Further Adventures in Smart Home Automation: Honey, Please Don’t Burn Down Your Office

Further Adventures in Smart Home Automation: Honey, Please Don’t Burn Down Your Office

In the last 12 months, Ed Skoudis has been on a tear adding new automation features to his office. Some are practical, others are whimsical and weird. All of them provided valuable learning opportunities that Ed would love to share. This talk will describe some of the new technologies he’s been experimenting with and the lessons he’s learned, including:

  • Alexa versus Siri: Development tips for each environment and how to make them work together
  • Amazon Voice Services: High-quality, real-time, cloud-based voice synthesis for free
  • The Raspberry Pi Zero as a development platform
  • The Intel NUC as a development platform
  • Integrating animatronic toys into your ecosystem: How creepy is too creepy?
  • Do’s and don’ts of home Tesla coils, Geissler tubes, and other high-voltage apparatus
  • Tips for keeping your mind fresh with new dev projects
  • Security implications of all of this stuff
  • Where is this all headed? When does Skynet reveal its big plan?

This lively talk will cover a lot of ground, but also include specific, practical advice for keeping your technical skills sharp while having fun.

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