Archive for July 2022
It’s been 11 years since I last updated my home entertainment system (2007 original) and a lot has changed in that time. Speakers got smart, game consoles got better, streaming audio and video is normal, and we’ve got the better internet to support it all. So here’s the 2022 version.
Main features of the system
- Play any music anywhere in the house using networked Sonos speakers.
- Watch locally stored or streamed video anywhere in the house.
- Monitor the outside world on security cameras.
- Print or scan from anywhere.
- Play games on the Xbox One X.
- Centralised store of data both local and cloud.
System elements
No diagram this year because it’s all very obvious. The house has ethernet to every room so everything either goes back to the switch or connects over the wireless.
- A range of Sonos smart speakers strewn through the house and on the deck. They stream music from Tidal or Sonos Radio, or play from the music stored on the server. Stuck on the older Sonos S1 due to having a couple of old Play:5 speakers.
- Delicious the Dell 7810XL workstation being used as a server running Windows 10 and HyperV. Central file share plus Plex media server. All disks mirrored with 2 x 256GB SSD and 2 x 8TB SMR hard drives.
- Personal Windows 10 workstation running as a VM on the server.
- Unifi network with USG router, 24 port PoE switch, AC Pro AP and a Cloudkey 2+ to bring them all in the darkness and manage them.
- Unifi cameras monitoring the approaches of the house with footage stored locally on the Cloud Key 2+.
- Microsoft Xbox One X used for gaming and media playback on the family TV in the micro-cinema. Samsung 55″ TV with Samsung playbar and wireless subwoofer and surround speakers.
- Internet from Trustpower gigabit fiber to some ISP supplied hardware box.
- Family tools include Office 365, OneDrive, laptops, desktops, Android phones, Gmail for email, Discord for group chat, Signal as an SMS replacement.
Things we haven’t done yet
- No voice-control.
- Very little Internet of Things, apart from a few lightbulbs that can have their colour and brightness controlled from a phone.
Next
Everything is working very well.
We left Wellington in 2001 and spent a few months touring around the USA south-west before going and living on Vancouver Island for most of a year. Then it was off to Melbourne for a couple of years before returning to Wellington. We got involved with a few others and formed Darkhabit to put on some more gigs under the Noir name.
Here’s the posters I can find. My favourite was always the one from September 11th 2003, 2 years after the 9/11 terrorist in the USA. See if you can spot the tribute.
Darkangel & Eros was our initial foray into promoting goth gigs in Wellington. We started with a live gig called Pantomime featuring FearvLoathinc but the hand-created poster for that appears to be lost.
The real intention behind Darkangel & Eros was to organise DJ nights. I’d greatly enjoyed the ones I went to in Sydney and wanted something similar for Wellington.
