Categories
Infrastructure

Play a sound when the Internet is down

We have a Windows machine recording frames from a time lapse camera, and we want the computer to play a sound when the camera is unavailable, because of either the camera or the network. We figured out a way to do this. We can also use it to let us monitor the house internet so […]

Categories
Infrastructure Working from Home

Smart Homes need Whole House Surge Protection

We have always used surge protecting strips and UPSes on our electronics, but as we built out our smart home we started having problems with the smart switches fritzing out. We installed a whole house surge protector in the main electrical meter. We haven’t had a fritz since. We have an Intermatic IG1240RC3 but there […]

Categories
Infrastructure Working from Home

Three ways to the Internet – Cable + DSL + LTE

For us, the most critical part of working from home during the Coronavirus era is having a rock-solid continuous Internet connection. In another post we talked about our LTE cellular hotspot failover setup, but our LTE was having trouble handling our load during long outages. We decided to get DSL as well. The problem was […]

Categories
Infrastructure Working from Home

Reliable Internet with Automatic Cellular LTE Failover

Behold the Netgear 4G LTE Modem with Two Ethernet Ports. You plug this little fella between your existing Internet connection and your router, and if your DSL or Cable Modem goes out, this takes care of automatic failover to Cellular LTE.