I purchased a new Lexus NX450h+ in March 2025 after 13 months on a wait list. This long wait gave me a lot of time to research and reconsider the vehicle. One of the things that bothered me was the lack of detailed information from real owners, along with incorrect information being parroted by uninformed consumers. People would often discuss how the EV part of the vehicle worked in “cold” environments without any qualifiers....
Background My family has a collection of 20 home videos recorded in the 1990s and 2000s on Video8 tapes. Video8 is 1980s technology that used magnetic video cassettes to record analog video and audio signals. I’m glad we have so many home videos, but unfortunately, these tapes are highly prone to disintegration and can degrade after 10–20 years. They are also difficult to watch using modern televisions, which often omit composite inputs....
Background My local ISP has some pretty attractive deals on 1.5 Gb/s Fibre and they have also made 3Gb/s available in my area. Unfortunately, my LAN is still on 1 Gb/s. My current setup is a Synology RT2600ac as my gateway and my home server has an integrated 2.5 Gb/s ethernet port. I have been very happy with Synology router over the past 6 years but the latest offering, the RT6600ax, only provides a single 2....
I was getting tired of digging through bins for paints and decided it was time to organize my paints. I have tried those acrylic nail polish organizers but I found they took up too much desk space. I decided I wanted something completely vertical so I started with some Ikea Skadis pegboards. Ikea makes a number of accessories but the shelves aren’t the best shape for small bottles of paint and they’re a bit expensive....
With recent news articles about children being left at home alone with deceased parents (example 1, example 2) I set out to make a panic button my 4 year old could operate if they needed to tell somebody outside the home they need help. I already use the Zigbee Home Assistant integration so I just purchased and paired an Ikea SOMRIG shortcut button to act as the panic button. Within Home Assistant, I created an entity called input_boolean....
I live in the Canadian Prairies where it gets extremely cold. In late January and into February, we always seem to get a few weeks where temperatures range from -20 to -40 °C. During these cold spells, I get condensation forming on the inside of the windows caused by the humid air in my home contacting the cold panes of my windows. The solution is to lower the humidity in the home during extreme cold and then raise it to a more comfortable level once temperatures warm up again....
I recently replaced my old thermostat with a smart thermostat I can control through Home Assistant. I chose the Zen thermostat because it uses Zigbee, doesn’t require a common wire (c-wire), and they were available for under $30 on ebay. When I paired the new thermostat using the Zigbee Home Automation integration in Home Assistant, it appeared as a generic thermostat that I could control using Automations. The generic thermostat device creates a new sensor Entity called hvac_action....
DIY Battery-Powered Magnetic Stirrer A magnetic stirrer is simply a box with a rotating magnet. Homebrewers use magnetic stirrers to start yeast colonies, but the community is generally unwilling to pay the exorbitant prices charged by scientific suppliers for these relatively simple devices. Some homebrewers decided to build their own stirrers by gluing powerful magnets to old PC fans mounted in Tupperware containers. For an upcoming field experiment, I’ll need two battery-powered stirrers....
Laboratory-grade peristaltic pumps are unbelievably expensive. A variable speed pump drive from Masterflex (Cole Parmer) will cost $1000–$5000. Don’t forget to add another $200–$1500 for the pump head. Watson Marlow and Thermo Scientific sell similar products but they are just as expensive. Fortunately, there is an alternative. A $1000 'economy drive' A $400 pump head The Chinese Competition Leadfluid makes a range of peristaltic pumps that are less expensive than the MasterFlex equivalents....