Archive for October 2016

Dumb lessons in smart home tech – Smart Bulbs

So it begins…  Z and I just moved in to our latest abode and I want our apartment to be smart.  I may not be the brightest bulb in the house but it’s probably due to being a smart bulb plugged in to standard dimmer switch controlled light socket. Smart home technology isn’t quite cheap and at the moment it isn’t even really smart.  It comes with a sweet “wow” factor but diving in to it there seems to be a big logic gap between the technology, the understanding and the implementation so herein I’m going to log my wins and losses while I climb the smart home learning curve.

To begin with, I’ll explain why buying a smart home hub with two smart lights doesn’t make any sense. Read more

Make a Belkin F5D7230-4 v1010 Useful with DD-WRT

While moving to Greeley my Netgear WNDR3400v2 fell a part.  Being lazy I had super glued it to the inside leg of a metal desk I had and removing it with force didn’t work out so well so I borrowed an an old Belkin F5D7230-4 from my brother in law only to realize the firmware on it was horrid.  It only supported WEP encryption and you couldn’t even turn the wireless of.  It was a mess and rather than even wasting the time attempting to update the proprietary firmware I flashed it with DD-WRT firmware.  It took less than 5 minutes to get rolling with the DD-WRT Micro.  It was super simple to install from my Mac.  Here’s how I got it done:

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Moving in to Greeley, Colorado

We’re excited to check out Greeley, Colorado for a short while.  Interested in checking out one of the most affordable places to live in Colorado Z and I acquired a short lease at University TowerRead more