Over the last few years here in Australia, there’ve been some stunning evenings of the Southern Lights out on show, and I’ve managed to miss it every time!

In an effort to change this, I was looking at the Aurora page of the Australian Space Weather Forecasting Centre (Part of our Bureau of Meteorology), and noticed that they have a publicly accessible API for their Aurora alerts.

That got me thinking - surely that would mean an integration could be built for Home Assistant… After a brief search, I found someone had created one! :)

I applied for an API key via the previous link and it arrived straight away (Well, not quite - I applied three times and the first two times I never received anything, so worth trying entering email addresses from different providers if you find yourself in the same position). Now in the section of my dashboard that shows the conditions outdoors, I’ve set up two little cards showing if there’s a current “Aurora Watch” notice, which has up to a 48 hour lead time of whether there are likely conditions soon for Auroral activity, and one for if there an “Aurora Alert” in effect, which is when “space weather activity favourable for viewing aurora is in progress”, as they put it. I configured them to only appear when active, hence the below Home Assistant screenshot showing “Edit” mode.

Now I am better placed to actually get to witness this natural marvel next time it occurs (I hope!).

Currently listening: Hey Lover - “Daughters of Eve”

Speaking of automations, I’d connected my dishwasher to a smart power plug quite a while ago with the intention of having it send me an update whenever a load finished, but I had not managed to build something that could do so in a reliable and timely manner.

Thankfully, someone has built and released a custom integration for Home Assistant that promises to do just that!

Here is a YouTube video about it.

And here is the integration itself.

I set this up before I’d even finished watching the video, now to see if it will learn the cycles correctly, assuming it does I may well set it up for my washing machine and dryer as well :)

Currently listening: John Carpenter - “Assault on Precinct 13 Theme”

One “Smart Home” feature I’ve tried to set up a couple of times but never managed to have working how I’d like is a simple and reliable way to know when there’s something in the letterbox… Seems like a simple problem to solve, but bear in mind the letterbox made of thick brick with a metal door, in combination with it being far enough from the house to give most sensors a hard time. Plus what kind of sensor should I use - motion, vibration, etc?

My next attempt will be using a “ThirdReality Zigbee Vibration Sensor” that I’ve ordered, and I’m thinking I will have it attached underneath a piece of corflute cut to the size of the bottom of the inside of the letterbox. Will be switching off the alarm on it, no need to freak out the postie of course. I’ll update things with how successful the setup proves to be!

Currently listening: Hypnotone - “Ai” (1991)

The new IKEA smart home range is a bloody good deal! They’re also compatible out-of-the-box with Home Assistant due to supporting Matter.

I bought a bunch of the Bilresa buttons (only $9 AUD each!), some of the Myggspray motion sensors ($12 AUD), and the Alpstuga Air Quality sensors (a bit pricier at $49, but much, much cheaper than similar options) and they’re all working really well.

So, moving across all of my smart home devices to Home Assistant was one of my major tasks over the holidays and I’m essentially done, and I have almost finished recreating the automations I’ve built over the years. There’s plenty of refinement and tweaking ahead (it’s always an iterative process to cover edge cases), but overall I am happy with how it’s looking.

The idea with having everything in Home Assistant is it allows for it to be the real heart of my smart home, previously I was limited in terms of control and automations within Home Assistant when I had devices that were only in Apple Home. I’ve set Home Assistant to expose most devices back to Home, so I still have the benefits of the simpler front-end and voice control that brings.

With the Bilresa buttons, I bought those to replace the Flic buttons I’d been using for years, as the latter were not supported well in Home Assistant. The Flic buttons also use coin cell batteries, and I’d never been happy with the flimsy physical construction of the casing - twist open and close them a few times and unfortunately you’ll have little bits of the plastic tabs coming off, I found. Although the Bilresa buttons are quite a bit larger, the concomitant durability and fact they take rechargeable AAA batteries more than makes up for it.

The Alpstuga Air Quality sensors support detecting CO2 levels, which I had been wanting to monitor, particularly in bedrooms, as well as PM2.5, temperature, and humidity.

Overall, really impressed with the feature-set and abilities of all of these devices, especially for the price. I look forward to when the new IKEA smart lights begin to arrive in stores, shouldn’t be too far away.

Currently listening: Young Original - “Mr. Sandman” A Retro Jazzy Living Room Cover

Back next week! Hope everyone’s 2026 is going well so far :)

I spent the last week camping, mostly just relaxing and reading the last 2 books of the Fold series by Nick Adams, and the Dark Galaxy Trilogy series by Brett Fitzpatrick. My enjoyment of the latter was tempered by the sheer number of spelling mistakes (generally incorrect homophones), so many I almost wonder if it is to deliberately watermark the text to later work out the source of pirated copies?

The weather was great, not too hot, not too cold, and it was good to unwind and “touch grass” as they say. In terms of wildlife, we saw many crimson rosellas, a wallaby, a fox, a bunch of bunnies, a few lizards, a koala with a baby, as well as a massive swarm of bees - thankfully the latter was headed away rather than towards us.

Now I am home again, so on with the changes I’m making to my smart home setup, the main one is setting all of the devices up through Home Assistant directly, so I can take full advantage of the greater control and automation it allows for. I’ll be making another trip to IKEA soon, as there are more sensors I’d like to purchase.

Happy 2026 everyone!

On the strength of how happy I was with the Aqara Smart Lock U100 I recently set up and blogged about, I got the Aqara Smart Doorbell Camera G410 to partially replace an OG UniFi Access Starter Kit I’ve had for over 5 years. I’d never been happy with it in terms of the performance - there always seemed to be too long a delay when people would ring the doorbell at our front gate.

So, now all I’m using that kit for is to unlock the gate only, using a Home Assistant integration to expose that ability to Apple’s Home app, which not exactly the cheapest/simplest way to achieve that, but at least it is reliable and fast!

I’m happy so far with the Aqara doorbell camera, but I do feel the plastic mount is a little flimsy and the unit is only held in place with a single Phillips-head screw located behind a rubber stopper on the side - far too accessible in my opinion.

I’ve also continued working on my Home Assistant dashboards, here’s a taste:

Currently listening: MICROMECHA - “Underwater Quest (Atmospheric DnB/Ambient Jungle/Liquid DnB)"

I recently ran into a strange issue with the “Zigbee Home Automation” integration I use in Home Assistant to let me use a bunch of Aqara, IKEA, and other sensors. Seemingly randomly after a reboot, the integration refused to load, and after a bit of troubleshooting and a couple of days of frustration, I ended up restoring and beginning again from scratch.

Whilst this was an inconvenience, I took this opportunity to make a bit of a fresh start - and in fact, I was also able to decommission Homebridge altogether and just have Home Assistant look after all of those integrations instead…

Also, I recently had installed a Shelly Pro EM-50 in my fusebox, which means I have an entry in the Home Assistant dashboard with the wattage, as well as a nice graph showing our usage over the last 2 days. It replaced my now defunct PowerPal, which I never did manage to get talking to Home Assistant properly.

So, overall it has been a “one step backwards, two steps forward” kind of week. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been running Home Assistant for a number of years, this is the first time it has given me any grief, it has otherwise been rock-solid and well behaved! :)

Currently listening: Jungle DnB Selections - “Hardcore and Jungle 93-95”

Last week, I took advantage of a very good sale price and picked up an Aqara Smart Lock U100. I’ve been using it for a couple of days, and I am overall quite happy with it.

One nitpick is that where the deadbolt goes into on the door frame could do with a sensor to know it’s actually gone into the cavity within the strike plate. Without that, it reports the door as locked even just with the deadbolt extended in midair uselessly… One workaround I’m considering is, to have a door and window sensor on that door as well, and an automation that messages me when the door is locked but not closed.

A major factor in my deciding on this model is that it supports real keys or security code or fingerprint, as well as Apple Home Key - so I can use my iPhone or Apple Watch to unlock it, which is pretty neat!

Currently listening: wilt - “bite my tongue”

I have been playing this first person shooter over the last month or so, and it’s a lot of fun!

I loves me some retro games, and this one is very much a throw-back in style, humour, and vibe to such classics as Doom and Wolfenstein 3D (hence the name).

Worth a download, surprisingly it is free!

Currently listening: 5atu8ion - “jungle atmospherics - late 90s ambient / atmospheric / intelligent jungle / drum and bass mix”

I was going through my list of unfinished projects, and decided I would set up again a Meshtastic node. I first set one up a couple of year ago I think but didn’t really see much activity. This time around, there are a lot more nodes!

In simple terms, Meshtastic allows for text messaging between devices that is not reliant on the cellular (mobile) network or the Internet. As it is a mesh network, the data passes between each device (node) rather than a central point, so more devices there are, essentially the better the spread of the network. It sends the data over radio and it’s designed to use as little power as possible.

I flashed my Heltec v3 with the Meshtastic firmware (Kinda bonkers that such a low-level thing can be done through a web browser!), then set it up in my roof space. It’s currently using only the stubby antenna it comes with, has no casing around the PCB, and is plugged in via a USB-C to USB-A cable hooked up to a USB power adapter. Now that I have seen there is much more activity, the next steps will be to 3D print a case for it and to properly mount a better antenna that I already have. Hopefully running this will mean that I can use in my local area the portable units that I have and the signal will be better propagated through the node I’m now running at home. Currently listening: Paeta - “Charcoal Noise EP” - This EP reminds me of playing Wipeout Pure on a PSP back in the day :)

Having ordered and received one of these last week, I am sure of three things; this is just the cutest tiny Mac I’ve ever seen, people are going to come up with some awesome mods and projects using the casing, and lastly; the fruit company legal ninja team are about to nuke it from orbit…

Currently listening: Matia Bazar - “Elettrochoc”

Last night the new show “Pluribus” was released, and having seen the first two episodes, it’s even better than I had hoped!

I love sci-fi that is more about thought-provoking scenarios and what it means to be human, rather than “dumb” action scenes (unfortunately, the former is relatively rare). This show is asking similar questions to “A Clockwork Orange”, in terms of free-will vs. morality and happiness…

Definitely recommend it, and I’m looking forward to next week’s episode already!

Currently listening: Hélène Vogelsinger - “Forgotten Futures /// ( 5 / 7 ) /// Slow Returning”

I’m very happy to have finally found a solution to an issue I have had for a while - I have on my secondary desk a nice compact pair of speakers (the “Bose Computer MusicMonitor” speakers to be exact), but since they only have a single input, and I have a varying number of devices and computers I want to plug in, I needed some sort of audio mixer to allow them to connect simultaneously. I had previously bought a couple of options, but I was never quite happy with the design/build quality, let alone the audio quality! I recently bought this unit, and I’m happy to report it’s working very well so far :)

The only slight annoyance is the power connector (USB-C, hooray!) is located on the front, thankfully that is sorted with the addition of a handy 180º adapter…

Next to it is my HDMI KVM, sure this takes care of switching audio inputs to the speaker output, but only for machines that I have connected through the KVM and generally only ones with HDMI output - there’s a few GPUs that support audio over a DVI output if it’s hooked up to an HDMI adapter, iirc, but not all…

Currently listening: Tame Impala - “My Old Ways”

I recently came across this post again, iirc I first saw it about 10 years ago… It goes over some early appearances of the Apple logo from brochures and product shots, and it is very, very weird to see such variation in colour and shape, given how obsessed Apple is with these sorts of details. Not quite as jarring as seeing Coca-Cola in comic sans, however ;)

Currently listening: Sterlin - “Oldskool Jungle Drum n Bass Mix Pt. II 94-95”

The end of Optical Drives may have been slightly prematurely predicted, but the writing is certainly on the wall, as they say… I have a couple of new drives stockpiled to hopefully cover my future needs, and a collection of older SATA and IDE drives I will add to from old PCs that get left at my Store. I imagine that the end of Windows 10 support will result in more people turning over older machines.

On another topic, I have slowly working on putting together my DOS & Windows 98 gaming PC, the most recent step has been figuring out the most appropriate spray-paint to cover a 3D-printed bezel, and to take care of covering some spots on the case - this Vogons thread was quite helpful.

I’ll be buying a couple of different options (this one, and this one), hopefully one of these will be a good match!

Currently listening: DJ Faydz - “1989 - 1990 Breakbeat Mix”

Let’s say, hypothetically, you have a fresh copy of Windows XP that’s installed on a machine, after 30 days it will force you to activate (yes, there are commands you can enter in safe mode to reset this, but only up to three times iirc). This comes up as soon you log in, and it only presents you with three options; activate over the internet, activate via telephone, or log out.

Again hypothetically, say you have a particular program than can help out with the activation issue, but with the above situation it may appear there is no way to access to be able to run it!

Figured out a way around it - press Windows-U to bring up the Narrator, click the “Microsoft Web site” link, then in the browser address bar enter the drive letter for the thumb drive (e.g. “D:\"), you can then see the contents of the USB thumb drive, and run that program. You then just have Windows restart, and all resolved :)

Yesterday I visited the Mac Museum for the first time, and what an achievement it is!

Behind a fairly nondescript facade in an industrial park lies a true Aladdin’s cave with the most impressive collection of pre-Intel Apple hardware I’ve seen.

Saturday was one of their periodic open days, in the morning I picked up my friend Alex Lee (The guy behind the “What is the Apple IIGS” website) and we drove for over an hour down the Mornington Peninsula.

We’d intended to at least hang out for a couple of hours, the entire day flew by before we knew it.

When we arrived we signed in using an SE/30 running a FileMaker database, and then entered the main room. It’s in rough chronological order, starting with the Apple IIe and IIGS, and there are a large number of tables and shelves giving enough space for each set up, with corresponding period correct peripherals, software boxes, etc.

Along the back wall is a mammoth shelving rack, and along the top shelf is every model of iMac G3, which makes for a strikingly colourful centrepiece!

As far as I can recall, it’s the first time I’ve seen a Macintosh TV in person, and also the first time I’ve seen an Apple III actually on and running.

I got chatting with Danny who had been repairing an analog board from a Macintosh Plus at a repair station in one corner, and he gave me some helpful advice and insights that have inspired me to continue with my ADB JoyPad project. Hopefully more news on that over the next little while.

So, the Museum obviously a massive labour of love, and I really appreciate (in multiple senses) what Matthew has created! I am sure I will be back in future :) Currently listening: Statik - “1994 Jungle Mix | Part 2”

Got the ISA sound card working, in both DOS and Windows 98… Time for SkyRoads, Doom, and some Scorched Earth :)

Currently listening: Sterlin - “Oldskool Jungle Drum n Bass Mix Pt. II 94-95”

This week, I’ve been assembling a DOS gaming PC from a bunch of parts I mostly already had. There are many things left to tweak, and the main thing left to resolve is sound - oh boy, getting an audio card working has been… interesting.

I have ordered a PicoGUS, as it’ll give me quite a few more sound options as well as acting as a CD-ROM drive.

If I run out of games, there’s always this! Currently listening: Fanny - “Hey Bulldog”

It’s that time of year already, when all the new Apple OS versions come out! As always, it’s best to let others jump in first, as it takes some time for bugs and incompatibility glitches to be worked out by Apple and the third-party software developers. That said, I generally find myself jumping in on day one as the temptation is too much, there’s typically a feature or improvement that I want to take for a spin :)

Edit: Oh wow, try moving around the magnifying loupe on the iPadOS Preview splash screen - such eye candy!

I ordered a replacement battery via eBay for a Dell Latitude D600 I have in my collection. It’d be hilarious to charge it up and lug it into Starbucks to sit there computing 2004 style with Windows XP! Apart from that, having a working battery meant that I could apply a BIOS update (from A13 to A16).

Looking forward to the new goodies that Apple will announce in a couple of days, I’d say the iPhone 17 and Apple Watch Series 11 are a shoe-in, but given I noticed on Amazon that the Belkin AirTag holders now say “Style Name: Old Model”, I’d say there is a new AirTag coming as well…

Friday night, I saw “Weapons” in the cinema, it’s swooped past “Sinners” and “Mickey 17” to become my favourite film of the year… I love a good “overlapping different characters POV all adding to an understanding of the bigger picture”-type film, plenty of classics use that approach. Thankfully the trailer only reveals a fraction of the story, and I won’t say any more as it is well-worth seeing without being spoiled!

Currently listening: Orlando Weeks - “Way To GO” - No offence to Peter Gabriel, but IMHO this works so well over the end credits of Wall-E.

This week, I went through the process of setting up “Copyparty” through Container Manager on my Synology NAS. I have set it up as read-only for the main folders, and I have also set up a write-only folder called “drop box” (bear in mind that’s a reference to old-school classic Mac file-sharing, not to Dropbox). Periodically I’ll do a one-way sync of the main folders across from my primary archive, rather than complicating matters by potentially making changes on either copy and having to then perform a two-way sync.

I have already tested Copyparty on my beige Power Macintosh G3 Minitower through Classilla, as well as Internet Explorer v5.2.3 for Mac - the former was happy with the standard version as well as the basic version, the latter only worked with basic version. Neither worked with HTTPS, not that I was expecting it to!

Next up, I’ll be configuring FTP access within Copyparty as well and testing that, as well as trying it on even earlier hardware/software combinations.

I’m quite happy with Copyparty so far, it’s great having another option to bridge between the old and new worlds :)

Currently listening: Terranova - “Concepts”

I still use RSS for keeping up with a bunch of sites I read, and since at least 2010, I’ve been using Reeder. With their new version going to subscription only, I have now installed NetNewsWire on my iPhone and Mac. I just checked and I bought NetNewsWire v2 way back in May 2005!

With the imminent release of iOS 26, I’ll be going through all my frequently used apps and replacing ones that don’t embrace the new UI - I did the same when I got an iPhone 4 and there were apps that didn’t add improved interface elements suitable for the retina screen. It’s extremely jarring when the vast majority do, and then you have a couple of laggards…

I watched the movie “Sinners” recently, it’s probably my favourite of the year so far, although “Mickey 17” would have to be a very close second!

So, craziest thing happened yesterday evening - I was checking out the “Now or Never” Festival in the CBD with my family, and I swear I walked right past Ninajirachi - the artist of the song I put down as my “currently listening” song last week. I looked it up, and sure enough, she is on tour and playing last night in Melbourne, so there is a darn good chance it was her! What are the odds?

Currently listening: Bakar - “Lonyo!"

I was recently helping a customer of mine rationalise their file collection; they had 9 external hard drives with connectivity ranging from FireWire 400 up to USB 3, and many, many duplicates from over the years of manually backing up and a number of failed consolidation attempts. I used “Carbon Copy Cloner” to copy all of the contents on to a large drive, then used an Application called “Hyperspace” that makes clever use of an APFS feature to enable eliminating the extra capacity used by duplicates without actually deleting them - they all transparently point back to the first copy. It ended up saving over 1.8TB, which was a huge help in slimming down the space needed!

Currently listening: Ninajirachi - “iPod Touch”