Blog Archives

Foscam Security Camera Shenanigans

A few weeks back, krebonsecurity.com published a great post called This is Why People Fear the ‘Internet of Things’. The article describes a pretty disturbing practice in Foscam’s newer cameras with “P2P support”. Auspiciously this feature is to allow non-technical

Posted by Matt Chiste
March 6

Be aware of home security implications with Amazon Echo

First, let me say I love my Amazon Echo, and have totally embraced my Connected Home with the ISY-994i! This isn’t a post about some random security hole with integrating it into your home automation system, but a word of

Posted by Matt Chiste
March 2

Power in-wall speakers with an HDMI audio extractor and cheap amplifier

Remember those in-wall speakers we mounted a while back? Well, now we’re going to need to power those things, and all we have for the source audio is the HDMI output coming from our HDMI matrix. So, we need two

Posted by Matt Chiste
February 27

Unconventional Insteon automation – a smarter litter box

Last year (on April 1, actually), I wrote a tongue-in-cheek article about automating your toilet. I got a lot of interesting and funny feedback on the post, but most interesting was an actual, practical application for the post. Reader Steve

Posted by Matt Chiste
February 23

A better HDMI matrix for whole-house video distribution

A few months back, I wrote about my whole-house media distribution system based on an HDMI matrix in my basement. The problem I found with that matrix is that the HDMI output signal went through an additional conversion process to

Posted by Matt Chiste
February 19

Fun facts about insulation

There are three different types of heat transfer: conduction, convection, and radiation. When discussing insulation in my posts about installing a wall safe or installing in-wall speakers, I thought back to Mr. Roman in my high school physics class and

Posted by Matt Chiste
February 15

Installing in-wall speakers

We’ve already covered installing ceiling speakers in these pages, so I won’t go into great detail on the process of physically installing in-wall speakers – it’s a virtually identical process to installing them in the ceiling. However, if you’re installing

Posted by Matt Chiste
February 11
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