Colourful Norwich skyline illustration

Michael Sage

IT, Digital & Culture

June 2020 Update

The year is now 2020 and things have changed in the smart home. After a lot of soul searching I decided it was time to remove lightwave from the setup, the product hasn’t really moved with the times from it’s promising start, it felt old, expensive and stagnant. I replaced all my remaining lightwave switches and plugs with products from sonoff, some of them are running the custom tasmota firmware others are still running the default sonoff firmware, I am likely to start buying Shelly stuff as it becomes available in the UK because of its flexibility. 

I am also really interested in Broadlinks new offering especially the zero app series that is likely to arrive in the UK in the next few months. I have added a couple of NEOS cameras to watch Hollie while I am at work these integrate nicely with Alexa and I now have a Show 8 and Show 5 to make use of video based skills. 

My hue install has grown and now covers the garden as well as the house, an additional govee ambilight has been added to the TV, and although it integrates with Alexa, it mainly stands alone.

Alexa has expanded to include my car using the Echo Auto and the control outside of the house is a nice feature, with geolocation it could become almost as game changing as the original echo.

I have migrated from the Unifi USG to OPNsense. With the promise of BT FTTP coming in the next couple of months and continuing issues with the USG (it just isn’t powerful enough to do everything it says it can). I decided to move back to OPNsense (I moved from pfSense to OPNsense about 5 years ago when I didn’t like the way pfSense licensing was heading).