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Latest entry
Zigbee2MQTT Stopped Trusting External Converters by Default. Mine Have Run Strangers’ Code for Years.
Read the log: Zigbee2MQTT Stopped Trusting External Converters by Default. Mine Have Run Strangers’ Code for Years.One line in the Zigbee2MQTT 2.11 changelog sent me on a security audit of my whole Zigbee setup. Here’s what changed, why it matters, and the weekend checklist that came out of it.
Recent entries
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Zigbee2MQTT Stopped Trusting External Converters by Default. Mine Have Run Strangers’ Code for Years.
One line in the Zigbee2MQTT 2.11 changelog sent me on a security audit of my whole Zigbee setup. Here’s what changed, why it matters, and the weekend checklist that came out of it.
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I Blamed My Walls for Eight Months of Flaky Zigbee. It Was the USB Port.
I spent most of a year adding repeaters to fix a corner of the flat where Zigbee sensors kept dropping out. The actual culprit was documented in a white paper from 2012 — and it was sitting two centimetres from my coordinator’s antenna.
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ESPHome Retired the Dashboard I Knew. Here’s the Checklist I Ran Before Updating My Fleet.
ESPHome 2026.6 replaces the old dashboard with the new Device Builder — and quietly flips ESP8266 devices to WPA2-minimum. What I checked before updating a dozen nodes, and what’s actually worth caring about.
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Matter Finally Has Cameras — and for Once, Local Video Is Part of the Spec
Matter 1.5 adds cameras with local WebRTC access baked in, landing just as Home Assistant rebuilds its Matter engine on matter.js. Here’s why a no-cloud house should pay attention — and why I’m not buying one yet.
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Five Months After Belkin Killed Wemo, the Plugs Attached to a Local Controller Never Noticed
Belkin’s January shutdown bricked Wemo for app users — while the same hardware kept working fine on local control. Five months on, here’s the buying test that shutdown burned into me.
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Presence Detection Without Wires: The 2026 Sensors That Finally Cracked the Battery Problem
mmWave presence sensing used to mean a USB cable snaking down the wall. A clever PIR-wakes-the-radar trick changed that. Here’s what I’d buy — and avoid — in 2026.
One house, going fully automated — documented honestly
No sponsor scripts, no spec-sheet worship. Just a working log of every room as it gets wired, what broke, and what I’d do differently. If it didn’t earn its place, it doesn’t make the site.
Read the full storyGear I actually use
Zigbee PIR Sensor
Fast trigger, two-year battery, and rock-solid local control. The one in every room.
Thread radio
Home Assistant Connect ZBT-2
The official HA stick, running OpenThread — the anchor of my local-first Thread network. No big-tech hub required.
Dimmable Smart Bulbs
Warm-to-cool tuning that actually holds state after a power cut. Worth the extra.
The newsletter for people building it themselves
One email when a new build log lands — plus the small wins and dumb mistakes that don’t make the site. Free, weekly-ish, no spam.