After my second Compute Stick died, I decided to just rewrite the whole thing in Swift and Swift UI and have it run on iOS. Also, it was an excuse to learn modern iOS development. I’ve found it much easier to maintain and that it just works better, but it is specifically tailored to my needs and not generally useful to others like some open-source projects are.

I’ve revised by SmartThings-based light and computer wake/sleep system to use HomeKit and a new macOS daemon.

Ever wanted to set up a minimal HTTP proxy to protect your API keys so you don't have encode them in your app? So did I. It took me a while to figure out, having never done it before, but I finally got it working. I try to explain how to do it here.

Our new house has a total of fifteen floor-mounted forced air heating registers. The second floor tends to be colder, so I wanted to automatically redirect air to the rooms we’re in to say heating oil and keep us warm. After failing to find any suitable smart heating registers, I went about building my own.

FDM printing ABS benefits greatly from a high temperature environment, so I made a version of the IKEA Lack enclosure for my Ender Pro 3.

I got fed up the problems I was having with the Raspberry Pi 2/Linux combo that was running my Magic Mirror, so I replaced it with a second generation Intel Compute Stick running Windows 10.  This was fairly quick to do, and has given me fewer problems and is notably snappier to work with.

I'm too lazy to wake three computers, turn on two monitors and flip on the lights, so I built an automated system to do it for me.

With a new computer comes new speaker stands and shelf brackets that can see over my newly rearranged desk.

I like having a drink with me, but I also like having my hands free and don't want to carry it around all the time.  The solution was to make my own drink carrier that would clip onto a belt loop.

With the forthcoming iOS 10 HomeKit updates, I decided to finally get Siri support for my SmartThings, Nest and Insteon hardware.  None of these directly support HomeKit (well, Insteon does, if you want to buy a new hub), but some industrious developers have put together their own intermediary solution to this problem, Homebridge.  I decided to take that route, and add my own support for Insteon FanLinc devices.

With Comcast's expansion of data caps, I started looking into how to monitor both per-app usage on my Macs, as well as per-machine usage on my network.  I went with two solutions: Little Snitch and Gargoyle.

One day I came across Michael Teeuw's Magic Mirror project -- a Raspberry Pi displaying daily information on a portrait mode HDTV behind a two way mirror.  This seemed like a great project, and I decided that I wanted to build my own (updated December 26th, 2015).