<story><title>Raspberry Pi security alarm – the basics</title><url>https://blog.cavelab.dev/2022/12/rpi-security-alarm/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nonrandomstring</author><text>This is an excellent article, detailed and thoughtful. Thanks.&lt;p&gt;Got me thinking about some business things, and apologies if this goes
off topic....&lt;p&gt;50 years ago there were a wealth of books for electronic hobbyists to
build things like this - home automation, home security, plant
irrigation systems and suchlike.&lt;p&gt;Later an industry sprang up to make products for this market which was
initially niche and geeky. Small companies became big companies. Big
companies became shitty, extractive, exploitative monopoly companies
as the author describes.&lt;p&gt;Today we lament an apparent choice between &amp;quot;convenience&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;too much
work to do yourself&amp;quot;. The cynics and naysayers are always keen to
point out just how few people can accomplish anything like this - and
that is indeed true.&lt;p&gt;But between the lonely hobbyist with soldering iron in hand, and the
big technology company was an era that seems almost dead today (for
many reasons like customer support and reliable sourcing). It was the
kit movement. Many of the early microcomputers were in fact kits.
Clive Sinclair first offered the ZX80 as a &amp;quot;solder it yourself&amp;quot; job.
Heathkit hifi and music synthesisers were a big thing for a while.&lt;p&gt;Many people who couldn&amp;#x27;t build a home system like this might be
interested in a DIY solution if they had a big helping hand up.  I
wonder what happened to the kit economy and why it doesn&amp;#x27;t work as a
business model any more.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ajsnigrutin</author><text>I see quite the opposite happening...&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;back in the day&amp;quot;, it was hard to get anything, computers were expensive, electronics (except very basic) were hard to source, and prebuilt software (for whatever custom use) was non-existant.&lt;p&gt;Now, a microcontroller with wifi and bluetooth is &amp;lt;$5, a computer&amp;#x2F;server for running code is ~$50 (if you manage to find a raspberrypi, or a bit more for a micro pc), wireless interfaces (zigbee, bluetooth) are cheap, prebuilt code for sensors (tasmota, esphome,...) is very mature and stable, central management systems (home assistant,...) are stable and support pretty much everything...&lt;p&gt;The only problem I see is, that a lot of people have lost their tinkering capabilities and don&amp;#x27;t want to get their hands dirty compared to &amp;quot;back then&amp;quot; when a lot of stuff needed getting your hands dirty and more people went along the DIY path.</text></comment>
<story><title>Raspberry Pi security alarm – the basics</title><url>https://blog.cavelab.dev/2022/12/rpi-security-alarm/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nonrandomstring</author><text>This is an excellent article, detailed and thoughtful. Thanks.&lt;p&gt;Got me thinking about some business things, and apologies if this goes
off topic....&lt;p&gt;50 years ago there were a wealth of books for electronic hobbyists to
build things like this - home automation, home security, plant
irrigation systems and suchlike.&lt;p&gt;Later an industry sprang up to make products for this market which was
initially niche and geeky. Small companies became big companies. Big
companies became shitty, extractive, exploitative monopoly companies
as the author describes.&lt;p&gt;Today we lament an apparent choice between &amp;quot;convenience&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;too much
work to do yourself&amp;quot;. The cynics and naysayers are always keen to
point out just how few people can accomplish anything like this - and
that is indeed true.&lt;p&gt;But between the lonely hobbyist with soldering iron in hand, and the
big technology company was an era that seems almost dead today (for
many reasons like customer support and reliable sourcing). It was the
kit movement. Many of the early microcomputers were in fact kits.
Clive Sinclair first offered the ZX80 as a &amp;quot;solder it yourself&amp;quot; job.
Heathkit hifi and music synthesisers were a big thing for a while.&lt;p&gt;Many people who couldn&amp;#x27;t build a home system like this might be
interested in a DIY solution if they had a big helping hand up.  I
wonder what happened to the kit economy and why it doesn&amp;#x27;t work as a
business model any more.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>minimalist</author><text>I think the software dimension adds some fuzziness to what can be considered a complete &amp;#x27;kit&amp;#x27;. For instance, I&amp;#x27;ve been able to piece together a voice assistant using a Matrix Creator [0] and a home alarm retrofit using Konnected [1] that is more tailored to my needs than any commercial offering could be. Both projects can be thought of as kits, but one can take any number of paths toward setting up and maintaining the software behind the system. Furthermore, the pace of development is so quick that a particular system may lose development interest to a newer sexier project, and if your system connects with third-party APIs, that is always a moving target.&lt;p&gt;So, I think the spirit of kits lives on, just in a different way :)&lt;p&gt;[0]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.matrix.one&amp;#x2F;products&amp;#x2F;creator&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.matrix.one&amp;#x2F;products&amp;#x2F;creator&lt;/a&gt;
[1]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;konnected.io&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;konnected.io&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>