Half my automations don’t live in Home a**istant anymore, and my smart home is better for it

The ultimate stage of smart home engineering isn’t writing more complex server scripts. It is distributing your system logic down to the physical endpoints. By migrating device loops to local Zigbee binding clusters and to on-device ESPHome native automation blocks, your home becomes a resilient mesh network. Home a**istant turns a fragile single point of failure into a relaxed high-level coordinator. Home a**istant shouldn’t be the mechanical engine that physically connects a light switch to a bulb. It should instead be the data aggregator and dashboard viewer, with low-level, instantaneous automation handled by the on-device microcontrollers and direct radio mesh communications. This creates an air-gapped, zero-latency house that behaves like a real, resilient utility rather than a finicky server project.

Michael Johnson
Chicago

Linux 7.2 will now run even better on your Sega Dreamcast

The funny thing about following Linux development is that you learn that the kernel is compatible with more hardware than you originally thought it was. And I'm not talking about the kernel happening to work well with specific devices, but that there's specific code within Linux that specifically targets it.

Pedro Nieto
Spain

This lovely Raspberry Pi e-ink project shows you birds that have been spotted in your area

Do you know what kind of birds reside around your area? If not, it's surprisingly easy to find out these days. You don't even need to leave your seat, as there are plenty of resources out there for bird watchers to log and share sightings where you live.

Daniel Martinez
Dallas

I used Perplexity to tame my Outlook inbox, and never looked back

While a lot of communication these days is done in team chat rooms like Asana or Microsoft Teams, or via text and chats, email is still an essential part of workflows. Most email clients these days, like Microsoft Outlook, come with built-in tools to make managing the mess of emails...

Emily Brown
Houston

My Linux laptop runs better now that I treat it like a server

My home lab servers basically never break, and my laptop used to all the time. That's bugged me for years because my servers are always on, run more varied software, and serve more users (okay, one user, but he's very demanding). They also get far less attention day to day,...

Emile Park
Canada

A Microsoft engineer revealed Windows 95’s smart way for spotting installers: It just guessed

Back in the early days of Windows 95, the developers had to deploy some clever fixes to get the operating system to work properly. One of its developers had a problem: it wanted to make sure that software installers never overwrote a file with an older version. To do that,...

Daniel Martinez
Dallas

I paid for Claude, ChatGPT, and Copilot for a month, but only one justified the subscription

Claude, ChatGPT, and Copilot all promise to save time, sharpen my work, and make everyday tasks feel effortless. But when each one wants a recurring payment, the real question is: which one actually deserves a place on my credit card bill?

Jane Smith
Los Angeles

Social media limits are coming for teens across Europe

The European Union is weighing sweeping new restrictions on children's and teenagers' access to social media, including age limits, an outright ban, and phased access. Social media platforms could also be forced to prove their services are not harmful before young people are allowed to use them. European Commission President...

Dragica Ćirić
Serbia

Waze is getting a bunch of new AI-powered features

Waze is getting an AI makeover. Google is integrating its flagship AI assistant, Gemini, into the driving app with the goal of letting users personalize their trips a little more. Of the four new updates, only two are being described as involving Gemini. Waze says its updating its conversation reporting...

Sowmya Bhoja
India

This free Mac app reveals the truth about your mystery USB-C cables

WhatCable. | Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge Nearly three years ago, I showed you an awesome $8 cable tester that quickly tells you if your USB-C cable is likely fast, slow, powerful, or weak. Sadly, that gadget got discontinued, and I've never found anything as intuitive or inexpensive...

William Garcia
Boston

I lost 4TB of files in a single SSD failure, and now I understand why a NAS should come first

The sinking feeling of waking up to an unresponsive computer is one I cannot describe. I hit the power button, and instead of my desktop loading, I was greeted by an inaccessible boot device prompt. My massive high-capacity primary SSD died without warning, instantly vaporizing 4TB worth of files, including...

Jane Smith
Los Angeles

The RX 9070 XT almost had my money, but one Nvidia feature changed my mind

When I think of the RX 9070 XT, I see it as the first AMD GPU in a long time that has made me question my decades-old loyalty to Nvidia. I recently spent a few hours with one for a blind upscaler test, and it left me with no doubts...

Harper Thompson
New Zealand

Gemma 4 E4B is small enough to run anywhere, but powerful enough to handle typical LLM workloads

Choosing the right locally-deployed large language model can be a bit of a hassle. Bulky LLMs, for example, can deliver accurate results, but you’ll need decent hardware to get them up and running. I use Mixture-of-Experts models for most of my LLM-heavy tasks, but even with their optimized nature, I...