Home Gadget Geeks

Hosted by Jim Collison

Episodes

Language

EN-US

About the show

On Home Gadget Geeks we cover all your favorite tech gadgets that find their way into your home. News, reviews, product updates and conversation, all for the Average Tech guy! Host Jim Collison and his super line up of hosts are LIVE each week on Thursday nights, 8pmC/9E at http://theAverageGuy.tv

Listen to episodes

60 recent

1 hr 25 min

Robots, AI TVs, Smart Vacuums and the Future of Home Tech with Erin Lawrence – HGG692

Are our gadgets actually getting smarter, or just getting more complicated? Erin Lawrence of Tech Gadgets International returns to Home Gadget Geeks after IFA Berlin for a conversation about household robots, DJI cameras, digital note-taking, advanced robot vacuums, art TVs, AI, vehicle technology and smart lighting. Erin and I keep returning to the same practical test: does the technology make everyday life easier, and will the company support it when something goes wrong? Full show notes at https://theAverageGuy.tv/hgg692

1 hr 27 min

Home Assistant AI Automation, Tesla FSD and Energy Monitoring with Phil Hawthorne – HGG691

Phil Hawthorne from the Home Assistant Podcast joins me for Home Gadget Geeks 691 to talk about where Home Assistant is headed, how AI is changing the way we build automations, Tesla Full Self-Driving, energy monitoring and some clever ways to make smart-home technology disappear into the house instead of taking it over. Along the way, we discover that my own Home Assistant installation had fallen several releases behind. That leads to a useful discussion about Docker updates, breaking changes and what happens when a system keeps working well enough that you stop checking whether it is actually current. I fixed it after the show, and I'll walk through that below. Full Shownotes at https://theAverageGuy.tv/hgg691

1 hr 22 min

Tesla, Home Assistant, ESPHome and Smarter Automation with Gavin Campbell – HGG690

Gavin Campbell is back, and this one turns into a tour of what happens when Home Assistant stops being a dashboard and starts becoming the operating system for the house. We talk through Gavin’s first Tesla, garage-door automation, water and leak monitoring, ESPHome projects, lawn and soil sensors, emergency power, camera systems and the growing role AI can play in making sense of all that home data. Full show notes at https://theAverageGuy.tv/hgg690

1 hr 31 min

POC Radios for Kids, Off-Site Backups, Remote Gaming and Frigate 0.18 with Mike Wieger – HGG689

Do kids need a full smartphone just to stay in touch? Mike Wieger joins me for HGG689 with a different answer: push-to-talk-over-cellular radios built around simple family communication. We also dig into practical off-site backups with Unraid, TrueNAS, ZFS and Tailscale, Apollo and Moonlight for using one gaming PC from almost anywhere, and Frigate 0.18 for a much easier local-camera and NVR setup. Full show notes at https://theAverageGuy.tv/hgg689

1 hr 18 min

Concert Photography Gear, Backup Strategy and AI Editing with Jay Franze – HGG688

Concert photography sounds simple until you realize you may have only the first three songs to get the shots you need. Jay Franze joins me for HGG688 to talk about what actually goes into photographing live music — from carrying multiple camera bodies and shooting RAW files to protecting those images with redundant storage and deciding where AI-assisted editing fits. Full show notes at https:// theaverageguy.tv/hgg688

1 hr 19 min

Pixel Lights, Robot Mowers, Maslow CNC and Home Automation – HGG687

Jim Collison welcomes Seth Johnson from HomeTech.fm back to Home Gadget Geeks for a wide-ranging conversation about programmable outdoor lighting, home automation, electric lawn care, large-format CNC projects and the growing role of AI in home technology. Find Home Gadget Geeks episodes, show notes and subscription options at: https://theAverageGuy.tv/hgg687

1 hr 21 min

Phil Hawthorne on Smarter Home Assistant Automations, ESPHome, E-Ink and AI – HGG686

Phil Hawthorne joins Jim Collison for HGG686 to talk Home Assistant automations, Blueprints, ESPHome, Bluetooth proxies, e-ink dashboards and AI-assisted smart home control. They dig into how Home Assistant is moving from individual entities toward devices, areas, labels and more flexible automation patterns. Phil also shares thoughts on the Open Home Foundation, Works with Home Assistant, Assist and using separate AI roles safely. Full show notes are at https://theAverageGuy.tv/hgg686

1 hr 23 min

T.J. Huddleston on Smart Gardens, Solar-Powered Sheds and Home Assistant AI – HGG685

T.J. Huddleston from HomeTech.fm joins me to talk about replacing a traditional lawn with a pollinator garden, building a smarter irrigation system, powering a shed with solar and using Hermes to make Home Assistant easier to manage. Full show notes at https://theAverageGuy.tv/hgg685

1 hr 23 min

Christian Johnson on Passkeys, Self-Hosted Bitwarden and Guardrails for AI Agents – HGG684

Password managers are becoming credential managers as passkeys begin replacing traditional usernames, passwords and authentication codes. Christian Johnson joins me to talk through what that transition means, whether self-hosting Bitwarden provides a meaningful advantage and where Vaultwarden fits for Docker and homelab users. We also look at a larger experiment Christian is working on through Maple Grove Partners: managed container hosting for people who want useful applications without maintaining every server, certificate, backup and update themselves. Full show notes at https://theaverageguy.tv/hgg684

57 min

LEPRO Lights Revisited, DIY Storm Guard and Safer AI Agents – HGG683

I revisit the LEPRO permanent outdoor lights after nearly six months of real-world use, including the removable wood-shim mounting method, seasonal lighting scenes and the outdoor smart-plug schedule. I also walk through several OpenClaw projects, including the Home Assistant Storm Guard I built for my EcoFlow and BLUETTI batteries and an Amazon Affiliate Manager designed to help me work through years of aging links on TheAverageGuy.tv. Catch the full show notes at https://theAverageGuy.tv/hgg683

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