Smart Home

One of my annoyances with “Smart TVs” is how they are still reliant on an antenna connection for live TV; unless you login and keep many apps updated, usually on each device, and sacrifice your privacy. In this post, I setup a local IPTV service direct from my antenna, allowing me to watch live TV while minimising the signal issues with using an antenna.

A side effect of my Living Room TV being connected to a surround sound system via optical cable, is that the volume buttons on the remote have never worked. One of the great things about rooting my TV is I’ve been able to remap the buttons on the remote to call out to Home Assistant, and control the Surround Sound via an IR blaster. …

My opinion of LG TVs has changed. I used to really like them. They guaranteed updates for 10 years, and seemed to show far fewer adverts than other Smart TV manufacturers, but they seem to be following the same path of collecting as much data as possible and putting adverts everywhere, at the cost of user experience. So I’ve rooted all of my TVs to take back some control of them. …

My gaming table is custom built, powered by an ESP32 micro-controller running ESPHome, and a LocalDeck as a control panel. …