tech

“Ralph Wrecks VR” at The VOID

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Yesterday we spent the day over at Disney and after finishing up early at Animal Kingdom we headed over to Disney Springs for lunch. After eating at Terralina we went over to The VOID and played “Ralph Wrecks VR” … WOW!

The VOID bills itself as a “hyper-reality … whole-body, fully immersive VR experience” and it delivers. You put on a VR helmet and equipment vest and then get to walk around the virtual world by actually walking. You’re not tethered to anything, you’re completely detached and free. If DisneyQuest was still around, this would fit right in.

Unlike my first (disembodied) experience with the Oculus Rift, you can look down and see your body, your arms, even wiggle your fingers. Check your wrist and you can see the scoreboard flip up. You can talk to your team members and see their mouths move as they talk back to you. You can reach out and touch the wall, grab a railing, press buttons on a control panel, and it all syncs with the VR world in the helmet without lag. It’s just incredible! We chose “Ralph” over “Star Wars” because this was wife’s first immersive VR experience (and she’s not really into Star Wars). It was a great family experience and there was no dizziness, no motion sickness, it was seamless. The vest even had some force feedback mechanisms so you could feel things hitting you, or get shocked. The best part? Pancake/milkshake gun … oh yeah, come get some! My daughter and I will definitely go back to try the Star Wars experience.

My only complaint is the wait time. We had 1:30pm “reservations” but had to wait in three separate staging areas for about 20 minutes each, so by the time we actually got to play it was after 2:30pm. The experience itself was about 20 minutes and they only have a certain number of “arenas” so I guess I should have expected that (plus, they were only running “Ralph” in one arena, so the “Star Wars” line was moving faster.

Nest Protect smoke/CO2 detector

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Nest ProtectWhen I installed the ADT Pulse system in 2011, it came with monitored smoke/heat and CO2 detectors. Since then I’ve been paying the monthly monitoring fee to ADT and have had to deal with inexplicable false alarms (usually in the middle of the night and ADT’s answer was always “just change the battery”). This was in addition to two (non-ADT) wired smoke/CO2 detectors elsewhere in the house. I’ve had Nest (formerly Dropcam) cameras in my home network setup since 2014 and the Nest thermostat since 2016 so I’m not sure why I waited so long to get the Nest Protect.

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Kwikset SmartCode 916 Touchscreen Electronic Deadbolt

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We’re finishing up hurricane-proofing this summer by finally replacing all the exterior entries with impact-rated doors. We had our impact windows installed back in 2008, and replaced the overhead garage door in 2015, but last year’s close call with Hurricane Irma reminded us we still needed to replace the doors. Since we’re getting new doors, we also need to get new door hardware!

There’s a wide variety of electronic and automation-enabled deadbolts and locks on the market now-a-days: I decided to expand my Z-Wave/ADT Pulse automation network by installing the Kwikset 916 Touchscreen Electronic Deadbolt.

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Ubiquiti Unifi Switch 8 POE-150W

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Unifi Switch 8About two weeks ago I started experiencing some strange network issues: Nagios kept reporting devices dropping off the network and reconnecting, the TiVo Minis would lose their connection to the Bolt, etc. I eventually traced it to one of my TRENDnet TPE-TG44g switches (specifically the one in the closet that most of the home network traffic travels through on its way to the router) constantly rebooting. It was out of warranty so I had to buy a new switch to replace it. Since I already two Unifi wireless access points on the network (and I run the Unifi Controller software to manage them), I decided to spend a little extra and get the Ubiquiti Unifi Switch 8 POE-150W.

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hp Pavilion 24-r014 All-in-One PC

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hp Pavilion 24-r014

For the past few months our family PC (the Dell XPS 18 all-in-one) had been giving my daughter fits. It was time for a change.

I looked at the latest Dell all-in-ones but wasn’t able to find one that acted like a tablet like the XPS 18. It was pretty convenient for my daughter to be able to unplug the PC in the family room and take it back to her room without the need to shut down or move a bulky AC adapter. But apparently most all-in-ones now-a-days don’t have batteries anymore. Considering the reason I was replacing the XPS 18 was because of battery issues, I decided that wasn’t a big deal. After my usual research, I decided on the hp Pavilion 24-r014.

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Spring Training 2018: Flying Out

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Due to scheduling conflicts, I’m heading out to Arizona for my annual Spring Training trip a little later than usual … actually the last weekend of the season! My brother wasn’t able to make it so it’s just me, my sister, and my daughter (who hasn’t been out to see Cactus League baseball with me since 2012). My travel tech hasn’t changed much from last year: iPhone 7 Plus, Canon PowerShot SX710, and FitBit Charge 2. The new addition is my Surface Laptop (just in case work calls while I’m away).

Today was quite the busy day. We started early driving over to Orlando for my daughter’s saber solo at the FBA State Solo & Ensemble contest at Lake Nona High School. After she received her superior rating, we started back west towards Tampa but made a quick stop for lunch at the Flower & Garden Festival at Epcot. After lunch we drove back the Tampa International Airport and my wife dropped us off for our flight to Phoenix.

The five hour flight to Sky Harbor was uneventful and our luggage arrived relatively quickly. The line for the rental car shuttle, however, was really long (not too surprising for a Friday night around spring break time though, I guess). After getting our car (free upgrade from mid-size to SUV!) we drove to Goodyear and checked into our hotel. By now it was 8:00pm Arizona time (11:00pm for us!) and we were hungry. Pulling a recommendation from a past trip, my daughter and I went to Bella Luna in Litchfield Park for dinner and then Yogurtini next door for dessert.

After dinner, I dropped my daughter back at the hotel and then drove back to Sky Harbor to pick up my sister. By the time we were all back at the hotel it was about 11:30pm (2:30am for us east coast travellers) so we crashed for the evening. Baseball starts tomorrow!

Rachio sprinkler controller

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Rachio Gen2 Earlier this month while visiting my in-laws I helped my father-in-law connect his Rainbird ESP-Me sprinkler controller to his wireless network and then showed him how to use the mobile app on his Android phone.

After doing this I realized: I’m the techie/networking/home automation/IoT guy in the family … why haven’t I installed an internet-enabled sprinkler controller yet? After doing the requisite internet research and checking compatibility, I decided to try the Rachio Smart Sprinkler Controller Generation 2.

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Hydra: TiVo’s next-generation user interface

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Last weekend, TiVo officially released their next-generation user interface, code-named Hydra so I used the Early Access Request link posted by TiVo_Ted on the TiVo Community Forums to upgrade my Roamio Pro so I could check it out:

Hydra early access page

Hydra early access DVR selection

A few hours later, my box had upgraded to 21.7.2.RC7 and the next-generation UI:

Hydra UI

The new navigation structure and screen layouts are going to take some time to get used to. I have a lot of TiVo-related muscle memory that no longer works (like using Left to go back a screen, or pressing “1” on TiVo Central to jump to OnePasses, etc.). Think carefully before upgrading your own box(es) to Hydra … if you want to go back to the “classic” UI it will involve a complete reset of your box, which means you’ll lose all recordings, settings, etc. Ouch.

Mainly the reason I upgraded one of my boxes was so that I could start updating my Alexa skill for the new UI navigation. I’ll post more opinions once I have more time to play around with Hydra.