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[572.00 --> 577.68] I'll even reboot my router often just to make sure that comes up fresh and nice and snappy.
[577.82 --> 579.54] And then we set off.
[579.66 --> 581.36] And that's kind of my process every time.
[581.36 --> 583.40] And it forces me to go through and verify my backups.
[583.80 --> 588.04] Kind of forces me to do updates and figure out what needs updated and what I couldn't do.
[588.16 --> 592.10] And kind of makes me think about what do I need that I can store offline.
[592.28 --> 594.84] So that way when we don't have connectivity, life goes on as usual.
[594.98 --> 596.58] And I think it worked really well.
[597.40 --> 602.76] You know, this kind of trip to Montana was one of my use cases in my mind for this whole project off-grid.
[602.76 --> 603.82] That's awesome, man.
[604.18 --> 613.04] Like, last time you were trying to solve some issues around, was it the various voice tubes, the voice assistants?
[613.46 --> 613.64] Yeah.
[613.76 --> 616.58] And their GPS locations and stuff with them freaking out.
[616.64 --> 617.48] How was that this time?
[617.78 --> 625.48] So the HomePod does all right because it goes often, not always, but by the location of like the primary phone that set it up.
[625.90 --> 628.46] But the other stuff is really dumb about it.
[628.46 --> 632.50] And so what we just use the other stuff as is reference for what it's like back at home.
[632.76 --> 638.08] So when we ask for weather or we see the clock on there, we know that's what time at home is or what weather it is at home.
[638.20 --> 646.20] And that's just, you know, what really I think solved that problem for me was when I put up the Fire tablets that have the Home Assistant dashboard up all the time.
[646.86 --> 650.06] And the family can just, they kind of just prefer to do that anyways.
[650.94 --> 652.64] And then I still kind of use the tubes.
[652.92 --> 655.00] But you made a point the other day on Linux Unplugged.
[655.00 --> 656.90] There's actually a great interview on there.
[657.24 --> 660.66] And we were torn about whether to use that interview in this show or LUP.
[660.66 --> 665.90] And we ended up using it in LUP in the end with Aaron about his converted school bus.
[666.48 --> 666.64] Yeah.
[667.10 --> 667.96] Really cool project.
[668.08 --> 670.32] You know, and Alex, he's taken to the next level.
[670.72 --> 675.54] I'm still not there yet where I'm not pulling all of the metrics out of my electrical system and putting it into Home Assistant.
[676.06 --> 676.84] But he's done it.
[677.30 --> 682.22] He's done it with some Raspberry Pis and a little box that Victron makes called the Venus.
[682.22 --> 684.92] And he gets all that information in there.
[685.02 --> 687.30] And I love that idea.
[687.30 --> 689.80] And then what I want to do is kind of gamify it a little bit.
[689.80 --> 696.04] And I saw another post recently from a dad who took Home Assistant and put family chores in there.
[696.08 --> 699.34] And the family checks off the chores via the Home Assistant Lovelace dashboard.
[699.54 --> 700.70] And it generates points.
[700.76 --> 701.32] You saw that?
[701.60 --> 702.36] I saw that one, yeah.
[702.44 --> 703.32] It's such a great way.
[703.32 --> 709.40] I love to do that, but with power to kind of encourage and incentivize the family to conserve power.
[710.06 --> 714.98] Although on this trip, Alex, legitimately, the solar system was totally enough.
[715.08 --> 720.86] I was worried that 600 amp hours of lithium would not be enough power for a full family.
[720.86 --> 725.48] But when you get some good solar coming in like we had on this trip, we had good solar every day.
[725.90 --> 729.54] And you're doing just a little bit of driving so you also charge from the alternator.
[730.18 --> 732.86] I'm not exaggerating when I say we had unlimited power.
[733.00 --> 735.90] We had more power than we could use.
[736.50 --> 742.12] For the nearly two weeks, we just lived life as if we were hooked up to the grid.
[742.78 --> 746.66] And I never had to tell the kids, turn off the lights or don't turn that TV on.
[747.06 --> 749.12] I do still struggle with some overheating problems.
[749.12 --> 753.46] I had my power system overheat once when it was pretty hot out and we were really pushing it.
[753.58 --> 756.50] And I was really trying to see how hard I could push the system in general.
[757.26 --> 763.08] And it did like a safety shutdown on me and turned off the power to everything, including the servers.
[763.60 --> 768.40] Well, I mean, if you're doing a life hack where you're using the sun to power your air conditioner to cool you down,
[768.44 --> 771.94] as well as, you know, running a toaster or whatever else you're doing.
[772.22 --> 776.26] Yeah, it's a bit of one of those situations where when you have that much sun,
[776.26 --> 778.64] it creates enough heat that you need to run the air conditioning.
[778.64 --> 780.60] And you end up trying to balance it all out.
[781.10 --> 782.42] And I was really pushing it.
[782.52 --> 783.50] Oh, and we'd been driving.
[783.74 --> 786.12] And of course, the drivetrain itself gets hot.
[786.22 --> 790.80] So where our power bay is at, you know, there's heat from the drivetrain to adding to this whole thing.
[790.86 --> 794.42] It's just so, yeah, I'm very happy with it.
[794.48 --> 799.74] I do have to seriously figure out cooling, but it just is going to involve major cutting into the side of my RV.
[799.74 --> 800.94] And I just don't want to do that.
[800.94 --> 803.72] But one day, and I need to get that data into Home Assistant.
[804.26 --> 805.88] I've got to get that figured out as well.
[806.42 --> 815.30] And then ultimately, Alex, I would love to be managing this entire thing with some system that allows me to redeploy everything from scratch.
[815.30 --> 826.12] So if a Raspberry Pi died from heat or everything died and I had to pop in new units, when I'm on the road, it would be a minimal amount of downtime and just totally be able to redeploy my infrastructure from one central point.
[826.18 --> 827.60] And I know that's something we want to talk about today.
[827.60 --> 834.18] But it's been on my mind because that seems like the next level I could take this setup to, to make it even more trouble free.
[834.32 --> 841.12] And when there is a problem, a couple of Raspberry Pis in the drawer, I pop them in and I run some sort of system and they're back up and running.
[841.58 --> 842.86] Okay, I'm out 45 minutes.
[843.02 --> 844.46] That's where I want to take it next.
[844.66 --> 853.04] So data from the power system, figuring out cooling and doing some kind of infrastructure as code setup are my next goals for Project Off Grid.
[853.04 --> 856.40] I love your optimism that you've only got a couple of Pis in the drawer.
[857.60 --> 862.26] And I should probably have a switch and maybe a whole other router because that stuff gets hot.
[862.54 --> 863.92] Power supplies, don't forget those.
[864.16 --> 864.56] Yes.
[865.10 --> 868.50] Yeah, everything, the stuff in the telco cupboard.
[868.64 --> 869.42] How's the bench seat?
[869.60 --> 870.24] It gets hot.
[870.32 --> 871.26] It gets really hot.
[871.36 --> 873.68] The bench seat's also getting hot, but less equipment in there.
[873.80 --> 879.24] It's better now as I've moved, as I've dispersed stuff now that I have power over ethernet, I've kind of spread stuff out.
[879.32 --> 879.66] Yes.
[879.66 --> 884.86] So the thermal load is not as bad, but it's still not where it still needs a solution.
[885.02 --> 885.68] I'm still not happy.
[885.90 --> 887.46] POE is just so awesome.
[887.60 --> 894.98] I was putting a TV on the wall in my kitchen the other day, and I've got one of these UniFi units that's powered over ethernet.
[895.36 --> 899.46] And on the bottom, it's got a couple of ethernet jacks on the bottom.
[899.46 --> 915.74] And so rather than running a whole second ethernet cable from wherever in the house, which would have been a good couple of hundred feet's worth of cable, I just plugged one tiny little right angle jack into the bottom of this UniFi thing, fed it up through the drywall and out behind the TV just ab...
[915.80 --> 917.42] And it was so easy.
[917.42 --> 924.06] Yeah, those are the kinds of solutions that feel like life hacks because you just saved yourself an hour or two for running cable.
[924.06 --> 927.14] And who enjoys fishing cables through walls, man?
[927.24 --> 928.24] And crawl spaces?
[928.52 --> 928.98] Not me.
[929.10 --> 929.70] I'll tell you that.
[929.70 --> 934.32] Linode.com slash SSH.
[934.40 --> 939.48] Go there to get $100 in 60-day credit towards a new account and go there to support the show.