Does anyone here have any experience with KNX? It seems like the best wired system (without being locked into a single manufacturer), but from what I understand it's expensive and not aimed at DIYers.
For context I'm in the process of building a house and like OP am considering Shelly modules, but it seems a bit silly to go wireless when I am doing everything from scratch.
We built our house with KNX this year. While our electrician did all the wiring, I did the programming myself. It has a steep learning curve, but if you're in IT, you'll probably get the hang of it pretty quickly.
The system is very robust and offers a lot of flexibility.
Almost all our componenents are from MDT (https://www.mdt.de/EN_Start.html). They build really great products and are quite affordable. Compared with components from other manufacturers we use (Theben, Weinzierl, Steinel) I think their applications and manuals are also far superior.
I have since connected the system to my home assistant installation, and enjoy the added flexiblity.
I don't have hands on experience, but I read about it a lot.
Yes, it is not meant for DIY, but in Germany there is a big DIY community, unfortunately that also means a lot of hands-on experience is shared in German forums and Youtube channels.
The main issue is the ETS software you need to configure KNX devices. Full license is around 2k€, but if you have up to 15 KNX devices I believe there is a cheaper license.
Next apartment/house i buy will probably be wired with KNX for roller shutters, heating/air conditioning and for lighting either KNX or KNX-Dali Gateway.
Hi,
I have built my house using KNX. Actually, the fact that it is mostly cable based makes this system super reliabe.
It also combines various trades, lighting, heating, etc and is supported by 500 manufacturers.
Together with a friend who has more than 20 years experience, we published an ebook on how to get started without any prior knowledge. There is a free version at https://knxtutorial.com/knx
This reminds me of the VMU on Dreamcast. It was a memory unit with a built in monochrome screen. When 'docked' in the controller it would show extra information about the game you are playing. As well as saving games, you could also download minigames that could be played solely on the VMU. Some of them let you play with friends by connecting two VMUs together (no cables needed, the connector is half male half female so two connect together) - although supposedly I was the only person in the world with a Dreamcast, as all my friends at school had PS1.
I wonder if it ever had a positive impact on sales. It seemed so overkill, even back then, and today even more so. The idea was nice but imagine the additional costs for hardware development and also for software. Seems so silly nowadays.
For games where the VMU wasn't useful, they usually just put a logo or a looping animation.
For games where it was useful, you got cool things like picking football plays on a private screen, or having a private screen to see your items, hidden from the other players in the room, or inventory/status information. Etc
I didn't use any of the VMU contained games though, coin cells are too expensive.
> could have worked better if there wasn't, say, the coal minister standing in the way of moving resources away from coal to a better use of capital
That sounds like it could be applied to any Western society today as well. Throughout history, have there been any alternative democratic systems where politicians are less 'powerful'?
The power is more decentralized, though. Certain elites in say US democracy do want to slow down change for their own benefit, and sometimes they are moderately successful, but they don't have as much power. They certainly don't have the whole power of the state behind them.
This is for non-mandatory updates - things like navigation and updates to a slightly less crappy UI.
For safety recalls the dealer bills the manufacturer for their time, so as the customer you don't need to pay anything (other than your time to take the car to the dealer).
I have a 3rd hand Toyota, and after I bought it I noticed none of the recalls had been done. I called up my local dealer, they ordered the parts, then two weeks later they replaced airbags, fuel tank lid and updated the ECU without me having to pay anything.
Oh, the paid updates might affect the infotainment system, but might also affect the ECU instead - at least as far as I'm aware, and then of course this might vary depending on the model year. Updates as part of a recall are free.
I switched back (after a Mac stint for 12 years) to Linux a couple of years ago, and although hardware support is much better there are still some very sharp edges you could easily bleed out on if you briefly touch.
I have a ThinkPad T470s running Arch Linux (I also tried Fedora and Ubuntu and saw these there too):
- Desktop performance is too poor to run at 4K, even though it works fine in Windows. I'm not talking playing games (they actually work well), just having a desktop with a browser and editor running at 4K. Ive tried Gnome, XFCE and Plasma on Wayland and X11 and they are all the same. The desktop feels slower, but strangely running tests (backend TypeScript and Scala) is noticeably much slower.
- Multiple monitors mostly works, but it's not always plug and play. Sometimes when I plug in an external monitor it doesn't always switch to it, so I have to set it up manually. Other times it just doesn't detect the monitor so I need to reboot. See note above about testing different DEs.
- Bluetooth audio mostly works (including LDAC) but the sound system often gets confused about which output device should be used. Sometimes Bluetooth audio connects, but it still defaults to the speakers. Sometimes the volume control turns down the Bluetooth audio, but turns up the speakers. See note above about testing different DEs.
- Suspend/resume mostly works, but sometimes it has the same issues as when connecting monitors. Sometimes when I resume I get a black screen, but if I go to a virtual terminal I can restart X11 and everything works. Other times it doesn't without a reboot.
Now of course these aren't the end of the world. I've been using this system and dealing with these issues for a couple of years now. The tradeoffs vs Apple privacy and better developer tooling (native Docker is so much nicer) on Linux make it worth it for me. I also have a desktop system which works perfectly, so it seems to mainly be issues with laptops (or this laptop?). But yeah compared to macOS or Windows, Linux really lacks a lot of polish.
Desktop performance is too poor to run at 4K, even though it works fine in Windows.
I have used 4k with Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA GPUs on Linux (both Wayland and X11) and it is a smooth as it is on macOS. My only data point is GNOME though, because I am happy enough to never try another DE.
I fully agree with Bluetooth problems. I just gave up and use a wired headphone with mic now :(.
But yeah compared to macOS or Windows, Linux really lacks a lot of polish.
I generally agree. I am a NixOS user, though I recently tried Fedora Silverblue and I was surprised how smooth the whole experience is. They nailed the desktop. Atomic upgrades/rollbacks. Flatpaks are really a nice model for installing desktop applications. It's one of the first times I felt that it's a Linux-based system that I wouldn't worry much about recommending to non-technical users.
I think the more serious problem is the lack of applications like Microsoft Office, the Adobe Suite, the Affinity Suite, OmniGroup applications, etc. Sure, there are free replacements, but they are not as good. And even if they were as good, people generally do not like to switch away from what they know.
"I think the more serious problem is the lack of applications like Microsoft Office, the Adobe Suite, the Affinity Suite, OmniGroup applications, etc."
I'd buy Affinity again if I could use it on Linux. I'm hoping that MS does port Office as it will make me stop wondering why I pay for Office Live (365 or whatever they call it this week).
History repeats itself. 10 or 15 years ago the problems I had with Linux were related to Wi-Fi and graphic card drivers. Nowadays these issues are solved, but new ones appear (the ones you mentioned). I'm pretty confident these issues will be solved in the future... but again, new issues will appear and Linux will always be one step behind.
I use two 4K monitors. Desktop performance is uniformly excellent, using only Intel Iris graphics. I cannot imagine what you must be doing. I didn't need to do anything special.
> you're put into isolation and quarantine for a minimum of 14 days
Many countries have the same measures in place if you come into contact with someone who later tests positive, and then require a negative test before you are 'released', so it should be easy to study how much an affect quarantine alone has.
The fatality rate is dependent on overall infection rate, because treatment capacity is finite and once it goes above capacity people who might have lived get parked on trolleys in the hospital corridors to die.
