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My Apple watch after standing at my desk for 50 minutes: Time to stand!
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I would like a wooly mammoth meatball
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House. Firewood rack. Foundation. Yard. Golf. Work. Weekends. Camping. Bronco. Selling Jeep. Driveway expansion. Patio. Staining cedar. Friends. Dog. Website. Drywall. HVAC. Paint. Weddings. Landscaping. Spring cleanup. Taxes. Bills. Global entry. Repeat. - my brain. all night.
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I played wordle for the first time today. It will also be my last. Wordle 646 1/6 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 t.co/Wzjnm7AkoE
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How I do home automation

After 20 years of tinkering with home automation, I thought it'd be fun to blog about how I've come to approach things.

First, the background

My entry into home automation was tinkering with old school, X10 powerline/RF lamp and outlet modules that were paired with remotes, motion sensors, and a "smart" module that you could program via a PC to begin adding automation.

Since then, I've played with tons of brands and ecosystems, but I've primarily used Zigbee, Zwave, wifi/mesh, and PoE devices.

I've gone pretty deep with Hue, Lutron, Arlo, Ring, Nest, NuHeat, Sonos, Amazon, Google, Apple, Liftmaster, Bond, and other random generic smart devices.

To tie the ecosystems together, I've mostly used SmartThings and HomeAssistant, but have researched and played with many others.

My personal guidelines

After tons of experimenting and many attempts a... read more

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Hi, I'm Derek Brooks

I'm a 41.65 year old midwestern American who enjoys engineering, traveling, partying, and extremish sports.

Most of my life's latest happenings are on this page, but you can also check out what I'm up to today and what I did yesterday.

If you'd like to know a little more about me you can check out my bio - and don't forget to check out my photos!

Last seen in Des Moines