infrastructure – Page 2 – Graves On SOHO Technology

Oh, bother. Where art thou? Base Power

I first wrote about Base Power back in May 2024. Inspired by Doug Lewin’s Energy Capital podcast, I signed up for the companies mailing list, in the hope of learning when they Austin-based company would be offering service in Houston. In fact, I’ve signed up twice!

We’ve received literally nothing from the company. Putting our address into a page on their web site they report “Great news! Base is coming to Houston soon! We’ll be installing in your area later this year.”

T-Mobile 5G: An Experiment with Fixed Wireless Internet Access

t-mobile-gateway-v4-front In the next few weeks we’ll crest the first anniversary of Hurricane Beryl, which had quite an impact hereabouts. In the storm we lost power for a less than two days. However, our Comcast/Xfinity internet access was out for a week. As someone who works full-time from a home office, that was a problem for me. As a contract IT worker, no internet access means no money. No buénno.

My laptop, a Lenovo X1 Carbon Gen7 from 2019, has the optional 4G mobile data access module. It’s part of our Mint Mobile family plan. So, at some level I can be online with just the laptop. That provides a minimal level of productivity.

Similarly, I can tether my desktop and perhaps one or two small devices to my mobile phone. That’s ok for an afternoon, but not a good solution for a week or more.

The 4G speed test on the laptop screen reflects 4G LTE access, not 5G. Also, Mint Mobile data rates are often lower than T-Mobile’s own clients. Even though T-Mobile now owns Mint, the MVNO customers are given lower priority on the network.

Then it occurred to me that all the mobile carriers had been promoting fixed wireless service in the neighborhood. In post-Beryl Houston, power was out at our home, but not too far away there was a T-Mobile store that was open for business as usual. They had a 5G fixed wireless devices for $0 with $60/month and no contract term. It seemed like potentially a good solution. At least, there was little to risk in trying it on for size.

New Gear: JetKVM is really very handy!

Late last year I supported the Kickstarter for JetKVM. This device is a tiny little IP-KVM solution. It’s basically a refined package of everything involved in a PiKVM. Connect HDMI & USB from a computer-to-be-controlled, and Ethernet. Then the web interface on the JetKVM device allows that device to be remote controlled using just a web browser from anywhere there’s IP connectivity.

JetKVM-device-front

I had actually forgotten that I supported the project until one day a pair the wee devices arrived. It happens that I’ve been meaning to work on a KVM solution for my home office.

Ubiquiti Unifi UXG-Max Router: The Most Boring Installation in Memory

December 19, 2024
Michael Graves
infrastructure, networking, Uncategorized

The transition to AT&T Fiber meant jumping from 60/10 mbps service to 500/500 mbps service. Our old router was SmallWall on a recycled HP T620 Plus thin client. SmallWall is a fork of m0n0wall, which I used for years previously. And a history lesson, m0n0wall was the progenitor of pfsense.

Alas, that little hardware/software combination simply wasn’t up to this new, and much faster, ISP. It could only manage to pass 120 mbps. The CPU tracking in SmallWall didn’t show it to be overburdened. I suspect other aspects of the hardware were the problem. It has a dual-ported Intel NIC. They’re 1G ports, connected to the host via a PCIe x4 connector.

I could have swapped out the T620 Plus for something newer and faster. However, I decided to extend our installation of Ubiquiti Unifi gear by adding their Unifi UXG Max router. That would allow me to see the ISP/router performance in the Unifi UI, which is handled by the Unifi Controller app running on a local Raspberry Pi400.

We came to use the Unifi line by way of their Wi-Fi access points. That was the end-state of what had been a long-running search to deliver reliable Wi-Fi. When our Ubiquiti PowerAP N died we deployed Unifi AC Pro access points. So began our foray into “software defined networking.”

Presenting on Backup Power to the Montie Beach Civic Club

September 11, 2024
Michael Graves
Home, infrastructure

The evening of Thursday, September 12th I will be giving my presentation on an Affordable Approach to Whole Home Backup Power to a meeting of the Montie Beach Civic Club. This is the fourth time giving this presentation this summer, and most likely the last.

Each time I give it the slides change a little to reflect the time and place. Also to add little things that I’ve learned along the way. This time I’ve added the following image which reflects the reality that we are currently in the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season.

This week Houston had a near miss with Hurricane Francine. Initially moving toward the Texas gulf coast, it veered northeast toward the Louisiana coast. Nonetheless, it serves as a reminder that we need to be prepared for those events that impact the city. We’ve already suffered a number of days of power outage this year, the result of the derecho and Hurricane Beryl.

In truth, much of the reason for this post is to give me a place to put a link to download the slides as a PDF. That way I can have a URL to be the target of a QR code contained in the slide deck.

On Batteries for Whole Home Backup Power

EcoFlow Ultra Basic In recent weeks I’ve twice given my presentation on an Affordable Strategy for Whole Home Backup Power. The first time was online using Zoom. The second time was live at the July meeting of the Norhill Neighborhood Association. Both went very well. But as ever, the presentation changed a little from one outing to the next. In particular, a Norhill resident had a comment about battery storage.

This inspired me to show a couple of slides I had originally skipped in the interest of time. Simply put, I’m not a fan of whole house battery backup. And I’d like to explain the logic my position.

For the love of sunshine

Our is a modest home. A hundred+ year old Craftsman Cottage built by William Wilson Realty Company. This kind of home has a roof that’s all angles. There’s just not much contiguous space upon which to locate solar panels.

Further, one of the truly great features of our older neighborhood are all the mature trees. The place is just rich with grand old Maples, Pecans, Oaks and Sycamores. Even the occasional Loblolly pine. Our property has a mature Pecan in the center of the back yard.

All these big ‘ole trees tend to shade single-story homes like ours. Those houses that do have solar installations are mostly two-story homes, that manage to peer out beyond the treetops.

Oaks over the east end of Bayland Ave After Hurricane Beryl

So, we don’t have solar panels on the house. Many companies have tried to sell us on the idea, but in the end, it’s just not practical for this house, at this location. That makes this all about batteries, and batteries alone. Not solar+batteries.