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[300.98 --> 305.24] And for those in the Jitsi room, Chris is playing the video from the GitHub page. |
[306.04 --> 311.42] And essentially this thing is it's like it's like the autonomous mower, but actually smart. |
[311.42 --> 319.54] The old ones like the kind of I say old, like the current generation ones just sort of bop around the lawn in a random pattern until they're done. |
[319.92 --> 326.16] This thing actually uses GPS traces to figure out the most efficient pattern and then zip zops back across the lawn. |
[326.16 --> 329.34] Of course, my question is, does it work with home assistant? |
[329.76 --> 330.88] It really is. |
[330.98 --> 333.98] It looks like a Roomba for your lawn. |
[334.64 --> 341.14] It looks like while training it, he's walking it manually with almost like an RC controller that's wired to it. |
[341.14 --> 344.18] That's teaching it the the way he would mow the lawn. |
[344.36 --> 345.20] So it's essentially. |
[346.96 --> 349.88] Repeating his lawn mowing technique, right? |
[349.90 --> 351.14] It's just memorizing it. |
[351.14 --> 354.82] I mean, he's basically saying to his lawn mower, this is the way. |
[356.08 --> 356.54] Right. |
[356.72 --> 357.74] This is the way. |
[358.08 --> 360.66] Well, like previously other lawn mowers, right? |
[361.08 --> 368.36] The automated lawn mowers would have like a wire or something that you would like embed in the ground, which would then say, hey, stop here. |
[368.58 --> 373.16] So to see this open and the fact that it operates on GPS is pretty rad. |
[374.06 --> 376.50] Yeah, this one specifically calls out in the GitHub page. |
[377.18 --> 379.60] No, no perimeter wire needed. |
[379.86 --> 380.28] Yeah. |
[381.14 --> 381.74] Hmm. |
[382.16 --> 383.20] I like that you could. |
[383.36 --> 389.78] I mean, with the walking technique, while that means one time you have to walk this thing around, you could also give it really specific routes. |
[389.78 --> 399.24] So if you have like a patch of gravel somewhere you'd want it to avoid or stumps and roots and stuff like that, this is a really simple way to just avoid the thing from screwing itself up. |
[399.64 --> 403.44] And then, of course, I go to like, well, could I then get metrics? |
[403.78 --> 405.32] What kind of metrics could I get out of this? |
[405.34 --> 407.38] And what could that tell me about the state of my yard? |
[407.38 --> 417.42] Well, and maybe you could, you know, learn how more efficiently you could mow your yard if it was operated in different patterns, right? |
[417.42 --> 427.00] Like the kind of like Google gives you the recommendation of the most eco-friendly path to your destination versus the shortest route and stuff. |
[427.00 --> 432.10] Well, you know what I'm actually thinking about, I could give you an example, is the things monitoring when it's raining or not. |
[432.18 --> 434.78] So that way it doesn't run during rain. |
[434.78 --> 445.78] It would be, actually, now that I think about it, I'd really like something that specifically told me for my yard, when it rained, how long it rained, when it stopped raining, all of that. |
[445.94 --> 455.14] So if anybody has a recommendation, something that I could pull into Home Assistant, send a boost into the show or email me, chris at jupiterbroadcasting.com, because that actually I could geek out on. |
[455.50 --> 456.38] You need a weather station. |
[456.94 --> 457.22] Right. |
[457.36 --> 457.92] But which one? |
[458.64 --> 458.92] Aha. |
[459.28 --> 461.80] Alex, I'm interested in the hardware that's running this thing. |
[461.80 --> 467.58] Is it like a do-it-yourself kit or are you taking something off the shelf and reflashing it or something? |
[467.94 --> 478.54] Well, unfortunately, this project has been shared a bit too much and several of the components in the hardware bill of materials have sold out. |
[478.80 --> 482.62] I mean, we're all used to that at this time of the pandemic, right? |
[482.78 --> 490.10] But the trouble is the specific stepper motors that he's using are out of production or out of stock. |
[490.10 --> 492.00] They're not even sure if they're still going to make them. |
[492.46 --> 496.34] Like, he bought maybe the end of the batch or something, coincidentally. |
[496.56 --> 500.90] So unfortunately, he's saying to people, make sure you look up before you invest in this project. |
[501.00 --> 503.46] You can actually find all the parts, because it's not a given. |
[504.42 --> 511.90] Another thing he said that's really interesting, though, is that it looks like, in terms of the robot mowers that are already on the market, |
[511.90 --> 517.80] there's a bunch that may share a similar main board across rebranded different manufacturers. |
[517.80 --> 523.84] So he's going to try and target that one and hopefully make that one open. |
[524.06 --> 529.12] And then you could just buy a clone of this mower and then flash it with his firmware. |
[529.32 --> 530.98] It's like the pixel of lawnmowers. |
[531.72 --> 532.88] It sounds pretty awesome. |
[534.04 --> 534.24] Hmm. |
[534.78 --> 536.66] Well, I guess we'll stay tuned. |
[536.78 --> 538.18] And if anybody tries this, let us know. |
[538.18 --> 543.82] So this week we had we had one of these stories that was kind of the inspiration for the podcast. |
[543.96 --> 545.62] And it's just a shameful story. |
[545.90 --> 547.44] You may have heard of Insteon. |
[547.74 --> 549.24] Well, it looks like they're gone. |
[549.24 --> 554.60] And the entire company seems to have just abruptly shut down before the weekend as we record here. |
[554.82 --> 559.46] And that broke users cloud dependent smart home setups with no warning. |
[559.70 --> 562.66] There was no official word ahead of the shutdown. |
[562.96 --> 564.86] No advanced warning to users. |
[564.86 --> 569.02] And it's sort of like salt in the wound style. |
[569.24 --> 576.52] They have a craptastic status page that's obviously manually updated because when you go to it, it says all services online. |
[576.76 --> 577.28] Right. |
[577.40 --> 577.62] Yeah. |
[578.12 --> 580.40] Clearly that monitoring doesn't do jack. |
[580.76 --> 581.78] I hate that. |
[581.88 --> 583.66] I hate that so much. |
[584.08 --> 584.28] Yeah. |
[584.28 --> 591.28] So Insteon is or more likely was a smart home company that produced a variety of smart home devices. |
[591.80 --> 600.06] They did something along the lines of Z-Wave or Zigbee with their own proprietary protocol, which has thankfully been reverse engineered. |
[600.06 --> 602.96] So we're not completely up the creek without a paddle, just mostly. |
[603.96 --> 607.86] And yeah, like Chris says, they went out of business some point over the weekend. |
[608.08 --> 612.62] And their CEO has scrubbed all mentions of the company from his LinkedIn page. |
[612.62 --> 623.70] Basically, all of the devices belonging to Insteon are now paperweights, with the exception of their wall switches, which are electrically connected as part of the circuit. |
[623.84 --> 630.04] So that the worst case scenario that happens with those is they're still mechanical switches that will operate the lights at least. |
[630.04 --> 632.82] So there is some silver lining. |
[632.94 --> 634.98] It's a small one, but it's there. |
[635.98 --> 636.88] This is horrible. |
[637.84 --> 641.16] And whatever you do, do not factory reset your hub. |
[641.30 --> 644.78] Apparently, it has to contact their servers as part of its setup. |
[645.66 --> 647.62] And that's going to fail now. |
[648.28 --> 654.02] Home Assistant have actually updated the documentation since yesterday to say it's now possible. |
[654.02 --> 655.60] You don't have to worry about that anymore. |
[656.24 --> 660.70] So if you do accidentally factory reset it, they now have a workaround. |
[661.90 --> 663.38] This is really a shame to see. |
[664.00 --> 668.26] And they also had their own proprietary networking protocol, which actually looks like it was kind of neat. |
[668.38 --> 670.90] I mean, it's 900 megahertz, which is usually pretty good. |
[671.18 --> 674.60] It also could coexist with power line networking, which is kind of neat. |
[674.70 --> 676.58] And it supported local control. |
[676.58 --> 681.54] But it was proprietary and patented and unique to them. |
[681.74 --> 683.50] So that's just sort of gone now. |
[684.32 --> 689.78] Not only are your cloud services gone, but the whole protocol that has been created is essentially now invalid. |
[690.06 --> 694.04] It's still usable, but nobody's there maintaining, supporting, shepherding it. |
[694.98 --> 697.14] We just see this happen over and over again. |
[697.26 --> 701.42] And it's these kinds of stories that really got Alex and I thinking, we should do a show about this. |
[701.42 --> 715.16] Because when you take this kind of stuff over, like if you go to cloudfree.shop or you reflash something or you just get it working locally and you get it all working at Home Assistant, you no longer need an account or a cloud login. |
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