Between 265 & 485 SQ/FT Woody's Works Garage

Denwood · Mar 17, 2026

Shot a bit in the shop over the weekend. The new tool cart/work table worked exactly as hoped...super happy with that project!

This one incorporated the new table, using the studio lights, and is the first I think where everything was shot recorded to external harddrives (from plain old iphones) in ProRes and used four "cameras". I think only @nicholam77 will know what that means. I had to use a filter in the editing software "DepthMap" to darken my messy tool bench in the background. I may just end up with first working garage on this forum that doubles as a film studio. The learning curve is a blast!

Oh, what I could do with a 32x48 shop...

Denwood · Mar 24, 2026

My daughter called me at 8 am Saturday morning (ya, it was snowing) with the message that the LEAF EV dashboard was lit up like Christmas, and car was not moving. Now the good news is that a dash lit up with pretty much every warning light points to a pretty simple issue. Many don't realize that EVs have a small 12V lead acid battery (some Teslas have higher voltage small lithium units) and that this battery is 100% required to "activate" the car for safe operation. There is no alternator of course in an EV, but rather a DC to DC converter that will charge the 12V once the high voltage (big pack) under the car has woken up. Problem is, you need a 12V battery to power the vehicle ECUs etc to do this.

You would think after all these years and numerous 12V battery chargers that I would have a load tester in the shop...I finally bought one, for all of $35. Old school as it gets...

drivesitfar · Mar 25, 2026

Always interesting to see what Woody is up to!!

Good to see you achieved more dad of the year points too.

Still snowing? Does that ever get old or after this many years it’s just part of the cycle of life with its pros and cons?

Denwood · Mar 25, 2026

drivesitfar said:
Always interesting to see what Woody is up to!!

Good to see you achieved more dad of the year points too.

Still snowing? Does that ever get old or after this many years it’s just part of the cycle of life with its pros and cons?

Yes, more today. It's getting old this winter, I'll be honest....we've gotten a ton of snow. On the upside, the sun definitely has that spring intensity, and it's above freezing out there. I'd be happier if I was retired and skiiing though as one of our local hills is 20 minutes away. Today is an epic spring skiing day!

A really good snow pack usually bodes better for summer though as it lowers the wild fire risk, at least in the early parts.

Denwood · Apr 1, 2026

I'm doing some lighting upgrades so cross posting for reference here in case anyone else wants to replicate the project

I've been experimenting, researching, and trying out LED strips/lighting for a few months now. The LED strips highlighted in this pic are currently 5000K (to match the 4ft tubes) strips, and run 16 feet on each side of the shop. They are not bright enough. I'm looking to crank up the lumens specifically to add more light when vehicles are on the hoist. The lights I'm going to install are spec'd at 1006 lumens per foot, so will add about 32 000 lumens for the two 16 ft strips once complete. Power use for each 16 foot strip will work out to 122 watts. Efficacy is about 134 lumens/watt so very good for a high CRI LED strip.

After hours of reading/research, I have come with an LED strip lighting solution for my shop. To comply to code here in Ontario, Canada with 24 volt lighting, there are a quite a few things to consider. From what I gather, this setup would pass pretty much anywhere in the US as well, however I would not consider this definitive for code as I'm not an electrician!

1. The power source for each channel cannot exceed 96 watts (100 VA) as @cybrdyke has already outlined in the lighting forum.

2. The lights I am using specifiy a constant voltage power source...many LED drivers are constant current. If you get this detail wrong, damage to the LED strip or fixture will likely occur.

3. The driver/power supply needs to be CSA approved here, no surprise there.

4. For a non-dimming, single color LED strip (I can still dim after the power supply) setup with just power required, a 24 power supply will work. You don't need a driver with dimming, RGB etc.

5. Using a power supply with a plug in power cord is simplest as you can just install standard 120V receptacles. In my application this will work (constant voltage) and is approved in the US and Canada: Mean Well GST Power Supply Adapter, GST90A24-P1M 90W 3.75A (affiliate link) which also requires a Nema 5-15 to IEC C13 cord (affiliate link). This gets you a power setup that is DIY friendly and relatively cheap at $40 or so per power supply/cord.

6. The typical inline driver "sealed" driver is problematic specifically due to the 120V pigtails which are typically not configured to allow a BX or conduit interface...you'd end up with exposed 120V conductors to your 120V junction box. This is a topic that needs some input from a sparky working to code.

7. I am using these Joylit 24V LED strips (affiliate link) which are very bright at 2000 lumens per foot, 5000K, 95+CRI. Those numbers have been verified by 3rd party reviewers using professional grade spectrometers. However, I will cut these 16.4 strips to 8.2 feet to ensure the 90 watt power supply has at least 25% head room as each section of LED strip will then require about 62.5 watts. The full 16.4 ft strip is 125 watts, so would exceed rule 1. This product claims to be UL listed, however I cannot find a definitive reference to a UL listing and will investigate further with the manufacturer.

8. I'll be putting the LED strips in aluminum channels, painted white internally, using this LED track (affiliate link) . The track comes with diffusor strips and clips and is priced well at about $70 for 66 feet of channel/diffusor strips.

Denwood · Apr 4, 2026

I got a message back from the Joylit amazon seller and got got the reply that the UL listing was E485696 which after some research points to this manufacturer and what looks like the exact product with a different label: https://coxotech.com/products/12mm-24v-960leds-m-pro-cob-led-strip

Denwood · Apr 6, 2026

The video I saw today was the proverbial last straw that tickled this camel's back regarding L1 charging at home. I was compelled to shoot this today. 7 minutes to convince you that charging your EV at home using 110V is not efficient at all...

drivesitfar · Apr 6, 2026

We just filled up at $5.29 a gallon for regular unleaded and thought we found a bargain cause last week it was $5.79 and that’s at Costco. Signs at small stations were well above $6.

I’m not convinced electric cars are great for long term health but glad you like your Leaf.

Denwood · Apr 7, 2026

drivesitfar said:
We just filled up at $5.29 a gallon for regular unleaded and thought we found a bargain cause last week it was $5.79 and that’s at Costco. Signs at small stations were well above $6.

I’m not convinced electric cars are great for long term health but glad you like your Leaf.

As a guy who has been wrenching on cars for 40 years or so, I’d be happy to go all EV honestly…but the old Highlander is still nice to have around when there’s a foot of snow on the ground. We got close to a foot over the weekend. Crazy.

Fuel here is $1.80 per litre, so for you folks south of the 49th, that's $4.89 USD/gallon.

We're definitely leaning on the EVs a bit more right now as the last fuel fill on the Highlander (and it wasn't empty!) cost about the same as electricity to run one of the EVs for 3 months.

Denwood · Apr 8, 2026

Ah, the joys of living in "truck town". Washed the car for the last video and found this on the bumper. I was trying to figure out what exactly caused this and my brother correctly?? surmised the culprit. Based on height, 100% a truck likely backed into the car in while parked. You can even see the scuff marks from the 3 balls...

Denwood · Apr 10, 2026

The L1 vs L2 video I posted earlier was the first that I shot in “opengate” which is a resolution even higher than 4K. This is the ideal scenario where you want to edit for both the typical 4K frame (like you see on your TV), but also in vertical mode for social media. YT limits shorts to 3 minutes, so edited the original footage for the vertical frame, and 3 minute limit. I really do like how the short format really forces one to focus on getting directly to the point. It is certainly a challenge to combine brevity with what I think are the essential information bits.

3 minutes:

Denwood · Apr 13, 2026

We're all wondering here if the snow will ever stop....

Snow fall here since November. Total of 271 cm , nearly 9 feet. Yay Toro snowblower!!!

Denwood · Apr 22, 2026

The last video on EV charging efficiency has done quite well, over 10K plays over the last week or so, but raised questions that warranted a follow up. It's an overview of EV home charging using four common receptacles that most homes already have in play. I also do a real world demo to show how dangerous a loose connection on a 15 amp standard 15-5 can be. This video may be one of the most intensive I've done so far with respect to prep, garage lighting setup, editing, etc. Heck I even threw in some charging scenario animations. For me, this is one area (data driven animations) where AI tools make all the difference.

Pop in if you can and let me know what you think!

Denwood · Apr 25, 2026

Winter to summer tire swap and clean up:

2014 Highlander - 161 023 kms
No service required
Noxudol inspection excellent.

2018 LEAF - 120426 kms
No service required.
Noxudol inspection - a few spots to touch up in fall.
Right front strut bearing possible play.

2018 LEAF - 57 010 kms
No service required.
Noxudol inspection excellent.

A really long day of cleaning and lugging tires around. I need to move South!

PhantomEB · Apr 26, 2026

Denwood said:
We're all wondering here if the snow will ever stop....

Snow fall here since November. Total of 271 cm , nearly 9 feet. Yay Toro snowblower!!!

Well shouldn’t be much for Alberta/Saskatchewan forest fires! I used to work Fort Mac and actually was one of the workers evacuated when the Beast hit. Conversations with guys up there Is the water level used to be like way closer to ground level from all the snow in years past now it’s a good 10-30’ down which is why forest fires been bigger than ever.

I will take productive farm fields, green forests and healthy rivers/lakes!

drivesitfar · Apr 26, 2026

My neighbor on either side are both in terrible health conditions so if you’d like at least one happy neighbor I’d love to help you move in either of their homes in the next few months or years from now. It’s been almost Southern California weather since our one day of snow about 7weeks ago.

Nice work on the cars and with all that snow I guess you got Colorado and Nevada’s cause they are in a huge drought already.

Denwood · Apr 26, 2026

PhantomEB said:
Well shouldn’t be much for Alberta/Saskatchewan forest fires! I used to work Fort Mac and actually was one of the workers evacuated when the Beast hit. Conversations with guys up there Is the water level used to be like way closer to ground level from all the snow in years past now it’s a good 10-30’ down which is why forest fires been bigger than ever.

I will take productive farm fields, green forests and healthy rivers/lakes!

I just get cranky at the transition times. I need to work out more …ha. Now of course it’s not just my own/wife vehicle to maintain but the kids, senior parents and assorted neighbours to help out.

Evac on the Beast. That was an insane fire.

Denwood · Apr 26, 2026

drivesitfar said:
My neighbor on either side are both in terrible health conditions so if you’d like at least one happy neighbor I’d love to help you move in either of their homes in the next few months or years from now. It’s been almost Southern California weather since our one day of snow about 7weeks ago.

Nice work on the cars and with all that snow I guess you got Colorado and Nevada’s cause they are in a huge drought already.

I would not complain being your neighbour. I’d have to find my old VW Westfalia and buy it back too

Denwood · Apr 27, 2026

This was a short video shot during the rather marathon day Sunday of swapping over tires and checking out the "fleet" for needed service, dents, dings and all that good stuff. Not sure I’ll be using the old 1/2” air impact any longer…

Denwood · Apr 28, 2026

2015 Subaru Outback - 200K kms - new front calipers and brake fluid flush.

My brother and I did up my Dad’s Subie on the hoist tonight with new front calipers. Kind of impressed as the ones we put on were not reman’s but new from a company called ProMax. Maxx55 is the product name. Price was $117 (CAD) per side. My first impression on the surface is that they are as good as OEM. Nice castings, hardware fit perfectly, all new slides, pins boots, anti rattle clips and banjo bolt hardware. They carry a 5 year warranty. Totally forgot to take pics :-(

55- Brake Calipers | ProMax Auto Parts

www.promaxauto.com

Denwood · Apr 28, 2026

55- Brake Calipers | ProMax Auto Parts

www.promaxauto.com

Denwood · Apr 30, 2026

This is the short version (under 3 minutes) of the Milwaukee impacts vs my 20 year air impact. I've been shooting the main videos in opengate resolution (higher than 4K resolution) for the main 16:9 format YT vids, then doing a shortform edit using the same footage in vertical format for the shorts. Opengate is closer to a 4:3 frame at 4224 x 3024 pixels, and 4K is 3840 x 2160 pixels. That extra height in the opengate frame means you can crop to the vertical format with all the extra real estate.

When using the compact M12 impacts on lower torque wheel nuts at 90 ft lbs, the difference (vs my last test at 250 ft lbs) really shrinks up.

Denwood · May 8, 2026

Between @nicholam77 posting glowing reviews on Home Assistant, and my desire to check out "Frigate", it looks like I'm officially going down the Home Assistant route. To get technical, the plan is to install "Proxmox" on a Dell 7020 Micro, and then run the Home Assistant OS in a virtual machine, with the same treatment as Frigate. Frigate is an open source NVR for cameras that can record, but also differentiate between objects, people etc. instead of blowing branches! There is a bit of a steep learning curve ahead for me.

I'm doing a review of the Reolink video doorbell (no subscription needed!) and all of this rolls into getting the cameras centralized into one place, including the video door bell. HA of course has an amazing Reolink integration, something I cannot do on Hubitat.

So here we go...

1. Installed Proxmox 9.1.1 on the PC using the image downloaded from their web site, and installed via a USB key. Proxmox erases everything on the harddrive and then serves as the host for any virtual machines you decide to add in. The software importantly is open source, so free: https://www.proxmox.com/en/products/proxmox-virtual-environment/get-started

2. I needed to run this command from the proxmox shell:
apt update
apt install -y pv

3. Once the above command was setup, I was able to install HA0S as a virtual machine on Proxmox, and Frigate as an LXC (like a virtual machine) on Proxmox using scripts copied and pasted into the Proxmox Shell from this site: https://community-scripts.org/

The scripts are copy/paste and make installation quite easy...surprisingly. Proxmox is an open source software that sets up a physical computer to run "virtual machines". Virtual machines behave exactly like a real computer, so one physical computer can host multipe "virtual computers" each with their own operating system, file system etc. This way you're not buying new computers every time you want to spin up a new instance, in this case to run the Home Assistant "machine" as well as the Frigate NVR on the same physical box.

nicholam77 · May 8, 2026

Denwood said:
Between @nicholam77 posting glowing reviews on Home Assistant, and my desire to check out "Frigate", it looks like I'm officially going down the Home Assistant route.

Yesssss!!!!!! I've been on Home Assistant for a couple years, but I'm sure I'll learn something new from you since I know you like to go down the rabbit holes deep!

Denwood said:
I'm doing a review of the Reolink video doorbell (no subscription needed!) and all of this rolls into getting the cameras centralized into one place, including the video door bell. HA of course has an amazing Reolink integration, something I cannot do on Hubitat.

I have the original Reolink PoE doorbell (black) and I love it. The HA integration is awesome. Never tried Frigate, I hear it's somewhat complicated, but a cool way to augment.

Also, in case you're not aware, HA itself has the ability to take and store camera snapshots on disk. And then you can use these snapshot files for triggers, i.e. rich notifications, embed in dashboard as 'last detected event', or even use the new AI Task action to send the snapshot to your AI agent of choice for analysis and output, for example give it a textual prompt for "is my cat in the kitchen?", "describe in 10 words or less who is at the front door" etc, etc. You could even then have it announce that AI response over your speakers with TTS. I haven't gone there yet, but pretty neat stuff. And frigate adds even more options I'm sure.

As you probably remember I did a bare metal install because I didn't know what else to use the mini PC for, but I have a friend who runs ProxMox and is happy with it. While HA has a fairly robust backups system, I think being able to take virtual machine snapshots is probably a very powerful way to test, revert, and back up your install.

Can't wait to see what you do with it. I'm guessing you're really going to like all the data logging and built in graphing history capabilities for all your sensors.

patlun · May 8, 2026

nicholam77 said:
As you probably remember I did a bare metal install because I didn't know what else to use the mini PC for, but I have a friend who runs ProxMox and is happy with it. While HA has a fairly robust backups system, I think being able to take virtual machine snapshots is probably a very powerful way to test, revert, and back up your install.

Speaking of backups, make sure you have backups of your HA-configurations outside of your host. Download them to your PC, automate them to your NAS and a decent cloud storage, I am using the Pcloud automation myself, but I am also considering to pay for Home Assistant Cloud in order to support the community.

Denwood · May 9, 2026

Proxmox was pretty easy, and the HA script to set up HA as a VM also easy. Frigate is usually installed as an LXC under Proxmox (more concepts to learn!) and that was easy enough. Getting it working was a time **** that took hours to resolve. It depends on a config text file, and of course any issues there will in turn break frigate. It was in a crash restart loop caused by the use of OpenVINO (an default) and this was not obvious. The RTSP camera streams just froze every 20 seconds, went blank, resumed etc.

EDIT: AFter updating the OpenVINO package in the Frigate LXC to 2026.1.0, the issues using it were resolved. There is known bug with 2025.3.0

Whatever you feel about AI I will say that is very, very good at feeding you bash commands to feed to the operating system, decipher the log results and then offer up suggestions. I mean crazy good. It also however made quite a few mistakes with quotes around strings etc in the Frigate config file. On the upside, if you are editing the frigate config file in the GUI, at least it reports an error with some guidance to which line (sometimes) that is the problem.

@nicholam77 , I have barely touched HA itself, but the process to install HACS, to in turn install the Frigate addon/integration was a bit of a 6 step puzzle for sure. Again, ChatGPt to the rescue.

@patlun , yes the ability to backup the VM images and snapshot is precisely why I wanted to use Proxmox. I have a lot of experience with HyoerV in the windows world, and the concepts etc in ProxMox are pretty similar.

I finally got a few cameras working in Frigate and one thing I will say about the playback of recorded motion events is that it is blistering fast and super easy to find and review any recorded event. It is running on a Dell 7020 Micro with something like 20 cores. I5 processor and NVMe SSD. I suspect I’ll really like HA and frigate once I figure a few more things out, and get over the pain of setup.

Denwood · May 9, 2026

Some more time, this time a lot easier going.

1. I have a few cameras working perfectly now in the Frigate NVR, and communicating just fine with HA. Not sure exactly what to do with the HA side yet (after @nicholam77 comments), but we're just getting going.

2. The Reolink WIFI/battery Video Doorbell (Model: D340B) looks to be a no-go as it does expose RTSP or ONVIF services. I think I'll need the POE version...

3. Getting all existing Hubitat zwave and zigbee devices into HA was pretty simple. Hubitat needs the "Maker API" app, and HA needs the HACS Hubitat integration. Pretty simple that one...and I don't have to transfer any devices over at least for now. There are 275 + devices...

drivesitfar · May 9, 2026

Woody I always love your posts even though many don’t apply to me (yet?) but I’m always willing or trying to learn.

Just curious what you techies think about all this foreign made router and WiFi conversations in the media?

Which one is best? Have you or anyone put 2 different routers in your home if one area has terrible service cause I’ve got a concrete block house and the one side of our home gets terrible service from our living room router?

Enjoy the new system and looking forward to hearing how deep the rabbit hole is.

Denwood · May 9, 2026

drivesitfar said:
Woody I always love your posts even though many don’t apply to me (yet?) but I’m always willing or trying to learn.

Just curious what you techies think about all this foreign made router and WiFi conversations in the media?

Which one is best? Have you or anyone put 2 different routers in your home if one area has terrible service cause I’ve got a concrete block house and the one side of our home gets terrible service from our living room router?

Enjoy the new system and looking forward to hearing how deep the rabbit hole is.

I think the interest in these open source solutions like pfsense for routers, home assistant automation etc. is about distrust over “canned” solutions in favour of things that can be isolated and don’t rely on data “in the cloud”. One thing is for sure, based on how complex everything is getting, and how good AI is at executing scripts and modifying code, we are in for an interesting ride.

What you need in your house is another WIFi access point. I use TPlink stuff for this (cheap, fast) but they are, like many of these devices, made overseas.

I really don’t like that we feel a need to have cameras outside. I will say that Frigate for an NVR system looks very impressive so far. Fast, and simple. It is certainly sending all kinds of motion alerts etc over to HA that could be used for more intelligent triggers.

nicholam77 · May 10, 2026

Denwood said:
The Reolink WIFI/battery Video Doorbell (Model: D340B) looks to be a no-go as it does expose RTSP or ONVIF services. I think I'll need the POE version...

PoE is more reliable, anyways, if you're able to run it.

FYI Reolink has two PoE models, the white one and the black one. They are different. The black one has a wider horizontal field of view and no on-board package detection. The white one has a taller field of view and has on-board package detection. (Both do person and vehicle detection). In case that makes a difference to you!

Denwood said:
Getting all existing Hubitat zwave and zigbee devices into HA was pretty simple. Hubitat needs the "Maker API" app, and HA needs the HACS Hubitat integration. Pretty simple that one...and I don't have to transfer any devices over at least for now. There are 275 + devices...

I ran the Hubitat integration for quite some time. It definitely works. 275+ is a lot and a pain to move, although I will say after I finally bit the bullet and moved to dedicated antennas, both my Z-Wave and Zigbee networks have never been faster and more stable. Totally understand dragging your feet when they're all in Hubitat, but my guess is you'll want to ditch the Hubitat eventually.

drivesitfar said:
Just curious what you techies think about all this foreign made router and WiFi conversations in the media?

I think what Dennis said is accurate. The U.S. doesn't manufacture routers. Not really. Consumer ones, anyways. That doesn't bother me. I don't trust a large Chinese company any less than I trust a large U.S. company (or our government). Everyone collects data these days. If you're worried about a consumer router, then you might as well throw away your smartphone, too. And your computer.

I'm much more freaked out by GPS tracking and camera surveillance in public areas (projects like Flock). If you live in a city, there are thousands of cameras owned by all sorts of entities tracking people wherever they go. But what are we supposed to do, never leave the house? I don't like it, but it's the world we're living in and I'm not losing sleep over it.

As far as WiFi goes, I prefer in my own home to keep everything that I can hardwired over ethernet. Mostly for performance and reliability, but also for less RF and interference. I just believe hardwired is simply better, if less convenient.

You could always go with a U.S.-owned company like Ubiquiti, but you'll be paying 3x-5x times the prices, and their products are still manufactured in Asia. Ubiquiti has very good products, I'm just saying there really is no 'perfect' option unless you want to go the completely open source firmware route, and that comes with DIY and technical know-how requirements. Too much hassle for too little reward for the average person, probably.

The last thing I'll add is, I wouldn't be concerned about any foreign-made router that's from a large company like TP-Link or others. Just my opinion, though.

drivesitfar said:
Which one is best? Have you or anyone put 2 different routers in your home if one area has terrible service cause I’ve got a concrete block house and the one side of our home gets terrible service from our living room router?

Concrete is tough... like Dennis said I would look at a "mesh" system. It's basically one router that acts as the primary (like your living room), and then you can add satellite routers elsewhere in your house. But they all kind of work together as one big router, without getting too technical. It's a game changer for large houses, or houses with certain materials that block RF signals.

Denwood · May 10, 2026

nicholam77 said:
PoE is more reliable, anyways, if you're able to run it.

FYI Reolink has two PoE models, the white one and the black one. They are different. The black one has a wider horizontal field of view and no on-board package detection. The white one has a taller field of view and has on-board package detection. (Both do person and vehicle detection). In case that makes a difference to you!

I ran the Hubitat integration for quite some time. It definitely works. 275+ is a lot and a pain to move, although I will say after I finally bit the bullet and moved to dedicated antennas, both my Z-Wave and Zigbee networks have never been faster and more stable. Totally understand dragging your feet when they're all in Hubitat, but my guess is you'll want to ditch the Hubitat eventually.

I think what Dennis said is accurate. The U.S. doesn't manufacture routers. Not really. Consumer ones, anyways. That doesn't bother me. I don't trust a large Chinese company any less than I trust a large U.S. company (or our government). Everyone collects data these days. If you're worried about a consumer router, then you might as well throw away your smartphone, too. And your computer.

I'm much more freaked out by GPS tracking and camera surveillance in public areas (projects like Flock). If you live in a city, there are thousands of cameras owned by all sorts of entities tracking people wherever they go. But what are we supposed to do, never leave the house? I don't like it, but it's the world we're living in and I'm not losing sleep over it.

As far as WiFi goes, I prefer in my own home to keep everything that I can hardwired over ethernet. Mostly for performance and reliability, but also for less RF and interference. I just believe hardwired is simply better, if less convenient.

You could always go with a U.S.-owned company like Ubiquiti, but you'll be paying 3x-5x times the prices, and their products are still manufactured in Asia. Ubiquiti has very good products, I'm just saying there really is no 'perfect' option unless you want to go the completely open source firmware route, and that comes with DIY and technical know-how requirements. Too much hassle for too little reward for the average person, probably.

The last thing I'll add is, I wouldn't be concerned about any foreign-made router that's from a large company like TP-Link or others. Just my opinion, though.

Concrete is tough... like Dennis said I would look at a "mesh" system. It's basically one router that acts as the primary (like your living room), and then you can add satellite routers elsewhere in your house. But they all kind of work together as one big router, without getting too technical. It's a game changer for large houses, or houses with certain materials that block RF signals.

Frigate has really impressed me.. so any kind of detection on a camera seems kind of irrelevant now, ha. All of my current cams are POE. You basically feed the lower res “sub” feed to frigate for motion detection/recognition, and then it records the main feed when it needs to. You can configure 24/7 recording but the ability to tune motion, add motion masks etc makes motion recording very reliable. I have been recording on SD cards on the cameras using the Amcrest app to view...but going forward that will just be a backup. After just a day playing with frigate I’m sold. It presents all the “events” from the entire camera set and provides a thumbnail of the actual detected object, zoomed in. Basically a live index that you can quickly drill into for full res 4K video. If you’re trying to find an event it’s super quick/easy to review it..and lightning quick. I’m impressed.

Denwood · May 11, 2026

Spring is distressingly late this year...still dipping below freezing at night. Crazy. The lull in spring activities gave me some time to shoot a video to cover the annual service I do on the snowblower. It's key to longevity, and well worth it given that the current pricing on a Toro 1128 equivalent is just under $3000 CAD, and has a smaller motor now. The new PowerMax 828 is at 252cc vs the older 1128 at 340cc. I had serious doubts about the plastic "joystick" and chute on the 1128, but over a decade of hard use and there have been zero issues. I've used and worked on a number of other brands and it's really hard to deal with dual controls for chute elevation/direction where the Toro joystick setup makes both adjustments in under a second with one control.

Denwood · Monday at 5:10 PM

I blame @nicholam77 completely for leading me down the Home Assistant rabbit hole

I've noticed that there is a WIDE disparity in effectiveness despite companies marketing "induction" capable for their cookware. Then I got to thinking, "How much does one save by going with a cheaper pot, and how do you even compare them" ???? The old school cast iron stuff btw is amazing on induction. More later.

All of my devices are in Hubitat, using the built in zigbee and zwave chips etc. I'll slowly bring over automations. I wanted to give things a test drive though and see how good the HA platform is for graphing, and well, cool automations. Below is a dashboard that I'm going to use in an upcoming video to compare induction pots and power use. It tracks temp, power use, and actual cost for each test run, taking a litre of water from 60F to 210F. I've seen content of late that has me intrigued to actually measure efficiency, not just boil times with the different induction cookware we've been using.

I'm pulling data from the Aeotec Heavy Duty 240 V switch (which provides power data) powering the induction cooktop, and some temp probes connected to a Shelly Plus Uni in the pot/water. That data is used to generate the dashboard to track each test, and provide actual power cost for each test. It automatically starts a timer when the water reachs 60F, and stops the timer/test once the water exceeds 210F, while graphing power use and temperature change. Very slick!

This is data from the pan above, which is pretty much **** on induction, although it claims to be "induction" ready. It's not! I had to add a lid as it could not boil water without a lid...note the 25 minute elapsed time. I'll need to run all my tests with some sort of a lid to compare apples to apples...

Denwood · Tuesday at 3:27 PM

A month or so back, I was approached by Reolink to do a review on their video doorbell. This is a new thing for me, requiring some thought about whether or not I wanted to go down this road with my channel. I figured I'd give it go as I was aware of this company's products, particuarly in the world of standalone solar powered security cameras. I was also looking for a video doorbell, so this kind of worked out. In any case, the company sent out their video doorbell (battery) to review. If you consider the time it takes to set up, shoot and edit a video, I'd be working at about $3/hour on this project, but I figured it was worth checking out this side of things.

The basics are that you can just stick this thing up, no wiring or subscription required as you can record via a microSD, or FTP. It does allow you to hook up power via the existing door bell wiring if it's 24V AC, or 12-24V DC but if not, you've got about 5-6 months on battery. If you have 10 minutes and want to provide your honest feedback, here you go

drivesitfar · Wednesday at 11:30 AM

Nice video and reolink doorbell sounds like a great product.

I really like the idea of no fees and that you can keep it offline.

If you have a minute and want to message me on how to buy to get you a credit so we can up you hourly video making income to $4 per hour please do.

Thanks again for going down these rabbit holes and explaining in detail a lot of the results and applications.

Have a grand day!!

Denwood · Wednesday at 11:50 AM

drivesitfar said:
Nice video and reolink doorbell sounds like a great product.

I really like the idea of no fees and that you can keep it offline.

If you have a minute and want to message me on how to buy to get you a credit so we can up you hourly video making income to $4 per hour please do.

Thanks again for going down these rabbit holes and explaining in detail a lot of the results and applications.

Have a grand day!!

That credit/video part doesn't make sense, but I'll pm you

Denwood · Wednesday at 12:06 PM

Doing some more testing on different pans/pots on the induction cooktop. In each case I measured the power and time to take 1 quart of water from 60F to 210F. The graph rolls through a 6 minute window, so the data there may not make sense as I grabbed the screens after the test had completed. The summary is relevant though. For energy costs, I used my "all in" pricing for mid-peak power at $.24/kWh. I'm sure @nicholam77 and @patlun will appreciate the HA dashboards

I'm using a Shelly Plus Uni set up with three DS18B20 temp probes in the water, and energy data from the Aeotec 240 volt switch powering the induction cooktop.

Shelly Plus Uni	Aeotec 240 volt switch

1. A pan that claims to be induction capable, but is terrible. 17 minutes to boil water, and about $.05 in energy cost. What is interesting is that even at full power, the induction cooktop would only deliver 700 watts to this pan. I'm not sure how/why it scales back power delivery or if this is just induction physics at play??

On older stainless pot (cheap) that we had before the induction cooktop, but works quite well. Max setting 8, but 5:48 minutes to boil water, and $.028 in energy cost. The induction cook top ramped up about 1300 watts for this pot.

The same pot, but using the induction cooktop's "Power Boost" function. Power ramped up to about 1700 watts, and the water boiled in just over 4 minutes. Cost again, about $.028

patlun · Wednesday at 1:11 PM

I like it

I also like that you are not using dark mode.

I get some ideas for my new house, I may not measure the energy consumption for my different pots the first thing, but I put in in the list. I have lots of larger things to optimize and understand there. Last month was the first this year why the panels produced more energy than the house uses, now I need to find a way to store some of what are produced so I can uses it myself instead.

I plan for a overview dashboard who shows electricity usage and production, water consumption in relation to weather and temperatures for the whole house first.

Denwood · Wednesday at 10:10 PM

patlun said:
I like it I also like that you are not using dark mode.

I get some ideas for my new house, I may not measure the energy consumption for my different pots the first thing, but I put in in the list. I have lots of larger things to optimize and understand there. Last month was the first this year why the panels produced more energy than the house uses, now I need to find a way to store some of what are produced so I can uses it myself instead.

I plan for an overview dashboard who shows electricity usage and production, water consumption in relation to weather and temperatures for the whole house first.

Post up anytime you’re doing something fun in HA and tag me…would love to see what you’re up to. The dashboards are for a video I’m working on basically for folks who want to make better purchase decisions on cookware for induction, but from a technical viewpoint. All of my devices and automations are in Hubitat so this is my very first HA project. That dashboard may never be used again :-( I’m going to also do thermal imaging, the boil and power tests (using HA), and a magnet pull test (with measured pull) on both sides of the pots/pans. Kind of a pain honestly as I have to build a few rigs to do it. If the video gets crickets, I’ll be sad…but it will be fun to do

The end goal is a quick educational vid to share what I’ve found. Then folks can walk into a store with a magnet and some understanding to choose a product that will work well. This is all inspired by buying a pan that turned out to be awful on induction…despite the label. There is no standard for how well a pot will work on induction..and there should be!

zanyad · 2026-05-21T12:20:57-0400

Denwood said:
The end goal is a quick educational vid to share what I’ve found. Then folks can walk into a store with a magnet and some understanding to choose a product that will work well.

I'm definitely interested and following along!

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