I’ll be honest with you: I love technology, but I love my family more. I’ve spent my career building and securing networks, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that software can fail. I’m so “neurotic” about home security that even with a high-end smart lock installed, I still use a manual reinforcement lock … Read more
Anyone who follows me knows I prefer running Cat6 cable in the backyard over relying on Wi Fi, but today we need to talk about real wireless networking. We need to look up at the Earth orbit. If you follow telecom infrastructure news, you have seen giants like AT&T, Verizon, and T Mobile partnering heavily … Read more
I have ADHD. While my brain is a magnificent machine for solving complex network architectures and debugging server logs, it is notoriously terrible at remembering small, repetitive manual tasks. If I were a religious Jew, Friday afternoon would be my weekly nightmare. I would likely forget a timer, flip the wrong switch out of habit, … Read more
Friday afternoon is always a race against the clock. The food is cooking, the table is set, and sundown is quickly approaching. In a smart home designed for Shabbat, the kitchen is the absolute center of operations. But it is also the most dangerous room if you choose the wrong automation hardware. Many people make … Read more
Having close Jewish friends and seeing my wife spend a year working at a Jewish school gave me a unique perspective on the intersection of ancient tradition and modern logistics. It made me realize that for many families, technology is more than just a luxury. It is a critical tool for maintaining observance in a … Read more
Most people treat their robot vacuum like a simple cleaning appliance. They buy whatever is on sale, plug it in, and let it roam around their house. As a network engineer, I see it very differently. A modern robot vacuum is actually a mobile Linux computer equipped with high definition cameras, sensitive microphones, and LiDAR … Read more
I learned my lesson about outdoor gardening the hard way. A while back, I bought one of those cheap plastic outdoor greenhouses. It had absolutely no smart sensors and no automated watering system. I thought I was saving money. Then the harsh winter winds arrived. The wind literally picked up the entire flimsy structure and … Read more
Spring is here. You want a lush, magazine-cover green lawn. Your spouse wants the flower beds to survive the summer heat. But nobody wants to wake up at 6:00 AM on a Saturday to drag a heavy rubber hose across the yard, and you certainly don’t want a water bill that looks like a car … Read more
Years ago, whenever I had to travel out of town from Saturday to Sunday, I would set up a standard, non-WiFi automatic feeder for my dog and point a smart camera directly at it. I thought I had a foolproof system. Until one weekend, I opened the camera app on my phone and watched in … Read more
Everyone loves the idea of using technology to find a lost puppy, right? That’s exactly what Ring (Amazon’s home security brand) banked on with their highly publicized 2026 Super Bowl commercial. The ad promoted their new “Search Party” feature, which uses AI to scan footage from neighborhood cameras to track down runaway pets. But the … Read more
