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Maybe it was the sight of Sengled users literally left in the dark by their useless Wi-Fi bulbs, maybe it was another price hike, or just an overall sense that my smart devices weren’t truly under my control. Whatever the reason, I’d developed a growing desire to build a smart home setup that wasn’t a hostage to the cloud.  Specifically, I’m talking about a locally hosted smart home setup, and I’m currently in the process of building one. And while I’m a smart home expert thanks to my six years’ experience here at TechHive, I’m quickly realizing how much I still don’t know as I tackle the steep learning curve of a DIY smart home.  This isn’t a step-by-step guide of how to build your own smart home system—that might come later—but more of a journal about where I am in my self-hosted smart home journey, where I started, and what I’m hoping to achieve. If you’ve been harboring similar thoughts and my story gives you some inspiration, all the better.  I was a complete smart home novice when I started here at TechHive; I’d been writing about computers and technology for 20 years but had never installed a smart bulb before, much less a smart home hub. Over time, my apartment became stuffed with smart devices, from Alexa speakers and Google displays to Philips Hue bulbs and even a Ring video doorbell. My dumb home was rapidly becoming smart.  What I didn’t like was how smart systems I’d grown accustomed to changed when one manufacturer or another would randomly redesign an app, throwing my smart home workflow into chaos. Nor did I like the occasional server outages that left me unable to control my devices, nor the features that were unceremoniously placed behind paywalls. Oh, and don’t forget the price hikes. Stumbling into self-hosted smart home  I stumbled into the self-hosted smart home world by accident. I was experimenting with an unused Raspberry Pi a few years back (this was before I wound up with four of the diminutive computer boards running on my network) and noticed an option to install something called Home Assistant. Sounded kinda cool, so I tried it, and was astonished to have a Home Assistant instance spun up in minutes.  Easy, right? Not quite. Sure, getting Home Assistant—an open-source smart home platform that offers scores of integrations and boasts hundreds of avid contributors—up and running isn’t a big deal. Getting it configured, though, takes gumption, experimentation, and patience, the latter quality being among those I could use more of. Instead of depending on the cloud, my work-in-progress smart home setup runs on this little Raspberry Pi board.Ben Patterson/Foundry See, Home Assistant is pretty good about pinging your local network and seeing which devices, smart or otherwise, can be set up on the platform. But once you add all those products to a default Home Assistant dashboard, it’s up to you to get them organized and working together. Home Assistant gives you tons of freedom to arrange your devices in practically any way you see fit, but the massive range of options—not to mention dozens of drop-down menus and settings with arcane labels—can be intimidating.  Dealing with the learning curve  That’s why every few months or so, I’d give Home Assistant another go, tinkering away at a custom dashboard but eventually getting nowhere. A proprietary smart ecosystem like Philips Hue, in contrast, is incredibly intuitive and a cinch to set up. The downside of Hue, Ring, and other closed platforms is that you’re subject to their ever-changing whims, whereas your Home Assistant setup is yours—provided you can get it set up.  In the past few weeks, though, things have begun to accelerate. I recently migrated my Home Assistant instance to a more powerful Raspberry Pi 5 (my old Pi 3 just didn’t have the horsepower or the RAM to keep Home Assistant stable), and later I acquired some Z-Wave hardware that basically turned my Pi into a Z-Wave hub.  Next, I spun up a Matter server on the Pi and began controlling my Thread devices directly on Home Assistant, right alongside my Z-Wave products. For now, my Thread setup depends on an Apple HomePod mini and its Thread border router, which requires signing into my Apple account; eventually, I plan on adding a dedicated Thread module to my Home Assistant rig to cut that tie to the cloud.  Just a little help from my (AI) friends  Finally, it was time to deal with that pesky dashboard again, but this time I brought reinforcements—you guessed it, we’re talking ChatGPT. I fed the chatbot a lengthy list of all the devices registered on my Home Assistant instance, and the AI dutifully spat out a raw YAML configuration file. (YAML is a programming language, and the acronym stands for YAML Ain’t Markup Language). I plugged in the code, and voilà—a multi-tabbed dashboard appeared with most of my devices and automations neatly displayed. ChatGPT’s work wasn’t perfect; there’s one tab filled with misconfiguration errors, and some of the tabs aren’t laid out exactly as I’d like. But it’s a starting point—and more importantly, I can study ChatGPT’s work and learn how to do it on my own.  Taking the next step  So, what’s next? A Zigbee module, for starters—and then, if I’m really ambitious, I might unpair my Phillips Hue lights from the Hue Bridge (which, naturally, depends on a cloud connection) and re-pair them directly to the local Zigbee hub. Doing so would mean losing all the extra functionality in the Hue app—no more nifty animations, for example, and so long music syncing—but it would also mean not caring about whether the Hue servers are up or down. (To be fair, Philips Hue servers rarely suffer any hiccups at all, or at least not in my experience.) A steeper hill to climb involves using a voice assistant powered by local AI to control my devices. Home Assistant offers integrations for all the big AI providers, including OpenAI and Google Gemini, as well as Ollama, an app that allows local hardware to run large-language AI models.  But configuring local LLMs to deal with dozens of smart home devices has been a surprisingly tricky task. My locally hosted AI models have routinely choked on the more than 100 entities that are exposed to my Home Assistant instance, so my next task will be to pare down and subdivide that total into bite-sized pieces, as well as to craft a system prompt that will help the AI reliably understand the meaning and intention of my typed commands. (Speech-to-text voice control on Home Assistant requires either local processing, which is an awful lot for my local hardware to take on, or an optional $6.50/month cloud subscription.)  So yes, a locally hosted smart home system like Home Assistant isn’t for everyone. For an easier experience, consider Hubitat, a locally hosted but closed-source smart home system that has a large cadre of fans. (I’ve never tried it, but our reviewer deemed it “impractical” in his 2021 evaluation. We’re way overdue for another look at that, as well as a couple of other newish hubs.) But if you’re ever shaken your fist at a smart home manufacturer for redesigning its app, raising subscription fees, or permanently bricking one of your devices, a self-hosted smart home system is the best revenge.  This story is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best smart home systems. Read...

AOL was once the largest provider of internet service for Americans. Today, it belongs to Yahoo! Inc. and operates as a web portal where you can read online articles aggregated from sources across the web—and it also still offers dial-up internet service! But not for much longer. Last week, AOL announced that it will be discontinuing its dial-up internet service starting September 30, 2025. Active users will need to switch to another internet provider by then, and the shutdown will also affect associated software including AOL Dialer and AOL Shield. Once bustling with 30 million customers It’s quite stunning that AOL is still offering dial-up service in 2025, and more astonishing that people are still paying for it. In 2022, one report counted about 175,000 dial-up subscribers in the US—and that number has surely dwindled in the three years since, but not to zero. The reason why people still pay for dial-up is more sad than amusing: many people in rural areas simply have no other access to the internet, forced to rely on dial-up through telephone lines to stay connected. AOL isn’t the only dial-up provider, but was the largest for a long time. AOL began offering its dial-up internet service back in 1991, then grew to be the largest internet provider in the world in 2000 with around 30 million active users. In recent years, however, AOL earned more from tech support and digital security services than from its internet services. Dial-up internet is a legacy service In recent years, the number of dial-up internet users has fallen sharply due to the proliferation of broadband infrastructure in the US. Unfortunately, broadband still hasn’t reached every nook of the country, and those who have no other option must still resort to traditional dial-up access. Dial-up isn’t only slow and impractical, but also exceedingly expensive for what you get, plus susceptible to cyberattacks and other security risks. Many now consider dial-up internet to be a legacy service and we wouldn’t be caught dead using such an outdated technology—but legacy tech continues to power our country in ways unseen. For example, Windows 95 and floppy disks are still used in air traffic control and some businesses still use Commodore 64s for customer checkouts. Read...

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Contrary to popular belief, most property crimes—including burglaries and package theft—happen during the day, not under cover of darkness. But night still brings unique challenges: fewer people around, limited visibility, and more opportunity for intruders to move unseen. If your security camera can’t see clearly after dark, you’re missing protection when you might need it most. Night vision lets security cameras capture what the human eye can’t see in the dark. Some cameras shine invisible infrared light to illuminate a scene, while others rely on light-sensitive sensors to amplify what little light is already there. More advanced models can maintain color, adapt to changing light, or light up the scene with built-in spotlights. And there are the many camera/floodlight combos. The following sections break down the most common types of night vision you’ll find in modern home security cameras, along with what each one does best. Eufy Security Indoor Cam (model C220) Read our review Best Prices Today: $34.83 at Amazon Standard infrared (IR) night vision Standard infrared (IR) night vision remains the backbone of most home security cameras. It works by using IR LEDs—infrared light-emitting diodes—positioned near the lens to flood the area with light. This light falls just beyond the visible spectrum, with wavelengths typically between 750 nanometers (nm) and 1 millimeter (mm). Most security cameras use IR LEDs that emit at 850nm or 940nm. The camera’s image sensor detects this infrared light and converts it into a black-and-white image, making it possible to see what’s happening even in complete darkness. Black-and-white night vision on the very affordable Blink Outdoor 4 home security camera, as recorded on a Blink Sync XR.Michael Brown/Foundry The biggest advantage of IR night vision is reliability. It doesn’t require streetlights, porch lights, or any other source of illumination. It’s also cost-effective, which is why you’ll find it not only on almost every budget-friendly camera, but cameras at nearly any price. Another plus: IR is discreet. Cameras that use 850nm infrared LEDs emit a faint red glow, which provides brighter and longer-range illumination, making them ideal for outdoor areas where visibility is more important than stealth. Cameras using 940nm LEDs, on the other hand, are completely invisible to the human eye and are better suited for indoor use or locations where you don’t want the IR source to be noticeable. The trade-off is that 940nm LEDs generally have shorter range and reduced brightness compared to 850nm. Unlike a bright spotlight, the faint red glow of 850nm LEDs or the invisible beam of 940nm LEDs won’t alert intruders or bother neighbors. The downside is reduced visual detail. IR footage is always black-and-white, which makes it harder to distinguish details like clothing color or vehicle paint. The range is also limited, often topping out at around 25 to 30 feet for entry-level models. Lorex 2K Indoor Pan-Tilt Wi-Fi Camera Read our review Budget-friendly cameras often rely solely on infrared for night vision, and many do it well. Models like the Eufy Security Indoor Cam and Lorex 2K Indoor Pan-Tilt Wi-Fi Camera offer strong IR performance, providing crisp and clear footage when the lights go down. Full-color night vision (low-light color sensors) Color night vision from a Ring Stick Up Cam Pro.Michael Brown/Foundry Full-color night vision takes a different approach from traditional IR by using low-light sensors and advanced image processing to maintain color in dim environments. Instead of switching to black-and-white when the light fades, these cameras amplify the available light, such as from a streetlamp or a porch light, to produce a more natural-looking video. The result is footage that looks closer to daytime recordings, with richer detail and less guesswork when identifying people or objects. Starlight sensors fall into this category, but they represent the high end of performance. These cameras use larger or more sensitive CMOS chips, wide-aperture lenses, and advanced noise-reduction algorithms to produce clear color video in extremely low light—often down to 0.01 to 0.1 lux, roughly the brightness of a full moon or dim streetlight. Originally used in professional surveillance, this technology is now found in consumer cameras that deliver exceptional nighttime clarity without needing spotlights. Annke NightChroma NC500 Read our review The biggest advantage of full-color night vision is its ability to capture key identifying details, such as the color of a car or the clothing someone is wearing. This can make a huge difference when reviewing footage as forensic evidence or sharing clips with law enforcement. Color night vision, however, has its limits. It still needs at least some ambient light to work. In pitch-black settings, these cameras often revert to standard IR mode, resulting in black-and-white video. Some models address this by adding a built-in spotlight to provide the needed light for color capture, a feature we’ll explore in the next section. If maintaining color footage in near-dark environments is a priority, the Annke NightChroma NC500 is a strong option. It uses a large f/1.0 aperture and a backside-illuminated (BSI) image sensor—both designed to capture more light in low-light conditions. Combined with Annke’s Acme Color Night Vision technology, the NC500 can produce full-color video even in near-total darkness, without relying on a spotlight. Spotlight-enhanced night vision Spotlight-enhanced night vision uses powerful built-in LEDs or floodlights to light up the scene, letting the camera record full-color video no matter how dark it is. When motion is detected, the lights kick on and provide enough illumination for the camera’s sensor to capture sharp, vivid footage, much like it would during the day. Arlo Pro 5S 2K (model number VMC4060P) Read our review Best Prices Today: $119.99 at Amazon | $119.99 at Best Buy The main benefit of spotlight-enhanced night vision is consistency. Because the camera provides its own light, you don’t have to rely on ambient sources such as porch lights or streetlamps to capture full-color video. The result is bright, detailed footage that makes it easier to identify faces, license plates, and other fine details. The sudden burst of light also acts as a visual deterrent, alerting potential intruders that they’re being recorded. The trade-off is that these lights can be intense. They might bother neighbors if they’re triggered often, so they’re not ideal for areas with frequent activity. Spotlights also consume more power than IR or low-light sensors, which is something to keep in mind for battery-powered cameras. Floodlight cameras, such as the Arlo Wired Floodlight Camera shown here, are just the ticket for monitoring wide spaces, such as decks, patios, driveways, and entry points.Michael Brown/Foundry Models like the Arlo Pro 5S 2K and Wyze Cam v4 excel in this category, providing both powerful lighting and sharp nighttime video. If you want to light up a large area–such as a patio or deck, consider a floodlight camera like the Eufy Floodlight Camera E340 or the Ring Floodlight Cam Pro. Choosing the right night vision mode The best night vision mode for your home depends on where you’re placing the camera, how much light is available, and what level of detail you need. Use standard IR night vision when you want discreet, reliable coverage—especially indoors or in shared spaces. It’s ideal for monitoring quiet areas like living rooms, offices, or apartment hallways where visible lights could be disruptive or draw unwanted attention. IR is also a smart choice for battery-powered cameras, since it consumes less power than full-color or spotlight modes. Wyze Cam v4 Read our review Color night vision mode without a spotlight works well for areas like front porches or side yards where low light is present, but you don’t want to blast the area with artificial lighting. Choose spotlight-enhanced night vision when you need maximum detail in complete darkness, such as in a dark driveway, backyard, or alleyway. When you match the right night vision mode to the environment, you’ll get sharper, more dependable footage and fewer blind spots. Further reading: This story is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best home security cameras. Read...

Welcome to The Full Nerd newsletter—your weekly dose of hardcore hardware talk from the enthusiasts at PCWorld. Missed the fierce debates on our YouTube show or the hot news across the web? You’re in the right place. Want this newsletter to come directly to your inbox? Sign up on our website! Last month, I wondered what the future of the desktop PC would be—if perhaps mini-PCs would eventually replace the image in everyone’s mind as the default. Intel is the reason I could sit and ponder such a world. The launch of the company’s Next Unit of Computing line sparked today’s proliferation of affordable competitors from other vendors. In 2013, no one thought much of small PCs. I fell in love when Gordon first introduced me to a NUC in 2014, but I was most definitely not part of the norm. Nowadays, though? Consumers are increasingly just as in on the idea as corporations have been. Intel also is behind other technologies that have proliferated widely—many have been topics of discussion on The Full Nerd episodes. Some, like USB 1.0, tied into joint projects. Others sprang fully from within, like RealSense. I’m personally still a fan of Team Blue’s contributions to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth module development; their efforts made rock-solid dependability the norm. Will and Brad nominated Unison, Optane, and Thunderbolt as standouts, as well. For decades, Intel approached the industry as if its champion. It strove to further PCs overall—it wasn’t content merely to pioneer new processor innovations. We the public gave them grief when they slowed down on the CPU side, content to keep pushing out four-core, eight-thread processors with minimal clock speed bumps. Criticism of their divided attention flowed freely. But now, looking at how rapidly Intel has shrunk in recent years, I feel regret and sorrow. Its NUC division is gone, sold to Asus. Other divisions and projects are outright dead, part of the company’s streamlining and downsizing. And in a recent earnings call, CEO Lip-Bu Tan was quoted as saying, “I do not subscribe to the belief that if you build it, they will come. Under my leadership, we will build what customers need, when they need it.” Nobody asked for these SFF-sized gaming NUCs. But they existed to show what simplified SFF building could look like—and I still love that.Alaina Yee / IDG Tan’s statement referred to a willingness to commit to the 14A node—chip making. The exact business the noisy masses have demanded attention to. But this level of contraction cuts so deep that I now wonder about what we’re losing, with this new austere approach. People don’t always know what they need. Sometimes, an investment in the unproven and unknown fills in gaps we always assumed were normal. When I talked about Intel’s best technologies with Will, we debated briefly about his pick of Thunderbolt. I wasn’t convinced Thunderbolt was ready to be named as such. He countered that its very existence mattered most. Will’s right. If no one takes a chance to experiment, to bring things into existence that may not be perfect, we don’t know what could be. Intel shaped much of what the PC is today. To know that it has set down the mantle of champion, even if temporarily, makes me quietly mourn all the technology we’ll never get to know. In this episode of The Full Nerd… Willis Lai / Foundry In this episode of The Full Nerd, Adam Patrick Murray, Brad Chacos, Alaina Yee, and Will Smith lock horns over nominations to our PC Hardware Hall of Fame. We may be dressed nicely, but our debate gets ugly at times. I also may have once again appealed to chat to help break a deadlocked vote in my favor. (I adore you all.) Plus, Will showed us his home-brew cufflinks, made from case thumbscrews. What I expected: Alliances to form and break around me. What I did not expect (but should have): Betrayal after being coaxed into an alliance for the greater good. As I said during the show, Clementine will remember that.  (I call up on you, my people, to help me wreak such chaos next year that the episode will go down in infamy. I’ve already begun my notes and planning. I have screenshots from this year. I plan to be ready.) Getting ready for next year’s fight. Uh, debate. Luis Ibarra / Adam Patrick Murray Missed our live show? Subscribe now to The Full Nerd YouTube channel, and activate notifications. We also answer viewer questions in real time!  And if you need more hardware talk during the rest of the week, come join our Discord community—it’s full of cool, laid-back nerds. This week’s surprising nerd news I pretty much adore Framework’s modular approach to PCs—so I read my colleague Mark Hachman’s review of their new desktop PC with delight. I don’t get quite the same excitement as from Intel’s Ghost Canyon or Beast Canyon, but I like where future releases could go. Also, I found out someone in the world—a pretty famous someone at that—still uses an RX 580. I don’t believe that negates my nomination of Polaris into the Hardware Hall of Fame, but just emphasizes its relevance and importance. AHEM. It’s so little!Alex Esteves / Foundry Framework’s teeny desktop PC is cute: A spiritual successor to Intel’s pandemic-era gaming NUC models? In many ways yes, but I am giving side-eye to that soldered memory. (Interested in its performance? Check out Mark’s review, too.) That’s a big oops, Proton: I’m betting you know of ProtonMail—and more likely trust Proton to keep data safe. But the company’s new Authenticator app isn’t immune from bugs, as it turns out. Saved 2FA seeds were stored as plain text in log files. Yikes. So many hertz: AOC’s upcoming native 600Hz display is impressive, yes…for its slide-out headphone holder. (Only half-joking here; I now want that feature on my next monitor.) Windows Recall still captures sensitive data: Continue filing this feature under “I’m not surprised” and also “Forever a hard no.” I like this PC Gamer quiz: I evaded the quiz-taking crazes of the late ’00s and early 2010s, but this one asking me to identify games from their crates? Fun. (Also that pun in the strapline? Chef’s kiss.) Valve should have kept surprising us: Keeping my backlog (fractionally more) manageable is easier when I don’t know upcoming sale periods. I can truthfully tell myself I didn’t budget for a bajillion random buys. A champion for the masses, still trucking along in some quarters of the world. Just like the GTX 1080 Ti, Brad. Boss. Sir.Brad Chacos / IDG Linus Torvalds still uses an AMD RX 580: I never thought I’d say I found myself in perfect alignment with Linux users, but part of personal growth is flexibility. (One day, I’ll get Polaris into the Hardware Hall of Fame.) PCIe 8 goes zoom: Before PCIe 7 launches, we already know for sure its successor will be trailing right behind it. We love to see it, but meanwhile, PCIe 6 SSDs haven’t reached us lowly consumers yet. :[ How times have changed for AMD: Windows users keep embracing AMD’s CPUs for gaming—Team Red’s market share just crossed over 40 percent in the latest Steam hardware survey. What a comeback. I want this ‘impractical’ display: What happens when you combine engineering with Wheel of Fortune mechanics? This really fun 1,000-pixel wood “display” panel. More hertz please: I’m a big fan of E-Ink displays. I also stare at a screen all day. If we can get refresh rates to a point where writing and editing is feasible on this kind of panel, my wallet is very ready. I now know I enjoy learning about fan blade design: Leave it to Steve Burke over at Gamers Nexus to make 30 minutes feel too short for discussions about engineering and fan blade angles. Castle Crashers got new DLC: What. Catch you all next week, when Brad is off on vacation—which means Adam, Will, and I can discuss rumors to our hearts’ content. If we want. :] Alaina This newsletter is dedicated to the memory of Gordon Mah Ung, founder and host of The Full Nerd, and executive editor of hardware at PCWorld. Read...