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Fun show. Welcome back @Leo
On the subject of WIFI in assisted living communities: We have some WIFI-only networks in some areas of our communities that is dedicated for resident use - something like you would find in a hotel where individual devices directly connected to the WIFI network cannot talk to or have visibility of the other device connected to the network.
We have some residents who need a dedicated network in their apartments for wired and wireless computers, mobile devices, printing, assistive devices (the telephones for hearing and speech impaired), personal assistant devices (think Amazon Echo, Google Assistant, etc.), cameras, TiVos, some IoT devices, and more.
The only way to support these that we have found - short of setting up a dedicated VLAN for each apartment (which most residents would not need or use) - is to use a WIFI router with WISP capability.
The WISP-capable router connects to the WIFI network (just as if you were to plug a network cable into the WAN port log a standard router). And a private LAN with wired and WIFI capabilities can be set up to which a resident can connect all of their devices.
The device is set up just like a regular router and has the same security available on a consumer router.
These devices are not that expensive - you might even say cheap at $20-30. No keep in mind these are for light use. If a resident needs a heavy-duty network, they have to subscribe to one of our local ISPs.
Here’s the WISP-capable device we have had great luck with:
WAVLINK WiFi Router AC1200 Dual Band Router 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wireless Internet Router for Home,100Mbps WAN/LAN Ethernet Port Wireless Router,4 x 5dBi Foldable Antennas,Supports Router,WISP,AP Mode https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fa.co%2Fd%2F4TjN1Du&data=05|01||2645a65c2b0544b482a008db44d9dd7c|84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa|1|0|638179474752286871|Unknown|TWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D|3000|||&sdata=pfbrP6ZApBSpyxkGo%2FAnkWG94G6gg5%2FDa7h47yxapow%3D&reserved=0
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On the cheap smart home lights, there are tons on Amazon that are about 1/3 the cost of Hue, full RGB, some even have sound to light.
I’ve hit this issue at assisted living places and care homes. Either no broadband provided or it’s limited, so no streaming or IoT devices allowed.
Something that will need sorting out I think, as the generations coming through now expect streaming, video doorbells, lights and stuff. My fix at the moment is to subscribe to a 4G/5G Internet service.
I have one of those Hue lightbulbs with Bluetooth. Not a good solution. Most people don’t want to unlock a phone, open an app just to turn a light on or off. It is instant though, no delay like Mikah was describing.
Lights make more sense if connected to Google/Alexa, so voice-controlled or have some intelligence scripted with timers or sensors. But for that, you need the Internet.
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If you have a 4G cellular device you can get an Amazon Echo and then all the wonderful Alexa compatible devices will work with it, also put the Alexa voice assistant on your cell phone and you can control from anywhere
@Leo, I thought you might talk about the hibernation problem on Linux. Windows (used to, at least) use a hybrid sleep-then-hibernate when it is “turned off”, and I would be surprised if MacBooks didn’t do the same. Most distros on Linux do not ship with hibernation enabled for a Bouillabaisse[1] of reasons. To keep my blood pressure down, here’s a great blog post with a proposed solution that, afaik, has not yet been merged in the kernel.
Others have found more convoluted methods for debian-likes.
Depending on the distro, gnome has had their own battery profile widget embedded in the DE that is incompatible with tlp. On the Framework laptop forum, we generally saw that it did as well as tlp. Any distro shipping with a recent gnome should be taking advantage of this, as I think it came about in 2021. The advantage there is that it can smartly change when it senses the laptop is plugged in.
[1] as Thurott might say
Majnaro gives you the option during install to choose No Swap, Swap with Hibernation, Swap without Hibernation. I always choose the last.
I don’t think hibernation works very well.
Good to know about the Gnome battery widget. I wasn’t aware. I always install tlp (as I said) and I’ve never seen it complain. Maybe it turns off the widget?
It looks like most distros set the tlp package to conflict with power-profiles-daemon.
I’ve used hibernation with the Framework and I don’t think it’s half bad with fast nvme storage. The challenge is that it usually disables secure boot and Linux lockdown. And it’s a pain to get bitlocker-like drive encryption.
I hear that recently Fedora’s installer uses systemd-cryptenroll to put all the secrets on the tpm and has hibernation working with secure boot and drive encryption but I have not tested this. My distrohopping days are behind me.
You used to be able to use the Philips Hue dimmer switches directly with the light bulbs. I cannot find anything that says that this feature is still supported, but you use to be able to link a dimmer switch with a bulb (or group of bulbs if you wanted to control an entire room or a fixture with multiple bulbs). If this feature is still supported, it could be an adequate solution for someone who doesn’t have internet. If this still works, someone would need to find out if the smart outlets support it as well.