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[5.74 --> 14.24] But I'm personally excited because not one, but two different hardware devices have shown up in the last couple of days that I can talk about on the show.
[15.00 --> 19.94] So welcome in, boys. Self-hosted is going to be a great one. And Alex, our buddy Brent is joining us, too.
[20.38 --> 20.88] Well, hello.
[21.42 --> 24.90] Hello, Brentley, up there from the snowy Canada. We're glad you're here.
[25.26 --> 27.64] Yeah, good being back on the show. Thank you for having me.
[27.64 --> 30.10] And you're going to be taking part in our Jellyfin January challenge.
[30.42 --> 32.36] Do I have a choice? I'm not sure if I have a choice.
[32.80 --> 40.12] But Alex, before I reveal the new hardware, I know what a big matter guy you are, and I know how all in you are on Thread.
[40.66 --> 44.14] So I think you're going to be particularly jealous.
[44.14 --> 49.62] I got the brand new Home Assistant SkyConnect dongle. It's just itsy-bitsy tiny.
[50.62 --> 52.32] It's got the Home Assistant logo on there.
[52.32 --> 59.20] And it's a Zigbee radio that they say is going to be fully updatable, compatible with matter and thread.
[59.84 --> 65.72] And in the box, the Home Assistant SkyConnect comes with a USB extension cable and the dongle itself.
[65.78 --> 67.48] And the extension cable is actually pretty important.
[68.06 --> 72.42] You want to get that adapter as far away from the computer as possible.
[72.66 --> 77.08] So with the included adapter, you can mount it away from your metal case,
[77.08 --> 80.44] and you'll get better signal, which is something I've learned kind of recently.
[81.16 --> 84.88] And the SkyConnect is, I would say, it's about the size of a thumb.
[85.52 --> 87.34] It's a tiny, tiny little device.
[87.86 --> 89.88] It's not like their first or even second hardware device,
[90.00 --> 94.38] but it's still one of their very, you know, very first hardware devices, if you follow what I'm saying.
[94.90 --> 96.66] Give me a clue. What does this thing do?
[97.22 --> 98.62] For now, it's a Zigbee radio.
[98.62 --> 103.66] And it's going to be like the blessed Zigbee radio from Home Assistant, I would imagine.
[105.96 --> 106.44] Yeah.
[108.28 --> 112.26] And then they will release updates, I guess, or maybe they have,
[112.44 --> 118.00] to add the matter radio stuff that is necessary to support the matter standard.
[118.14 --> 118.60] Oh, I see.
[118.64 --> 119.76] As that begins to roll out.
[120.22 --> 124.32] So long term, it's about having a dongle that switches you over to matter.
[124.32 --> 129.44] It's tricky, Alex, right? Because who really wants to redo all this stuff?
[129.90 --> 138.50] I have my setup all done now on a ConBee, and I don't really want to redo my Zigbee network or even try to transfer it.
[138.70 --> 141.14] If I were going to start from scratch, absolutely, I'd go this route.
[141.62 --> 143.44] Well, maybe that's it. Maybe that's what matter is.
[143.58 --> 148.78] It's just a chance to push reset on the wireless devices that you choose.
[149.12 --> 151.40] Maybe I make it my dedicated matter device.
[151.40 --> 156.44] You know, and I do matter on its own dedicated hardware device or something as I start rolling those out.
[156.60 --> 156.96] Yeah, maybe.
[157.12 --> 160.68] But it's in. I'll put it into production soon, and I'll do a follow-up on the show.
[161.10 --> 163.40] I think this kind of stuff is smart for Home Assistant.
[163.54 --> 165.52] You know, it's a great companion with the blue or the yellow.
[166.56 --> 167.46] That's just obvious.
[167.78 --> 171.64] It's hardware that people need to use all of their other hardware with Home Assistant.
[172.40 --> 174.06] And the pricing's pretty good.
[174.62 --> 176.48] It's pre-order right now. It's in small quantities.
[176.48 --> 182.82] And Home Assistant continues to get more and more mainstream traction, dare I say.
[182.88 --> 189.36] There was another article on Ask Technica just this week talking about Home Assistant and the need for an open smart home and that kind of thing.
[189.42 --> 195.74] And how I think a lot of folks in the normal world, the muggle world, for want of a better phrase,
[195.74 --> 205.24] are kind of getting a bit fatigued with smart home devices and just the rat race, I suppose, of just having to replace these things that, you know,
[205.28 --> 208.24] how often did we used to replace doorbells, for example?
[208.60 --> 209.82] Right. Yeah.
[209.84 --> 214.96] Or just a different app for every vendor and a login for every different vendor.
[215.08 --> 216.72] It just gets so old so quick.
[216.82 --> 220.06] And then it maybe at best lasts a couple of years.
[220.06 --> 227.52] Well, to that point, Alex, my parents just this week asked me, hey, Alex uses that thing for home automation stuff.
[227.62 --> 235.16] And we have these D-Link cameras and water sensors that are about to, basically the service stops in a week or two.
[235.82 --> 239.02] And so my parents are asking me for Home Assistant.
[239.20 --> 242.24] And I'm not even like a Home Assistant user on the daily.
[242.24 --> 251.42] I don't even have one here, but just my association with knowing about it and my parents, of all people, are asking me to install one at their place.
[251.48 --> 255.56] So I think you're right in saying that it's moving into like the public sphere.
[256.06 --> 266.40] Yeah. And wouldn't it be great in that scenario if you could say, buy this yellow device and buy this dongle and you hook it up and I guarantee you it's all going to work out of the box?
[266.40 --> 273.28] Well, you know, I've been thinking about what the best strategy would be at their place because they live, you know, on the other side of the country, basically.
[273.28 --> 277.68] So I can't I can't just set it up at their place and go over whenever it doesn't work.
[277.92 --> 282.28] So I was thinking exactly that, Chris, is just like setting up the appliance approach.
[282.76 --> 285.94] Mm hmm. Well, we have more to talk about if time allows.
[286.10 --> 289.32] It's a big show. But I just want to mention one more piece of hardware I got.
[289.32 --> 296.78] I had a power situation that I never expected to come up because Lady Joupes has a lithium ion battery bank.
[297.10 --> 298.72] She's essentially her own UPS.
[299.26 --> 301.64] So I just never really expected this power hit.
[301.84 --> 307.60] And I I have surge protectors in place, but I wasn't really prepared for this over the last week.
[307.70 --> 311.32] It got really cold. It got to like 10 degrees, 15 degrees.
[311.92 --> 316.24] Probably the coldest it's ever been my lifetime in the Pacific Northwest.
[316.24 --> 320.54] And my battery bank got below freezing.
[321.04 --> 323.98] And at 32 degrees, you're not supposed to charge lithium ion.
[324.48 --> 328.14] And these Battleborn, they're tested to like around 29, 26 degrees.
[328.38 --> 330.82] But it was 10 degrees outside at some points.
[330.92 --> 332.94] And it stayed that way for over 24 hours.
[333.10 --> 338.36] And so the BMCs, that's the battery management modules, they disabled the batteries, essentially.
[338.50 --> 340.72] They just didn't use them. They didn't draw from them.
[340.76 --> 342.76] They didn't charge them. They just left them, didn't touch them.
[342.80 --> 346.16] It's a safety thing. I'm totally fine with that because I was connected to shore power.
[346.16 --> 349.36] But shore power went away.
[349.92 --> 354.14] And it was one of those hits where like the light, everything goes out and then on and then out and then on.
[354.76 --> 357.94] So it's boom, boom, you know, two hits real fast, real hard.
[358.70 --> 367.64] And ever since then, my Wi-Fi drops out about once an hour or so, maybe twice an hour.
[368.00 --> 369.42] The Wi-Fi network just disappears.
[369.54 --> 370.92] The hardware remains online.
[370.92 --> 374.18] I can't really narrow it down further than that.
[374.60 --> 376.16] But man, does that suck.
[376.28 --> 380.08] There's so many things that when your Wi-Fi network drops off and comes back, breaks.
[380.58 --> 382.08] You know, backups break.
[383.38 --> 385.38] Wi-Fi based smart devices break.
[385.38 --> 388.50] Cameras that are streaming over your Wi-Fi break.
[388.66 --> 389.96] Like it sucks.
[390.74 --> 392.06] So, so bad.
[392.62 --> 397.38] And in the back of my mind, I've wanted to get a new complete Wi-Fi system for a while, but I didn't want to spend a lot of money.
[397.38 --> 410.36] And I came across, it's not a brand new device, but I came across a pretty good deal for a TP-Link EAP 245 version 3 for 55 bucks.
[411.80 --> 415.38] This is, you know, people say this thing competes with the UniFi access points.
[415.80 --> 418.74] And you can get a brand new on Amazon for like 70 bucks.
[419.72 --> 421.20] I decided to pull the trigger.