Home Assistant is the driving force behind my smart home, allowing me to centrally manage all kinds of devices that I've connected through various different protocols. Many of these are Zigbee devices, but I also have many different Wi-Fi-based devices and integrations with other services for data collection, too. While I have a simple smart switch on my desk for turning on and off my light, I wanted to see about making my own dashboard that I could control from my desk.

Disney Plus and Hulu are both launching new Perks programs that offer subscribers discounts, digital freebies, and sweepstakes in an effort to stand out from the streaming competition.The Disney Plus Perks program is available now in the US, with an international rollout planned later this year. Offers include a six-month DashPass membership from DoorDash, discounted stays at Walt Disney World, and savings when you shop from Adidas or Funko, along with rotating contests. Hulu is launching its own loyalty scheme on June 2nd. Details on that are still to come, but it will include offers from companies including Microsoft, Pure Green, and LG, with new perks dropping weekly over the summer.To take advantage of the perks you simply have to be a subscriber to either streaming service, and you’ll get access to both programs if you subscribe to one of the company’s Disney Plus and Hulu bundle plans.Disney Plus first introduced Perks last year with a handful of contests and early access ticket offers, but the new program has been expanded substantially to what Disney calls an “always-on” array of bonuses.

One of the coolest things about Raspberry Pi consoles is that they're so small, you can sometimes skip the "console" bit. In fact, if you're skilled enough, you can house all of the hardware within the controller itself, which turns the project into something not unlike those plug-and-play toys, albeit a lot cooler.

Obsidian is one of the best note-taking apps available, allowing you to jot down important notes, build out knowledge, and even manage projects. It's an incredibly powerful and versatile platform with numerous community-made plugins available. It's easy to get lost in the sea of plugins and use Obsidian for a few notes here and there, but did you know there are some truly creative ways to use this piece of kit?

SBCs and microcontrollers (like the Raspberry Pi and ESP32, respectively) make for excellent choices when creating a dashboard. Because they don't use a lot of power, you can leave them running for days on end without making a crater in your electricity bill. This is perfect for when you want to keep tabs on things in an all-in-one dashboard that tells you what you want to know at a glance.

I’ve been reviewing NAS devices in all shapes and forms for months. While I keep spare drives specifically just to test the samples sent to me, I often go out of my way to grab new SSDs and HDDs for my home lab. NVMe SSDs, in particular, are an essential part of my setup, as I use them with everything from SBCs and mini-PCs to NAS units and server rigs.

It's always nice to learn that a video game could actually have physical benefits in some form or another. For example, there was one time when researchers studied the correlation between counter-strike and enhancing decision-making skills. While this is by no means concrete proof of any benefits from gaming, it's still nice to think there's a chance.

Gemini will now summarize select email threads without you asking.Google Workspace users are going to see a lot more of Gemini’s efforts to summarize their emails. Gmail now creates summaries automatically for complex threads, and they’ll appear above the emails themselves.AI-powered summaries of emails have been found in Google Workspace accounts since last year, but until now you’ve had to manually trigger them. Instead, Google’s AI will now decide for itself when a summary might be helpful, generating them without asking for “longer email threads or messages with several replies.” Summaries of email threads will be kept up-to-date with new replies as they come in.The automatic summaries will now appear above English-language emails, but only on mobile, and may take up to two weeks to appear for your account. Google hasn’t announced if or when the feature will expand to Gmail on desktop, or to Gmail users without paid Workspace accounts.If Gmail doesn’t generate an AI summary automatically you’ll still be able to ask it to create one, much as you’ve been able to so far. And if you’d rather not see them at all, you can deactivate all of Gmail’s AI features by turning off “Smart features” in the app’s settings.

Though Microsoft thoroughly tests out features before rolling them out widely via Windows Update, things can still go sideways. A few days after Patch Tuesday, which is when Microsoft pushes its monthly batch of security and quality updates, reports of bugs people are noticing on their PCs slowly but surely begin to creep in.

Summer is synonymous with adventure, but the thought of planning an entire trip can often feel tiring. You need to juggle flights, hotel reservations, itineraries, to-do lists, and more within budgets. What if there were a way to centralize every detail, streamline your research, and transform chaotic planning into an organized process? Here is where a versatile productivity tool like Notion comes into play. Let me show you how I leveraged Notion’s flexibility to plan my entire summer trip with minute details.

Doom: The Dark Ages just came out a couple of weeks ago, and by and large, the game has really delivered. Not only is The Dark Ages an evolution of the revived Doom trilogy rather than just more of the same, but it also manages to stand on its own two feet as a separate single-player experience.

If you're looking for a way to step up your web presentations, then a new webcam is going to be the way to go. While there are plenty of options to choose from, we think the Insta360 Link 2 is going to stand above the rest, providing a good mix of features, along with fantastic audio and video quality. Furthermore, you can grab the Link 2 at its lowest price right now, with a discount that drops it down to $171.