The Blog

Smart Home 101

Frigate NVR with Home Assistant + AI Detection (2026)

Frigate NVR with Home Assistant + AI detection (2026): install steps, Coral TPU setup, camera streams, AI object events, HA automation patterns.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

25 Home Assistant Automation Examples for Beginners

25 Home Assistant automation examples - lighting, climate, security, energy, convenience. Trigger/condition/action plus YAML for every one.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Home Assistant Dashboard Setup: A No-YAML Guide

How to set up a Home Assistant dashboard that actually looks good - Lovelace visual editor, useful cards, organising views, and themes. No YAML required.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Getting Started with Home Assistant: A Beginner's Guide

Home Assistant is the most powerful smart home platform - and runs on an £80 mini-PC. Here's a plain-English setup guide with UK pricing.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Best Thread Border Routers UK 2026: Buyer's Guide

Best Thread Border Routers for UK Matter smart homes in 2026 - Apple TV 4K, HomePod Mini, Aqara M3, Nest Hub Max, SkyConnect, plus practical mesh advice.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Matter Smoke and CO Detectors UK: Should You Buy One?

Matter has finally landed on smoke and CO alarms - but only one brand ships true Matter-over-Thread in the UK. Here is what works and what to avoid.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Best Matter 1.5 Cameras UK 2026: Buyer's Guide

Best Matter 1.5 cameras for UK buyers in 2026 - Aqara Camera Hub G350 (first certified), Tapo upcoming, Xthings, plus ecosystem rollout timing.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Best Smart Blinds UK 2026: Buying Guide + Top Picks

Best smart blinds UK 2026: SwitchBot, Aqara, Eve MotionBlinds, IKEA Fyrtur. Retrofit vs full motorised, Matter, costs.

Jun 2026

AI for Normal People

Claude Code Patterns for Solo Developers 2026

Claude Code patterns for solo developers 2026: skills, sub-agents, plan documents, memory, MCP - workflow shape for small-team output.

Jun 2026

AI for Normal People

Claude Code Skills and Agent Patterns 2026: A Deep Dive

Claude Code skills + agent patterns 2026: skill-based extensibility, sub-agent orchestration, parallel work, planning skills, MCP integration.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Matter vs Zigbee vs Z-Wave vs Thread: Smart Home Protocols

Matter, Zigbee, Z-Wave or Thread - what do they all do, which one your kit needs, and why it usually matters less than you'd think.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Best Smart Energy Monitor UK 2026

Best smart energy monitor UK 2026 buyer's guide. Hildebrand Glow IHD vs Bright app vs Tapo P110 smart plug vs Smart Me. By approach + smart-home use case.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Ollama UK 2026 Setup Guide: Local LLM in 30 Minutes

Complete Ollama setup guide UK 2026 - install on Mac mini M4 or Linux mini PC, pull Llama 3.3 8B, connect to Home Assistant Assist. 30-minute walkthrough.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Best Mini PCs for Local LLM UK 2026: 6 Top Picks

Best mini PCs for running local LLMs (Ollama, Llama 3.3) in the UK 2026 - Mac mini M4, Beelink SER8, Minisforum HX99G, Geekom AX8 Pro picks compared.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Unifi Express + USW Lite 8 Setup: Smart Home Network

Unifi Express + USW Lite 8 home network setup guide for UK smart-home households 2026 - £225 entry kit, full UniFi controller, VLANs, IoT isolation.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Cloud LLM vs Local LLM Smart Home: Cost + Privacy

Cloud LLM vs local LLM for smart home in 2026 - £5-15/month cloud vs £700-1000 GPU + £4-12/month local. Detailed cost, privacy, and capability comparison.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

AI Home Automation 2026: What Actually Works

Cloud LLMs, local Ollama, voice assistants - how AI plugs into Home Assistant in 2026, what genuinely works, and what's still marketing.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Best Smart Radiator Valves UK 2026: 6 TRVs Compared

Smart TRVs compared for UK homes in 2026 - Tado V3+, Drayton Wiser, Hive, AVM FRITZ!DECT, Aqara E1 and Eve Thermo on subscriptions, integration and cost.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Best Home Assistant Integrations & Add-ons UK 2026

The 12 Home Assistant integrations and add-ons that earn their place on a UK smart home in 2026 - Octopus, ESPHome, Mushroom, Z-Wave JS UI and more.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Matter 1.5: What's New for UK Smart Home Users

Matter 1.5 added cameras, video doorbells, soil sensors, EV V2G charging and electricity-tariff support. What it actually means for UK buyers in 2026.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Best AI Tools for Solo Developers UK 2026

AI coding tools for solo developers in 2026: Claude Code, Cursor, Aider, Continue, GitHub Copilot. Pricing, when to pick each, terminal vs IDE.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

HEMS for UK Home Automation 2026: What It Saves

Home Energy Management Systems for UK households in 2026. Heat pump + EV + solar + Octopus dynamic tariffs via Home Assistant or Loop.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Whole-Home Energy Monitoring UK 2026: What Actually Works

UK whole-home energy monitor roundup 2026. Hildebrand Glow, Shelly EM, Shelly Pro 3EM, IAMMETER, OpenEnergyMonitor. Why Tibber + Sense fail here.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Local LLM for Smart Home UK 2026: The Privacy-First Setup

Local LLM (Ollama + Whisper + Piper) for Home Assistant 2026. Hardware from £100 Pi 5 to £250 Mini PC sweet spot. Privacy, latency, vs cloud.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

AI for Mere Mortals Part 3: How to Write Better Prompts

Why your AI answers feel generic and how to fix them. Four ingredients of a good prompt, iteration patterns that work, and the common mistakes to avoid.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

ChatGPT vs Claude vs Gemini: Which AI Should You Use?

Three big AI chatbots, three free tiers, lots of hype. What each one is genuinely best at, where they fall short, and how to pick - without paying.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

Is AI Safe? An Honest, Non-Scary Guide for Beginners

Worried AI might steal your data, your job, or take over the world? An honest guide to which AI risks are real, which are overhyped, and how to stay safe.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

10 ChatGPT Prompts to Run Your Smart Home Smarter (2026)

10 ChatGPT prompts that make a smart home easier to run: morning briefings, YAML debugging, automation rules, colour-temp picks, product comparisons.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

Cloudflare's Agent Readiness Score Explained

Cloudflare's isitagentready.com scores sites across 4 dimensions for AI-agent compatibility. What each checks and the small-site fixes that matter.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

Windsurf 2.0: What the Agent Command Center Means

Windsurf 2.0 introduces a control panel for juggling local and cloud coding agents. Most features are paid; the design tells you what's coming.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

Why Your AI Keeps Forgetting Things

AI memory looks like database lookup but it isn't. The five failure modes - decay, contradiction, confidence - that make AI forget what you told it.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

Why 'price per million tokens' lies about your AI bill

The sticker price on AI APIs hides a sneaky multiplier. Here's how tokenizer efficiency quietly inflates real bills, and how to compare like for like.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

Why ChatGPT Cites Your Page (or Doesn't): 1.4M Prompts

An Ahrefs analysis of 1.4M ChatGPT prompts shows what actually wins citations - and why Reddit's huge presence rarely earns credit.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

Why AI Coding Tools Struggle with Frontend Work

AI assistants are brilliant at scaffolding boilerplate but fall over on custom layouts and accessibility. Here's why, and how to brief them better.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

Why AI Hasn't Replaced Human Experts (Yet)

Two years into the AI-coding boom, hard questions to humans have doubled and 75% of devs verify with a person. What that means for everyone else.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

Why Your AI Coding Tool Feels Different Week to Week

Your AI coding assistant didn't get worse overnight. Six hidden levers can change how it behaves while the underlying model stays the same.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

When AI Writes the Code: Probabilistic Engineering

AI now writes huge slabs of software. Validation, not generation, is the new bottleneck - and that quiet shift changes how trust gets built.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

What Is Cloudflare Browser Run? A Plain-English Guide

Cloudflare's new hosted-browser API lets AI agents drive a real browser at the edge. Here's what it does, who needs it, and what it costs.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

What Is Agentic Engine Optimization (AEO)? Plain English

AEO is the discipline of writing pages so AI agents can read them well. A plain-English explainer of what it is and what to actually do.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

What biases AI shopping agents to pick your products?

Yale and Columbia researchers ran AI shopping agents through thousands of buying scenarios. The biases they found are stranger than you'd expect.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

What AI Says About Your Brand (And How to Fix It)

AI answers about your brand are shaped by third-party sources you don't control. Here's how to audit yours and start influencing the public record.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

Ternary Bonsai: AI That Runs on Your iPhone

A new family of AI models uses 1.58-bit weights to fit an 8B model in 1.75 GB. It actually runs on a phone. Here's how, and where it falls short.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

Qwen 3.6: The Open-Source AI That Quietly Caught Up

Alibaba's Qwen 3.6 ships with 262K context, Apache 2.0, and serious coding chops. Here's what an open-weight model actually changes for you.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

Airflow vs LangGraph vs Temporal for AI Agents

Production AI agent orchestration in 2026: Airflow 3's agentic-workflow support and how LangGraph and Temporal differ. UK-friendly landscape view.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

How to Make Your Pricing Page Readable by AI Agents

AI agents are starting to compare SaaS pricing for their users. Buffer's new machine-readable /pricing.md file shows where the web is heading.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

Agent-Assisted PRs: How MLX-LM Gets New Models Faster

What agent-assisted PRs for mlx-lm mean for UK Mac users: faster new-model support in Ollama, LM Studio, and the wider Apple Silicon ML ecosystem.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

Local LLM on Raspberry Pi 5: 2026 UK Practical Guide

Run a local LLM on a Raspberry Pi 5 with Ollama. UK guide: realistic benchmarks, power costs, hardware kits, and Home Assistant voice setup.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

Local AI Image Generators: A Beginner's Guide for 2026

Run a local AI image generator on your own computer - no cloud, no subscriptions. The best beginner-friendly options for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

What Actually Happens Inside Claude Code or Cursor

How AI coding agents actually work under the hood - explaining the agent loop, prompt caching and context compaction with practical takeaways.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

Google Chrome AI Skills: Worth the Hype (UK 2026)

Google added saved AI prompts (Skills) to Chrome - what they do, why UK readers cannot use them yet, and whether to bother.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

GenericAgent: When an AI Builds Its Own Repo From Scratch

GenericAgent is a 3K-line open-source agent that gives an LLM full computer control - and built its own GitHub repo without human help.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

Generating Unit Tests with AI: What Works, What Doesn't

AI coding assistants can churn out unit tests in minutes, but the shallow ones give you a false sense of confidence. Here's how to do it well.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

Evaluating AI Agent Reasoning: Vakra Benchmark Lessons

IBM's Vakra benchmark reveals how AI agents really fail (tool selection + multi-step planning). A plain-English checklist for evaluating your setup.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

Context Rot: Why Long AI Sessions Get Worse, Not Better

Long ChatGPT and Claude Code sessions quietly degrade as the conversation grows - here is why, what real engineering teams do, and your fix.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

Cloudflare Agents Week 2026: the bits that matter

Cloudflare's Agents Week 2026 shipped a small mountain of agent-building toys. Here's what actually changes for a UK developer building AI agents.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

Claude Opus 4.7: What Changed, and Should You Care?

Anthropic's new Claude Opus 4.7 retook the top of the LLM benchmarks. Here's what actually changed for coders and what it means for a UK budget.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

Claude Design: Anthropic's Take on Design AI

Anthropic shipped Claude Design for mockups, decks and prototypes by non-designers. Here's what it does, who it's for, and what it isn't.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

Why Claude Code Works Better When You Delegate

Treating Claude Code as a delegated engineer changes how you brief tasks, batch questions and use auto mode. Here's the practical difference.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

How Claude Code Works: Inside Its Simple Agent Loop

Inside Claude Code deceptively simple while-loop architecture and the six open questions every AI agent builder still has to answer.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

What Chrome's New AI Side-by-Side View Actually Does

Google's Chrome AI Mode now opens search results next to the AI's answer. Here's what it does, who can use it, and how it changes browsing.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

The 'Caveman' Trick That Cuts AI Costs by 75%

Strip vowels and articles from your prompts and AI APIs cost a quarter as much. Does it actually work, and should you use it?

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

Building AI Agents That Survive Production

Most AI agents shipping today are held together with sellotape. Four architectural bets separate the production-ready ones from the prototypes.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

Better AI Means More Ambitious Work, Not Just Faster Work

When AI coding tools step up a generation the surprise isn't that people get the same work done faster. It's that they take on bigger projects.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

Are We All Building the Same Digital Assistant?

Tech companies and indie builders are converging on the same AI-assistant shape. Here's what that future looks like and what's already real.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

Why Your AI Refactor Tool Should Run in a Sandbox

OpenAI's cookbook shows AI agents migrating code inside throwaway sandboxes, with auditable patches. Here's the pattern and why it's spreading.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

What Happens When AI Agents Start Paying for APIs?

Coinbase's Bazaar MCP lets AI agents pay per API call. Here's what it does, why it matters, and whether you should care today.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

Free AI Tools You Should Be Using in 2026

Eight genuinely useful free AI tools for 2026 - what each is best at, where the free tier hits its limits, and which one to pick first.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

20 Actually Useful Things to Ask ChatGPT (Beyond Essays)

ChatGPT can do far more than write essays. 20 practical, everyday uses - from energy bills to holiday planning - with the exact prompts to copy.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

Best AI Search Engines 2026: Perplexity vs ChatGPT vs Brave

Honest UK comparison of the four AI search alternatives to Google in 2026 - Perplexity, ChatGPT Search, Brave, Kagi. Pricing, privacy, citation quality.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

How to Use AI for Meal Planning, Budgeting and Daily Tasks

ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini aren't just for essays. How to use AI for meal plans, budgets, awkward emails, travel and home admin - with prompts to copy.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Best Smart Locks for Beginners (2026 UK Guide)

Best smart locks for beginners (2026, UK): Yale Linus L2, Nuki Pro 4G, Aqara U200, SwitchBot Lock Pro. With an easiest-install decision tree.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

How to Use AI to Learn Anything Faster (A Beginner's Guide)

Five concrete techniques for using ChatGPT as a personal tutor - Feynman explanations, ELI5 mode, study plans, self-quizzing and summaries.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

AI for Mere Mortals Part 5: When to Trust AI Answers

How to tell when ChatGPT and other AI tools are reliable - and the simple checks that catch their hallucinations, with examples from 2026.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

AI for Mere Mortals Part 4: How to Spot AI Content

An honest, jargon-free guide to spotting AI-generated text, images and video - plus why most 'AI detector' tools don't actually work.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

AI for Mere Mortals Part 2: Getting Started with ChatGPT

Time to actually use AI. A no-jargon, step-by-step guide to ChatGPT - setting up, writing good prompts, and 10 genuinely useful things to try today.

Jun 2026

AI for Mere Mortals

AI for Mere Mortals Part 1: What Is AI, Actually?

AI is everywhere - but what actually is it? A plain-English explanation of what artificial intelligence is, what it isn't, and why it matters now.

Jun 2026

Everyday Tech

How to Secure Your Home Wi-Fi in 10 Minutes

Six dead-simple steps to lock down your home network before your next cup of tea goes cold. No networking degree required.

Jun 2026

DIY Tech Projects

Home Assistant on a Raspberry Pi: Complete Setup Guide

Set up Home Assistant on a Raspberry Pi 5 from scratch - hardware picks, flashing HAOS, first boot, adding devices, and your first automation. UK pricing.

Jun 2026

DIY Tech Projects

What Is Pi-hole and Why Every Smart Home Needs One

Pi-hole turns a £40 Raspberry Pi into a network-wide ad blocker that protects every device on your home network. Here's how to set it up.

Jun 2026

Everyday Tech

5 Things Your Smart Speaker Can Do That You Don't Know

Asked for the weather, played a song - that's the surface. Five genuinely useful smart speaker features most people never discover, with set-up steps.

Jun 2026

DIY Tech Projects

Raspberry Pi Home Server: Weekend Build Guide

Build a Raspberry Pi home server in a weekend - Pi-hole, NAS, Jellyfin, and a VPN, all on £100-130 of hardware. Beginner-friendly step-by-step.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Matter 1.4: What's New for UK Smart Home Users

Matter 1.4 brings energy management, EV chargers, heat pumps and home batteries to the standard. What it means for UK smart homes in 2026.

Jun 2026

Everyday Tech

Alexa+ Review: Is Amazon's AI Upgrade Worth It?

Alexa+ adds generative AI to Amazon's voice assistant - proactive routines, agentic actions, and natural conversation. What it does and whether to upgrade.

Jun 2026

DIY Tech Projects

Home Assistant Add-ons: 8 to Install First in 2026

Home Assistant add-ons every new install needs in 2026 - File Editor, Mosquitto, ESPHome, Node-RED, Frigate, AdGuard Home, and what to skip.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Smart Home on a Budget: Everything You Need for Under £150

You don't need to spend hundreds on a smart home. A tested £150 starter kit covering voice control, doorbell, and smart plugs - plus what to skip.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

What Is Matter and Why It Changes Smart Homes Forever

Matter is the new universal standard that makes smart home kit work together. Here's what it changes, what it doesn't, and why it matters.

Jun 2026

Everyday Tech

Best Password Manager UK 2026: 4 Compared

A research-led comparison of the four password managers worth considering in the UK in 2026 - Bitwarden, 1Password, NordPass and Proton Pass.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Smart Home 101 Part 3: Your First Smart Devices

What to actually buy first for a smart home in 2026 - smart bulbs, plugs, sensors and speakers, ranked by genuine usefulness, not price.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Best Mesh WiFi for Smart Homes: 2026 Buyer's Guide

The cheap router that came with your broadband can't keep up with a smart home. Here's how to pick a mesh WiFi system that actually works.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Smart Home Energy Saving: Tactics That Actually Cut Bills

Smart home energy saving tactics that actually move the needle on your bill - what to buy first, what to skip, and how much each upgrade really saves.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Do You Need a Smart Home Hub? A Plain-English Guide

Do you actually need a smart home hub in 2026? A plain-English guide to who needs one, who doesn't, and the cheapest hub that quietly works.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Frigate NVR on Home Assistant: beginner's setup guide (2026)

Frigate adds real local-AI camera analytics to Home Assistant - person, car, package detection, all on your own hardware. Step-by-step UK setup guide.

Jun 2026

DIY Tech Projects

Pi-hole vs AdGuard Home: Which Should You Run in 2026?

Pi-hole vs AdGuard Home compared on setup, blocklists, UI, performance and hardware. A plain-English guide to picking the right DNS-level ad blocker.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Smart Home Mistakes Beginners Make (And How to Avoid Them)

Nine smart home mistakes new owners make - incompatible devices, weak Wi-Fi, app graveyards and subscription traps - and how to avoid each one.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Smart Home Security: No Monthly Subscription Needed

Build a real smart home security system - cameras, sensors, smart locks and motion alerts - with zero monthly fees. Kit, costs and setup walkthrough.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Home Assistant Energy Dashboard for UK SMETS2 Meters

Connect your UK SMETS2 smart meter to Home Assistant's Energy dashboard - n3rgy, Hildebrand Glow, and Octopus integrations compared step by step.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Smart Home When the Internet Goes Down

Which smart home devices keep working when your internet drops, which silently brick, and how to build a setup that survives outages.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Smart Home for Renters: No Drill, No Rewire, Deposit-Safe

Build a smart home as a UK renter without drilling, painting or rewiring. Plug-in devices, magnetic sensors, and the kit you should skip.

Jun 2026

DIY Tech Projects

Is Unifi Worth It for Home? A Plain-English 2026 Guide

Is Unifi worth it for a normal household? A non-technical look at when Ubiquiti's prosumer gear makes sense versus eero, Asus, or your ISP router.

Jun 2026

DIY Tech Projects

Best Unifi Gear for Home: UK Starter Kits 2026

Best Unifi gear for home in 2026: three UK starter kits at around £200, £450, and £750 - what to buy, what to skip, and where to get it.

Jun 2026

DIY Tech Projects

Unifi Setup for Beginners: A No-CLI 2026 Walkthrough

Step-by-step Unifi network setup for beginners - adopt your gateway, configure Wi-Fi and a guest network, all from the mobile app. No CLI required.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Pi-hole or AdGuard Home on a Unifi Network: No-Drama Setup

Two clean ways to point a Unifi network at a Pi-hole or AdGuard Home box - plus the IPv6 and guest-network gotchas that catch most people on the first try.

Jun 2026

DIY Tech Projects

Unifi for Smart Homes: Why Network Quality Matters

How a quality network like Unifi keeps Matter, Thread, and Zigbee devices stable - AP placement, VLANs for IoT, and the multicast settings that matter.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Home Assistant 2026.6: Should You Update? (Plain English)

Home Assistant 2026.6 explainer: MQTT v5, Matter BLE fix, integration updates. What changes for your household, when to update.

Jun 2026

Best NAS for Home 2026 (UK): Synology vs UGREEN vs DIY

Pick the right home NAS in 2026 (UK): Synology DSM polish, UGREEN's 10GbE hardware-per-pound, or a Jonsbo DIY TrueNAS build. Pros, cons, prices.

Jun 2026

DIY Tech Projects

Self-Host Bitwarden with Vaultwarden: UK Guide (2026)

Self-host Bitwarden via Vaultwarden on Raspberry Pi, Synology Docker, or Proxmox LXC. UK guide with reverse-proxy, Tailscale, and backup strategy.

Jun 2026

DIY Tech Projects

Proxmox vs TrueNAS vs Unraid: Homelab OS Choice (2026)

Proxmox is a hypervisor, TrueNAS is a NAS OS, Unraid blends both. Pick by what you'll run most: VMs, storage, or Docker.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Unifi Protect Cameras: A Beginner's Buyer's Guide (UK 2026)

Pick the right Unifi Protect camera for your home: indoor vs outdoor, AI vs standard, what NVR you need, and what a complete setup actually costs.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

What Is Aliro? The New Smart-Lock Standard Explained

Aliro is the new CSA standard that lets one phone key unlock smart locks from any brand. Here's what shipped in v1.0 - and what didn't.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

SmartThings + Matter: What It Means If You Mix Brands

Samsung SmartThings is leaning further into Matter. A plain-English guide for UK homes mixing SmartThings with Apple, Google or Alexa.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Matter over Thread vs Wi-Fi: Which Should You Use?

Matter runs over Wi-Fi and Thread - but they are not interchangeable. A practical guide to when each transport wins, with device-class recommendations.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Best Smart Plugs UK 2026: Matter, Energy Monitoring

Best UK smart plugs for 2026: Matter-compatible 3-pin picks, honest energy-monitoring accuracy notes, and which plug fits each household use case.

Jun 2026

DIY Tech Projects

Smart Home Routines That Save Money (UK 2026)

Time-of-use tariffs, smart plugs, scheduled heating: the routines that actually cut UK energy bills, plus realistic monthly savings.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Smart Home Shopping 2026: You Don't Have to Pick a Side

Matter and Thread mean most new smart-home devices now play nicely together. A plain-English UK shopping guide for 2026 - no ecosystem anxiety required.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Local-First Smart Home: Privacy Without the Compromise

Which controllers and protocols stay local in 2026, how Matter-over-Thread changes the game, and where the cloud quietly creeps back in.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Best Mini PC for Home Assistant UK 2026

The best mini PCs for running Home Assistant in 2026: Beelink, Minisforum, GMKtec, and entry-level N100 picks across the £150-£600 UK price range.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Smart Home 101 Part 2: Choosing Your Smart Home Platform

Alexa, Google Home, Apple Home or Home Assistant? An honest guide to picking the smart home platform that fits your kit, comfort and budget.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Homebridge 2.0: Matter Support and What It Means For You

Homebridge 2.0 ships with Matter support - non-HomeKit devices into Apple Home, plus broader reach to robot vacuums. Here's what's actually different.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Which Matter Smart Plugs Show Your Energy Use? (UK 2026)

Not every Matter smart plug actually reports energy. Here is which UK 13A models do, what the readings mean, and what your hub needs to show them.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Best Smart Thermostats UK 2026: 5 Top Picks Compared

Compare Tado, Hive, Nest, Drayton Wiser and Honeywell smart thermostats for UK homes - pricing, heat-pump support, dynamic tariffs.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Home Assistant 2026.6 Beta: 4 Changes That Matter

Home Assistant 2026.6 beta adds Matter-over-Bluetooth, smart-lock PIN management, and a visual dashboard builder. Here's what's worth caring about.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Matter and OpenADR: Why Your Energy Bill May Soon Drop

The CSA and OpenADR Alliance are bringing grid-level demand response to Matter devices. What this means for UK homes and your energy bill.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Home Assistant 2026.5 Release: What It Means for You

Home Assistant 2026.5 lands with a maintenance dashboard, duration triggers, and native RF device support. Here's what actually changes for everyday users.

Jun 2026

Smart Home 101

Smart Home 101 Part 1: What Is a Smart Home?

A clear, jargon-free intro to smart homes: what they actually do, the kit you need to start, and the privacy trade-offs to think through.

Jun 2026

Everyday Tech

What Is a VPN (and Do You Actually Need One?)

VPN ads make wild claims - most are nonsense. An honest guide to what a VPN actually does, who genuinely needs one, and the best UK picks for 2026.

Jun 2026