Distracting yourself from distractions by building an overly complex system to help you do that, and writing an article about it, is certainly a very HN-ish thing to do.
cainxinth · 4h ago
We want technological solutions to problems created by technology, and structured approaches to recovering from over-structuring our lives.
AdieuToLogic · 3h ago
There is a word for those who believe they cannot live without something, go to whatever means necessary in order to obtain it, even knowing it is harmful, only to find what was once thought an escape is now a prison.
arcanemachiner · 21m ago
Ted Kaczynski would be proud.
BrenBarn · 1h ago
More flour more water. More water more flour.
gerdesj · 5h ago
It is possible that OP has made some parts of the story up or at least sexed it up a bit to jibe with the HN mindset (whatever that is).
I found the article refreshingly short and to the point whilst being jolly amusing and informative. The bloke is German so English is a second language - very good skills.
That's a skilled technical writer, that is.
Bookmarked. More please!
AdieuToLogic · 2h ago
Here is a gradated set of exercises to determine one's phone addiction, if any, in increasing levels of potential difficulty.
1 - on an off day, with no reason to require phone use,
put your phone in a dresser drawer for the day and
do not use or look at it.
2 - on an off day, with no reason to require phone use,
put your phone in a dresser drawer for the day and
leave your residence for at least one hour.
3 - leave your phone at home when either meeting friends,
getting lunch, or going to the grocery store.
4 - leave your phone at home when going into the office
for one day.
5 - leave your phone in a dresser drawer for an entire
weekend.
6 - leave your phone at home when traveling for more
than a day (vacation, visiting family, etc.).
myself248 · 2h ago
These are very good. I take phone-free walks around the neighborhood, to the store, downtown for a festival. It feels weird at first, then it's nice.
I took an internet-free vacation last spring, and it was lovely.
While planning the trip, I made sure my old TomTom's built-in maps seemed accurate to what I was seeing online; there wasn't a lot of road-building activity there in the last decade or two. Then I turned off my phone and locked it in the glovebox, there in case of emergency.
Then I took a deep breath, started the car, and headed north.
It was awesome just knowing there was no way a notification could ding, nobody could call me, no news headline could pop up and harsh my mellow. Even if those things didn't actually happen constantly, simply existing in a state where they could was stressful, apparently, and turning the damn thing off was remarkably cathartic.
AdieuToLogic · 1h ago
Reading your story brings joy to my heart, not for any reason other than I can see in my mind's eye what you describe. And it rocks!
Freedom is a gift, not from without, but found from within.
We set ourself free by our choices. And we shackle ourselves by same.
jskherman · 38m ago
Looks like I just inadvertently skipped to level 4 every workday, due to working inside of a restricted area with lots of proprietary industrial stuff.
mwidell · 1h ago
I also recommend getting an Apple Watch with cellular – that way you can still be reached for emergencies, while not having access to any social media or other distractions. Since I got an apple watch I find myself leaving the phone at home more often.
AdieuToLogic · 1h ago
> I also recommend getting an Apple Watch with cellular – that way you can still be reached for emergencies ...
For people who realistically could require emergency contact (parents of minor children, family members with health risks, etc.) this is a wise recommendation.
However, for those not having these very genuine concerns, an Apple Watch with cellular connectivity (or equivalent device) could engender a placebo effect and mask withdrawal.
shreezus · 1h ago
Agreed - I disabled all non-essential notifications (I don't need Slack pinging my wrist) and have found my watch actually helps me ditch the phone more easily.
I'm still "reachable", but the watch UX is annoying enough that I won't find myself scrolling X etc on it.
stiray · 1h ago
Very nice, will use it on my child, but this doesn't cover my case.
I have it as a wallet (those flip cases) so it is always with me. But it can stay in backpack for days without using it, except maybe for calls (to talk with parents after I don't call for weeks :D) and to pay for public transit (huge mess to charge nfc cards). I don't use social networks, chat software (sms excluded) at all, never even registered to fb, cant even remember when was the last time I installed any app.
I consider this a very sane use of phone. It is not addiction, rather satisfying addicted society that is pressuring me to use it.
AdieuToLogic · 1h ago
> Very nice, will use it on my child, but this doesn't cover my case.
Thanks for sharing your perspective. I need to point out what I originally stated was:
... exercises to determine one's phone addiction, if any ...
Note the "if any" qualifier.
You express having no phone addiction and I have no reason to think otherwise. More importantly, I am not going to adjudicate as to yourself or anyone else.
stiray · 45m ago
Yes, sure, as i said, will practice it on my 15 years old... he probably cant do anything of stated :D
j45 · 1h ago
Paying with a watch is a nice alternative too.
Beyond not having the phone with you, I think the real measure is the number of times it's picked up and/or unlocked.
CGMthrowaway · 45m ago
How does this work when you need a phone for 2fa?
AdieuToLogic · 37m ago
> How does this work when you need a phone for 2fa?
See the stipulation of:
on an off day, with no reason to require phone use
If you "need a phone for 2fa" then that qualifies as a "reason to require phone use."
thi2 · 2h ago
The hardest challenge is not using your phone when sitting on the toilet
zargon · 2h ago
If you sit on the toilet long enough to have time to look at your phone, you should probably address that.
tapland · 1h ago
If you never do, you’d hopefully be aware that it’s exceptional.
tmhrtly · 6h ago
The one thing I’ve found that works for me on my phone is the OneSec app. It hooks into shortcuts (for apps) and a Safari extension (for websites) to prompt you with a small task to do (eg a 20sec breathing exercise) before you access the softblocked content. The time delay + task is enough for me to remind myself that this isn’t what I want to be doing. And in the instances where I actually do consciously want to visit XYZ platform, I can just do the exercise and be granted access.
The only downside is that the Safari extension is granted full access to my web browsing in order to facilitate the website blocking. They say they don’t capture any data and at this point do trust them (you may feel differently). For blocking apps, no private data sharing is required.
AdieuToLogic · 3h ago
> The one thing I’ve found that works for me on my phone is the OneSec app.
Sometimes the simplest solution is the Luddite one; put the phone down and step away from it.
If this appears to be an insurmountable ask, or otherwise infeasible, I humbly suggest there is a greater concern to be addressed than what yet another app on the phone which cannot be distanced may remedy.
nkrisc · 3h ago
It’s too true. If your problem is your phone, the solution won’t be found on your phone.
johncole · 6h ago
Could I use a shortcut on iPhone to do something similar?
polivier · 6h ago
I love Home Assistant.
Many years ago we gave our then-toddler an old digital camera to play with. Some time later, we looked at the pictures he took. We were horrified to find out that he took pictures of the outside of the house at night. As in, our toddler would unlock and open the front door, go outside (at night!), take pictures of the house, go back in, close and lock the door, and go back into his bed. I bought some wireless door sensors and created an automation where if the sensors are triggered between 10pm and 6am, the lights in our room would turn on to wake us up.
I expanded this later and today we have sensors on all doors/windows that kids can use to leave the house (we have 4 young kids). As it happens, these are the same doors/windows that burglars can use to enter the house, so this doubles as an alarm system (that we can activate when we leave the house and will notify us remotely if the sensors are triggered).
The best part is that with Home Assistant you are not locked into an app/ecosystem. Our door/window sensors are of a different brand than our lightbulbs, and we control everything from a single app.
BLKNSLVR · 4h ago
This, for me, is the most interesting part of your comment:
> our toddler would unlock and open the front door, go outside (at night!), take pictures of the house, go back in, close and lock the door, and go back into his bed.
Did you ever ask your toddler why they did this? The thought process, for a toddler, to do that, to want a photo of the outside of the house at night enough to do that. That's some high level curiosity, worth fostering.
One of mine at that age would have had that level of quirkiness, but probably would have been too scared of "the dark" (also, our house already had a security system installed when we bought it, which we still set off accidentally every now and then, so the kids would probably have known that as well).
litmus-pit-git · 22m ago
Result might not be as expected ;-)
A much younger cousin used to do that — sans the camera or photo taking part in my village. He could barely talk. When asked around that time and a bit later as well, because it continued, he said something that spooked some in the family. He let us know that she was playing with someone in the large courtyard. Some women in the family (at night after dinner they would all socialise away from work and male intervention relaxed; a very South Asian thing) would remark the way he would sometimes play away in a corner in the gigantic courtyard in the evening (evenings in the city — in a lot of villages 7-8pm is quite the night) - as if he was playing with someone. Something, at least two more toddlers in the family had attested to before him. They all were teens/adults later at that time. Even the description matched. I was a teen, who stayed in boarding schools, and had been bullied too much and sadly bullied others too much in the guise of ghosts and what not so I didn’t believe it, I don’t believe it now. But it was weird. I think it is some kind of family memory or shit. My later explanation is/was — someone scared those kids with such stories so that they won’t wander around alone at night and they kind of started living it.
I almost went for the Ikea ones, but in the end I went with Aqara. More expensive, but very small/reliable, and the battery holds up very well.
gerdesj · 5h ago
I put Zwave window sensors on all windows at work (40 of them). These devices have two AAA cells. One of the gent's window sensors used to "die" far quicker than any of the others and eventually stopped working. I should explain: "gent's" := men's toilet.
The sensors are quite large and simple and the gent's windows tend to be left open more often than the other windows. One of the two gent's sit down toilets is generally preferred to the other for very minor reasons but it is preferred.
So, the battery terminals were getting slightly corroded on that window sensor because it was open more often to the outside environment.
I've rubbed a bit of silicone sealant into the crack between the two parts of the sensor and expect that it will survive better now.
gerdesj · 5h ago
When I specify smart home stuff, I have several criteria. Things like controls must be mains powered or on UPS or both.
If it is important, then if wifi/ethernet out then it should still work. So my doorbell used to have a link to a mechanical chime (Doorbird), the current Reolink jobbie does not but it is PoE and all my switches have UPS. The Reolink does have a separate chime that plugs into a power socket and a way better camera.
Oh and none of my home things ever get unfettered access to the internet. I have two VLANs for IoT: things is for most devices and sewer is for those that scare me somewhat.
I treat the whole thing the same way I do corporate IT and I do point Nessus at it. I have several Home Assistants that I look after - home and work and several customer ones too.
The OP's choice of smart plug is clearly designed to be mildly inconvenient to get at but also reliable. I'll put money on there being a monitoring function too.
That's a nerd that does things "proper like".
phil21 · 5h ago
> The Reolink does have a separate chime that plugs into a power socket and a way better camera
I started using PoE to DC power adapters for most of these use-cases. It lets me centralize my UPS to the utility closet, and offer a ton of runtime that way. My router + switching setup now powers my entire house including remote switches (PoE++ powered) and access points. Security cameras (and slowly now - security floodlights) are PoE powered as well. I have probably 12-14 hours of runtime off a large stack of UPS batteries, and could add a few days to that if I wheel my "whole home" UPS I never had the time to hardwire into the house yet into the room.
Items like the fiber NIU and cable modem are powered via PoE splitters into 9/12/24V outputs they require. I still have a few random bridges and other various devices I should convert as well, but I've been lazy lately.
I went with two lower port count "core" switches vs. one so I have redundancy there, so one going out will only take out half my network and I can still operate in a degraded mode - my AP density is such that it works fine, and I can re-patch the in-wall and PoE powered switches for workstations.
The only issue is that it kind of grows with a mind of it's own... I am up to an absurd number of devices on the network now.
gerdesj · 5h ago
I live in a UK sticks n bricks two storey roof and a half building. It looks like a bungalow with three bedrooms in the roof on floor one (second floor for the US and other one based countries).
I have two switches in my attic above those bedrooms and most of the rest of IT.
That means I can easily run cable drops along my attic and then under the roof to the outer walls of my house. I've run four Cat 5e to my garage and four to my sitting room.
Basically, I think we are both doing it right.
The biggest criticism of IoT is insecure and unreliable. If you buy any old tat and wire it up to Alexa well that's fine if it hangs together and it mostly does these days. If you squint hard enough, you can forget about Alexa being a bit of a security ... quandry.
There is no such thing as absurd when it comes to automation.
stavros · 7h ago
Why is this using a plug rather than a Zigbee button? I don't understand the plug bit.
remuskaos · 1h ago
I just had the plug laying around, and since it has a button, it does the job.
But it actually has an advantage: I can plug a small lamp into it. After 14 minutes, the plug switches on and off every 2 seconds, indicating that the time runs out, adding a little drama.
rcarmo · 7h ago
The plug has a button, and thus sends out an event when it is manually turned on.
stavros · 7h ago
Yes, but so does a button, no?
nomel · 6h ago
It's literally a button, with some extra stuff attached to it. The only requirement for a button is that if it's accessible to the person trying to press it (no pictures posted of that, feel free to assume). But, there's intentional inaccessibility built into this project, so that may be an intentional goal.
Thats's the great part about home assistant though...anything that can change states, with intent/meaning, is waiting to be tied to an automation.
florbo · 4h ago
I'm guessing they already had the plug (I myself have a small stockpile of extra Z-wave/wifi/Zigbee devices for when I inevitably need/want to hook something up), so there wasn't a need to buy something else.
taude · 7h ago
I think this button is powered by the outlet.
ryukoposting · 6h ago
Zigbee buttons can last for years on a single coin cell.
I think the smart plug may add a layer of inconvenience, since you have to lean down to the outlet to press it. The inconvenience is a feature in this case, though.
ricardobeat · 5h ago
Unfortunately there is no way to block websites at the network level (that I know of) as browsers and mobile phones have started using hardcoded DNS resolvers, so the utility of this is limited.
I've used his idea and make a home assistant automation that temporarily disables adguard home to do the same thing.
NWChen · 7h ago
Amazing work & thanks for the shoutout Roman!
varenc · 5h ago
I do something similar but with a global keyboard shortcut on my Mac managed with Alfred. When I hit the shortcut it just changes my system's DNS resolver to 1.1.1.1 and reset the macOS DNS cache. And then automatically switches back in 1 minute or 10 minutes depending on the shortcut.
Quite easy, but doesn't help anyone but me. Though I like that it only disables blocking on my device and not my entire network.
cdg007 · 1h ago
I'm down with innovations
suprjami · 7h ago
Glad to see GL-iNet get a mention.
Their routers are OpenWrt compatible by design, the factory firmware is based on owrt or you can flash upstream for a "pure" image. I've used them for many years and they're great.
urbandw311er · 7h ago
Nice idea. But it needs to be harder for me to reverse. I think I would very quickly develop the reflex of disabling WiFi on my phone so it loads the site via mobile data.
magarnicle · 3h ago
The trouble I have with all tech-based attempts I've set up to stop myself getting distracted is that it is me versus a much-more-motivated me.
We have the same technical skills but one of us is not going to stop until he wins.
j45 · 1h ago
You can run a VPN no matter the data connection. And delete the apps and have to reinstall them, or login via web.
mingus88 · 6h ago
Like any addiction, the addict needs to first _want_ to stop
FrankPetrilli · 7h ago
Seeing this, I had the initial idea of using AdGuard logs to trigger a power-down of your device if you try and visit brainrot content. I think I like it that way more.
jz10 · 5h ago
NextDNS Privacy and Parental control features works really well for me
weq · 2h ago
Modern day methadone maintainence plan. So many people in this world need this button! Goodluck on your journey!
I quite tech at home when i started working as a software engineer over 20yrs ago. Hobbies are a great way to break free, and quitting news fullstop is another good way to avoid social media. You dont even need to delete your accounts, just turn off all notifications of every app and avoid coupling your life to them in any way.
awaymazdacx5 · 6h ago
rasberry pi-5 for HDMI virtualization on a Wayland windows manager column should serve adguard assistance
p1necone · 7h ago
I don't know if this'll help anyone else or if it's just specific to me but I'll throw it out there anyway.
Drop the idea that short form content like youtube shorts or tik toks or whatever is somehow ignoble and worthy of scorn. Recognize it's just a fun way to kill some time.
Internalized that? Cool.
Now find a comfy place to sit or lie down and binge that shit. For hours. Do it for as long as it brings you joy. Had your fill? Cool.
Keep doing this, whenever you've got some free time and there isn't something else you want to do more binge that short form "brainrot" content. Do not let the thought that you're somehow "wasting" your time enter your mind. You're having fun, and that's all that matters.
If you're anything like me once you've internalized the idea that it's just dumb short videos for fun and you've watched hours of them, you'll just get bored of it. Maybe you'll spend 20 minutes scrolling occasionally but your brain aint gonna rot.
markerz · 7h ago
I kind of agree, but the cost is high for young people. I see similar problems between brain rot and junkie snack foods. Older people grew up without this instant gratification and arent used to it the same way young kids are. I grew up with snacks and crave them regularly, but all my older friends don’t even think about snacks the same way I do. I think the addictive this fades with the development of your brain around 25 years old, as well as increased life experiences, but the addiction to short form entertainment is strong enough to prevent you from getting other forms of life experiences that would eventually make that content boring and feel unfulfilling.
As an example, I used to watch a lot of dance videos. Recently I started taking dance classes and the videos just hit different now. The bar is so much higher for me to feel impressed because I’m digesting the content much more efficiently now and so much content is just repetition with slight variation.
j_bum · 7h ago
I think this is dangerous rhetoric.
I’m glad that you had an experience where you found the corner of your internet to be boring. I do not think this is the common experience.
And simply because you didn’t feel impacted by it, does not mean that it’s not bad. This is obviously hyperbolic, but your comment reads to me like someone saying, “I used narcotics all of the time when I was younger, and I’m fine now. So everybody chill out.” That doesn’t mean narcotics are ok.
Social media does change your brain. It doesn’t take much to find research on this, but here’s an example of a longitudinal study of US adolescents
[0].
This type of online content is a form of a non-pharmacological “drug”, so to say, as it can dramatically impact reward system connectivity.
Actually, I've already tried that and found it boring from the start, not just after a few hours. I found context switching between videos to be exhausting, not worth it given the low amount of content per switch, and I prefer vegging out in front of a movie, documentary, or even 30 min YouTube video to be lower effort. This is independent of any consideration of nobility or scorn.
I think the fact that people are scrolling through this stuff and NOT getting bored or tired is interesting, people are different to me in some way I don't understand.
HeWhoLurksLate · 3h ago
This is probably in the same vein as people finding out they have ADHD by taking drugs at a party and being able to focus for the first time in their lives; you might consider getting a psych eval
kaashif · 25m ago
You're saying that because I like long form content, movies, and documentaries, I need a psych eval?
I realize that my comment may have been written poorly and I'm sorry. If it was unclear, I meant that I find watching long videos to be lower effort than watching many short videos, one after the other.
Now that that's clear, I will refuse the psych eval and continue with my day.
spauldo · 2h ago
Perhaps it's just the ones people keep sending me links to, but I've seen nothing to indicate that short-form videos are not worthy of scorn. At best you get a moderately funny joke, but most I've seen either breeze through a topic that deserves a longer format or they present extremely one-sided views of complex topics. The fact they're often used to further drive the political divide that's destroying my country just makes it worse.
Want me to instantly lower my opinion of you? Send me a link to a Tik-Tok.
loveiswork · 6h ago
There are helpful nuggets of wisdom here. Also let's acknowledge some people are prone to watch hours of short form content a day, every day, at the expense of everything else in their lives, for a very long consecutive time (of course I know him -- he's me). They really are addicting!
garrettjoecox · 6h ago
Dopamine receptors fried. Maybe fine for you, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone, kids especially
Centigonal · 7h ago
oh, I wish. I have spent multiple 16 hour days watching just minecraft youtube videos. I'm an adult with responsibilities and many sources of joy and fulfillment outside of youtube. My personal appetite for mindless internet content appears to be infinite.
mavhc · 6h ago
Spend time examining your own brain to find out why
II2II · 5h ago
For some people, that approach may work. If it does work, it's great since it avoids the mental anguish of beating yourself up (which is damaging in it's own right). That said, I can see two scenarios where it won't work: (a) those who have been dealing with the problem for an extended period of time, and (b) those who replace one counter productive habit with another. At the end of the day, we must face the reality that these products are designed to gain and hold people's attention. They are intended to be psychologically difficult to escape from.
j45 · 1h ago
Another thing is it can be easier to remove the junk food from the pantry than try to build the discipline and resistance to not eat it sitting there.
That energy can go towards other things.
OtomotO · 7h ago
That's me circa 2010 when 9gag became really popular.
I used to watch memes and images for hours upon end. Until at some point I just stopped and never did it again.
Over the years people would send some links. I looked at the picture, maybe laughed, and closed the tab.
I found the article refreshingly short and to the point whilst being jolly amusing and informative. The bloke is German so English is a second language - very good skills.
That's a skilled technical writer, that is.
Bookmarked. More please!
I took an internet-free vacation last spring, and it was lovely.
While planning the trip, I made sure my old TomTom's built-in maps seemed accurate to what I was seeing online; there wasn't a lot of road-building activity there in the last decade or two. Then I turned off my phone and locked it in the glovebox, there in case of emergency.
Then I took a deep breath, started the car, and headed north.
It was awesome just knowing there was no way a notification could ding, nobody could call me, no news headline could pop up and harsh my mellow. Even if those things didn't actually happen constantly, simply existing in a state where they could was stressful, apparently, and turning the damn thing off was remarkably cathartic.
Freedom is a gift, not from without, but found from within.
We set ourself free by our choices. And we shackle ourselves by same.
For people who realistically could require emergency contact (parents of minor children, family members with health risks, etc.) this is a wise recommendation.
However, for those not having these very genuine concerns, an Apple Watch with cellular connectivity (or equivalent device) could engender a placebo effect and mask withdrawal.
I'm still "reachable", but the watch UX is annoying enough that I won't find myself scrolling X etc on it.
I have it as a wallet (those flip cases) so it is always with me. But it can stay in backpack for days without using it, except maybe for calls (to talk with parents after I don't call for weeks :D) and to pay for public transit (huge mess to charge nfc cards). I don't use social networks, chat software (sms excluded) at all, never even registered to fb, cant even remember when was the last time I installed any app.
I consider this a very sane use of phone. It is not addiction, rather satisfying addicted society that is pressuring me to use it.
Thanks for sharing your perspective. I need to point out what I originally stated was:
Note the "if any" qualifier.You express having no phone addiction and I have no reason to think otherwise. More importantly, I am not going to adjudicate as to yourself or anyone else.
Beyond not having the phone with you, I think the real measure is the number of times it's picked up and/or unlocked.
See the stipulation of:
If you "need a phone for 2fa" then that qualifies as a "reason to require phone use."The only downside is that the Safari extension is granted full access to my web browsing in order to facilitate the website blocking. They say they don’t capture any data and at this point do trust them (you may feel differently). For blocking apps, no private data sharing is required.
Sometimes the simplest solution is the Luddite one; put the phone down and step away from it.
If this appears to be an insurmountable ask, or otherwise infeasible, I humbly suggest there is a greater concern to be addressed than what yet another app on the phone which cannot be distanced may remedy.
Many years ago we gave our then-toddler an old digital camera to play with. Some time later, we looked at the pictures he took. We were horrified to find out that he took pictures of the outside of the house at night. As in, our toddler would unlock and open the front door, go outside (at night!), take pictures of the house, go back in, close and lock the door, and go back into his bed. I bought some wireless door sensors and created an automation where if the sensors are triggered between 10pm and 6am, the lights in our room would turn on to wake us up.
I expanded this later and today we have sensors on all doors/windows that kids can use to leave the house (we have 4 young kids). As it happens, these are the same doors/windows that burglars can use to enter the house, so this doubles as an alarm system (that we can activate when we leave the house and will notify us remotely if the sensors are triggered).
The best part is that with Home Assistant you are not locked into an app/ecosystem. Our door/window sensors are of a different brand than our lightbulbs, and we control everything from a single app.
> our toddler would unlock and open the front door, go outside (at night!), take pictures of the house, go back in, close and lock the door, and go back into his bed.
Did you ever ask your toddler why they did this? The thought process, for a toddler, to do that, to want a photo of the outside of the house at night enough to do that. That's some high level curiosity, worth fostering.
One of mine at that age would have had that level of quirkiness, but probably would have been too scared of "the dark" (also, our house already had a security system installed when we bought it, which we still set off accidentally every now and then, so the kids would probably have known that as well).
A much younger cousin used to do that — sans the camera or photo taking part in my village. He could barely talk. When asked around that time and a bit later as well, because it continued, he said something that spooked some in the family. He let us know that she was playing with someone in the large courtyard. Some women in the family (at night after dinner they would all socialise away from work and male intervention relaxed; a very South Asian thing) would remark the way he would sometimes play away in a corner in the gigantic courtyard in the evening (evenings in the city — in a lot of villages 7-8pm is quite the night) - as if he was playing with someone. Something, at least two more toddlers in the family had attested to before him. They all were teens/adults later at that time. Even the description matched. I was a teen, who stayed in boarding schools, and had been bullied too much and sadly bullied others too much in the guise of ghosts and what not so I didn’t believe it, I don’t believe it now. But it was weird. I think it is some kind of family memory or shit. My later explanation is/was — someone scared those kids with such stories so that they won’t wander around alone at night and they kind of started living it.
The sensors are quite large and simple and the gent's windows tend to be left open more often than the other windows. One of the two gent's sit down toilets is generally preferred to the other for very minor reasons but it is preferred.
So, the battery terminals were getting slightly corroded on that window sensor because it was open more often to the outside environment.
I've rubbed a bit of silicone sealant into the crack between the two parts of the sensor and expect that it will survive better now.
If it is important, then if wifi/ethernet out then it should still work. So my doorbell used to have a link to a mechanical chime (Doorbird), the current Reolink jobbie does not but it is PoE and all my switches have UPS. The Reolink does have a separate chime that plugs into a power socket and a way better camera.
Oh and none of my home things ever get unfettered access to the internet. I have two VLANs for IoT: things is for most devices and sewer is for those that scare me somewhat.
I treat the whole thing the same way I do corporate IT and I do point Nessus at it. I have several Home Assistants that I look after - home and work and several customer ones too.
The OP's choice of smart plug is clearly designed to be mildly inconvenient to get at but also reliable. I'll put money on there being a monitoring function too.
That's a nerd that does things "proper like".
I started using PoE to DC power adapters for most of these use-cases. It lets me centralize my UPS to the utility closet, and offer a ton of runtime that way. My router + switching setup now powers my entire house including remote switches (PoE++ powered) and access points. Security cameras (and slowly now - security floodlights) are PoE powered as well. I have probably 12-14 hours of runtime off a large stack of UPS batteries, and could add a few days to that if I wheel my "whole home" UPS I never had the time to hardwire into the house yet into the room.
Items like the fiber NIU and cable modem are powered via PoE splitters into 9/12/24V outputs they require. I still have a few random bridges and other various devices I should convert as well, but I've been lazy lately.
I went with two lower port count "core" switches vs. one so I have redundancy there, so one going out will only take out half my network and I can still operate in a degraded mode - my AP density is such that it works fine, and I can re-patch the in-wall and PoE powered switches for workstations.
The only issue is that it kind of grows with a mind of it's own... I am up to an absurd number of devices on the network now.
I have two switches in my attic above those bedrooms and most of the rest of IT.
That means I can easily run cable drops along my attic and then under the roof to the outer walls of my house. I've run four Cat 5e to my garage and four to my sitting room.
Basically, I think we are both doing it right.
The biggest criticism of IoT is insecure and unreliable. If you buy any old tat and wire it up to Alexa well that's fine if it hangs together and it mostly does these days. If you squint hard enough, you can forget about Alexa being a bit of a security ... quandry.
There is no such thing as absurd when it comes to automation.
But it actually has an advantage: I can plug a small lamp into it. After 14 minutes, the plug switches on and off every 2 seconds, indicating that the time runs out, adding a little drama.
Thats's the great part about home assistant though...anything that can change states, with intent/meaning, is waiting to be tied to an automation.
I think the smart plug may add a layer of inconvenience, since you have to lean down to the outlet to press it. The inconvenience is a feature in this case, though.
I've used his idea and make a home assistant automation that temporarily disables adguard home to do the same thing.
Quite easy, but doesn't help anyone but me. Though I like that it only disables blocking on my device and not my entire network.
Their routers are OpenWrt compatible by design, the factory firmware is based on owrt or you can flash upstream for a "pure" image. I've used them for many years and they're great.
We have the same technical skills but one of us is not going to stop until he wins.
I quite tech at home when i started working as a software engineer over 20yrs ago. Hobbies are a great way to break free, and quitting news fullstop is another good way to avoid social media. You dont even need to delete your accounts, just turn off all notifications of every app and avoid coupling your life to them in any way.
Drop the idea that short form content like youtube shorts or tik toks or whatever is somehow ignoble and worthy of scorn. Recognize it's just a fun way to kill some time.
Internalized that? Cool.
Now find a comfy place to sit or lie down and binge that shit. For hours. Do it for as long as it brings you joy. Had your fill? Cool.
Keep doing this, whenever you've got some free time and there isn't something else you want to do more binge that short form "brainrot" content. Do not let the thought that you're somehow "wasting" your time enter your mind. You're having fun, and that's all that matters.
If you're anything like me once you've internalized the idea that it's just dumb short videos for fun and you've watched hours of them, you'll just get bored of it. Maybe you'll spend 20 minutes scrolling occasionally but your brain aint gonna rot.
As an example, I used to watch a lot of dance videos. Recently I started taking dance classes and the videos just hit different now. The bar is so much higher for me to feel impressed because I’m digesting the content much more efficiently now and so much content is just repetition with slight variation.
I’m glad that you had an experience where you found the corner of your internet to be boring. I do not think this is the common experience.
And simply because you didn’t feel impacted by it, does not mean that it’s not bad. This is obviously hyperbolic, but your comment reads to me like someone saying, “I used narcotics all of the time when I was younger, and I’m fine now. So everybody chill out.” That doesn’t mean narcotics are ok.
Social media does change your brain. It doesn’t take much to find research on this, but here’s an example of a longitudinal study of US adolescents [0].
This type of online content is a form of a non-pharmacological “drug”, so to say, as it can dramatically impact reward system connectivity.
[0] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9857400/
I think the fact that people are scrolling through this stuff and NOT getting bored or tired is interesting, people are different to me in some way I don't understand.
I realize that my comment may have been written poorly and I'm sorry. If it was unclear, I meant that I find watching long videos to be lower effort than watching many short videos, one after the other.
Now that that's clear, I will refuse the psych eval and continue with my day.
Want me to instantly lower my opinion of you? Send me a link to a Tik-Tok.
That energy can go towards other things.
I used to watch memes and images for hours upon end. Until at some point I just stopped and never did it again.
Over the years people would send some links. I looked at the picture, maybe laughed, and closed the tab.