighting all year long…literally tens of thousands of dollars worth of gear in play. I can’t afford to even make a showing next to that.

Yes, LEDs and water flow and voice control among other goodies.

I keep hearing ESPHome but it seems so bare metal - how do you make the little boards look like they belong? I really don’t want to have to start 3d printing stuff to make enclosures.

I do but Mrs has clearly stated that she dislikes light level automations - I have a couple FP2 presence sensors and I set up various zones so the light would follow you around and dim asa you left. I wigged her out.

Actually NFC tags were one of my first things back when I was using HomeKit. They are much better in HA because you can fire an event without any interaction with the device that scans it and that is pretty cool.

Thanks, I have a 10-pack of tags that I could deploy to do random stuff for my own enjoyment. I appreciate the reminder!

I couldn’t find one that made me happy and finally decided to forget physical arming and disarming - I use companion app location (home/away) and automations to arm and disarm. All exterior doors have presence sensors near them and when armed home if presence is detected near a door it can be opened and the alarm is disarmed. I haven’t had an accidental trigger so far.

I can’t help you with that but it brought to mind a funny story. I was at a customer’s house doing some work and she was on a conference call so unable to be attentive. Her robot vac started working the bedrooms and bathroom where her catbox was and that glorious kitty had kicked out a sizable nugget that the robot grabbed and smeared all the way down the carpeted hallway and back.

Don’t sweat the RAM. The M series really are different than the intel forebears. You’ll be fine with all of your considered options.

The cheap-as-dirt meross does, it has an open/closed sensor.

Most openers have a dumb switch interface. A simple close-to-change circuit - I’ve never had one that wasn’t that way. If MyQ is so complicated (serial interface!?) then it needs to go anyway.

lol, just get a dumb opener and a shelly relay or use a meross unit. Super cheap and flawless local control that is cloud-connected if you want it.

I’m going to be an outlier in my comment here but, for myself (an elderly dude who has done what you just did) I, personally, prefer to hire it done. You paid 2-3 hundred on parts and tools, put in 10+ hours of work and still have not got it working. I have come to appreciate the skill and ability of trades…they do that for a living - let them.

I’m really good at my chosen trade and I laugh at those that think they can just do my job because the watched a YouTube video about it. I fix their problems every day and charge them no more than someone who didn’t fuck it up first because I can appreciate the effort but I don’t charge them less because they did part of the work incorrectly.

I’m glad you have someone to lean on - that’s what makes the difference for me. I also don’t do bro - hate sports, don’t like pranks. I don’t have many friends but the ones I have are solid and dependable. I see my best friend less than monthly but we talk several times a day to share work complaints, discuss food or what we’re currently binging on TV.

After reading the other replies I went back and re-read your post to check…you don’t mention a partner or any significant other. I think you might be focusing too hard inward (bad mood, cynical, walls up) and not focusing outward (cherishing interactions with others, forming or maintaining bonds with others). Perhaps you’re feeling lonely?

I am a grump but my wife won’t let me get away with it for long. I am cynical but my friends call me on it because I force myself to share. My work puts me in contact with new people every day and I actively seek an understanding of them and have to let them see who I am in order to be good at my job.

Another respondent said “put yourself out there”. I agree but would also add seek out interactions with others and be a participant not an observer.

I used to vape on mesh and cable wick. Some people think you need cotton in between but you do not if you know how to set it up right.

The coil can be wrapped directly on the mesh or cable as long as you build up a layer of non-conductive carbon between them. Back when they were popular most would use a torch on the mesh or cable to get it scorched. Then you wrap coil gently in complete contact (no loose/floppy coils) with the wick.

The fun part is working out the hot spots by pulsing and actually poking the coil where it tries to short on the wick…it really is an art to get it right.

Once it’s set up correctly you have a nifty juice conduit straight to the coil - you actually have to tip the atomizer to let the juice flow. It can be an excellent vape but kind of a PITB to get right.

I can’t attest to the accuracy of your hypothesis but I have been thinking a lot about AI lately. I’m eagerly awaiting the day that some genius comes up with an AI post filter that I can tell it to “never show me cats” or “block and downvote all memes”. That will be the day that the internet becomes a peaceful place for me.

…and dogs rule, btw.