This is an instance where I think the folks at nobu casa (paid branch of home assistant development) could dedicate some resources to hardware. Instead of the prebuilt SBC stuff like HA-blue, or yellow or whatever. Create an esp device that just has a reliable microphone, and crank them out. I’d buy one for every room in my house!

I’ve got an esp army in my greenhouse that runs wLED, and one of them has a mic for doing the sound reactive display stuff, but it’s running wLED, not ESPHome… I wonder how easy it would be to just slap a digital mic on some of the other esp things I’ve got floating around?

Damn, I didn’t even think of that. It would be ruining a good screwdriver, but you could just use an old worn flat-head drill bit.

Good call, either way.

Ah, that’s fair. I guess I just need to commit to one path and just start developing habits. Thanks!

What’s your flavor? My brain is going mushy, and I stress myself out constantly by worrying about missing appointments/deadlines.

Good deal. Seems like you’ve got a pretty good grasp of it.

When I got the sales pitch I just leaned into it, and went out and got quotes from 3 others. Compare and contrast!

That makes sense. Can’t you give PSE a call and see what the schedule is?

Otherwise you could check what the cash price is anyway, and use a HELOC or personal loan to get a fixed interest rate (this really only makes sense if you’re serious about paying it off quickly)

But seriously ask about the “cash price”. Because I was shocked at how much more the principle is on the financing offered through the Solar company. It seems solar companies are partnered with financing companies to make the monthly price palatable for larger groups of customers.

What’s with the financing? 0%-11%

Is the rate adjustable?

Ask for the cash price and see what the actual interest rate is. Generally the financed price is higher, and the interest rate is low. But if you’re planning to pay it off in 2 years, you might be better off saving up and buying in cash.

That’s just been my experience (oregon, not Washington)

I’m missing your point. Do you think that moving the clocks is having an effect on the tilt of the earth? Or are you just trying to explain to me how daylength and latitude are related?

I know quite well how dark it gets in the north. I live in the north. Luckily, the sun still rises and sets at very predictable intervals. If I want to enjoy sunlight, I simply need to be awake at some point that coincides with when the sun is up.

You are also aware that not everyone works the exact same hours, right? And windows exist?

Use a different example to make the opposite point: I’d like the sun to be out for at least an hour after I get home from my “9-5”, so if the sun sets at 1700 I’m standard time, I am depressed. But in DST, I get to spend an hour in my garden.

See? The debate is stupid. Do you want more daylight in the morning or afternoon. That’s the only question. The amount of daylight is not affected by clocks.

Get ja in here, asap

Agreed. That’s why DST is best.

You are aware that the actual amount of daylight doesn’t change when we move the clocks right?

It really comes down to when you’d rather have more daylight, morning or evening.

Hahah! This answer works for me, because I was unsure what db0 was. Now I hopefully learn two new acronyms

Depends. Sometimes I go on a stretch of making bread, and sometimes I let it sit in the fridge until I think it might die.

They’re pretty robust cultures.

Lots of good advice in here, so I won’t repeat most of it.

One thing that I didn’t see anyone cover is how to tell a culture is “healthy”. My recommendation for this is to use a container that you can add graduation marks to. Put some lines on it to indicate volume. Then when you feed your culture, keep track of what volume you have in flower/water. Then watch the starter volume over time. People often say: feed every x_time. In my experience it’s far more important to time the feedings based on the activity. Once you do this for a short while in your specific environment, you will get a feel for how often you need to feed. My house “room temp” varies quite wildly across my seasons. So I have to feed more in the summertime, and less in the winter.

Your mileage may vary.

That is incredibly true. I try to automate everything I can. That’s where laziness is a superpower.

That sounds pretty slick. I envy your scripting prowess. You really have to know your system top to bottom to be able to boil it all down like that.

I’m just beginning my journey into this whole space, and it’s really interesting how many different ways people have to deal with the same basic things.

I’m also incredibly lazy, so maybe more scripting is in my future! Thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed reply!

I really like this strategy. I currently use proxmox for my home server needs, but I am curious what you use now instead?

I’ve found vibration sensing to be the easiest.

It looks like libinput-gestures is similar to touchegg/touché in the sense that it only adds support for 3 or 4 finger gestures. It looks like 2 finger gestures are supposed to be supported by your DE or are app specific.

Thanks for the reply!

I would love to run gnome/wayland, but my Chromebook is about a decade old, and it was a cheapo from the start. It only has 2GB ram, so I’m running as light as I can. Unless there is a way to put wayland on xfce, I might be stuck. I appreciate the reply!