I use an Xbox controller for when Xbox remote play works, and it’s seamless. Works well for iOS games that support a controller, although I can’t think of any that I’ve played in some time.
My buddy has the Razer for on the go Xbox remote play and swears by it; I think the biggest inconvenience is having to take your phone out of its case to use it.
I got a SteelSeries Nimbus a couple of years back and really like the controller, but I bet I’d use it more if it was easier to use with my phone. The Razer seems like a much better idea than something that just clips the phone to the top.
There are definitely iOS games that benefit from a controller, especially if you hate touch controls as much as I do.
Working with a case is the deal-maker for me. I always have a case on my phone and I’m not going to be bothered to take it off whenever I want to use a controller.
We should be closing on a new house in the next couple weeks and was thinking of putting like a security system on it. I don’t currently use like Alexa, Google, Apple home stuff, so not sure if that makes a difference. I do have mostly Apple products, but am not tied to Home Kit if like Ring or Simply Safe are better.
Does anyone use any of the home security systems? The new house is on several acres and kind of surrounded by forest, so I was thinking I probably just need like motion sensor lights and a few cameras? Or not?
@js619 I would be quite curious as to your thoughts? I assume deterrent is the operative word here?
No idea about security, but congratulations on the new house!
Congrats on the house! Still in NYC area?
I can’t weigh in on the connected alarm systems; we have a hardwired (the cameras and sensors are wireless) alarm.com system, mostly because when we bought the house in 2015 the Homekit etc systems didn’t exist. I do like the alarm.com system fwiw, if you wanted to go that route. The app is solid and I like that the cameras integrate with the alarm - they’ll prerecord and postrecord for a set amount of time when the alarm is triggered, and the monitoring through Brinks has been solid. I do wish it had Homekit integration but mostly just for the techie part of me - it doesn’t lack in the alarm department because of not having it.
In terms of the safety aspect, which I assume is the answer you were looking for, a resounding yes on the deterrent factor. You’re not going to care if the police catch the criminal after the fact.
Criminals, especially burglars, are for the most part lazy and don’t want to get caught. They will always pick an easier target vs a harder target, and so your main consideration should be making the target (your home) unattractive to them. (I’m assuming for the sake of this argument that you are neither a drug dealer nor keeping large sums of cash or valuables in your house lol, all of which obviously serve to decrease the risk / reward continuum).
For the alarm system, think visible cameras and signs saying “this home protected by ADT” or whatever company you go with. It can even be a fake sign, truth be told. Don’t hide the cameras, you want them to be seen, and set them up to watch points of ingress - sliding doors, first floor windows, etc. If they have LED lights on the cameras to show their status, even better - leave them on. Remember that the interest here is not catching someone in or after the act, but preventing it in the first place. I also like the Ring or whatever doorbells for this reason, although with the recent rise in mask wearing amongst regular people, cameras have become less useful as an investigatory tool.
I can’t stress motion activated lighting enough - I have several of the double spotlights with motion sensors set up around the house in likely areas of approach. Again, criminals are not in their business to get caught - they’d rather hit the house without lighting than the one with. You can also consider path lighting that activates automatically at sundown; definitely take a drive by the house at night and identify dark spots that can be lit up, especially on the sides and back of the house.
Also consider environmental factors - are you set back from the road a great distance? You might want a sensor on your driveway to alert if someone is coming down it. Are there trees that block the view of the home from the street and allow a burglar more time to gain entry? You can consider trimming or removing those, depending on what the house looks like.
Again, to harp on making the house less of an inviting target - the Hue lights are great for making it look occupied when no one is home. Don’t let packages pile up at the front door, newspapers sit on the lawn - anything that will alert someone that the house is unoccupied or that you’re away for an extended amount of time. Stop the mail, paper, packages etc if you’ll be away or have a trusted neighbor take care of them. Don’t leave ladders laying around (they can obviously be used to access second floor windows, which usually aren’t protected by sensors).
You don’t need the house to be an impenetrable fortress of course - you just need it to be more impenetrable than the other guy’s house.
eta: for the lighting, I would definitely recommend hardwired vs solar powered or battery powered. They’re more powerful and there’s nothing to maintain, especially with the new LEDs.
This is super helpful, and thanks so much for writing it up. I was fairly certain I was thinking the right away, just don’t make your home attractive. Moving from a very dense neighborhood of row houses with cameras and motion sensor lights on everyone’s houses to two acres in forest seems a little scary in that, nobody would notice a break in. We are moving up to Westchester about 90 minutes north of Brooklyn.
The house is about 200 Feet off the road and you can’t see it from the road, because of all the trees. It has light forest all around it. So I was thinking the most important thing would be motion sensor lights on each corner. Of course, I also assume deer, and other animals are going to set all of that off. I did just see that the Alarm.com can detect animal or person though. Is that a service like ADT? You pay a monthly fee and they monitor? I have read really bad things about like ADT, and so was not really thinking of that direction. But it is not out of the question. Did they install everything you need?
The lights getting turned on by animals isn’t a big deal, tbh - in fact, it could be a benefit in that any nefarious actors might note the lights activating and ignore the home because of them.
The alarm.com cameras can detect people and animals, and you can set them to record those things or ignore things of a certain size, etc. You can also set areas that they always record and areas that they never record, and set triggers for them too - my Liftmaster garage door openers are integrated with alarm.com and I have a trigger set to record people coming in the garage when the garage door has been open for less than 1 minute (this avoids a ton of recording when I’m in and out doing yard work or the kids are riding bikes, etc). I have my front camera set to ignore a certain area where the flag constantly blows in front of it, for instance. It’s a pretty well done system and decent to manage - I’ve had them 7 years now and have no complaints.
They come and install everything, yes - I think the initial purchase for the panel, doorbell, smoke and CO detectors, glass break detector, and various door sensors with install was around 600? But that was also 7 years ago! I added the cameras later on. The cameras are pretty easy to setup on wifi and can be found on Amazon for less than the installer charges; however, you’d have to wire the power cords and install the cameras yourself. Depends how handy / how much time you have / how many curse words your kids know whether you want to tackle it yourself. I definitely wouldn’t recommend trying to install the system itself, sensors, or smoke/heat/freeze detectors yourself - the panel programming can be done with Youtube videos but it’s definitely not user friendly or intuitive, and is pretty easy to screw up significantly.
Alarm.com contracts the monitoring - I have Brinks and they’ve been fantastic. I think it’s about $60 a month for the monitoring? You also get iOS (and I assume Android) notifications, so if you’re out of the house and the smoke detector is going off, you’ll know. They also alert to low batteries, power outages (at the panel), etc, and the panel communicates by 4G so no worries if the wifi goes down (you’ll just lose the cameras then, unless you ethernet them).
Question for @kennfusion or any other fellow Steam Deck owners (can’t remember who else here has one): any suggestions on adjusting power settings to prolong battery life? I’ve played with some of the settings on an app-by-app basis and have had some success, but I figured I’d ask if anyone’s found anything particularly useful. I bought Inscryption and Gloomhaven in the Steam Autumn Sale, and while Inscryption is running great, Gloomhaven is a massive battery hog. The back of my Deck was almost hot to the touch just running the tutorial.
Most of my playtime has been on airplanes, and I usually have the steam deck plugged in and on the tray table. So I have not had a battery problem, nor thought much about the heat. I did note that it was quite warm after playing Aria Chronicle for a few hours on a flight, but I kind of only noticed as I was packing the deck up.
Sorry I cannot give much input either. I am too friggin scared to take it out with me and only use it on my couch (but I do use it there a LOT).
Pretty silly I know, my iPhone and iPad are ancient but were much more expensive at the time of purchase and I didn’t have any qualms about using them on the go right from the start at all…
I might ease up a little after winter has passed. I don’t trust the current “its fine in the cold” testimonies just yet…
So I have been on Mac since like 2006 when Boot Camp started. But my 2017 iMac is finally slowing down and Bootcamp is not going to likely run Hogwarts Legacy and the new M1s are just not really for gaming at all. So, back to PC I go. I don’t have time to build one, so I customized one at ibuypower.com which was recommended on Reddit for 'people who really should be building their own PC…but if you have to buy one…"
This is awesome–I didn’t know that site existed. That’s exactly my situation–used to build my own, don’t have the time/interest to do that anymore. How was the price?
So that configuration was $2500
Reasonable for all of that goodness, plus not having to source components and assemble it.
Cool site!
I am a laptop man myself, and should be in the market for a new one before I leave the Us
Does anyone know if it is safe to use a magnetic mount with a Switch?
I use Scosche Magic amounts in my car for my kids’ iPads on road trips and was wondering if it is safe to slap a plate on the back of their Switches for use with the mounts.
My newest keyboard -
https://www.modelfkeyboards.com/product/f62-model-f-keyboard-kishsaver-ultra-compact/
Did the black case with black unprinted keys, which I like a lot more than I thought I would. Definitely took some getting used to but it wasn’t as difficult as I thought to type. Passwords, on the other hand, definitely take some trial and error. Thank heavens for copy paste with 1Password but I may have to rethink the complexity of my Windows initial login password lol.
tl;dr IT’S SO CLICKY
That’s funky!
I am impatiently waiting for my new laptop purchase…. Was having trouble playing age of wonder and realised my laptop w as 4 years old (how the hell did that happen so fast)
