Graves On SOHO Technology

Welcoming the first cold front of fall 2026

The past few days have been a welcome break from the longest, driest summer in recent memory. The first cold front of the fall came a little early. That means that last week’s daytime highs in the 90s gave way to highs of just 72F over the weekend. And overnight lows in the high 50s. It’s most welcome.

Julio, our ten-year-old Dogo Argentino mix, finds this change in the weather most invigorating. He’s not the only one. Our air conditioner is getting a welcome break. I woke early one morning to dead silence. The condenser of our air conditioner, which sits outside our bedroom window was idle. Normally, that sort of thing would be cause for concern. Has it failed? Not in this instance. It was simply not required. Just blissful silence.

Ubiquity Unifi UPS 2U Pro: Very Nice, But A Near Miss

If you’ve read anything hereabouts you likely know that I make significant use of Ubiquiti’s Unifi network gear. I started with their Wi-Fi Access points many years ago, eventually adopting a few of their managed switches, the UXG Max router and most recently the Unifi 5G Backup. It’s safe to say, I’m committed to the Unifi product line.

Further, living in hurricane alley, with a power utility that could rightfully claim to be the lords of darkness, I believe in planning for powerline issues. For longer outages we have a portable generator. For short term issues, we have a couple of good UPS deployed. The best is Mr. Eaton, an Eaton Powerware 9130 that I acquired in 2021.

Mr. Eaton is getting to the point where it may be time to refresh his batteries. The one I have needs three batteries. A complete set would cost around $130. That said, using lead acid batteries is old school. More modern UPSs use lithium ion or lithium phosphate batteries.

I’ve been looking at newer UPS offerings for an as-yet unpublished post. Very recently I stumbled upon this introduction to a newly introduced UPS from Unifi, the UPS 2U Pro.

Revisiting My Favorite Hearing Protection in 2026

August 7, 2026
Michael Graves
Audio
0 Comments

It is my stated intention to see more live music. Most especially those artists who, like me, are getting older, and may not be touring for much longer. I came to this decision when Rush announced their Fifty Something tour. It was solidified when Triumph announced the 2026 Rock & Roll Machine Reloaded tour.

The Triumph show in Houston was on May 22nd. I knew from past experience that it was likely to be very loud. While I enjoy the music, these days I’m sensitive to very loud situations. In high ambient noise situations I can start to feel claustrophobic. The world starts to close in on me in a very uncomfortable way.

Shelly Sensors: Exposing my data addiction

If there’s one thing that I’ve learned from my use of Home Assistant it’s that data is addictive. In creating a strategy for whole home backup power, I selected the Shelly 3EM as a tool to track how much power the house draws. That provided a solid information to help in choosing a generator. It also started me down a path with inexpensive Shelly sensors.

When I later added a generator inlet to our garage, I opted for the newer Shelly Pro EM 50A. The new “Pro” models supports three kinds of connectivity; Wi-Fi, BT and Ethernet.

Dealing with Netatmo Sensor Issues: A Personal Experience

We’ve had a Netatmo Smart Weather Station since 2017. As I recall, it was gift. We have the basic system, with two additional room sensors. We added the rain gauge in 2019. It was readily integrated into Home Assistant. For an IoT device, it’s worked very well. That is, until very recently.

Back in June we had an incident involving the large Pecan tree in our back yard. After an extended rainy spell, it lost a major limb, which came down onto our deck and the roof of the house. The roof was damaged in two places. The deck was destroyed. The remainder of the Pecan had to be taken out completely.

Is there a MiniDisc Revival?

I loved the Sony MiniDisc! In the mid-90s I had some MiniDisc gear. So when I recently heard rumor of a MiniDisc revival, I was interested.

To get started in MiniDisc, I bought a starter set known as MD Bundle 4. I bought this in the summer of 1996, at the The Sony Store at Premium Outlet Mall in Grove City, PA just north of Pittsburgh. At the time, I was working a large project at KDKA-TV2 in Pittsburgh. That project saw me driving between Toronto and Pittsburgh repeatedly over a period of several months.

The bundle included a Sony MDS-JE510 recorder and an MZ-E40 portable player. I also bought the brand new Sony MDR-NC10 noise cancelling earbuds.