Tech With Jake

SmartThings Evolve LFM-20 and Multi Sensor as Your Garage Door Opener

Thu, 22 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000

When SmartThings started many years ago, their suggested way of automating a garage door was with a SmartThings Multipurpose Sensor and an Evolve LFM-20 Relay switch. These would become one single device in the Mobile App and with a press of a button, the garage door would open or close and could be automated through SmartThings.

Since the V2 Launch though, they have discontinued support for this setup and have changed their support for garages to the Linear GD00Z-4. This has left many a user in the dust to either go without the integration and only manually open/close or to purchase a new device.

Tech Doesn’t Have to Look Like Tech

Tue, 06 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000

As much of a tech enthusiast as I am, I completely understand that sometimes tech just isn’t all that appealing to the eye. Sometimes, it just looks like tech. Very functional, not very pretty.

That’s why I decided to “hide” my tech in hollowed out books so they can be stored in plain sight and look nice while still being very functional.

First, I order these hollowed out books on Amazon.

Use SmartCam’s Motion Sensor with SmartThings

Sat, 06 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

So you got that fancy new Samsung SmartCam HD Pro and want to use its built in motion sensor with SmartThings? Can’t seem to find it the settings? Unfortunately, SmartThings hasn’t been able to grab the built in Motion Sensor yet. Good news everyone! We can still use it to trigger things in SmartThings!

Now, more than likely, you’ll want to use a second, rarely used Android device for this but your primary Android device will be able to do this as well. It may just become annoying.

About

Wed, 09 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Hey, I’m Jake Kromer. I live in Marana, Arizona, and I’ve spent 10+ years as the person who gets called when something technical breaks and nobody’s sure why.

What I do Link to heading

Right now I’m a Technical Operations Engineer at Bright AI. Day to day, that means looking after 180+ Raspberry Pis out in the field, connected over cellular and Starlink, along with NVIDIA Jetson boards that run AI models right at the edge. When a site goes quiet, I’m usually the one digging through logs to find out why. Most of my effort goes into making sure I hear about problems before they turn into a drive out to the site. Mostly that means Python scripts that watch device health, connectivity and storage, and yell before things fall over.

My Intro Into GNU-Unix

Mon, 04 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I have been using GNU/Linux for over 4 years of daily use. I’ve been toying with it for about 6 years. I have tried MANY Live CD Distros and installed quite a few different distros. Most of them though, have been Debian based. My first real usage with GNU/Linux was Ubuntu. It’s the first distro I ever truly installed on my machines. I fell in love right away, though with a few frustrations.

Arch Linux

Wed, 09 Feb 2011 00:00:00 +0000

So, Arch Linux threw Ubuntu off my computer and I couldn’t be happier. I am learning every in and out of my system. I have to tell it what to do or it won’t do it. I have to build every aspect of the computer on my own.

I have to install every theme, design some on my own and create everything. It runs quicker, smoother and all around better than Ubuntu did. Quite frankly, it was a breeze too. Sure, it started off bumpy but I tried to make the process harder than it really is. I was slightly intimidated by CLI but once I got comfortable with Arch Linux specific commands, it became a breeze.

First Day with Chrome OS

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So I received the new Google Chrome OS netbook today from UPS. First impressions were ooh and ah. Below is a picture of the box it came in. Pretty awesome looking.

Unpacking it was really simple and felt pretty awesome just know to get one. There wasn’t much to it, just two pieces of paper; the simple “How to get started” sheet and then the “Yeah, we gotta do this” sheet; this sheet was hilarious, I will have to post it later. The computer comes nicely packed in bubble wrap and the battery in a standard plastic sleeve wrap. The power cables twist tied and plastic sleeve wrap.