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| Author |
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| 25 new of 290 responses total. |
springne
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response 5 of 290:
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Jan 19 15:16 UTC 2006 |
I just built a networked home. It's out in the sticks surrounded by thousands
of acres of Texas ranchland. I have ethernet in every room in this 4,500 sf
home with a fiber optic line coming in here in 4 days from now.
Can't wait to fire it up.
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jep
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response 6 of 290:
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Jan 19 15:57 UTC 2006 |
I have Comcast analog cable, and Comcast Internet service. I expect
I'll have to go to Comcast digital TV at some point, but right now it
carries nothing extra that I want. I only watch sports on TV, and
never want to watch anything which isn't currently live. I need ESPN,
and a few other channels which carry the games I want, and that's it.
But my step-family are TV watchers, and they're likely to want a lot
more than that.
So, right now I am faced with the task of re-wiring my house. There is
no cable TV in any of the bedrooms. I run a splitter from my sole
cable entry point, and that gives my computer it's Internet service.
HDTV is coming like a train. I might as well be braced for it. I
guess cable TV will allow old TVs to work for a long time yet, but
eventually all these TV watchers are going to get digital TVs.
If I have to do cable TV, there's no reason in the world not to do
Internet service to the bedrooms, too. My son already has a computer
in his bedroom. (He has to come downstairs to use the Internet,
though.) Currently I consider it best to have your Internet-connected
computer in a central location. It keeps kids out of all kinds of
trouble. But how long can you expect that to last? The kids need the
Internet for school these days, and do much of their homework in their
rooms.
Now here comes Mike McNally, saying my vision is out of date and every
dang thing in the house is going to be connected to the network some
day. All right, a media hub, I can comprehend that possibility. I
just don't know how it will work. A central repository for DVDs and
music, fed to gizmos around the house, I guess, is that the idea?
But I don't need to know the details. Right now I need to know how to
plan for it. People are talking about fiber optic. Shucks, I have
several network cards I got from Jim and Sindi, used, years ago, which
have RJ-45 and BNC connectors. What network cards use fiber optics?
Or aren't we talking about computer network cards, but interface jacks
on appliances which aren't even available yet? How do *I* know what to
run now, so it'll all be ready in 2010 when Mike's network-connected
future hits me in the head?
Dangitall, what was wrong with 14.4K modems and twisted pair phone
lines, anyway? I could run phone lines. (My house currently doesn't
even have that.)
So basically what my initial intention is, is to run cable TV and some
sort of network jacks to all the bedrooms, with neat little plates
stuck in the walls that you can plug your computers and TVs in to. The
cable TV cable is easy to choose. Well, mostly... mcnally and/or
marcvh say to use CAT-6 and not Cat-5E; some day I will want it. I'll
do that, and I appreciate the tip. But for the computers, should I
plan for fiber optics instead of the network wiring which looks like a
thick phone cable? Can I get network cards for my computers now, which
will work on that?
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tod
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response 7 of 290:
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Jan 19 17:18 UTC 2006 |
re #2
Is the NID powered by the phone company? If not, what if you have a power
outage? Can you still make phone calls?
re #4
Do you need to be a digital subscriber to utilize your QAM-256 tuner on the
cable? (i.e. as an analog subscriber, could I use this?)
re #6
I would recommend WiFi for running Internet throughout your home. Just ensure
you're using WEP with it. Also, you can have the cable company come out and
run more lines for you. They're charge you an extra $5/mo if you want to use
their cable boxes but otherwise the extra line install is a one time fee.
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marcvh
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response 8 of 290:
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Jan 19 17:52 UTC 2006 |
Re #6: Running fiber to each room is purely a future play. Fiber is
expensive and hard to deal with, and its not clear that there will ever
be a need for fiber to each room. Personally I wouldn't bother; I'd just
pull enough cables (at least two coax and two data; more for main places
like a home office or the main TV room) for future needs.
A friend recently learned a painful lesson about this. When his home
was built, they ran a coax line up to the roof for convenient mounting
of a rooftop antenna for OTA or DBS; he used it for a DBS dish. Now, he
wants to upgrade to add a second dish to get more channels and HD
content and such. Unfortunately, the second dish would need a second
coax line, and only a single one was run during construction; the line
goes behind cinder blocks or something and there's no practical way to
get back in and add another.
Now, he would need to buy some sort of magic switching box which would
let the two signals share a single cable; it would cost something like
$400, and it would become obsolete within a year when they change to MPEG4
and he would have to buy another one. So that's a cost of $800 to try to
fix the problem of not having a second cable (and even then the problem
wouldn't be completely fixed, since he wouldn't be able to watch content
from both dishes at the same time.) If the builder had simply put in
two coax cables instead of one, the extra cost would have been more like
$2. My friend decided to give up, lose the dish and get cable instead.
Its not clear how long analog cable will continue to exist. Cable
companies would love to get rid of it and move to digital everything,
because digital transmission makes more efficient use of the spectrum
and so they could fit a lot more channels, or other services, on the
line. However, it would also piss off most existing customers when
their "cable ready" TVs stop working, so I'm not sure how they dig
themselves out of that one. But at least for cable companies its purely
a business decision, while for OTA it's politics.
Re #7: As an analog subscriber, if you have a QAM-256 tuner, you should
be able to watch all the digital content which is unencrypted. This
includes digital versions of many analog channels, and HD versions of
most locals, and any VOD content your neighbors happen to be streaming.
You would not be able to initiate interactive services like VOD or PPV,
and you wouldn't be able to watch encrypted channels like HBO. There
would be no guide, and the channel numbers would seem weird and annoying
and would change from time to time for no apparent reason because you're
not watching in the intended fashion.
The cable company will install jacks for you, but theyll do it by
stapling the wire to the outside of your home and drilling in at various
locations. Some people find this disagreeable, but it is the most
convenient option.
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rcurl
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response 9 of 290:
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Jan 19 18:37 UTC 2006 |
Re #7 re #6: I certainly do use WEP in my WiFi network, but I'd like
changing the security codes to be easier - in fact, automatic. If they
were automatically reset daily in both the base station and adapter it
would be nearly unassailable. I think improvements in the WiFi systems,
including security options, will improve to the point that the buggy-wheel
practice of installing cables will disappear.
Also, when someone visits with their own laptop, they can use it anywhere
in the house and grounds. I don't have a laptop with WiFi yet, but if I
did this local roaming capability would be very useful.
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jep
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response 10 of 290:
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Jan 19 19:44 UTC 2006 |
I have a largish and very old house. Will a WiFi signal go through the
walls and floors without causing a problem? A wireless solution sounds
easier than running cable if it works well enough.
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mcnally
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response 11 of 290:
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Jan 19 19:54 UTC 2006 |
re #6:
> Well, mostly... mcnally and/or marcvh say to use CAT-6 and not Cat-5E;
> some day I will want it.
Most importantly, do multiple runs, even if you leave most of the cable
unterminated in the walls.. Twisted pair is pretty versatile stuff.
Maybe you won't use it for a data network -- perhaps you'll use it for
telephone, or for speaker wiring. The important thing is that it'll be
available when you want it.
> But for the computers, should I plan for fiber optics instead of the
> network wiring which looks like a thick phone cable?
Running fiber within the house isn't likely to make a lot of sense --
fiber is (comparatively) expensive and difficult to work with. Good
quality twisted pair can carry gigabit ethernet which should provide
more than enough point-to-point bandwidth for several more generations
of home network devices..
Also remember that with the data networks, within a room you don't
need a wire running through the wall for each network device, you can
install a small hub or switch and connect several devices via one
cable run.
re #7
> Is the NID powered by the phone company? If not, what if you
> have a power outage? Can you still make phone calls?
No, the NID in my house is DC powered, fed by a wall wart that's
plugged in inside the house. It consumes too much juice to be line
powered. But it has an interesting failover mode. If it loses
power the last thing it does is bypass the analog telephone adapter
circuitry and switch things so the inside house wiring is connected
back to the incoming copper pair. Then when the softswitch which
provides my VoIP service discovers that my NID has gone dark it
can automatically reprogram the Nortel switch that used to provide
my dialtone to re-enable that pair, essentially switching my voice
traffic back to POTS for the duration of the power outage.
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tod
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response 12 of 290:
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Jan 19 20:12 UTC 2006 |
re #11
That's hardcore. I like the idea of auto-POTS for failover.
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nharmon
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response 13 of 290:
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Jan 19 20:19 UTC 2006 |
Yeah, thats the first time I've heard of that before. hardcore indeed.
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marcvh
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response 14 of 290:
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Jan 19 20:47 UTC 2006 |
It is pretty sweet. I still haven't dropped the POTS (my wife likes it)
but we really should. I suspect that VoIP backed up by mobile provides
sufficient reliability for most residential uses these days (I wonder
how it compares with what Ma Bell provided back in the day?)
One important thing to note to jep is that all of these recommendations
are premised on the idea that it is easier for some reason to pull wire
now as opposed to adding it later, e.g. because the drywall is open
anyway or the holes are accessible or whatever. If that's not true for
your situation, and adding wire later would be no more difficult than
doing it now, then there's little reason to run more wire than what is
needed for your immediate uses. That's how my own house is set up;
unfortunately there wasn't a lot of connectivity put in place in
advance, so I just add new stuff as I need it.
There's a good chance that your immediate needs could indeed be serviced
by a WiFi setup, but obviously that won't help get cable TV into multiple
rooms.
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tod
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response 15 of 290:
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Jan 19 20:50 UTC 2006 |
I like POTS cuz its cheap.
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nharmon
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response 16 of 290:
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Jan 19 20:55 UTC 2006 |
Two story homes are horrible for running cable inside of. I'm currently
looking into the suitability of running plenum rated cables through the
ductwork.
If that doesn't work, maybe I can rip out some baseboards along the
stairs and run cables in them.
If you can run cables when you build the thing, RUN PLENTY. Others will
thank you later on.
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marcvh
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response 17 of 290:
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Jan 19 21:06 UTC 2006 |
I suppose the ideal house to wire would be a ranch (we call them
ramblers) with an accessible attic and basement (or at least crawl
space.) But a two-story with both can work OK too; that's what I own.
The worst houses I've ever seen to wire are either old (like a hundred
years old, with lathe & plaster walls and knob & tube electricity) or
brand-new (split entries and townhouses, built on a slab and with
cathedral ceilings which mean no attic access.)
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jep
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response 18 of 290:
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Jan 19 21:43 UTC 2006 |
My house was built in 1850. It's been added on to several times over
the years, and updated a great deal, but it's still an old house.
Parts of the basement and crawl spaces are nearly impossible to get
into.
I can get to the rooms I want to run cable into, but if I know I'm
going to need wiring in some rooms, then I'd rather run it all at once
than to go back and do it again later. That part of your suggestion
made sense to me.
I'd still like to know more about how and why household appliances, in
addition to media such as televisions and stereos, are going to be
connected to networks.
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kingjon
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response 19 of 290:
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Jan 19 21:51 UTC 2006 |
Re #18, last paragraph: The "dream" as so often articulated by
what-the-future-will-be-like "prophets" is that, say, your refrigerator will
notice when you're out of milk and tell you (or, in some versions, order it
automatically). Similarly, I heard (second-hand) a news story about a
university where the washing machines in the dorms are on the network so it's
easy to remotely see how close to being done one's load is or what machines are
currently free.
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tod
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response 20 of 290:
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Jan 19 21:55 UTC 2006 |
I have x10 in my house but its all RF. No need for wiring nor WiFi other than
the x10 RF transceiver for the serial port on my PC.
x10 interacts with all sorts of appliances and home security devices and you
can script most of it with perl into a web interface simply enough.
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marcvh
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response 21 of 290:
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Jan 19 22:22 UTC 2006 |
X10 primarily operates via signals sent over power lines; RF is
secondary and only some X10 devices support it. I used to have a bunch
of X10 stuff but it was so flakey that it proved more annoying than
useful. The controller box was super smart, and I could program it to
turn my porch light on at dusk and off at dawn; it would automatically
adjust to different times of the year. But once a week (or so) it would
lock up and leave the light on or off all day, requiring that I reboot
it and resynch it with my PC. My wife told me the result was annoying
and useless, and I had to admit she had a point.
The most obvious application for a wired refrigerator today is the
fridge with a TV built into the door, which obviously requires you to
have a cable outlet in the area. You can already buy one of these right
now, if you really want to.
Some people have suggested that their fridge could automatically keep
track of its contents, and use the Ethernet to warn you when the milk
starts to go bad or you're out of cheese. I'm kinda skeptical of this
application. Remember 25 years ago when everybody was talking about how
you needed to buy a PC (or Apple ][+ or whatever) and get a database
program so you could enter all your recipes into it and use it to look
them up later? Did anybody ever actually do that?
A network connection might be a good way to monitor the fridge's
operational parameters. You could pull up a page that would tell you
things like how many hours the compressor has been running lately and
how that compares with the long-term average, how long since the water
filter has been changed, and whether some idiot left the door open.
That would be reasonably easy to use, and would have some value; most
importantly it doesn't impose an extra burden on you to inform the
refrigerator of your daily goings-on. If things advanced to the point
that it was only an extra $5 for a fridge that did this, hey, why not?
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kingjon
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response 22 of 290:
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Jan 19 22:25 UTC 2006 |
(I didn't say this wasn't "pie-in-the-sky.") But the assumption is that by that
point you'll be doing your shopping over the Internet anyway, and everything
will have tracking chips in it so that you won't have to tell it what's in
there because it'll detect it when it goes in.
(I don't think this'll happen anytime soon -- but, then again, I'm more and
more wishing for the simpler time when the Internet was a network of
universities and "going online" meant Grexing.)
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tod
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response 23 of 290:
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Jan 19 22:36 UTC 2006 |
They had coke machines on the Internet when I was at RIT. You could see how
many were left in the machine. This was 15 years ago.
I primarily use the x10 controls for motion sensors..
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mcnally
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response 24 of 290:
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Jan 19 22:38 UTC 2006 |
re #18: How about your thermostat? In multiple rooms? I think
more sophisticated climate sensors may start to become more popular.
After you take your shower would you like the fan to come on in
your bathroom and then shut off again automatically after the
humidity had dropped below a certain level? I probably would,
living as I do in a very humid climate.. Or maybe you'd like your
blinds to come down when you're out of the house during the day to
save on your heating and cooling bills. Maybe your heating oil
tank could use a sensor, if you have one. We're still waiting
for someone to do the Smart House concept right (cheap, reliable,
and useful..) but eventually someone will make it attractive.
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mcnally
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response 25 of 290:
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Jan 19 22:41 UTC 2006 |
re #21: Marc's response brings up another category of things that
might benefit from network connectivity -- major appliances that have
defined maintenance cycles. If it's cheap enough to put a web-based
control interface into a wireless router that sells for $20.00 it
ought to be cheap enough to put such an interface into, say, a hot
water heater or a furnace.
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jep
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response 26 of 290:
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Jan 19 23:34 UTC 2006 |
I guess the computerized refrigerator doesn't realy grab me. But, I
can imagine some useful things which could be done via a network,
allowing parts of the house to be controlled by computer. For example:
1) If I could control power outlets from my computer, it would sure
make it easier to turn my Christmas lights on and off according to the
time of the day. It's a little bit difficult to coordinate mechanical
timers, even if they are the same type. I had 5 of them this year, and
they turned my lights on/off over a half hour period.
2) It'd be nice to have the computer control my furnace. I'm getting a
timer which can turn the heat down during the day. The trouble is, I
work 8-5 some days, 11-8 other days, 9:30 - 6:30 yet other days, and
I'm home on weekends. If I worked 8-5 every day, a thermostat timer
would be great. It'd also be nice to be able to log on from work and
tell it I'm working late so don't bother to heat up the house for
another hour or two. Or that I'm coming home from vacation a day early.
3) As I recall, the X10 company got really nutty and started
advertising things like spy cameras to put in the bathroom, for use by
pornographers. Didn't they get sued out of existence for that stuff?
But remote cameras ought to be useful, to show who's at the front door,
monitor the driveway, be able to see the baby in the next room, etc.
Webcams are pretty popular to provide video conferencing. (I'd get one
for my mother, who would doubtless love it, but then she'd be able to
see what a mess the house is.)
4) Why not hook up an alarm clock so it can tell the coffee pot when
you're getting up?
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tod
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response 27 of 290:
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Jan 19 23:35 UTC 2006 |
Remember that movie The Demon Seed? Yea, that was cool....awesome!!
<said in enthusiastic Chris Farley clamor>
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twenex
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response 28 of 290:
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Jan 19 23:38 UTC 2006 |
Was that satire?
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marcvh
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response 29 of 290:
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Jan 19 23:56 UTC 2006 |
X10.com pissed a lot of people off with a combination of pop-under ads
(they were among the first to use this new annoying mechanism to get
their word out) and ads for cameras which included clip art that could be
inteprepted as meaning you should use them to spy on women in the bathroom
or changing clothes or something. I don't think the quality of video they
produced would be good enough for any self-respecting pornographer. They
still exist, and their ads still feature pictures of attractive women but
they're not in changing rooms or other vulnerable settings.
I'm not sure that automated window control systems will become practical
anytime soon. There are motorized automation devices you can buy (the
DrapeBoss and its successors) but they run, when coupled with
controlling infrastructure, something like $100 per window. They'd have
to put a pretty big dent in your heating bill just to break even during
the few years the device will likely last before it flakes out.
I tend to be a believer in a "less is more" theory of home automation
now. For example, I have a motion-sensitive light switch in my
bathroom; when I enter, the light comes on, and stays on for a few
minutes after I leave. It's self-contained, very basic, and works
reliably. Next to it is a timer-switch controlling the fan, so if I
find that the bathroom is in need of fresh air, I just hit the "10
minute" button and the fan will run for that long and then stop. It's
not fancy, doesn't sense humidity or anything, but it works well enough
without becoming annoying.
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