My wife and and I both work from home. We enjoy it, but it’s not without it’s issues. Using Home Assistant, I’m trying to create automations that make our work day smoother. The first automation turns on a light to notify us if we have an upcoming meeting.
[Read More]Zoom with The Key v2
Yet another Zoom mute indicator
Originally an April Fool’s joke, Drop and Stack Overflow released the second version of their compact macropad, The Key v2. I missed the original run of The Key, but I preordered the v2 and recently received it.
[Read More]Siri Activated Apple TV Sleep Timer
It really shouldn't be this hard
I recently added an Apple TV to my bedroom TV. The Apple TV interface is so much better than the ten year old LG Smart TV software. The one issue I have is using the sleep timer. When the TV’s sleep timer turns off the TV, it doesn’t always stop the Apple TV. This led me to look into Apple TV sleep timer options.
[Read More]Upcoming meetings on an epaper display
How I learned to love Python
I really got interested in epaper recently and wanted to do a project with an epaper display. Using an extra Raspberry Pi Zero W I had lying around, I was able write a little Python to display upcoming meetings from my Google Calendar.
[Read More]Adding AirPrint to my old printer
Making my smart devices smarter with a Raspberry Pi Part 3
I have a perfectly good printer. It’s cheap to own and meets all my printing needs. The one thing I wish it had was AirPrint. After a lot of effort, I was able to setup my Raspberry Pi as an AirPrint server so I can easily print from my iPhone.
[Read More]Homekit Support for my Flic buttons
Making my smart devices smarter with a Raspberry Pi Part 2
I’ve owned a Flic smart buttons since they were an Indiegogo project back in 2015. I use them as a light switch for my smartlights, but I wished I could use them to control more of my Homekit devices. Luckily there’s a Homebridge plugin that adds Homekit support.
[Read More]Adding AirPlay to my outdated Sonos
Making my smart devices smarter with a Raspberry Pi Part 1
Other than running Homebridge, my Raspberry Pi has been mostly untouched since I setup my Sonos Volume Automation. I’ve been seeing what I can do to make my devices smarter using my Raspberry Pi as a bridge. I’m starting with AirPlay for my older Sonos system.
[Read More]Creating a timer shortcut in MacOS Monterey
MacOS Shortcuts, AppleScript and the Menubar Countdown app
I recently upgraded to MacOS Monterey. It’s ok. The most exciting thing is that MacOS now supports Shortcuts. A Redditor in r/shortcuts asked if there was a way to set a timer with Shortcuts on a Mac. This started my quest to figure it out.
[Read More]Using iPhone Shortcuts to build a better timer
Creating a timer app inspired by the Apple Watch
My wife and I set lots of timers. Timers for cooking, timers for the laundry, timers for pour over coffee, timers to remind us that our daughter has been watching tv too long and needs to go to bed, and many more. While it’s not exactly difficult to set a timer on my iPhone, I wanted a shortcut to speed up the process.
[Read More]Double Tapping Shift for Caps Lock
Three different methods for MacOS
I recently rediscovered the hyper key on MacOS. Most suggestions remap caps lock to the hyper key, but I occasionally need caps lock ensure random people in the comments section know I’m yelling at them. This started my quest to figure out how to double tap shift to enable caps lock on MacOS.
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