mmackh

when you combine hyper-efficient models like deepseek with rapidly advancing domestic hardware…

this reminds me of how the original xbox 360 dev kits were actually just powermac G5s. the mid-2000s were a wild time for cross-platform hardware.

"Sensors -> zigbee or zwave -> home assistant"

Home assistant gets updated quite frequently and so does the OS that runs beneath it. My point is that the chain you are describing here can be (is) one single device, with no outside dependencies that runs the logic on a room level. Quieter computing is if it works without the constant upkeep.

"I use a lot of computing for entertainment purposes and leisure activities"

Couldn't agree more. And phones with a touchscreen have been optimised on this axis (ppi, stereo speakers, fps, oled, latency, etc.)

Examples of logic that you want to last for years: devices you set up for your parents to notify you when they get up in the morning. Or that their air quality and temperature is ok.

By logic, I mean source code that determines the behaviour of the device.

It makes the world your canvas, but the device itself is intentionally screen-less. When you enter home - based on presence, time of day, ambient illuminance, barometric pressure, temperature what do you want to happen? Usually this involves a chain of devices, working together inside a blackbox running on an OS that no one single person can understand. What if all the cruft is abstracted away, and you can actually program and script in highly abstracted APIs what is going to happen. And that logic will last you for years. Or you tell an LLM and it writes the logic (code) for you. Having the logic run local makes the experience easier to reason about - now and in the future.

So yes, you can write code that calculates the angle of the sun and fire off a web request or email to send you an interesting HN link. But you can do much more...

[Edit] Again, this is only one approach that changes how we process input to reach a desired output.

A lot of folks will tell you that computers with less features are the the answer, but over the past couple of years I’ve come to realise that how we interact (keyboard and mouse) with computers now is only one way to do it.

There’s something about building distraction-free computing, that doesn’t have to be less. I’ve been building something over the past five years, that puts an entire smart home into one device - sensors and microcontrollers have come incredibly far to make it feel a little bit like magic. What I’m getting at is - what if the environment provides input to the computer and not us directly? This would be one way of exploring quieter computing.

We are in a renaissance of computing right at this moment. If expand our definition of computers outside of screens and traditional input devices, microcontrollers are capable of so much more, with so much less (energy consumption | ram | storage).

The tipping point for MCUs was WiFi - which not only allows you to speak multiple protocols (UDP/Zigbee/HTTP/etc) and have audio IO, but also P2P communication and novel new form factors. There's been incredible progress with the miniaturisation of sensors and how we're able to understand and perceive our environment.

So yes, whilst traditional hardware is getting more expensive and locked down, there's a strong counter movement towards computing for everyone - and by that I also mean that there's going to be less abstraction in the entire stack. Good times ahead!

There’s something to be said about an independent system you can understand and expand. What I think will be next frontier in home computing is truly understanding and owning the systems that run a smart home and that comes with understanding the environment (sensor data, presence detection, etc.). We live in an interesting time where embedded development has become so accessible and powerful that we can interface with multiple wireless protocols and state of the art sensors with not a lot of capital investment. If we think what can come beyond screens and imagine more ambient computing systems - maybe we’ll see new and interesting innovations

Not if software is tied to infrastructure, buildings, etc.

There is a large burden that smartphones have to carry by having to facilitate, or be in some way involved, in every aspect of our life. And at the same time, industries involved in producing these products, have to stay busy and employed. So we end up in a situation where everything stays in constant flux.

Updates break older apps, change the UI/UX, it's really an interesting situation we're in at the moment.

Yes. The thinking was: displays are all around you already. Why not build an ambient computing platform. If it replaces infrastructure in your home it needs to provide enough value. I think we’ve covered that now, but it’s taken a few years.

We’ve been working on a new kind of home computer for a few years now based around microcontrollers. Unlike a traditional setup, it’s aimed at replacing the traditional light switch to provide environmental awareness and bring families closer together. Although the base OS is not open source, the SDK is totally scriptable, meaning as an owner you will be able to trace and understand the device fully.

Examples of what it can do - Autonomous lighting with mmWave radar with 180 degrees fov and ambient light sensor - Recording of temperature, humidity, barometric pressure and VOX to onboard SQLite database at a chosen interval. - Onboard web server, which serves as dashboard and configuration page. - Communication platform with integrated microphone (hardware indicator light, off by default) and speakers. I’m also experimenting with talking to LLMs like this.

And many more things. If you’d like to reach us hello [at] sentionic.com

Samsung seems to equate a larger display area on a laptop with increased worker efficiency/productivity - disregarding ergonomics or durability of their products.

The entire rebrand to X allows the twitter brand to live on / be sold once X goes under. Up until this point there have not been any meaningful positive changes to the platform - everything seems to have been done for attention.

Began my coding career because of the family hotel business. Started coding websites, progressed onto building status boards (vertically mounted tvs) for the today’s Programm, dabbled in document management (instapdf.com), employee management (baseping.com) and worked my way up to actually implementing 3 different versions of iOS apps interfacing with different POS systems (ordervisto.com). Getting live feedback from these systems was invaluable and really helped with finding out what works and what doesn’t instantly.

The hotel is sold now and I’m wondering if I’ll ever work in such a challenging and multifaceted environment again.

Taking long breaks and let the mind wander. Learn from failures. Understand the problem and possibly rethink what you are trying to achieve.

Access control with NFC (sticker on the phone) is a big upgrade. I’ve developed some hardware around this https://instanfc.com

I've been a big fan of Solarized Light and have been using it for over 10 years, everywhere. Even based my personal site design around it. Thank you.

Excel or Numbers, backed with data, would have been the right tool for this job.

However, once the wow-factor for text to image AI wears off, you start to realize:

a) “AI” doesn’t understand anything about the real world (physics, proportions, shapes, etc.) You curate and pick the image that makes most sense. You start to settle.

b) TTI “AI” can never evolve and become better than the data it’s been trained on. It can combine things for sure, but it will won’t start evolving and become a master artist.

c) Limited applicability - there’s always going to be an edge case in every image that’s going to look off (strange blends, non-perfect circles, coloring…). You need to be a creative and know how to use photoshop to fix this stuff.

Right now it’s cool for creating album art, but that’s easy [1]. Generally I just hope that creative people aren’t too worried about “AI”, otherwise we’ll run out of training data.

[1] https://www.intheknow.com/post/album-cover-challenge-tiktok/

I do wonder what the subjects in these photos would look like with different cameras and lens combinations. Everything about those shots scream great composition, but held back by the technical aspects: blurry and distorted.

Both Ultralight EV1 and NTag 21X are supported and recommended. Cloning is possible for the NTag, but there’s currently no chip out there that can actually lock block 0, which makes detecting and bricking them trivial.

One can make this system as secure as the specs require it to be: brick clones, reject certain tag types, add encryption, add counters, perform analysis server side, etc.

Bypassing the system is not completely trivial, but for a determined actor, possible. For outdoor or higher security installations, two boards are recommended, where the outside one acts purely as an antenna.

“Built out of internal necessity” - I didn’t write this for no reason. Here is a little more background: https://inoads.com/articles/2021-07-01-keyRead-Announcement

Those chips and protocols are closely guarded, alternatively the hardware has BLE support. I did already create a proof of concept offline-only Apple Watch access app.

Cost/performance, time to market, IDE, ability for others to understand

From the website: “Read NFC tags to open doors with electric strikes (integrated 12V relay) or motors (toggle GND). A second board can be used as an antenna for enhanced security.”

For lower security scenarios like access to hotel rooms (where trust has already been established) it is sufficient. Plus using a case with proprietary screws, or even making it inaccessible from the outside can also help with security.