Recent content by JimS

Helping a friend with a hot water circulation pump. They had a system that circulated water based on a timer but even that wasted a lot of energy keeping the pipes hot when not in use. Converting to a system with wireless push buttons in three locations that would trigger the pump to run for...

I figured it out - sort of. Took a shortcut of using the key file I used on another device and that worked fine. Will leave the deeper dive for another day...

Have had a VPN running on my pfsense router for several years using Oracle free cloud server and OpenVPN. Got it running and haven't fooled with it since. Now wanting to generate a key file for another device and it seems my IPs for login don't work - browser gets no response at that address...

My comments were based on what I read here (which seems like it should have some authority): https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/vlan/security.html Doing what you say would be handy. I got the bigger switch because I had several smaller switches. Using the 16 port switch for a couple...

It looks like vlan is not available on my router (Asus RT-AC68U) without loading Merlin or other software. I'm inclined to just use another old router for the guest network. I would still need to combine them to a trunk in the switch for the connection to the pfsense box.

vlans seem like it would be good but there are some concerns with placing different levels of security on the same switch. I currently have my cameras on an isolated network to keep them from phoning home. I put an extra network card in the zoneminder PC for the cameras. Now that I have a...

Did a little reading. Think I need to set the switch ports for pfsense and the router to trunk. Then it can deal with multiple vlans for both the main network and the guest wifi and pfsense will know which is which to block local network to guests.

I do have a managed switch but I have never fooled with the management part - just using it as a switch. DLink DGS1600-16. Will have to check it's capabilities. It looks like the Asus router can do vlans. Will need to watch some videos on vlan setup. If you have any suggestions for good...

Quite a long time ago I went from an off the shelf router to a mini pc running pfsense (Thanks for the help with that Pete! :) ) I connected the router to the LAN for wifi. That works fine for my use but I would like to have an isolated network for guests. I can set up a guest network in the...

Have a detached garage on it's own partition and it all works but would like more (some) indication of operation in the house. I had a NX320 in the garage along with an expander board but the NX320 failed and I determined it wasn't really needed. Would be nice to have a siren there as it's...

Here's a fairly recent video of how to get Samsung TV out of Hospitality (Hotel) mode: I need to file that away on my phone.

These were Samsung TVs with some non-original remote with some other name on it. It had HDMI inputs that were unused - feed was coaxial cable. Looked pretty standard except for remote. Not saying that's always the case but just what was there at our recent location.

I didn't see any but didn't look closely for them. I have a 20 year old TV here that has buttons but recent TVs seem to lack the buttons. I'm guessing hotel ones don't because it would just be something more that might get set wrong, confuse people, and require staff to help guests with that.

Just got back from Cozumel but have had the same issue other places. They give you a limited remote. In this case only the channel and volume and on/off buttons worked. We brought a laptop. The TV had an HDMI input but no way to select it. Talked to IT and they said it wasn't possible...

Have an application that I would like a phone app (or other remote) that can open and close a contact. Wondering if there are any battery powered ones. Might be difficult to run the radio without draining the battery.