The right tool for the right job… LLMs can’t do a lot, and can make a lot of things worse when misapplied, but that doesn’t mean the technology is wholly useless.

This only applies if you use their bridge and the bridge is connected to the internet. If you do what I said in my comment (zigbee2mqtt addon with dongle) then there is no path for them to collect. The Zigbee2Mqtt addon allows for firmware updates.

I found that Phillips Hue bulbs works great with the Zigbee2Mqtt addon (and poorly/not at all with ZHA integration) and the $25 Sonoff dongle. Home Assistant sells their own dongle which I would imagine works even better too.

Hue bulbs are more expensive than most, but people seem to say they have the best color consistency.

If you want to stick with Wifi you could probably just hook up Tasmota plugs to your existing lamps.

Great read, I was unfamiliar with this publication. Thanks for sharing.

A nas or home server with one of them is a great idea

Lissen is my favorite audiobook player

I like that unlike Chrome, Firefox mobile can use all the extensions.

CasaOS or YunoHost are great places to start and hold your hand the whole way, while allowing you to tip toe into more advanced setups later on as you learn.

I love this idea.

It’s the “just works” distro for people who want to play games.

It’s been flawless for me with similar performance (slightly better in some areas) than Windows.

Very cool thanks for pointing them out, I will look into them.

Can you explain more? What are ublue scripts and what makes them so handy? I’m still new to this space.

To my knowledge Bazzite is basically SteamOS with more flexibility under the hood if you’re looking for it. By default it boots right into big picture mode. I imagine if you get an HDMI-CEC dongle it would work great as an HTPC once you get Big Picture set up with the streaming apps.

Kinoite is also great and usually what I recommend someone coming from Windows who wants a distro that “Just works”.

Bazzite is great. I wish I’d tried it sooner. It is great for a “steam machine” or just as a very stable regular desktop.

Wow he actually went with Mint and not some niche distro!

My first thought when GPT first released was “oh this is how search engines will be able to serve ads without disclosing that they are serving ads”

It’s theoretically possible but difficult to actually do. China has a large central government and surveillance state, VPNs are essentially banned there, and yet a large percentage of the population uses them daily to the point where it’s commonplace.

It’s for image recognition. Nothing sad about it. Great feature.