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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 17th, 2023

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  • First off, have you got HA up and running yet? That should be your initial focus.

    There are 3 main options.

    • Old laptop

    The cheapest option, but only if you have a spare. It doesn’t need that much grunt. You definitely want to check how much power it draws however. It’ll be on 24/7 and the cost of that can mount up.

    • Raspberry Pi (or other single board computer)

    This is a good “play around” option. It’s one of the cheapest choices as well. Unfortunately, Pis can become a bit unstable down the line.

    • NUC, or other mini PC. The small mini PCs are my preferred recommendation. They are powerful enough to do more complex tasks, but power efficient enough to not be problematic. They are also a lot more reliable than the SBCs.

    As for other hardware. Z wave is the best, but also more costly. ZigBee is cheaper, and still very functional. WiFi does the job, but needs a bit more planning. I personally use a mix of ZigBee and WiFi.

    If you’re buying WiFi hardware, I would try and focus on esp based options (ESP8266, ESP8285, or ESP32). You can replace the firmware in these, with either Tasmota, or ESPhome. I personally use sonoff and/or athom hardware, but there are plenty of other options.

    This might help finding appropriate hardware.

    https://templates.blakadder.com/



  • What genres are you looking in?

    For building games, factorio, or satisfactory absolutely blow away anything from yesteryear. There are similar games in many genres.

    It’s worth noting that some genres saturated a while back. FPS type games have been optimised to the limits for a while. It’s difficult to make something new and interesting in that environment.

    It’s also worth noting that shovelware production has been industrialised, particularly in mobile gaming. Companies pump out mass numbers of games, that are basically reskins of each other. They are entirely focused on $$$ rather than making good games. They are predatory to the extreme, and water down the market further in the areas they attack.













  • cynar@lemmy.worldtoNo Stupid Questions@lemmy.world[deleted]
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    3 months ago

    It can, actually be done. It’s just inefficient and requires too much trust.

    You either do a general broadcast of power. This is incredibly inefficient, at any real range. To get power to the edges, the power near the transmitter will likely be enough to cook your cat.

    The other method is directed. You basically put out a power beam that improves efficiency. Unfortunately, you also now have a directable energy weapon in your living room. I wouldn’t trust something capable of cooking my brain, while I’m sat on the sofa, if it gets hacked.

    Neither are likely viable for general use, though both could be useful under certain conditions.