Welcome to today’s daily kōrero!
Anyone can make the thread, first in first served. If you are here on a day and there’s no daily thread, feel free to create it!
Anyway, it’s just a chance to talk about your day, what you have planned, what you have done, etc.
So, how’s it going?
We paid off the mortgage yesterday! I don’t mean to gloat (especially when the cost of living and interest rates are making things so tough for many at the moment) - we’re not telling anyone in real life though, so I just wanted to let some of my excitement out, even if anonymously.
I’m 38, and the only family help was a $5000 loan from the in-laws which we paid back within a year. We bought really young (didn’t feel like it at the time, but it was - early/mid 20s), so benefited from much lower prices and interest rates (though the first rate we had was 7.5%, that’s also the highest one we had). That first place got earthquaked though and we had to start again from scratch, so it wasn’t all smooth sailing.
The house is old and tired, and there’s a lot of deferred maintenance (no curtains match anywhere, the carpet is shit, and we still have single glazing), so that’ll take up the savings for a good long while. But man, it feels like a weight has been lifted.
Congrats!
We have shit carpet and single glazing too. It was on our list of to-do’s 5 years ago, still on it today :)
Congrats! That’s an amazing achievement!
no curtains match anywhere
When we moved to our current place I learnt so much about styles of curtains and blinds. We’ve got rolling blinds and pull string blinds and curtains big and small. I remember saying it felt like a curtain shop with all the different curtains.
Thankyou :)
I’ve never really been too bothered about the curtains as long as they were functional, but now I think I might have to look into it a bit more. It’s nice to have the choice. We’ll probably stick with curtains (blackout ones of some kind probably) - I remember blinds looking nice, but being a pain in the ass to clean once they got dusty.
The blinds with strings are so annoying to use. When we needed to replace curtains in one room we ended up replacing with a blind with a chain to roll it up/down, and it’s so noisy!
Only gonna get curtains in future.
Epic.
Nice work! I know the shit carpet, single glazing world well.
Thanks :) Yeah, it’ll take a long while to get all that sorted now, but at least it’s closer in the pipeline now.
🏚️->🏡🎆
Congratulations :)
Just recently got started on our journey - looking forward to the day!
It might go more quickly than you think! (and thanks)
Hopefully you’re right :)
Well done, what a relief 👍👍
thanks :)
Not gloating but definitely worth shouting into the local void, congrats! We’re a long ways off being able to say that but I’m genuinely happy for anyone managing to get there.
thanks :)
Ayyyy, I’m never here at the right time for one of these because I’m in Europe. Kia ora all! It’s 34° right now at 9.20PM and we’re all melting. I could do with a little bit of winter to balance it out. How is lambing season kicking off?
It’s 8c where I am right now, not the coldest but I could do with a bit of summer now :)
Can’t help with the lambing question sorry!
It’s always the right time! Conversations still happen on posts from previous days, and if it’s into the next day in NZ then you can start the post!
Had that overnight heat thing the last time we visited the UK. 32C during the day then 31.75C at night!! Luckily it was for only for a few days, then back to 18C in mid-summer and needed a sweater!!
Minimum 1C last night and currently 2 going on 3C. Plenty of lambies around, some a bit muddy though.
Light frost last night meant a bit of cover for some plants that I’ve put out a bit early.
Soon.
Heading home?
Yep. Had an uneventful flight, now in possession of ridiculous amounts of American junk food.
Nice! You can never find the good stuff in NZ, the American section of shelves never have more than a handful of things. And I don’t like cherry flavour or peanut butter so that means there’s pretty much no good US junk food for me in NZ.
What children’s bedrooms look like around the world
Link from The Bulletin (Spinnoff) this morning gives an intriguing look into the world through the state of kids bedrooms. Those who have young kids might see their rooms a little differently after seeing these?
That’d really cool (even if it’s a thinly disguised ad for the book linked at the bottom). So many bedrooms look so tidy, even when covered with toys. They should have taken photos before the parents tidied up.
I’d love to see an NZ focused one of these.
I’ve flatted in some places that horrified my parents, but I bet there are worse places that kids are growing up in NZ.
@[email protected] (or anyone else that can help), I finally got around to playing with the home assistant stuff. I got one of these, plugged it in, and it didn’t come up as a device to add. I can’t seem to find instructions on adding it manually. Any tips?
Home assistant is great isn’t it? I started with it a couple years ago, it can be as complex or as simple as you like. I haven’t added anything new to it for quite awhile though
It’s a rabbit hole :D I’m no longer allowed to talk about it at the dinner table.
Automated the lights, device usage for kids (mostly), garage door, my standing desk with height sensor & relay, IR blasters, and panel heaters with thermostats. That’s enough for now :)
Similar here lights, heaters and heatpump, IR blaster, some other misc notifications and speakers and things. No money for more fun gadgets at the moment though :(
How do you do speakers? I’ve got a bluetooth speaker but couldn’t find a way to control it via HA. It’s too far away from the HA server, tried to connect it to a tablet I’m using as wall panel, but then couldn’t play music through it. Tried with DLNA apps but that was slow/unreliable. Also tried Browsermod but that didn’t work either. Also saw people using a Chromecast with HDMI to Audio splitter and then cast to the Chromecast, seemed overkill to me. Finally, saw some ESPHome projects connected via aux to the speaker, but didn’t seem very reliable.
Think best way is to get proper smart speakers like Sonos, but I find them too expensive.
I would love some smart speakers but I find them pricey as well.
I’m using a Chromecast audio with an old pair of speakers on a smart plug. The speakers are old enough that it only has an IR remote.
I have it setup so:
- Chromecast is detected as Playing, speakers turn on.
- IR blaster sends commands to set the volume and bass level I like.
- Dashboard displays additional buttons for controlling volume via IR blaster.
- If Chromecast stops casting, the speakers turn off and buttons on dashboard disappear.
Main reason it’s setup this way is I already had the old speakers and getting a Chromecast audio and IR blaster was much cheaper than getting good smart speakers. Although you’re right it would be much simpler if I just get some decent smart speakers.
That’s a nice automation. Where did you get CC Audio? As they are no longer sold.
I got it shortly after I heard they were discontinued, so there was still some stock floating around. I think it might have been through Dick Smith/Kogan at the time?
If you’re willing to go down the Amazon route, I think Echo Dot’s have an aux out? They had a device called the Echo Input as well which was like and Echo Dot without the speaker, doesn’t seem available anywhere though. I would probably only try this if I could be sure I could disable the microphone and smart speaker functions.
I don’t know if it’s great, this is my first foray into it, and I’ve fallen at the first hurdle 🙁
I think it’s strength is the amount of integrations they have, you can just mish mash devices from different systems and get them all under one dashboard.
For example, in mine I’ve got devices using Hue, Smart things, Tuya, Sensibo etc.
I’m hoping to get a bunch going but I’m starting with baby steps 🙂
Hope you enjoy it!
I found this guys channel great for giving me ideas on what could be done: Smart Home Solver
The Home Assistant forums have loads of info too.
Thanks! I’ll check them out.
What device have you installed it on? I’ve got it on a Raspberry Pi4; I had to reboot it before it showed up. It should show up automatically in Home Assistant, otherwise something is not right.
I’m also using a Raspberry Pi 4. I’ve rebooted and still nothing. I’m running the linuxserver.io docker container, if that helps.
I just checked the docker-compose from linuxserver and they don’t have “privileged: true” which could be the issue.
While linuxserver is awesome, I use it for all other stuff, I’d recommend to go for the HA official docker compose.
Thanks! Updating to the official HA image and docker-compose seems to have worked (like you mentioned, it was probably the “priviledged: true” missing that was causing the issue.
I’ve just worked out how to add the sensor, and it seems to be working! Although the button is not working very well. I popped the cover off and it seems the button is not attached properly to the circuit board, I managed to use a screwdriver to get it into pairing mode but I’m gonna try to get a replacement one.
Awesome, glad that it’s working. Please add mains powered devices to increase range and stability. I’ve got these smart switches which are awesome.
https://a.aliexpress.com/_mMg26em
Good luck
Bought one of those as well! You previously mentioned them so I got one.
With the humidity sensor, it reports the last update was almost an hour ago. Does that mean it’s no longer connected? I can’t seem to see any indicator in HA as to whether something is currently connected or not.
In HA if you go to the device, there’s an option Zigbee info which shows latest seen.
If humidity doesn’t change it won’t update it, to save battery, at least that’s how I understand it.
At the start I’ve struggled a lot with devices that became unresponsive. Adding a bunch of mains powered devices solved that.
I’m running the official HA docker image, perhaps that could be the difference? https://www.home-assistant.io/installation/raspberrypi#docker-compose
On the host, if you run
lsusbit will display all connected devices. I’m pretty sure it should show up as “Silicon Labs CP210x UART Bridge” Perhaps also try a different USB port, and don’t forget to use the extension cable.Finally, it could be that the device is bricked, I’ve seen a couple of mentions of that on the internet. Seeedstudio is a respectable shop so should resolve that.
Cheers, looks like it’s showing up fine with that command so must be an issue with the privileges or image. I’m currently rebuilding using the official docker image/docker compose.
Has anyone here sold a car to Turner’s before? I’m wondering how badly they lowball you.
I guess I shouldn’t expect much as it’s an older car with minor panel damage, but I just can’t be bothered dealing with selling it privately.
I had a 2015 Corolla, very popular. $12k according to TM value my car. Went to Turners, started at $7k which became $8k quickly. I walked away and he quickly came back with $9. He tried to seem he didn’t care but I got very suspicious that he added $2k so easily.
He didn’t want to put it for auction, “as it’s a very popular car so there’s a lot of supply and people are looking for a deal”??? When I tried to put up a less popular car, the answer was “it’s not a very popular car, so not worth putting up for auction”. Very strange.
Sold it privately on TM for a bit more than $12k within 3 days.
Sold another car privately for a bit more than $2k as $1 reserve as premium listing, via Turners auction the highest bid was $1k.
I’m not expecting much, I get that they have to onsell the car afterwards so I won’t get top dollar. Looking on TM many are listed for only around 5-6K and ours has a bit more cosmetic damage here and there. I think if it was a more modern or popular car like a corolla in better condition I would think twice. I do want it gone sooner rather than later too.
Anyway I have to bring it in for them to have a look first.
An option is to list for $1 reserve as premium listing, I’ve seen various stories that it worked out well, and you will definitely sell. We initially listed ours for $2k reserve, no offers, then $1 reserve and sold for $2200 :) YMMV of course. Good luck!
Thanks, that might be the go if it’s a particularly bad offer!
A few years back (5?) I tried to sell them a 1994 corona. Got offered $250. Turned them down and ended up selling on trademe, got $800.
That was with their cash offer service. You can also go to auction and get whatever the highest bidder offers.
Thanks, yup looking at their cash now service. It’s not that old, a 2008 bluebird, but still 15 years old. I guess I’ll book an appraisal and see what they say.
