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Author Topic: Introduction to Fillibar  (Read 4173 times)

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Offline fillibar

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Introduction to Fillibar
« on: September 23, 2016, 08:46:10 am »
Hello everybody! You have probably seen me around the forums for a bit and I realized that I was at 999 posts AND that I had never actually posted an introduction. So here is my introduction and post # 1000!

I have been using an Almond+ since the original Kickstarter campaign (an early backer). I have always been interested in home automation AND messing with my router. In the early days that consisted of X10 and DD-WRT. But I never really got into X10 too deeply as the flaws and limitations always drove me buggy. Then, eventually, along came a Kickstarter that promised to combine a decent router with home automation capabilities. I was hooked. I backed the project and started purchasing Z-Wave and ZigBee devices.

My family thinks I am a touch nuts about this stuff, but I keep it reasonable by buying things on sale or eBay or such... They have even gotten hooked on some of the easier functions. We have an Amazon Echo and they readily control things from there (my youngest cannot yet, but my other daughter is clear enough and she gets a kick out of it). They also think some of the rules about turning things on and off are neat, and the fact that I have gotten their bedroom ceiling fans to be controlled when it gets too warm and such. Sometimes it is the simple things. Plus they like some of my future ideas.

Outside of messing around with my Almonds (and I am a beta tester, so I mess with them a fair amount), I have a few other hobbies (too many really).
I keep a large (200 gallon) marine aquarium with both corals and fish.
I love to decorate for Halloween. Centerpieces include a 20' mesh and wood spider I built, a graveyard of headstones I carved from foam, and new this year will be a blacked-out tunnel leading people to the front door.
I also love lights for Christmas (my whole family loves Christmas even more than Halloween, as they have their own decorations they add). Each year I have been adding to my lights. Last year we had over 11,000 LED lights (mostly multi-color icicle lights). This year it will be over 13,000. I also have some large (5' tall) letters spelling NOEL that are filled with RGB LED strips, and slowly shade colors while on. The year before I had a pole with RGB LED strips running down from it, but that did not work out as well. Last year was the first time I started controlling the basics with Z-Wave modules (I found some outdoor ones on clearance).
I also mess around a lot with basic programming (Particle Photons and Arduinos) and some basic electronics projects.

Back to the stuff people care about, here on the forum. I am a moderator on the forum and I try to help out whenever possible. Feel free to ask me questions and I will try to answer best I can.
Almond 3 mesh handling the home.

 

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