• 0 Posts
  • 318 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: August 9th, 2023

help-circle











  • I think the important part is that the Japan residents know it is possible once the town or city grows vs here in North America where people cannot fanthom the idea of not having a car (or in the US and Canada 1 car per person on the home).

    I am privileged since I have been able to work from home recently, but it is so clear that you don’t need a car if non-work things were closer (better zoning and design roads for people instead of cars). Once you put 1k miles per year on your car instead of 10-20k and your quality of life is much higher due to no stress from having to commute it starts to radicalize you against into the dumb shit we do in the name of growth and profit (not violently but still makes you feel cheated out of a better life).






  • Same here. I’m using the Nortek z-wave and sigbee usb adapter with zigbee2mqtt + home assistant (both on docker). They are sometimes annoying to pair, but never had one drop for anything other than low battery (original battery sometimes craps out after a few months, but replacements go for 1+ year). I did hear their second gen motion sensor was kind of a miss when compared to the original one, so I stuck to the v1s. Not sure if they’ve addressed the reported issues. People also say that they don’t follow the protocol to the letter, so it seems possible that depending on the hub, they might not work as expected.

    We also have some third reality smart switches that turn a switch “smart” with a physical mechanism on the outside, while not as good looking, they are awesome for renters when you want yo automate things like kitchen lights without having to replace anything on the circuit itself. The batteries last forever (aaa). I found that adding some vinyl matching the color of your outlets makes them more stealth if you also don’t have white outlets.

    Edit: one of our third reality switches was placed on the porch light, which we wired the Christmas lights to this year using one of those $1.50 light socket to socket adapters (LED Christmas lights use very little energy - should be ok to power with a light socket which can do 100w for porch lights just keep it below 60w if unsure). It made automating them on when the sun set and off after midnight or so a breeze.


  • That is expected. When a lane is added it fixes traffic for some time then it goes back to the same due to induced demand. Look at Texas and their 26 lane highway, it has not fixed their traffic problems and never will. It is always hard to move towards less car dependence, but it will never happen if we keep adding lanes.