First off, have you got HA up and running yet? That should be your initial focus.

There are 3 main options.

• Old laptop

The cheapest option, but only if you have a spare. It doesn’t need that much grunt. You definitely want to check how much power it draws however. It’ll be on 24/7 and the cost of that can mount up.

• Raspberry Pi (or other single board computer)

This is a good “play around” option. It’s one of the cheapest choices as well. Unfortunately, Pis can become a bit unstable down the line.

• NUC, or other mini PC. The small mini PCs are my preferred recommendation. They are powerful enough to do more complex tasks, but power efficient enough to not be problematic. They are also a lot more reliable than the SBCs.

As for other hardware. Z wave is the best, but also more costly. ZigBee is cheaper, and still very functional. WiFi does the job, but needs a bit more planning. I personally use a mix of ZigBee and WiFi.

If you’re buying WiFi hardware, I would try and focus on esp based options (ESP8266, ESP8285, or ESP32). You can replace the firmware in these, with either Tasmota, or ESPhome. I personally use sonoff and/or athom hardware, but there are plenty of other options.

This might help finding appropriate hardware.

https://templates.blakadder.com/

The question is, would the 2nd head be an independent personality, trapped inside the horse, or an extension of the outer horse’s senses?

That’s exactly what I do. I also have IoT devices that are still trucking along a decade later. I fully expect them to likely do a decade more.

Both Tasmota and ESPhome provide open source firmware for many IoT devices. They throw up a local API interface that other systems can talk to. Providing legacy support is as hard as using HTML put and get commands.

It’s more the power that can be applied. Most people capable of getting a pedal bike up to those speeds also know how to read the road for safety. Even then, bikes can basically disintegrate in a (initially) minor accident.

A powered bike is capable of destroying itself if misused.

It’s often one way or the other. “Get away from me!”, or “more babies!” Pregnancy hormones do a complete number on the mother. That’s before having a parasite attached to you near 24/7, demanding your attention, day or night!

Interestingly, her pheromones can do a similar job on any males around her (both human and dog). That was an interesting surprise.

That’s a trick many/most breeds of dog can pull off. It’s amazing how well a wet nose, and a slobbery smile shoved in your face can break a bad cycle.

There’s a reason they are used as emotional support animals so often. They can guard us from ourselves almost as well as this dog did the sheep from coyotes.

Which one do you have, and how have you found performance? Their prices seem in the sweet spot.

The Vision AI S250 seems like an excellent option @£499

There are options around that price, but they have issues.

That looks good, but is completely budget blowing for my little garden. 😩

I’ve heard the wires are a pain and tend to break. I’m definitely erring towards one using GPS.

Definitely worth looking into. I get nervous of online required hardware. It has a tendency to brick.

I knew someone who used to monitor the transmission of porn (TV) channels. Apparently, it was the most boring, soul crushing experience. You lose all interest by about day 3. It also messes with your own love life.

It’s the one in Barcelona. I’ll edit for clarity. 👍

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcelona_Cathedral

I still love that the basilica cathedral, in Barcelona, was designed upside down.

Stone only works under compression. If any area ends up under tension, it will just fall apart. String only works under tension, if it is under compression, it crumples. Critically, if you invert the model, the forces invert. The basilica was designed as a string model upside down. This made mismatched forces obvious, and is easy to correct.

Historical designers had a lot of tricks, that we have mostly forgotten, to make things work.

The extreme masochists begin to back slowly away in alarm.

I’ve been impressed by my Ulefone 27T. It’s an armoured brick with a 10,000mAh battery. Waterproof, with IR and headphone jack. It also has a thermal camera.

The original tends to have a certain magic that makes it work so well. Whenever you remake something there’s the risk that the magic is diluted, or lost completely. It’s extremely rare to add more of what makes it work. Sequels often suffer the same problems.

Basically it’s not that remakes are inherently worse, they tend to be more average. It’s just that studios don’t remake poor shows. So we tend to see a lot more of the decline.

These can get an impressive range to a water balloon. Reduce the mass with an egg and 1/2 mile is likely (just) within range.

I would say stink bombs are even lighter, but I doubt Trump can even smell them, over his own stink.

Collusion and bandwagoning are real things. A large number of accusations implies guilt a lot more, but doesn’t make it reliable. Trump particularly is slippery when it comes to pinning thing on him.

Women aren’t good or evil, they are human. Most are honest, some aren’t.

Apparently the chains started when he was a bouncer. Sometimes people would lose them, while getting kicked out. He would wear them, so that had to come and ask him politely for them. His collection built when they were either too scared, or too egotistical to ask for them back.