Blog
Every post Joe has written so far. Each one ends with a "Did it work?" verdict.
Smart home brands that shut down or changed the deal, and how to spot the next one
Wink, Insteon, Iris, and most recently Wemo. A running list of smart home brands that died or quietly moved the goalposts, why it happened, and the warning signs that show up months before the announcement. Every date sourced and linked, and cross-checked against my own catalog.
How I made my garage opener with no app or WiFi open from my phone
My basic Genie opener was a dumb motor on the ceiling. I didn't want to replace it, I just wanted to open the garage from my phone on my walks and let people in when I wasn't home. Here's the cheap add-on that did it, the one wiring thing that tripped me up, and five years of honest verdict.
Is a variable speed pool pump worth it? Three years with my Pentair, and my real electric bill
My single-speed pool pump died in the middle of a Southern California summer, so I put in a Pentair variable speed. Three years later, here are the real numbers: what it actually pulls, what it cost, and the thing about when it runs that almost nobody mentions.
Matter, Thread, Zigbee, Z-Wave: what they actually are
I run a smart home and could not have explained the difference between Matter and Thread if you paid me. So I went to the groups that make these standards and read what they say. Here is the plain-English version, with every source linked so you can check my work.
I've run Z-Wave for five years and never needed Matter
Everyone in the smart home world tells you to care about Matter. I run a five-year-old Z-Wave setup, a porch switch and a front door deadbolt, and I had to go look up what Matter even was. Here is what I found, what my boring old gear actually does for me, and why I am in no rush to change anything.
I swapped my water heater for a heat pump because I kept smelling gas
My desk sits a few feet from the water heater, and I kept catching a faint gas smell. Here's why I picked a heat pump tank over tankless, the rebate that made the price sane, and the honest payback math.
My pool guy charged $130 a month for five minutes of work. Trouble Free Pool replaced him.
I paid a pool service for almost two years before a backyard camera and a Reddit-famous website convinced me to take over. Here's the test kit, the chemistry that actually matters, and what running my own pool costs now.
A $30 mosquito net turned my garage into a room
I got kicked out of the home office when our second kid was born and ended up working out of the garage. A magnetic mosquito curtain made it livable. Here's the install, the two-year lifespan, and the accidental neighborhood trend.
I tried to automate my porch lights and electrocuted myself
A new homeowner's first foray into smart home tech, featuring a Schlage lock, a Z-Wave switch, two breakers nobody told me about, and one very surprised middle finger.