Notes from the desk: product, programs, AI, and an attitude of gratitude.https://lukeangel.co/en-ushttps://lukeangel.co/blog/is-it-ready-and-a-thank-you-to-n0/https://lukeangel.co/blog/is-it-ready-and-a-thank-you-to-n0/Sixteen posts in, the question stops being rhetorical: is this thing actually ready to build a real product on? Short answer — yes. We have, and I will not apologize for the pun, iroh'ed out the basics. Here's the verification that earns the 'yes,' the short list of things I'm cheerfully not pretending to have solved, and a thank-you to n0 that I mean every word of.Fri, 03 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMTcraftrustirohdistributed-systemsverificationopen-sourcehttps://lukeangel.co/blog/a-certificate-that-rides-the-gossip/https://lukeangel.co/blog/a-certificate-that-rides-the-gossip/iroh proves who a node is for free, but it has no opinion on whether that node belongs here. I built the trust boundary two ways — riding the membership gossip, then checked at the connection — and only one survives a real design; here's the wrong turn, the answer, and why it isn't HMAC and isn't quite mTLS.Tue, 30 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMTcraftrustirohed25519distributed-systemsauthorizationquichttps://lukeangel.co/blog/extending-the-mesh-with-node-caches/https://lukeangel.co/blog/extending-the-mesh-with-node-caches/Membership gossip lets every node know the mesh — but knowing it isn't using it. To route, a node needs a stable view it owns: a cache. This is the post where one cache quietly becomes many, every tidy first answer turns out wrong, and the live system tells me the shape each time.Fri, 26 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMTcraftrustirohiroh-gossipdistributed-systemscachingchaos-engineeringhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/stateful-node-restart/https://lukeangel.co/blog/stateful-node-restart/Restart a process in this mesh and, by default, it comes back a stranger — a brand-new ed25519 keypair, a brand-new NodeId, every peer re-establishing to what it thinks is a node it's never seen. Most nodes are cattle and that's fine. This is how I let a few of them be pets: kill the process, respawn it, and have it boot with the exact same identity — and the reaper races I had to defend against to make that true.Tue, 23 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMTcraftrustirohquiced25519distributed-systemsidentityhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/pet-tracker-build-6-the-battery-test/https://lukeangel.co/blog/pet-tracker-build-6-the-battery-test/Range could have killed the project; so could battery. The whole pitch is a tracker you don't charge constantly — so I let both nodes run for a day and read their own telemetry. The collar lasts three to four days beaconing, and ten hours with the GPS pinned on and the screen lit. Same board, same cell. Runtime turned out not to be a number at all.Sun, 21 Jun 2026 13:00:00 GMTprojectsiotpetshardwarelorameshtasticbuild-in-publictestingpowerhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/the-bug-that-wasnt-in-the-mesh/https://lukeangel.co/blog/the-bug-that-wasnt-in-the-mesh/Two cross-mesh 'the mesh is broken' scares in one session. Neither was the mesh. A 40-second join that was a missing address book, and a NeighborUp-then-NeighborDown that was my own bidirectional test setup tripping a latent bug. The lesson is the same both times: trust the live signal over the tidy theory — and the cheapest next move is almost never another change.Tue, 16 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMTcraftrustirohdebuggingdistributed-systemsobservabilityhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/kill-by-message-a-node-is-a-state/https://lukeangel.co/blog/kill-by-message-a-node-is-a-state/The console could only kill nodes it had personally spawned — process ownership deciding who can operate on what, which is backwards for a self-aware fleet. So a kill became a message any participant can send, and a node's whole lifecycle became something the mesh broadcasts: Joining, Alive, Degraded, Updating, Draining, Leaving, Dead. Plus the most expensive lesson of the sprint, which wasn't in the mesh at all.Fri, 12 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMTcraftrustirohdistributed-systemscontrol-planeobservabilityhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/wiring-a-relay-into-the-mesh/https://lukeangel.co/blog/wiring-a-relay-into-the-mesh/Two nodes in different meshes know each other's address — but knowing an address isn't reaching it. Behind a NAT there's often no direct path. That's what a relay is for: not a node, not a peer, a dumb postbox that forwards sealed packets it can't read. Here's how the fallback works, why the relay can't see your traffic, and how to prove it actually carries when there's no direct route — without faking the test.Tue, 09 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMTcraftrustirohquicrelaynat-traversaldistributed-systemshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/pet-tracker-build-8-auditing-sidewalk/https://lukeangel.co/blog/pet-tracker-build-8-auditing-sidewalk/Amazon claims Sidewalk reaches 95% of the US population. I'm about to bet a pet-tracker SKU on it, so I sat down with the math: bridge counts, urban-vs-rural distribution, geographic coverage, and the AWS IoT cost stack. Some of it holds up. Some of it is marketing dressed in a percent sign. Here's the audit, then the data path my collar's data would actually take through AWS — wired up before any hardware arrives so I'm not fumbling the integration on Day 1.Sat, 06 Jun 2026 13:00:00 GMTprojectsiotpetshardwareamazon-sidewalkawslorabuild-in-publicproduct-managementhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/make-the-cross-mesh-view-honest/https://lukeangel.co/blog/make-the-cross-mesh-view-honest/Two meshes and cross-mesh writes — but open Jaeger's dependency graph and it lied three ways: one broker where there were two, arrows that only pointed one direction, and a fake edge to the console. Each lie had a real cause in the spans. Then the deeper fix: replacing the all-subscribe-to-everything firehose with a gossip backbone that scales, so the console stops being a special node.Fri, 05 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMTcraftrustirohopentelemetryjaegerdistributed-systemsobservabilityhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/pet-tracker-build-7-the-city-walk/https://lukeangel.co/blog/pet-tracker-build-7-the-city-walk/Five walks in city density before the data was real, because the collar's firmware kept broadcasting a stale coordinate while the GPS chip was happily producing fresh fixes nobody could see. Factory reset was the only thing that cleared it — and then the clean walk gave the number I'd come for: path loss ~4 in dense urban row housing, about half the suburban range, exactly what the textbooks say.Thu, 04 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTprojectsiotpetshardwarelorameshtasticbuild-in-publictestingdebugginghttps://lukeangel.co/blog/watching-a-node-boot-across-two-meshes/https://lukeangel.co/blog/watching-a-node-boot-across-two-meshes/The substrate gets a second life as a multi-mesh fabric — and the rule from day one is telemetry is the substrate, not a feature. A node that does work without leaving a trace is a bug. Here's a node naming itself, booting as a span chain you can read in Jaeger, building a topology directory out of gossip — and then a second mesh reached with no bridge node at all. Every claim is a screenshot of the live system.Tue, 02 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMTcraftrustirohopentelemetryjaegerdistributed-systemsobservabilityhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/hunting-a-connection-leak-in-a-quic-mesh/https://lukeangel.co/blog/hunting-a-connection-leak-in-a-quic-mesh/I'd already open-sourced this thing. Then a longer, meaner soak — kill and respawn for hours, not minutes — showed RSS climbing and never coming back down, on Windows and Linux both. The bug wasn't where I'd looked before. It was a select! arm that quietly switched itself off, and two more leaks hiding behind it.Fri, 29 May 2026 13:00:00 GMTcraftrustirohquictokiomemory-leakdebuggingdistributed-systemshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/pet-tracker-build-5-the-range-test/https://lukeangel.co/blog/pet-tracker-build-5-the-range-test/Range was the make-or-break criterion on the scorecard — if it failed, nothing else mattered. It didn't fail. A zero-hop direct link held to 1,250 feet in the suburbs, clearing the bar I set before I started. And the neighborhood mesh I stumbled onto last post was already relaying beacons miles further.Thu, 28 May 2026 13:00:00 GMTprojectsiotpetshardwarelorameshtasticbuild-in-publictestinghttps://lukeangel.co/blog/pet-tracker-build-4-the-scorecard/https://lukeangel.co/blog/pet-tracker-build-4-the-scorecard/The proof-of-concept hardware is here, so the temptation is to post a screenshot of a dot moving and call it a win. Instead, here's the scorecard — range, fix time, battery, presence reliability — with pass/fail targets, so the decision to build the custom collar gets made on numbers, not adrenaline.Tue, 26 May 2026 13:00:00 GMTprojectsiotpetshardwarelorameshtasticbuild-in-publictestinghttps://lukeangel.co/blog/open-sourcing-the-rust-distributed-mesh/https://lukeangel.co/blog/open-sourcing-the-rust-distributed-mesh/Five weeks of building, breaking, and fixing a P2P mesh substrate in Rust. Today I'm pushing the whole thing public — the iroh-based transport, the gossip emit loop, the staleness pruner, the example node types, the React dashboard. Not a thing to take and run in production. A thing to read while you're building your own.Fri, 22 May 2026 13:00:00 GMTtoolsrustirohquicdistributed-systemsopen-sourcep2pmeshhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/pii-masking-with-glue-databrew-rubric-we-ended-up-with/https://lukeangel.co/blog/pii-masking-with-glue-databrew-rubric-we-ended-up-with/Three months after open-sourcing the PII masking kit. What held up, what didn't, and the one bucket the rubric got wrong.Tue, 19 May 2026 18:30:00 GMTtoolsawsaws-gluedatabrewpiigdprdata-engineeringprivacyhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/pet-tracker-build-3-the-gear-and-the-plan/https://lukeangel.co/blog/pet-tracker-build-3-the-gear-and-the-plan/The spec is set, so today I hit buy — but the order got smarter than the plan. I was going to build the handheld base station from modules; turns out it already exists off the shelf, pre-flashed and FCC-certified, as a two-pack. So step one is a proof-of-concept I can strap to Quark the day it lands, then the collar build behind it.Mon, 18 May 2026 12:00:00 GMTprojectsiotpetshardwarenordiclorameshtasticbuild-in-publichttps://lukeangel.co/blog/chaos-pass-replaces-tests-pass/https://lukeangel.co/blog/chaos-pass-replaces-tests-pass/Steady-state passing isn't good enough for a substrate. I built a chaos harness with 13 primitives — kill, restart, partition, wedge, flap, clock-skew, slow-link, lossy-link, the works — and ran it against the just-stabilized mesh. Twelve tests, eight chaos-class, all green. Here's what each primitive surfaces and why "tests pass" by itself doesn't mean the substrate is sound.Fri, 15 May 2026 13:00:00 GMTcraftrustchaos-engineeringtestingdistributed-systemsirohreliabilitysoakresiliencehttps://lukeangel.co/blog/pet-tracker-build-2-the-prd-and-the-rubric/https://lukeangel.co/blog/pet-tracker-build-2-the-prd-and-the-rubric/Before I buy a single board, the PM work: three use cases, the wireless rubric, and the product line that falls out of it. The punchline is that the two loudest complaints about pet trackers — price and charging — have the same root cause, and you fix both by refusing to put cellular where it isn't needed.Wed, 13 May 2026 13:00:00 GMTproductiotpetsproduct-managementlorablecellularbuild-in-publichttps://lukeangel.co/blog/fate-games-the-grand-prix/https://lukeangel.co/blog/fate-games-the-grand-prix/What started as a snarky wheel-spinner for one team's standup ended up on a company VM, then in three different teams' rotations, then on the VP's monitor at an all-hands with 200 people in the room. The wheel maxes out around 12. The Race Game I'd built as a joke turned into a heat-tournament — Grand Prix — that scales to whatever the room is. Today I'm putting it on the projects page and open-sourcing it.Tue, 12 May 2026 14:00:00 GMTprojectsfacilitationmeetingstournamentscalingopen-sourceteam-managementhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/four-days-into-the-soak-the-ram-was-still-climbing/https://lukeangel.co/blog/four-days-into-the-soak-the-ram-was-still-climbing/Left the cluster running. Per-node CPU at 5% was real. The leak was somewhere else. Over 4 days of soak, 18 nodes climbed from 1 GB total RAM to 12 GB — and the worst offenders were nodes with zero active peers, holding the most state. Five accumulating data structures, no pruner, the time-tested pattern of "we'll clean it up later" never quite getting cleaned up.Fri, 08 May 2026 13:00:00 GMTcraftrustirohmemory-leaksoak-testdashmaptokiodebuggingdistributed-systemshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/flamegraphing-out-of-this-cant-be-right/https://lukeangel.co/blog/flamegraphing-out-of-this-cant-be-right/Two days into sketching a centralized-controller rewrite, I took a flamegraph instead. The hottest function in the mesh wasn't anything in the gossip protocol. It was an idempotent peer-join call I was making 10 times a second per peer — generating 3,240 QUIC handshakes per second across the cluster, doing exactly nothing useful.Fri, 01 May 2026 13:00:00 GMTcraftrustirohperformanceflamegraphtracing-flamedebuggingquicdistributed-systemshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/pet-tracker-build-1-why-im-building-my-own/https://lukeangel.co/blog/pet-tracker-build-1-why-im-building-my-own/Three pets, three subscriptions, and the bulk of what I get for the money is a green dot that says 'home.' After a decade of paying other people to tell me my pets are where I left them, I'm building the tracker I actually want.Mon, 27 Apr 2026 13:00:00 GMTproductiotpetshardwarebuild-in-publicproduct-managementhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/eighteen-nodes-pegged-an-eighty-core-box-at-100-percent/https://lukeangel.co/blog/eighteen-nodes-pegged-an-eighty-core-box-at-100-percent/First bootstrap of 18 mesh nodes on an 80-logical-core workstation. Host CPU pegged at 100% the moment the bootstrap finished. Three obvious things to try first — mDNS off, gossip interval up, per-frame INFO spans down — got it from 100% to 35%. Still wrong. The real bug was somewhere else.Fri, 24 Apr 2026 13:00:00 GMTcraftrustirohiroh-gossipquicdistributed-systemsperformancedebuggingtracinghttps://lukeangel.co/blog/why-im-building-a-distributed-mesh-substrate-in-rust/https://lukeangel.co/blog/why-im-building-a-distributed-mesh-substrate-in-rust/Before I build anything on top of a peer-to-peer substrate, I need to know whether the substrate itself is sound. The choice is iroh-gossip over QUIC. The first canary is 18 nodes on one box. Here's what I'm trying to learn and what I expect to break.Fri, 17 Apr 2026 13:00:00 GMTcraftrustirohquicdistributed-systemsp2pmeshhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/roadmap-reviews/https://lukeangel.co/blog/roadmap-reviews/The four columns I steal from my therapist for running roadmap reviews when half the engineering work is non-deterministic.Tue, 14 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTteamsroadmapsevalsmeetingshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/agent-based-devops-with-q-developer/https://lukeangel.co/blog/agent-based-devops-with-q-developer/Eight months running Amazon Q Developer agents in our engineering org. The four agentic workflows that earned their keep, the two we shut off, and the metric that made the case to keep going.Thu, 26 Mar 2026 19:22:00 GMTtoolsawsq-developeragentsdevopsci-cdaihttps://lukeangel.co/blog/wheel-of-opportunity-fair-facilitation/https://lukeangel.co/blog/wheel-of-opportunity-fair-facilitation/In an eight-person standup the same two people speak every day. In a sixteen-person oncall rotation the same four take 80% of the pages. The fix isn't 'let's be more inclusive' — it's making the picking mechanical so the loudest voice and the manager's habits stop deciding. I built a wheel-spinner called Fate Games. The fairness story turned out to be one specific algorithm — a depleting pool — and the choice to lean all the way into the snark.Tue, 24 Mar 2026 14:00:00 GMTprojectsfacilitationmeetingsoncallteam-managementrotationfairnesshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/product-management-four-columns-the-drop-column/https://lukeangel.co/blog/product-management-four-columns-the-drop-column/The hardest column isn't intellectually hard — it's emotionally hard. Drop is where roadmap grooming gets real: the 80/20 that says most of your backlog will never earn its keep, the value-versus-cost-versus-what-else-is-in-there math, and the quiet tax of zombie items you keep alive because killing them feels like admitting something. This is the come-to-Jesus column.Tue, 24 Mar 2026 13:00:00 GMTproductproductroadmapsprioritizationleadershiphttps://lukeangel.co/blog/product-management-four-columns-the-analyze-column/https://lukeangel.co/blog/product-management-four-columns-the-analyze-column/Low clarity, high evidence: you have real proof customers are in pain — tickets, churn interviews, a metric falling off a cliff — and no idea yet what the solution is. Jumping to build here is how you ship a confident answer to a question you never understood. Analyze is the column teams skip because research feels slower than shipping. It is slower. It's also the difference between solving the problem and guessing at it.Tue, 10 Mar 2026 13:00:00 GMTproductproductdiscoveryresearchroadmapshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/open-sourcing-the-pii-masking-starter-kit/https://lukeangel.co/blog/open-sourcing-the-pii-masking-starter-kit/A four-bucket PII rubric, a runnable PySpark Glue job, an AWS DataBrew recipe, and a verify script that fails CI when the rubric drifts. The privacy layer that sits on the telemetry a connected-product fleet emits — open-sourced today after nine months of running it in private.Thu, 26 Feb 2026 16:00:00 GMTtoolsawsaws-gluedatabrewpiigdprdata-engineeringprivacyopen-sourcehttps://lukeangel.co/blog/product-management-four-columns-the-test-column/https://lukeangel.co/blog/product-management-four-columns-the-test-column/High clarity, low evidence: a crisp, fully-designed concept that nobody has proven anyone wants. The trap is that polish feels like proof — a mockup demos well and a stakeholder loves it, and now it's in the sprint. Test is the column that turns 'we think' into 'we know' for the price of a prototype instead of a quarter.Tue, 24 Feb 2026 14:00:00 GMTproductproductprioritizationexperimentationdiscoveryhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/product-management-four-columns-the-build-column/https://lukeangel.co/blog/product-management-four-columns-the-build-column/Build is the only column where writing code is the right move — and it's the smallest of the four, not the default. Most roadmaps are a Build column with everything crammed into it. Here's what actually earns a slot: real evidence, settled clarity, and a definition of done you wrote before the sprint, not after.Tue, 10 Feb 2026 14:00:00 GMTproductproductprioritizationroadmapsdeliveryhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/product-management-four-columns-the-four-column-ask/https://lukeangel.co/blog/product-management-four-columns-the-four-column-ask/Most roadmap fights aren't about which feature is best — they're about teams arguing past each other because nobody named what they actually know. Two questions — how clear is the solution, how strong is the evidence — sort every idea into one of four columns, and each column tells you the next move.Tue, 27 Jan 2026 14:00:00 GMTproductproductprioritizationroadmapsdiscoveryhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/iot-predictions-2026/https://lukeangel.co/blog/iot-predictions-2026/Ray-Ban Meta Display landed as the product of the year, Humane got vacuumed up by HP, Vision Pro 2 cheaper finally shipped. 2025 scored.Thu, 08 Jan 2026 10:00:00 GMTtoolsiottrendshardwarewearablesaihttps://lukeangel.co/blog/2025-in-review-and-2026-forecast/https://lukeangel.co/blog/2025-in-review-and-2026-forecast/The last year-in-review of the series, for now. SmartThings Edge drivers finally run local, the Bespoke kitchen and Frame TV genuinely cooperate, and the solar bet I'd talked myself out of three years running finally pencils out.Sun, 28 Dec 2025 22:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homeyear-in-reviewforecasthttps://lukeangel.co/blog/2025-pet-iot-year-in-review/https://lukeangel.co/blog/2025-pet-iot-year-in-review/Two things I'd chased for a decade landed in the same year, from the same scrappy independent. In May, Tractive shipped real resting heart-rate and respiratory-rate monitoring — the vitals no consumer collar had managed. In July, Mars sold Whistle to that same Tractive. The giant bailed on the category right as the underdog delivered what it never could. My worst forecasting year, ~56%, and the most instructive.Tue, 23 Dec 2025 22:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iotyear-in-reviewforecasthttps://lukeangel.co/blog/defense-in-depth-for-a-connected-product-fleet/https://lukeangel.co/blog/defense-in-depth-for-a-connected-product-fleet/The whole connected-product security stack, end to end: seven layers from the silicon up, how they sit on the data path device-to-cloud, and where each one gets its own deep-dive. Start here.Tue, 02 Dec 2025 16:00:00 GMTtoolsiotawssecuritycertificateshardwaregdprhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/strands-plus-agentcore-year-end-inventory/https://lukeangel.co/blog/strands-plus-agentcore-year-end-inventory/AgentCore went GA in October; we've run it in production since the preview in August. Seven months on Strands, plus a tour of the alternatives. What I'd recommend for a 2026 agent project, by team shape and constraint.Wed, 26 Nov 2025 15:50:00 GMTtoolsbedrockawsagentsagentcorestrandsllmsaihttps://lukeangel.co/blog/four-and-a-half-years-of-connected-products/https://lukeangel.co/blog/four-and-a-half-years-of-connected-products/Across two connected hardware products and 4.5 years of active build — a BLE-connected consumer-health platform 2017-2019, a payment-and-identity cart 2023-2025.Tue, 18 Nov 2025 18:15:00 GMTcraftiothardwareleadershipretrospectivereflectionhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/field-grade-device-identity-at-fleet-scale/https://lukeangel.co/blog/field-grade-device-identity-at-fleet-scale/Per-device certs are easy when there are ten devices on a desk. At ten thousand, the cert-rotation problem becomes a fleet-operations problem. Notes from designing for it.Tue, 18 Nov 2025 16:00:00 GMTtoolsiotawssecurityhardwarecertificateshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/thirteen-years-on-long-arc-retrospective/https://lukeangel.co/blog/thirteen-years-on-long-arc-retrospective/October 29, 2012 — one Hue bulb in the dining-room pendant. November 2025 — two houses, five stacked architectures, ~250 devices. What thirteen years taught me about which choices aged well and which ones I had to rip out.Sat, 15 Nov 2025 21:00:00 GMTcraftsmart-homeretrospectivereflectionlong-archttps://lukeangel.co/blog/securing-ota-updates/https://lukeangel.co/blog/securing-ota-updates/An OTA pipeline can change the code on every device you've ever shipped — which makes it the highest-value target in the whole stack. This is about whether the thing you're about to flash is one you can trust: blast radius, signing, anti-rollback, and rotating the update key.Tue, 04 Nov 2025 16:00:00 GMTtoolsiotsecurityotafirmwaresigninghttps://lukeangel.co/blog/open-sourcing-the-connected-products-starter-kit/https://lukeangel.co/blog/open-sourcing-the-connected-products-starter-kit/Two years of private notes, runbooks, and reference code from leading connected-product teams. Cleaned up, scoped down, and pushed to a repo. The starter kit I wish someone had handed me on day one.Wed, 22 Oct 2025 13:30:00 GMTtoolsiotawsaws-iot-corerusttypescriptopen-sourcehardwarehttps://lukeangel.co/blog/detection-and-response/https://lukeangel.co/blog/detection-and-response/Boot, identity, authorization, encryption — all prevention. But prevention fails eventually. Detection is the layer that notices a device misbehaving, response is what you do about it, and the machine learning in the middle is a smoke alarm, not a lock.Tue, 21 Oct 2025 15:00:00 GMTtoolsiotsecuritydetectionanomaly-detectionmachine-learninghttps://lukeangel.co/blog/tractive-base-station-teardown-ble-nrf52840/https://lukeangel.co/blog/tractive-base-station-teardown-ble-nrf52840/Bought the Tractive DOG 6 + Base Station post-Whistle. Cracked the case to figure out the radio: plain BLE advertising on a Nordic nRF52840 — a multi-protocol chip Tractive uses at 25% capability.Tue, 14 Oct 2025 21:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iottractiveteardownblenrf52840radiohttps://lukeangel.co/blog/protecting-device-data/https://lukeangel.co/blog/protecting-device-data/The device is connected, proven, and scoped — now it's sending data. Protecting it means two kinds of encryption (in motion and at rest) and an honest look at which fields are harmless, which are PII, and which you shouldn't keep readable at all.Tue, 30 Sep 2025 15:00:00 GMTtoolsiotsecuritydataencryptionprivacyhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/robots-roomba-braava-daily-routine/https://lukeangel.co/blog/robots-roomba-braava-daily-routine/Five years of iRobot Roomba + Braava in the house. The vacuum is a Roomba i7+; the mop is a Braava jet m6. Both join the home routine via SmartThings.Mon, 22 Sep 2025 20:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homerobotsirobotroombaautomationhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/authenticated-isnt-authorized/https://lukeangel.co/blog/authenticated-isnt-authorized/The device proved who it is and the channel is up — but identity isn't permission. Authorization is the layer that decides what a verified device is actually allowed to do, and it's where most post-identity breaches really happen.Tue, 09 Sep 2025 15:00:00 GMTtoolsiotsecurityauthorizationiamleast-privilegehttps://lukeangel.co/blog/pki-behind-a-device-cert/https://lukeangel.co/blog/pki-behind-a-device-cert/The device booted code it trusts and its keys are on the chip — but it and the cloud have never met. This is the two-way handshake where each proves who it is to the other, and the trusted channel that opens once they're both sure.Tue, 26 Aug 2025 15:00:00 GMTtoolsiotsecurityidentitycertificatesmtlshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/twelve-years-pet-iot-long-arc-retrospective/https://lukeangel.co/blog/twelve-years-pet-iot-long-arc-retrospective/Twelve years since Whistle launched. Four pets — Atom (2013-2024), Joule, Boson, Quark. Lessons on cloud dependency, vendor consolidation, multi-pet detection, vet telemetry, the DIY response.Tue, 12 Aug 2025 20:00:00 GMTcraftpet-iotretrospectivereflectionhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/secure-boot-trusting-your-own-code/https://lukeangel.co/blog/secure-boot-trusting-your-own-code/Before a device has any business talking to a cloud, it has to answer a more basic question — is the code I'm about to run actually mine? That's Secure Boot: the chain of trust that starts in silicon and runs every power-on, before the network even exists.Tue, 12 Aug 2025 15:00:00 GMTtoolsiotsecuritysecure-bootfirmwarehardwarehttps://lukeangel.co/blog/mars-divests-whistle-to-tractive-market-state/https://lukeangel.co/blog/mars-divests-whistle-to-tractive-market-state/Mars Petcare sold Whistle to Tractive yesterday. Whistle's cloud goes dark August 31. The empire that bought everything for nine years just divested, and Whistle is being euthanized not migrated.Tue, 29 Jul 2025 19:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iotwhistletractivemars-petcaremarket-analysishttps://lukeangel.co/blog/bedrock-agentcore-at-summit-ny-what-it-changes/https://lukeangel.co/blog/bedrock-agentcore-at-summit-ny-what-it-changes/AWS announced Bedrock AgentCore at Summit NY last week. Not the same as Bedrock Agents — different product, different shape. What it actually changes for teams already running agents.Wed, 23 Jul 2025 20:48:00 GMTtoolsbedrockawsagentsagentcorellmsaihttps://lukeangel.co/blog/frame-tv-kitchen-appliance-sync/https://lukeangel.co/blog/frame-tv-kitchen-appliance-sync/Eighteen months into the full Bespoke ecosystem. A connected appliance on its own is a gimmick. The collective behavior — the kitchen knowing what's cooking and routing it across screens — is the part that earns the investment.Wed, 18 Jun 2025 23:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homesamsungframe-tvbespokeautomationhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/ota-firmware-without-bricking-the-fleet/https://lukeangel.co/blog/ota-firmware-without-bricking-the-fleet/We finally rolled OTA to production last quarter. Eighteen months of planning, two months of execution, three near-misses. The pieces that actually mattered, written down.Wed, 21 May 2025 15:33:00 GMTtoolsiotfirmwareawsotahardwarehttps://lukeangel.co/blog/aws-spend-audit-i-do-every-quarter/https://lukeangel.co/blog/aws-spend-audit-i-do-every-quarter/Four AWS spend leaks I find every quarter, no matter the org. The audit takes a Friday afternoon and usually pays for the next year of cloud bills.Tue, 15 Apr 2025 18:05:00 GMTtoolsawsfinopscost-optimizationarchitecturehttps://lukeangel.co/blog/smartthings-edge-drivers-local-first-samsung/https://lukeangel.co/blog/smartthings-edge-drivers-local-first-samsung/Samsung's Edge driver framework grew up. Custom Lua drivers run locally on the SmartThings hub — the thing I'd left SmartThings to get back in 2017, now native to the platform.Wed, 19 Mar 2025 18:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homesmartthingsedge-driverslocal-firsthttps://lukeangel.co/blog/open-source-eval-starter-kit-for-pms/https://lukeangel.co/blog/open-source-eval-starter-kit-for-pms/Five files, one notebook, one rubric. The point is to stop talking about evals and start running them — on a Wednesday.Wed, 19 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMTtoolsevalspromptingllmsproducthttps://lukeangel.co/blog/diy-esp32-pet-feeder-vendor-cloud-independence/https://lukeangel.co/blog/diy-esp32-pet-feeder-vendor-cloud-independence/Built a DIY pet feeder for Boson — ESP32 + servo + 3D-printed hopper + ESPHome. Local-only, no vendor cloud, integrates with HA. The thing I should've built after Petnet collapsed in 2020.Sat, 15 Mar 2025 19:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iotesphomediyfeederlocal-firsthttps://lukeangel.co/blog/knowledge-bases-for-bedrock-production-gotchas/https://lukeangel.co/blog/knowledge-bases-for-bedrock-production-gotchas/Seven months running Bedrock Knowledge Bases in production. Five things the docs don't tell you, three workarounds that earned their keep, and one place I'd still build my own.Tue, 25 Feb 2025 14:46:00 GMTtoolsbedrockawsragllmsaiknowledge-baseshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/mastering-root-cause-analysis-with-fishbone-diagrams/https://lukeangel.co/blog/mastering-root-cause-analysis-with-fishbone-diagrams/Key Highlights Fishbone Diagrams Introduction Root Cause Analaysis In the quest for ongoing improvement, good problem-solving methods are very important. Root cause analysis plays a key role in…Tue, 25 Feb 2025 14:40:59 GMTprogramsfishboneprogram-managementproject-managementhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/project-management-program-management-product-management-and-portfolio-management-a-comprehensive-guide-with-examples/https://lukeangel.co/blog/project-management-program-management-product-management-and-portfolio-management-a-comprehensive-guide-with-examples/Unlocking Business Success: Understanding Project, Program, Product, and Portfolio Management In today’s fast-paced business world, organizations leverage various management methodologies to …Tue, 28 Jan 2025 09:13:50 GMTtoolsprogram-managementproject-managementhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/stakeholder-management-your-secret-weapon-for-success/https://lukeangel.co/blog/stakeholder-management-your-secret-weapon-for-success/What is Stakeholder Management? You’re a project, program, or product manager. So, you have a lot on your plate. You’re dealing with deadlines, resources, and many different priorities.…Tue, 21 Jan 2025 18:15:04 GMTprojectscommunicationinfluenceproductprogram-managementproject-managementstakeholder-managementhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/unleash-your-inner-jedi-7-mind-blowing-soft-skills-to-skyrocket-project-success--f0-9f-9a-80/https://lukeangel.co/blog/unleash-your-inner-jedi-7-mind-blowing-soft-skills-to-skyrocket-project-success--f0-9f-9a-80/Alright, fellow project padawans and management maestros! Buckle up, because we’re about to embark on a wild ride through the galaxy of soft skills. These aren’t your grandma’s pr…Wed, 15 Jan 2025 06:07:15 GMTprojectsadaptability-in-projectscommunicationconflict-resolutionemotional-intelligenceleadershipproblem-solvingsoft-skillsteam-buildinghttps://lukeangel.co/blog/iot-predictions-2025/https://lukeangel.co/blog/iot-predictions-2025/Humane crashed, Rabbit shrank, and Ray-Ban Meta quietly outsold Vision Pro 4:1. The 2024 score sheet, plus what happens when AR glasses, smart rings, and ambient AI all hit the same year.Wed, 08 Jan 2025 10:00:00 GMTtoolsiottrendshardwarewearablesaihttps://lukeangel.co/blog/10-game-changing-project-management-trends-for-2025/https://lukeangel.co/blog/10-game-changing-project-management-trends-for-2025/Project management is transforming faster than ever, and 2025 is no exception. As businesses adapt to new challenges and opportunities, project managers must stay ahead of the curve. This…Mon, 06 Jan 2025 14:06:50 GMTtoolsagile-methodologiesai-in-project-managementcollaboration-toolscybersecurityhybrid-workproject-management-trendssustainabilityhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/unleash-data-driven-superpowers-pm-s-guide-to-epic-decisions/https://lukeangel.co/blog/unleash-data-driven-superpowers-pm-s-guide-to-epic-decisions/Hey there, data dynamos and management mavericks! Ready to embark on a wild ride through the thrilling world of data-driven decision-making? Buckle up, because we’re about to turbocharge your…Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTproducthttps://lukeangel.co/blog/2024-in-review-and-2025-forecast/https://lukeangel.co/blog/2024-in-review-and-2025-forecast/The new-house era of automations has run 14 months now — long enough to see what holds. Full Bespoke kitchen and laundry, three Matter bridges live, the EV charger in. Local voice still isn't it.Sun, 29 Dec 2024 22:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homeyear-in-reviewforecasthttps://lukeangel.co/blog/bridging-the-gap-how-itils-focus-on-value-principle-transforms-a-frustrating-user-experience/https://lukeangel.co/blog/bridging-the-gap-how-itils-focus-on-value-principle-transforms-a-frustrating-user-experience/We’ve all been there. Staring at a frozen computer screen, deadline looming, frustration mounting. You call IT support, only to be met with a robotic script and a long wait time. This isn&#82…Thu, 26 Dec 2024 13:58:14 GMTcraftbusiness-valuefocus-on-valueincident-managementitilproblem-managementservice-managementuser-experienceuxhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/2024-pet-iot-year-in-review/https://lukeangel.co/blog/2024-pet-iot-year-in-review/Atom passed in October — eleven years of pet-IoT data, the end of the dog this whole journal started with. The hard lesson: the data caught his decline, but I was watching the wrong dashboard. Find My collar tags reached the house, DIY ESP32 feeders matured, and 2023's forecast came in at my best-ever 78% — some of it sadly easy to call.Sun, 22 Dec 2024 22:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iotyear-in-reviewforecasthttps://lukeangel.co/blog/three-things-from-reinvent-that-change-my-roadmap/https://lukeangel.co/blog/three-things-from-reinvent-that-change-my-roadmap/AWS announced two hundred things last week. Three of them actually change what we'll build next year. Notes from re:Invent 2024, written on the plane home.Mon, 09 Dec 2024 22:11:00 GMTtoolsawsreinventbedrocksagemakernovallmshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/atoms-last-year-data-told-us/https://lukeangel.co/blog/atoms-last-year-data-told-us/Atom passed in October — 11 years old, mitral valve disease, peaceful at home. Read the Whistle Health data for signals I missed. Scratching drifted up 40%. I watched activity. Wrong metric.Thu, 05 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMTcraftpet-iotsmart-pet-healthwhistleretrospectivereflectionhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/building-a-multi-tenant-llm-platform-0-to-1/https://lukeangel.co/blog/building-a-multi-tenant-llm-platform-0-to-1/The internal name was Plural: a multi-tenant LLM platform enterprises could trust with their own data. Three engineers to nineteen, eighteen months. The hard part was never the model calls.Tue, 15 Oct 2024 13:00:00 GMTteamsllmsplatformevalsleadershiphttps://lukeangel.co/blog/bringing-legacy-devices-onto-matter/https://lukeangel.co/blog/bringing-legacy-devices-onto-matter/Two years after Matter 1.0, the bridge story is finally the useful part. A Matter bridge turns 'repurchase 200 sensors' into 'my existing sensors join Apple Home, Google Home, and Alexa through the hub they already talk to.'Tue, 17 Sep 2024 19:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homematterzigbeezwavebridgeshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/iot-observability-in-cloudwatch/https://lukeangel.co/blog/iot-observability-in-cloudwatch/Six months into running a connected-product fleet in production, here's the CloudWatch setup we wish we'd had on day one. Three dashboards, four alarms, one log query.Wed, 11 Sep 2024 19:38:00 GMTtoolsiotawscloudwatchobservabilityopshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/find-my-pet-trackers-apple-network-opens/https://lukeangel.co/blog/find-my-pet-trackers-apple-network-opens/Apple's Find My opened to third-party trackers in 2021; by 2024 there are small BLE clips — Pebblebee, Chipolo, eufy — light enough to ride a cat collar. Two months on Joule: where the crowdsourced network sees her, where it doesn't, and why none of these is actually a pet device.Thu, 22 Aug 2024 15:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iotapplefind-myairtagthird-partyhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/bedrock-agents-just-ga/https://lukeangel.co/blog/bedrock-agents-just-ga/Agents and Knowledge Bases for Bedrock have been GA since re:Invent. I said I'd run them through a real evaluation before trusting them; here's the verdict after about six months — what I kept, what I deferred, and the call that's obvious in hindsight.Wed, 17 Jul 2024 13:00:00 GMTtoolsbedrockawsagentsllmsaihttps://lukeangel.co/blog/validating-iot-data-at-ingestion-three-patterns/https://lukeangel.co/blog/validating-iot-data-at-ingestion-three-patterns/MQTT acks the moment the broker receives a message — so by the time your validation runs, the cart already thinks it succeeded. That gap between 'received' and 'actually good' decides your whole ingestion architecture. Three patterns, one question: does the device need to know it sent garbage?Tue, 16 Jul 2024 15:00:00 GMTtoolsconnected-productsaws-iot-coremqttapi-gatewaykafkadata-validationhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/frame-tv-as-household-display-surface/https://lukeangel.co/blog/frame-tv-as-household-display-surface/The 65" Frame TV has been the great room's center for eight months. Art display when off, TV when on, SmartThings hub always.Thu, 13 Jun 2024 21:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homesamsungframe-tvsmartthingsdisplayhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/ble-vs-lora-vs-cellular-decision-matrix/https://lukeangel.co/blog/ble-vs-lora-vs-cellular-decision-matrix/Five questions, one table, one answer. The wireless choice on a connected product is usually decided by the time you finish question two.Wed, 08 May 2024 14:12:00 GMTtoolsiotwirelessbleloracellularhardwarehttps://lukeangel.co/blog/sagemaker-pipelines-week-three-notes/https://lukeangel.co/blog/sagemaker-pipelines-week-three-notes/Three weeks into moving our ML pipeline onto SageMaker Pipelines. What stuck, what I'd swap, and the one decision I'd undo if I started over.Tue, 23 Apr 2024 17:47:00 GMTtoolsawssagemakermlopsmlpipelineshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/dynamodb-for-time-series-iot/https://lukeangel.co/blog/dynamodb-for-time-series-iot/Every six months an engineer on my team proposes putting our device telemetry into Postgres. Every six months I have to explain why DynamoDB is the right answer. Here it is, in writing.Tue, 19 Mar 2024 12:33:00 GMTtoolsawsdynamodbiotarchitecturedatahttps://lukeangel.co/blog/samsung-oven-dishwasher-washer-dryer/https://lukeangel.co/blog/samsung-oven-dishwasher-washer-dryer/Three more Bespoke appliances installed. Slide-in induction oven, dishwasher, washer/dryer combo. All on SmartThings, all on the Family Hub fridge.Mon, 18 Mar 2024 22:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homesamsungbespokeappliancessmartthingshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/lambda-fargate-ecs-napkin-decision-tree/https://lukeangel.co/blog/lambda-fargate-ecs-napkin-decision-tree/Four questions, in order. The right AWS compute choice usually picks itself by question two. Notes from an architecture review the team kept losing the same way.Tue, 06 Feb 2024 21:20:00 GMTtoolsawslambdafargateecsarchitecturehttps://lukeangel.co/blog/wsjf-prioritize-like-a-product-ninja/https://lukeangel.co/blog/wsjf-prioritize-like-a-product-ninja/Alright, team, let’s talk prioritization. We’ve all been there. Staring at a backlog that’s longer than a CVS receipt, feeling the cold sweat of indecision. Do you tackle the big,…Mon, 05 Feb 2024 07:54:00 GMTproductagilebacklog-groomingcost-of-delayprioritizationproductproject-managementsafesequencingvalue-deliveryweighted-shortest-job-firstwsjfhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/rock-product-decisions-with-data/https://lukeangel.co/blog/rock-product-decisions-with-data/Why Data is Your Product BFF Imagine you’re crafting a killer playlist. You wouldn’t just throw on any old tunes, right? You’d consider the vibe, the listener, and what’s to…Thu, 01 Feb 2024 12:01:00 GMTproductproductdata-drivenleadershipaihttps://lukeangel.co/blog/crush-goals-with-data-2-real-world-program-management-wins/https://lukeangel.co/blog/crush-goals-with-data-2-real-world-program-management-wins/Hey there, fellow program management ninjas! Ready to dive into the wild world of data-driven decision-making? Buckle up, because we’re about to embark on a thrilling journey that’ll ma…Wed, 31 Jan 2024 14:40:00 GMTprogramsprogram-managementdata-drivenleadershipproducthttps://lukeangel.co/blog/iot-predictions-2024/https://lukeangel.co/blog/iot-predictions-2024/Vision Pro got announced as forecast, Matter expansion shipped, Humane shipped vapor. 2023 score sheet plus the year AI hardware proves hard.Mon, 08 Jan 2024 10:00:00 GMTtoolsiottrendshardwarewearablesaihttps://lukeangel.co/blog/10-game-changing-project-management-trends-to-dominate-2024/https://lukeangel.co/blog/10-game-changing-project-management-trends-to-dominate-2024/Hold onto your Gantt charts, PM warriors—2024 will rewrite the rules of project management. Based on emerging patterns and tech breakthroughs, here’s what’ll shake up your workflow: 1. …Thu, 04 Jan 2024 15:40:00 GMTprojectsaidata-driven-automationemotional-intelligencehybrid-methodologiesproject-managementtrendshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/2023-in-review-and-2024-forecast/https://lukeangel.co/blog/2023-in-review-and-2024-forecast/Construction finished. Move-in October. Family Hub fridge running. 42 Cat6 drops paying off already. 2022 forecast scored 85%.Fri, 29 Dec 2023 21:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homeyear-in-reviewforecasthttps://lukeangel.co/blog/2023-pet-iot-year-in-review/https://lukeangel.co/blog/2023-pet-iot-year-in-review/We moved into the new build and I wired the pet IoT in from the studs. Mars kept consolidating. And Atom turned ten and started slowing down in a way the collar noticed before I did — which is the first time a decade of this gear has been load-bearing instead of decorative. I score 2022's bets and put 2024 on the record.Thu, 21 Dec 2023 22:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iotyear-in-reviewforecasthttps://lukeangel.co/blog/first-week-with-bedrock-a-pm-read/https://lukeangel.co/blog/first-week-with-bedrock-a-pm-read/Amazon Bedrock went GA in September. I spent last week pointing one of our LLM features at it. Notes — what's useful, what's missing, and what re:Invent added two weeks ago.Tue, 12 Dec 2023 16:05:00 GMTtoolsbedrockawsllmsaiclaudehttps://lukeangel.co/blog/building-first-connected-product/https://lukeangel.co/blog/building-first-connected-product/Notes from the first month leading a connected-product team for the second time. What changed from v1 (2017-2019) to v2, what didn't, and the three decisions that mattered more than the rest.Wed, 29 Nov 2023 19:42:00 GMTtoolsiothardwareawsmqttproducthttps://lukeangel.co/blog/prompt-regression-first-test-set/https://lukeangel.co/blog/prompt-regression-first-test-set/We don't have a name for it yet. A spreadsheet of inputs, a spreadsheet of expected outputs, and the smallest script that runs one against the other. Notes from week two.Wed, 15 Nov 2023 14:18:00 GMTtoolspromptingllmsaitestinghttps://lukeangel.co/blog/first-samsung-family-hub-fridge/https://lukeangel.co/blog/first-samsung-family-hub-fridge/Samsung Bespoke 4-Door Flex with Family Hub installed. 21" touchscreen on the front door. SmartThings integrated. Talks to the Frame TV.Sat, 21 Oct 2023 23:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homesamsungbespokesmartthingsapplianceshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/behavioral-ai-on-pet-cameras-bullshit-and-real/https://lukeangel.co/blog/behavioral-ai-on-pet-cameras-bullshit-and-real/Furbo Dog Nanny shipped its AI subscription. Companion AI dog trainer launched. Tested three pitches against ground truth. Real signals vs AI that exists for marketing.Tue, 19 Sep 2023 21:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iotsmart-pet-healthaifurbobehavioralhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/prd-part-3-identity-and-compliance/https://lukeangel.co/blog/prd-part-3-identity-and-compliance/Part 3 of the v2 PRD. The identity model, the payment-data-handling architecture, the PII classification scheme, and the compliance threat model.Mon, 11 Sep 2023 14:00:00 GMTtoolsprdsecuritypci-dssgdprpiiidentityconnected-productshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/prd-part-2-application-and-data/https://lukeangel.co/blog/prd-part-2-application-and-data/Part 2 of the v2 PRD. What the cart, the mobile app, the staff tablet, and the ops dashboard each do — the three-store cloud, the entity model that links them, and where the encryption boundary lands so PII has exactly one place to live.Mon, 28 Aug 2023 14:00:00 GMTtoolsprdapi-platformdomain-driven-designaws-iot-coremqttconnected-productshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/prd-part-1-hardware-specs/https://lukeangel.co/blog/prd-part-1-hardware-specs/The PRD I'm writing before v2 hardware goes into prototyping. Part 1 of three — the hardware spec for a wheeled scanner-and-payment workstation.Mon, 14 Aug 2023 14:00:00 GMTtoolsprdhardwareiotconnected-productsmqttaws-iot-corehttps://lukeangel.co/blog/structured-wiring-conduit-poe-backbone/https://lukeangel.co/blog/structured-wiring-conduit-poe-backbone/Framing finished last week. Today I walked the house with the low-voltage installer and signed off on every Cat6 run, every conduit, every PoE drop.Wed, 12 Jul 2023 20:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homeconstructionstructured-wiringpoecablinghttps://lukeangel.co/blog/mars-petcare-data-ownership-conflict/https://lukeangel.co/blog/mars-petcare-data-ownership-conflict/Seven years after Mars Petcare acquired Whistle, the consolidation is obvious. Same company sells the collar, sells the food, runs the vet, analyzes the data. The conflict isn't theoretical anymore.Fri, 12 May 2023 20:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iotmars-petcaredata-ownershipconsolidationwhistlehttps://lukeangel.co/blog/designing-new-build-for-smartthings-day-one/https://lukeangel.co/blog/designing-new-build-for-smartthings-day-one/Framing starts in six weeks. Cat6 in an open wall costs $40 a drop; Cat6 fished through finished drywall costs $400. Tonight I finished the wire spec — every drop, every conduit, every switch box — because this is the one decision you can't redo.Tue, 18 Apr 2023 17:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homeconstructionstructured-wiringpoeplanninghttps://lukeangel.co/blog/iot-predictions-2023/https://lukeangel.co/blog/iot-predictions-2023/Matter actually shipped, Apple Watch Ultra became a real category, and Amazon's iRobot deal stalled at the FTC. The 2022 score sheet, plus what happens when AI lands on the device.Sun, 08 Jan 2023 10:00:00 GMTtoolsiottrendshardwarewearablesaihttps://lukeangel.co/blog/2023-project-management-ai-dominance-hybrid-wins/https://lukeangel.co/blog/2023-project-management-ai-dominance-hybrid-wins/Let’s face it: 2023 will be the year project managers either ride the wave of change or get crushed by it. Buckle up as we unpack the seismic shifts transforming workflows, tools, and team…Tue, 03 Jan 2023 15:26:00 GMTprojectsaihybrid-methodologiesproject-managementremote-teamsstrategysustainabilitytrendshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/2022-in-review-and-2023-forecast/https://lukeangel.co/blog/2022-in-review-and-2023-forecast/Matter 1.0 ratified on schedule. The LoRa garden ran a full season unattended. Frigate's face recognition slipped to next year. And the biggest news isn't a gadget — we bought a lot, and I get to wire a house from the studs out.Tue, 27 Dec 2022 22:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homeyear-in-reviewforecasthttps://lukeangel.co/blog/2022-pet-iot-year-in-review/https://lukeangel.co/blog/2022-pet-iot-year-in-review/A second dog, a shock-fence I returned inside the trial window, and a litter scale that finally tells two cats apart. I score 2021's eight bets, log the four pieces of gear that entered the house, and put 2023 on the record — the new build, senior-dog drift, and the first Matter pet device.Thu, 22 Dec 2022 22:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iotyear-in-reviewforecasthttps://lukeangel.co/blog/matter-1-0-ships-protocol-primer/https://lukeangel.co/blog/matter-1-0-ships-protocol-primer/CSA ratified Matter 1.0 on October 4 and Apple, Google, Amazon, and Samsung put their names on it at the November 3 launch event. After ten years of 'the unified protocol is coming,' here's what it actually is — and the four problems it pointedly does not solve.Wed, 09 Nov 2022 00:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homematterthreadprotocolshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/petivity-smart-litter-multi-cat-analytics/https://lukeangel.co/blog/petivity-smart-litter-multi-cat-analytics/Purina's Petivity Smart Litterbox Monitor just launched — a scale that slides under any litter box and tells two same-size cats apart with no chip or collar. Two weeks in: the multi-cat attribution is the real trick, and the Purina-owned recommendation layer is the catch.Sat, 08 Oct 2022 19:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iotsmart-pet-healthpetivitycatmulti-cathttps://lukeangel.co/blog/frigate-coral-object-detection-cookbook/https://lukeangel.co/blog/frigate-coral-object-detection-cookbook/Standing up Frigate took an afternoon. Making it stop crying wolf took eight months. The model was never the work — the masks, the zones, and the per-camera thresholds were. Here's the YAML I actually run.Sun, 14 Aug 2022 20:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homesmart-home-securityfrigateobject-detectioncamerashttps://lukeangel.co/blog/halo-collar-tried-it-returned-it/https://lukeangel.co/blog/halo-collar-tried-it-returned-it/Bought a Halo Collar 2 for the new house's backyard — no physical fence. Used on Atom and Quark two weeks. Returned. Engineering is sound; the application is a welfare problem.Fri, 15 Jul 2022 20:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iotsmart-pet-healthhalo-collargps-fenceethicshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/outdoor-watering-with-soil-moisture/https://lukeangel.co/blog/outdoor-watering-with-soil-moisture/Six raised garden beds + three planters + a sprinkler zone. Eight soil-moisture sensors on LoRa-WAN. Three valves on Z-Wave.Sat, 21 May 2022 15:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homeesphomelorairrigationsensorshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/quark-arrives-puppy-second-dog-pet-iot-baseline/https://lukeangel.co/blog/quark-arrives-puppy-second-dog-pet-iot-baseline/Brought home Quark — a nine-week chocolate Lab. Atom is eight and a half and gracious about it. The pet-IoT setup begins again, and the gap between 2013 and 2022 is the whole story: in 2013 the right collar was a gamble, in 2022 it's obvious, and it isn't a Whistle.Sat, 30 Apr 2022 22:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iotsmart-pet-healthdogpuppyfihttps://lukeangel.co/blog/iot-predictions-2022/https://lukeangel.co/blog/iot-predictions-2022/AirTags shipped right on cue, supply chain crunch made every gadget six weeks late, and Matter slipped (again). The 2021 score sheet, plus eight bets for the year Matter actually maybe finally ships.Sun, 09 Jan 2022 10:00:00 GMTtoolsiottrendshardwarewearableshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/10-game-changing-project-management-trends-for-2022/https://lukeangel.co/blog/10-game-changing-project-management-trends-for-2022/Hold onto your Gantt charts, folks – 2022 is about to shake up project management like a snow globe at a toddler convention. Based on emerging patterns and industry whispers, here’s what’ll…Wed, 05 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMTprojectsagilehybrid-project-managementremote-worksoft-skillssustainabilitytrendshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/2021-in-review-and-2022-forecast/https://lukeangel.co/blog/2021-in-review-and-2022-forecast/Five PoE cameras plus one Wi-Fi cam, all routing through Frigate on a Coral accelerator. The doorbell-to-every-screen experience finally landed, and 14 ESPHome sensors went in. Matter is still vapor and Wink is a zombie. 2020's forecast came in at ~69%.Tue, 28 Dec 2021 22:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homeyear-in-reviewforecasthttps://lukeangel.co/blog/2021-pet-iot-year-in-review/https://lukeangel.co/blog/2021-pet-iot-year-in-review/AirTag was the headline and the wrong tool. Whistle Health started reading licking and scratching instead of just steps. Halo shipped a shock-fence I won't put on a dog. I score 2020's eight bets, log what entered the house, and put 2022 on the record — Quark, Petivity, and more Mars.Tue, 21 Dec 2021 22:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iotyear-in-reviewforecasthttps://lukeangel.co/blog/wireless-cameras-and-bandwidth-tradeoff/https://lukeangel.co/blog/wireless-cameras-and-bandwidth-tradeoff/Three months ago I'd have said WiFi cameras are a bad idea. Then the kids needed a temporary camera in the garage where there's no PoE.Tue, 19 Oct 2021 18:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homesmart-home-securitycameraswifihttps://lukeangel.co/blog/whistle-health-gps-plus-vitals-arrives/https://lukeangel.co/blog/whistle-health-gps-plus-vitals-arrives/Mars shipped the Whistle Health & GPS+ — a collar that watches your dog lick, scratch, drink, eat and sleep, then rolls it into a daily wellness score. It calls all of that 'health.' What it doesn't do is take a single vital sign — and the gap between behavior and vitals is the whole story.Thu, 26 Aug 2021 21:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iotsmart-pet-healthwhistlevitalsveterinaryhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/doorbell-camera-on-google-home-hub-display/https://lukeangel.co/blog/doorbell-camera-on-google-home-hub-display/A PoE, ONVIF-speaking Dahua doorbell + a WebRTC bridge + Google Home Hub displays + Frigate-detected person events. When someone rings, every screen in the house shows them in under two seconds — no vendor cloud in the loop.Sun, 08 Aug 2021 23:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homesmart-home-securitycamerasdoorbellgoogle-homehttps://lukeangel.co/blog/airtag-on-atoms-collar-anti-stalking-ironies/https://lukeangel.co/blog/airtag-on-atoms-collar-anti-stalking-ironies/AirTag shipped April 30. Strapped one to Atom's collar — Apple tells you not to. Notes on why anti-stalking design is structurally incompatible with intentional pet tracking, and Find My's limits.Sat, 08 May 2021 18:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iotsmart-pet-healthairtagapplefind-myprivacyhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/poe-cameras-and-frigate-nvr/https://lukeangel.co/blog/poe-cameras-and-frigate-nvr/Four Reolink PoE cameras + Frigate 0.8 + a Coral USB Accelerator. Object detection runs locally on the home server at 10 fps per stream — no vendor cloud, no per-camera subscription.Thu, 22 Apr 2021 23:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homesmart-home-securitycamerasfrigatepoehttps://lukeangel.co/blog/iot-predictions-2021/https://lukeangel.co/blog/iot-predictions-2021/Pandemic-fueled IoT surge crushed forecasts, Apple Watch SE became the gateway drug, and Sonos still hasn't shipped headphones. 2020 scored.Fri, 08 Jan 2021 10:00:00 GMTtoolsiottrendshardwarewearableshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/2021s-pm-tsunami-10-trends-you-cant-surf-past--f0-9f-8c-8a/https://lukeangel.co/blog/2021s-pm-tsunami-10-trends-you-cant-surf-past--f0-9f-8c-8a/Project Management, Future Trends, Workplace Strategy /categories post # Grab Your Board: 2021’s Project Management Megatrends Plot twist: Waterfall just joined TikTok. Hybrid work became your new …Tue, 05 Jan 2021 15:07:00 GMTprojectscollaboration-toolshybrid-project-managementremote-teamsustainabilitytrendsworkflowshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/2020-in-review-and-2021-forecast/https://lukeangel.co/blog/2020-in-review-and-2021-forecast/The pandemic year. Internet outages cost more, local-first paid off. The Z2M migration finished, the Yale Assure lock finally went on the door, Frigate got a Coral — and Wink showed the whole category what platform risk really looks like.Wed, 30 Dec 2020 22:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homeyear-in-reviewforecasthttps://lukeangel.co/blog/2020-pet-iot-year-in-review/https://lukeangel.co/blog/2020-pet-iot-year-in-review/Two big stories this year: Petnet collapsed exactly as forecast, and Boson arrived to make this a multi-cat house. The pandemic pet boom is real and the category is surging. 2019's forecast came in at 50%, and the misses all rhyme — the vitals collar and the multi-cat litter box still don't exist.Tue, 22 Dec 2020 22:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iotyear-in-reviewforecasthttps://lukeangel.co/blog/building-security-alarm-panel-in-ha/https://lukeangel.co/blog/building-security-alarm-panel-in-ha/Five years of piecemeal security automations. Six door sensors, two glass-break, six vibration, two presence signals. Tonight all of it became one panel.Thu, 19 Nov 2020 00:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homesmart-home-securityhome-assistantalarm-panelhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/litter-robot-multi-cat-detection-weight-attribution/https://lukeangel.co/blog/litter-robot-multi-cat-detection-weight-attribution/Four months with Joule + Boson sharing a Litter-Robot. Pulled the CSV export and analyzed entry weights. Joule (9.5 lb) and Boson (3.5 lb) separate 90% of the time. The other 10% is interesting.Mon, 19 Oct 2020 20:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iotsmart-pet-healthlitter-robotcatmulti-cathttps://lukeangel.co/blog/picking-the-zigbee-stack-z2m-deconz-zha/https://lukeangel.co/blog/picking-the-zigbee-stack-z2m-deconz-zha/Three options for talking Zigbee to Home Assistant: ZHA (built in), deCONZ (Phoscon-based), Zigbee2MQTT (MQTT-bridged). Trade-offs differ.Sat, 15 Aug 2020 15:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homezigbeezigbee2mqttdeconzprotocolshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/boson-arrives-multi-cat-household-begins/https://lukeangel.co/blog/boson-arrives-multi-cat-household-begins/Brought home Boson last weekend — 11-week-old tabby, COVID-era addition. Two-cat household now. Same feeder, same litter box, same cat door — two cats, two identities. Notes on what changes.Sun, 07 Jun 2020 23:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iotsmart-pet-healthcatmulti-catsureflaphttps://lukeangel.co/blog/ripping-out-vendor-clouds-local-first-ha/https://lukeangel.co/blog/ripping-out-vendor-clouds-local-first-ha/Three years on HA. A weekend audit + migration: every device on a vendor cloud got either replaced or migrated to a local integration.Sun, 26 Apr 2020 19:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homehome-assistantlocal-firstprivacyhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/good-fast-cheap-the-golden-triangle-of-project-management/https://lukeangel.co/blog/good-fast-cheap-the-golden-triangle-of-project-management/Every project lives inside the same triangle — Good, Fast, Cheap, pick two. Sounds glib. Is actually load-bearing physics for every project decision you'll make this quarter.Sat, 14 Mar 2020 12:21:02 GMTprojectsproject-managementleadershipiron-trianglehttps://lukeangel.co/blog/petnet-collapses-anatomy-of-smart-device-catastrophe/https://lukeangel.co/blog/petnet-collapses-anatomy-of-smart-device-catastrophe/Petnet's cloud went down February 14 and stayed broken for a full week. Scheduled feeds didn't fire, the company went silent, and cats went hungry while the brand died in the tech press. The cautionary tale I forecast back in 2017 finally arrived — and what it should teach the rest of the category.Fri, 28 Feb 2020 16:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iotsmart-pet-healthpetnetcloud-dependencyfailurehttps://lukeangel.co/blog/iot-predictions-2020/https://lukeangel.co/blog/iot-predictions-2020/AirPods Pro launched and instantly sold out, Google bought Fitbit, and Matter (still CHIP) was announced. The 2019 score sheet plus 2020 bets.Thu, 09 Jan 2020 10:00:00 GMTtoolsiottrendshardwarewearableshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/top-10-project-management-trends-2020/https://lukeangel.co/blog/top-10-project-management-trends-2020/Picture this: It’s 2019. Project managers are juggling Gantt charts like circus performers, while Waterfall and Agile fanboys argue in Slack channels. Then 2020 happened.Thu, 02 Jan 2020 14:43:00 GMTprojectsemotional-intelligencehybrid-methodologiesproject-managementremote-teamssustainabilitytrendshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/2019-in-review-and-2020-forecast/https://lukeangel.co/blog/2019-in-review-and-2020-forecast/BLE presence finally works. Glass-break sensors caught the failure mode contact sensors miss. The kid's bedroom dashboard joined the kitchen.Sun, 29 Dec 2019 22:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homeyear-in-reviewforecasthttps://lukeangel.co/blog/2019-pet-iot-year-in-review/https://lukeangel.co/blog/2019-pet-iot-year-in-review/Fi shipped and Atom came off Mars-owned Whistle. Whistle answered with the GO Explore and its behavioral-health platform. Petnet's outages got worse but it's still standing. 2018 scored 50%. The HomeKit blind spot is now four years running.Mon, 23 Dec 2019 22:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iotyear-in-reviewforecasthttps://lukeangel.co/blog/fi-ships-first-units-atom-first-non-mars-tracker/https://lukeangel.co/blog/fi-ships-first-units-atom-first-non-mars-tracker/Fi Series 1 shipped October. Bought one for Atom — first non-Mars cellular tracker. LTE-M, three-week claimed battery, no Mars Petcare ownership. Notes on setup, real battery life, vs Whistle.Sat, 09 Nov 2019 00:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iotfiwhistlecellularlte-mhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/humidity-triggered-bathroom-fans/https://lukeangel.co/blog/humidity-triggered-bathroom-fans/Four years of humidity-triggered bathroom fan automation. Three different sensors. Two different fan controllers. One algorithm that finally works.Sat, 12 Oct 2019 13:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homehome-assistanthumidityfanautomationhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/cutting-my-teeth-on-medical-iot-products/https://lukeangel.co/blog/cutting-my-teeth-on-medical-iot-products/September 2017 to September 2019 — timeline of building the API platform behind a connected-health portfolio, things I got right, things I got wrong.Mon, 23 Sep 2019 19:00:00 GMTcraftretrospectiveleadershipapi-platformconnected-productsmedical-devicehttps://lukeangel.co/blog/mqtt-house-nervous-system-one-broker-every-device/https://lukeangel.co/blog/mqtt-house-nervous-system-one-broker-every-device/MQTT started as a side bus in 2018. After Google killed Works with Nest, it became the plan: route every device through one broker I own, so no vendor's API decision can unravel a web of automations. The topic hierarchy, the bridge pattern, the retained-message trick, and why this is the same architecture I build at work for fleets of connected devices.Mon, 16 Sep 2019 22:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homemqtthome-assistantarchitecturelocal-firsthttps://lukeangel.co/blog/glass-break-and-vibration-sensors/https://lukeangel.co/blog/glass-break-and-vibration-sensors/Two Ecolink Z-Wave glass-break detectors plus six Aqara vibration sensors. The first sensor class that catches what contact sensors miss.Mon, 19 Aug 2019 19:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homesmart-home-securityzwavezigbeesensorshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/works-with-nest-is-dead-platform-risk-made-real/https://lukeangel.co/blog/works-with-nest-is-dead-platform-risk-made-real/Google announced it's shutting down the Works with Nest program — the integration API thousands of people built their homes around. Overnight, every cross-vendor automation touching a Nest device is on a countdown. This is the exact failure I've been designing against since 2017, happening to everyone else at once. A field report on platform risk, and why the closet beats the cloud.Mon, 20 May 2019 21:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homenestgooglelocal-firstplatform-riskhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/where-hardware-specs-meet-api-contracts/https://lukeangel.co/blog/where-hardware-specs-meet-api-contracts/A connected health product is two teams on two clocks — hardware on an 18-month cadence, the API platform on a two-week one — reconciling a 20-byte BLE pipe against a data model that wants to be rich. The room where they negotiate is the most important meeting on my calendar.Mon, 13 May 2019 15:00:00 GMTprogramsproduct-managementapi-platformcross-functionalhardwaremedical-devicehttps://lukeangel.co/blog/petnets-cracks-visible-early-warning/https://lukeangel.co/blog/petnets-cracks-visible-early-warning/Petnet had two outages in April — one 18-hour, one 6-hour. No communication. Layoffs rumored in pet-tech press. Three+ years of consolidation about to claim a victim. Notes on what to do.Mon, 22 Apr 2019 19:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iotpetnetsmart-feedercloud-dependencyfailurehttps://lukeangel.co/blog/ble-presence-detection-ha-companion-app/https://lukeangel.co/blog/ble-presence-detection-ha-companion-app/Eight iBeacons, one per room, fed into Home Assistant through the iOS app's zone-monitoring. Room-level presence that GPS can't touch — and the exit-event problem nobody warns you about.Tue, 09 Apr 2019 00:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homebleibeaconpresencehome-assistanthttps://lukeangel.co/blog/ota-firmware-over-bluetooth-pushing-the-rom-through-the-phone/https://lukeangel.co/blog/ota-firmware-over-bluetooth-pushing-the-rom-through-the-phone/The hardest single problem on the connected platform is firmware updates. The device has no Wi-Fi, no internet, no way to download anything on its own — so a new ROM has to crawl through the customer's phone, 20 bytes at a time, without ever being trusted to brick the device or to arrive unsigned.Mon, 04 Feb 2019 14:45:00 GMTtoolsbleotafirmwareapi-platformmedical-devicehttps://lukeangel.co/blog/unlock-soft-skills-for-project-triumphs/https://lukeangel.co/blog/unlock-soft-skills-for-project-triumphs/Beyond the Gantt Chart: Why Soft Skills Rule the Project Realm Alright, project people, let’s get real. You can wield a mean WBS and juggle dependencies like a circus pro. But, if your soft s…Tue, 29 Jan 2019 06:26:00 GMTprojectscareercollaborationcommunicationconflict-resolutionemotional-intelligenceleadershipproblem-solvingproject-managementsoft-skillsteamworkhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/iot-predictions-2019/https://lukeangel.co/blog/iot-predictions-2019/ECG shipped, HomePod missed, and Sonos rang the IPO bell. The 2018 score sheet, plus eight bets for 2019 — including the year true wireless earbuds become a Gen Z status symbol.Mon, 07 Jan 2019 10:00:00 GMTtoolsiottrendshardwarewearableshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/10-game-changing-project-management-trends-for-2019/https://lukeangel.co/blog/10-game-changing-project-management-trends-for-2019/1. AI: Your New BFF (Best Forecasting Friend) Forget crystal balls – Artificial Intelligence is the fortune-teller of the future! In 2019, AI will become your secret weapon for: Pro tip…Tue, 01 Jan 2019 14:27:00 GMTprojectsagileaihybrid-work-modelsproject-managementtrendshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/2018-in-review-quiet-year-zigbee-goes-local/https://lukeangel.co/blog/2018-in-review-quiet-year-zigbee-goes-local/The sparsest year of the journal — exactly as forecast, because the day job became a connected medical device. But the house still moved local-first: Node-RED gave the automations a brain, an MQTT broker gave them a nervous system, and a $40 ConBee stick freed the Zigbee mesh from the cloud. 2018's forecast scored 80%.Thu, 27 Dec 2018 21:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homeyear-in-reviewforecasthttps://lukeangel.co/blog/2018-in-review-and-2019-forecast/https://lukeangel.co/blog/2018-in-review-and-2019-forecast/HA Lovelace shipped (predicted). HomePod shipped — mediocre (predicted). Water shutoff + smoke / CO on the platform (predicted).Wed, 26 Dec 2018 22:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homeyear-in-reviewforecasthttps://lukeangel.co/blog/2018-pet-iot-year-in-review/https://lukeangel.co/blog/2018-pet-iot-year-in-review/Litter-Robot III Connect joined the house and earned its keep. Fi closed funding and a 2019 ship date. Petnet kept hanging on by single-day outages. The 2017 forecast came in at my worst-ever 45% — almost every miss was a vendor ship date I read off a calendar.Sun, 23 Dec 2018 22:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iotyear-in-reviewforecasthttps://lukeangel.co/blog/litter-robot-iii-connect-smart-self-cleaning-litter/https://lukeangel.co/blog/litter-robot-iii-connect-smart-self-cleaning-litter/Whisker's Litter-Robot III Connect adds Wi-Fi, a weight sensor, and a visit log to an already-good self-cleaning litter box. The convenience is fine. The real story is that visit frequency, duration, and the cat's weight are medical-grade signals — the first pet device whose data could actually catch a UTI, diabetes, or weight loss before the annual vet visit does.Tue, 27 Nov 2018 01:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iotsmart-pet-healthlitter-robotcatwifihttps://lukeangel.co/blog/smoke-detector-integration-cant-fake-this-safety/https://lukeangel.co/blog/smoke-detector-integration-cant-fake-this-safety/First Alert ZCOMBO smoke + CO detectors on Z-Wave, three of them through the house — replacing the dumb battery-only smokes that had been dying at 3 AM for years. The hard rule: the local alarm never depends on the network.Mon, 22 Oct 2018 00:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homesmart-home-securityzwavesmoke-detectorsafetyhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/conbee-deconz-zigbee-off-the-smartthings-hub/https://lukeangel.co/blog/conbee-deconz-zigbee-off-the-smartthings-hub/The Zigbee bulbs and sensors had been hostage to the SmartThings hub for years — local control routed through someone else's cloud-then-bridge. A $40 ConBee USB stick and deCONZ change that: a Zigbee coordinator I own, paired straight to Home Assistant, no vendor in the path. The bulbs answer to my closet now.Mon, 15 Oct 2018 23:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homezigbeedeconzconbeehome-assistantlocal-firsthttps://lukeangel.co/blog/fi-announces-gps-power-budget-engineering/https://lukeangel.co/blog/fi-announces-gps-power-budget-engineering/Every cellular pet tracker dies in days because of one number: the cellular radio's average current. I worked the power budget for a GPS dog collar against the Whistle GPS Pet Tracker's real 3–4-day life — and the new low-power cellular standard, LTE-M, is the one lever that could plausibly turn days into weeks. Here's the math, and what it would take.Fri, 12 Oct 2018 20:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iotgpscellularlte-mpowerhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/water-leak-sensors-automatic-shutoff/https://lukeangel.co/blog/water-leak-sensors-automatic-shutoff/Five Z-Wave water leak sensors plus a motorized actuator that clamps over the main shutoff. The first smart-home automation where the insurance math, not the convenience, justifies the spend.Sun, 12 Aug 2018 15:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homesmart-home-securityzwavewater-leakautomationhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/phone-as-gateway-auth-model/https://lukeangel.co/blog/phone-as-gateway-auth-model/A BLE-only health device can't authenticate to the cloud directly — the customer's phone has to carry its identity across. So how do you stop that phone from forging the device it's supposed to be speaking for?Thu, 09 Aug 2018 18:00:00 GMTtoolsbleauthenticationsecurityapi-platformmedical-devicehttps://lukeangel.co/blog/home-assistant-lovelace-dashboards/https://lukeangel.co/blog/home-assistant-lovelace-dashboards/HA 0.72 shipped Lovelace as an opt-in UI last month. A refurbished iPad mini, a wall mount, and a hand-written YAML dashboard the whole family actually uses — plus the custom cards worth installing.Sat, 28 Jul 2018 18:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homehome-assistantlovelaceyamluihttps://lukeangel.co/blog/amazon-buys-ring-surveillance-doorbell-threat-model/https://lukeangel.co/blog/amazon-buys-ring-surveillance-doorbell-threat-model/Amazon bought Ring in February for a reported billion-plus. A doorbell company is now owned by the largest cloud and retail company on earth. The question isn't whether the video is useful — it is. The question is who else gets to watch, and what it means to put an always-on camera at every door pointed at the street.Mon, 18 Jun 2018 21:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homesmart-home-securitycamerasringprivacyhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/from-eight-device-apis-to-one-entity-domain-model/https://lukeangel.co/blog/from-eight-device-apis-to-one-entity-domain-model/The connected-health portfolio I inherited has eight separate device APIs in production. Each has its own user model, its own session contract.Tue, 17 Apr 2018 14:15:00 GMTtoolsapi-platformdomain-driven-designconsolidationrestmedical-devicehttps://lukeangel.co/blog/node-red-flows-automations-yaml-couldnt-handle/https://lukeangel.co/blog/node-red-flows-automations-yaml-couldnt-handle/The presence-based arming logic in Home Assistant had grown into a 60-line YAML template I was afraid to touch. Node-RED turns stateful automations into flows you can actually see — and an MQTT broker turns the house into an event bus instead of a pile of point-to-point rules. The day the automation brain got a visual debugger.Sun, 25 Feb 2018 19:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homehome-assistantnode-redmqttautomationhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/new-course-agile-product-ownership-from-beginner-to-professional/https://lukeangel.co/blog/new-course-agile-product-ownership-from-beginner-to-professional/New course on Agile Product Ownership — the role most teams hire badly for and then quietly blame for everything. What's in it, who it's for.Fri, 26 Jan 2018 19:09:08 GMTprojectsagileproductproduct-ownercoursehttps://lukeangel.co/blog/hipaa-fda-class-i-and-what-counts-as-medical-device-data/https://lukeangel.co/blog/hipaa-fda-class-i-and-what-counts-as-medical-device-data/Before the API platform can matter, I had to answer a narrower question than 'are we a medical device.' The one that decides the architecture is: which fields are regulated, and what does that classification force on every store they touch?Mon, 22 Jan 2018 00:00:00 GMTtoolshipaamedical-devicefdadata-privacyapi-platformhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/new-course-agile-retrospectives-make-good-teams-great/https://lukeangel.co/blog/new-course-agile-retrospectives-make-good-teams-great/Most agile retros are a polite hour of 'what could we do better' followed by zero behavior change. The new course is the *opposite* of that. Five phases. Two memorable formats. Real action items.Sun, 14 Jan 2018 19:30:36 GMTprojectsagileretrospectivescourseteamshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/iot-predictions-2018/https://lukeangel.co/blog/iot-predictions-2018/HomePod slipped past Christmas exactly as predicted, AirPods became Apple's surprise hit, and the camera market consolidated hard. The 2017 score sheet, plus what's about to land in 2018.Mon, 08 Jan 2018 10:00:00 GMTtoolsiottrendshardwarewearableshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/2017-in-review-and-2018-forecast/https://lukeangel.co/blog/2017-in-review-and-2018-forecast/HA on the Pi. Z-Wave + Zigbee local. Six Aqara door sensors. SmartThings hub heading to the spare-parts drawer.Thu, 28 Dec 2017 22:30:00 GMTtoolssmart-homeyear-in-reviewforecasthttps://lukeangel.co/blog/2017-in-review-smart-home-journal-goes-quiet/https://lukeangel.co/blog/2017-in-review-smart-home-journal-goes-quiet/The year the house went local-first: Home Assistant replaced the cloud-tethered automation layer, and the SmartThings security rules moved onto hardware I own. 2016's forecast scored 70%. A heads-up for 2018 — the day job just became a connected medical device, and this journal is about to slow down.Thu, 28 Dec 2017 21:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homehome-assistantyear-in-reviewforecasthttps://lukeangel.co/blog/new-course-agile-reporting-beginner-to-rock-star/https://lukeangel.co/blog/new-course-agile-reporting-beginner-to-rock-star/Agile reports usually fail in one of two ways: too sparse to be useful, or so cluttered nobody reads them. The new course teaches the middle. Light, honest, and skimmable in 30 seconds.Tue, 26 Dec 2017 19:01:21 GMTprojectsagileagile-reportingreportingcoursehttps://lukeangel.co/blog/2017-pet-iot-year-in-review/https://lukeangel.co/blog/2017-pet-iot-year-in-review/The year the cat side of the house finally got real telemetry — the Sure Petcare hub networked Joule's door — and the year the Petnet feeder started feeling fragile enough that I installed a dumb backup behind it. Scoring the 2016 calls, and eight bets for 2018. Five years of this documented now.Fri, 22 Dec 2017 22:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iotyear-in-reviewforecasthttps://lukeangel.co/blog/aqara-zigbee-sensors-at-scale/https://lukeangel.co/blog/aqara-zigbee-sensors-at-scale/Aqara's tiny Xiaomi Zigbee sensors finally reach the US via AliExpress. Six $9 door/window sensors, the slightly-off-spec quirks that come with them, and a 9-device Zigbee mesh for the price of three SmartThings parts.Sun, 26 Nov 2017 19:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homesmart-home-securityzigbeeaqarasensorshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/new-course-learn-how-to-drive-effective-efficient-agile-meetings/https://lukeangel.co/blog/new-course-learn-how-to-drive-effective-efficient-agile-meetings/Agile meetings should be short, time-boxed, and over before anyone notices. The new course teaches the operator's manual for each of the five core ceremonies — without the consultant-speak.Mon, 20 Nov 2017 19:37:41 GMTprojectsagilemeetingscourseteamshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/new-course-project-management-fundamentals-stake-holder-management/https://lukeangel.co/blog/new-course-project-management-fundamentals-stake-holder-management/Stakeholder management is the soft skill nobody trains for that decides whether your project ships. The new course teaches the full discipline.Sun, 15 Oct 2017 19:09:30 GMTprojectsstakeholder-managementproject-managementcourseleadershiphttps://lukeangel.co/blog/migrating-smartthings-security-to-home-assistant/https://lukeangel.co/blog/migrating-smartthings-security-to-home-assistant/Three months on Home Assistant. The Z-Wave stick arrived in September; door sensors moved off SmartThings onto direct Z-Wave on the Pi.Sat, 14 Oct 2017 20:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homesmart-home-securityhome-assistantyamlmigrationhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/new-course-wordpress-e-commerce-with-woocommerce-novice-to-store-owner/https://lukeangel.co/blog/new-course-wordpress-e-commerce-with-woocommerce-novice-to-store-owner/If you've ever wanted to put a Buy button on the internet without paying Shopify $40/month forever, this course is the door. WordPress + WooCommerce, soup to nuts, in your own afternoon.Thu, 21 Sep 2017 19:13:05 GMTtoolswordpresswoocommerceecommercecoursehttps://lukeangel.co/blog/designing-a-connected-consumer-health-device-with-ble-4-2/https://lukeangel.co/blog/designing-a-connected-consumer-health-device-with-ble-4-2/Taking over the API platform behind a connected toothbrush line means first reckoning with what BLE 4.2 actually offers — and what it doesn't.Tue, 12 Sep 2017 15:00:00 GMTtoolsbleconsumer-healthapi-platformmedical-devicehttps://lukeangel.co/blog/sureflap-hub-connected-cat-door/https://lukeangel.co/blog/sureflap-hub-connected-cat-door/The Sure Petcare hub finally shipped after a long slip, and it networks the microchip cat door I installed for Joule back in 2015 — no new door, just a firmware update and a sub-GHz base station. A month of logged entries and exits, the proprietary radio, the closed ecosystem, and the one thing the data does that watching the cat never could.Tue, 08 Aug 2017 18:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iotsmart-pet-healthcatsureflapwifihttps://lukeangel.co/blog/first-home-assistant-install-yaml-configs/https://lukeangel.co/blog/first-home-assistant-install-yaml-configs/Raspberry Pi 3, microSD, Hass.io image flashed in eight minutes. Home Assistant 0.49 is on the local network. First integrations: Hue, SmartThings.Sun, 23 Jul 2017 02:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homehome-assistantpythonyamllocal-firsthttps://lukeangel.co/blog/new-course-sharepoint-2016-metadata-columnsliststaxonomy-and-more/https://lukeangel.co/blog/new-course-sharepoint-2016-metadata-columnsliststaxonomy-and-more/Most SharePoint sites look like a garage after a yard sale. The new course teaches the taxonomy and metadata patterns that make a site usable five years later — without rebuilding it three times.Thu, 20 Jul 2017 18:45:40 GMTtoolssharepointmicrosoftmetadatacoursehttps://lukeangel.co/blog/share-point-codeless-mobile-appslistsflowpower-apps/https://lukeangel.co/blog/share-point-codeless-mobile-appslistsflowpower-apps/Combine a SharePoint list, PowerApps, and Microsoft Flow and you have a working mobile app — zero lines of code. The new course walks the build end to end.Tue, 20 Jun 2017 05:39:30 GMTtoolsflowmicrosoftmobile-appspowerappssharepointcoursehttps://lukeangel.co/blog/furbo-dog-camera-first-impressions/https://lukeangel.co/blog/furbo-dog-camera-first-impressions/Picked up a Furbo this spring after it had been on the market a while. Six weeks in. The camera and two-way audio are table stakes; the bark detection is marketing-grade AI; but the spring-loaded treat-toss is a genuinely tidy piece of mechanical engineering — and the only feature I'd buy again.Sun, 14 May 2017 22:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iotfurbocameradogwifihttps://lukeangel.co/blog/new-course-microsoft-project-reporting-beginner-to-rock-star/https://lukeangel.co/blog/new-course-microsoft-project-reporting-beginner-to-rock-star/Most MS Project files look great inside MS Project and incomprehensible everywhere else. The new course teaches reports stakeholders actually open.Fri, 05 May 2017 03:27:02 GMTprojectsmicrosoftmicrosoft-projectproject-managementreportingcoursehttps://lukeangel.co/blog/docker-servless-faas-functions-as-a-service/https://lukeangel.co/blog/docker-servless-faas-functions-as-a-service/So what Is Faas? FaaS is a framework for building serverless functions on Docker Swarm with first class support for metrics. Any UNIX process can be packaged as a function enabling you to…Fri, 28 Apr 2017 14:05:18 GMTtoolsdockerfaasmicroservicesscalinghttps://lukeangel.co/blog/robots-take-on-the-small-farm/https://lukeangel.co/blog/robots-take-on-the-small-farm/I recently stumbled upon cool small farm robots. I was super impressed so I decided to dig a little deeper and this is what I found. Oz, made by Naio Technologies in France and shown here on…Fri, 21 Apr 2017 21:19:47 GMTtoolsautonomousfarmsrobotshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/cool-robot-farmers/https://lukeangel.co/blog/cool-robot-farmers/Most ag-tech startups build dashboards. A few build robots that actually walk into the field and pull weeds. Here's why the small physical ones might matter more than the giant data ones.Tue, 18 Apr 2017 21:09:43 GMTtoolsautomationautonomousfarmingrobotsaihttps://lukeangel.co/blog/new-course-microsoft-flow-up-and-running-code-less-automated-workflows/https://lukeangel.co/blog/new-course-microsoft-flow-up-and-running-code-less-automated-workflows/Microsoft Flow (now Power Automate) lets you wire up automations without writing code. The new course teaches the right way to think about it — so you don't end up with 47 broken flows nobody owns.Mon, 17 Apr 2017 18:15:13 GMTtoolsautomationmicrosoftmicrosoft-flowcoursehttps://lukeangel.co/blog/petnet-smart-feeder-long-term-review/https://lukeangel.co/blog/petnet-smart-feeder-long-term-review/Sixteen months on the original Petnet SmartFeeder. It works — until the cloud doesn't, and twice this winter it didn't, and my animals went unfed. The schedule lives on Petnet's servers, not the device, which means the product is only as reliable as the company's uptime. Here's the architecture, the two outages, and the design that would have survived them.Sun, 26 Mar 2017 19:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iotpetnetsmart-feederwificloud-dependencyhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/agile-hardware-development-part-1/https://lukeangel.co/blog/agile-hardware-development-part-1/Although Agile principles can be applied with benefit in hardware product development (Agile hardware development), it misses the mark in terms of a complete solution for hardware product…Thu, 09 Mar 2017 10:29:51 GMTprojectsagilehardwarehttps://lukeangel.co/blog/hardware-development-accelerating-to-agility-and-beyond/https://lukeangel.co/blog/hardware-development-accelerating-to-agility-and-beyond/You pretty much have to have your head in the sand not to notice the changes in hardware product design innovation and new product development that are condensing product delivery timelines…Wed, 08 Mar 2017 10:54:26 GMTprojectsagilehardwareinnovationhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/open-source-mobile-test-automation-tools/https://lukeangel.co/blog/open-source-mobile-test-automation-tools/Mobile applications have become increasingly important for businesses these days, and consumers are demanding higher quality apps for their mobile devices. Adapting to this new demand, testing…Tue, 07 Mar 2017 22:30:07 GMTtoolsautomationmobileopen-sourcehttps://lukeangel.co/blog/new-course-node-js-the-essentials-api-frameworks-express-koa-sails/https://lukeangel.co/blog/new-course-node-js-the-essentials-api-frameworks-express-koa-sails/New Node.js course just dropped — zero to a working JWT-authenticated API in eight chapters. Express, Koa, and Sails all get airtime so you know which one to reach for and why.Thu, 02 Mar 2017 07:22:41 GMTtoolscourseexpresskoanodesailshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/new-course-angular-2-router-up-and-running/https://lukeangel.co/blog/new-course-angular-2-router-up-and-running/New course just dropped — Angular Router from zero to working SPA in your lunch hour. Routes, guards, lazy modules, the whole stack. No padding, no slides for slides' sake.Tue, 28 Feb 2017 08:22:23 GMTtoolsangularroutercoursehttps://lukeangel.co/blog/pet-finder-api-javascript-library/https://lukeangel.co/blog/pet-finder-api-javascript-library/I just published a JavaScript library that wraps the Petfinder API — because the official one returns JSON that fights you. Here's what it does, how to use it, and why I built it.Sat, 25 Feb 2017 22:54:35 GMTtoolsjavascriptlibrariesnodenpmpackagesopen-sourcehttps://lukeangel.co/blog/docker-1-13-released/https://lukeangel.co/blog/docker-1-13-released/Docker 1.13 is Out with lots of new features, improvements and fixes to help Docker users with New Year’s resolutions to build more and better container apps. Docker 1.13 builds on and improv…Tue, 24 Jan 2017 09:58:41 GMTtoolsdockerupdateshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/a-shortlist-of-where-to-find-docker-hosting/https://lukeangel.co/blog/a-shortlist-of-where-to-find-docker-hosting/We all know that Docker is simple to get up and running on our local machines. If you don’t click on the banners below and I’ll teach you. But seamlessly transitioning our honed applica…Tue, 10 Jan 2017 13:46:12 GMTtoolsdockerhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/iot-predictions-2017/https://lukeangel.co/blog/iot-predictions-2017/Echo Dot ran the table, Google Home shipped right on cue, and Pokémon Go showed the AR future already in your pocket. The 2016 score sheet, plus bets for 2017.Tue, 10 Jan 2017 10:00:00 GMTtoolsiottrendshardwarewearableshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/docker-networking-drivers-use-cases-and-definitions/https://lukeangel.co/blog/docker-networking-drivers-use-cases-and-definitions/Applications requirements and networking environments are diverse and sometimes opposing forces. In between applications and the network sits Docker networking, affectionately called the…Sun, 08 Jan 2017 08:43:15 GMTtoolsdockernetworkinghttps://lukeangel.co/blog/angular-architecture-overview-the-building-blocks-part-1/https://lukeangel.co/blog/angular-architecture-overview-the-building-blocks-part-1/In this post i am going to revie the basic building blocks of Angular applications. The Angular is a framework for building client applications in HTML and either JavaScript or a language (like…Thu, 29 Dec 2016 13:47:08 GMTtoolsangularhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/2016-pet-iot-year-in-review/https://lukeangel.co/blog/2016-pet-iot-year-in-review/The year the cellular tracker I'd bet on since 2013 finally shipped — and shipped owned by a pet-food giant. Furbo's treat-cam landed, the cat side stayed thin, and the subscription-and-conflict-of-interest pattern I'd been warning about became the category's default. Scoring the 2015 calls, and eight bets for 2017.Wed, 21 Dec 2016 22:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iotyear-in-reviewforecasthttps://lukeangel.co/blog/2016-in-review-and-2017-forecast/https://lukeangel.co/blog/2016-in-review-and-2017-forecast/Google Home shipped (predicted), Hue Motion shipped (predicted), Apple's rumored smart speaker didn't (missed again). The 2015 forecast came in at a humbling 69% — and the year's real problem is still three hubs that won't talk to each other.Mon, 19 Dec 2016 23:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homeyear-in-reviewforecasthttps://lukeangel.co/blog/use-ssh-on-windows-to-connect-to-linux-virtual-machines-or-docker-containers-on-microsoft-azure-from-a-mac-or-windows-machine/https://lukeangel.co/blog/use-ssh-on-windows-to-connect-to-linux-virtual-machines-or-docker-containers-on-microsoft-azure-from-a-mac-or-windows-machine/In this post I am going to describe how to create and use ssh-rsa and .pem format public and private key files on Windows that you can use to connect to your Linux VMs on Azure with the ssh…Wed, 16 Nov 2016 07:22:04 GMTtoolsazuredeveloperdockersshhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/google-home-two-voice-assistants-one-house/https://lukeangel.co/blog/google-home-two-voice-assistants-one-house/Google Home launched November 4. Mine arrived three days ago. Echo and Google Home in the same house, both listening for wake words.Wed, 16 Nov 2016 02:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homegoogle-homevoice-assistantalexahttps://lukeangel.co/blog/dockerizing-a-node-js-web-app/https://lukeangel.co/blog/dockerizing-a-node-js-web-app/The goal of this example is to show you how to get a Node.js application into a Docker container. The guide is intended for development, and not for a production deployment. The guide also…Mon, 14 Nov 2016 10:40:51 GMTtoolsdockernode-jstutorialshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/docker-monitoring-setup-docker-monitoring-with-using-cadvisor-influxdb-and-grafana/https://lukeangel.co/blog/docker-monitoring-setup-docker-monitoring-with-using-cadvisor-influxdb-and-grafana/Docker monitoring of servers and containers is becoming necessary the more Docker hosts and containers we provision. This tutorial will walk you through how to glue together several different…Sun, 13 Nov 2016 16:06:06 GMTtoolscontainersdockermonitoringhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/traditional-vwaterfall-vs-agile-project-management-for-innovators-product-managers/https://lukeangel.co/blog/traditional-vwaterfall-vs-agile-project-management-for-innovators-product-managers/I often get asked the question on which is the superior approach to project management, Waterfall or Agile? That’s a good question but its not the right question. Instead, you should ask&#823…Fri, 11 Nov 2016 06:15:06 GMTprojectsagileproject-managementwaterfallhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/angular-2-cli-moves-from-systemjs-to-webpack/https://lukeangel.co/blog/angular-2-cli-moves-from-systemjs-to-webpack/The Angular CLI swapped SystemJS for Webpack near 1.0 release. Sounds small. Was actually a defining moment for the JS ecosystem's consolidation around one bundler.Wed, 09 Nov 2016 08:48:48 GMTtoolsangulardeveloperfront-endwebpackbuild-toolshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/autonomous-office-chairs/https://lukeangel.co/blog/autonomous-office-chairs/Nissan built self-parking office chairs as a marketing stunt for their intelligent parking tech. Best 'show, don't tell' demo I've seen — and a model for any team.Wed, 09 Nov 2016 03:50:45 GMTtoolsautonomousproductmarketingautomotivehttps://lukeangel.co/blog/what-is-lean-innovation/https://lukeangel.co/blog/what-is-lean-innovation/Lean innovation is being embraced by everyone — from the smallest start-ups to the largest global organizations. But in most cases, it’s still falling well short of its full potential because…Fri, 21 Oct 2016 14:51:50 GMTcraftinnovationleanproject-managementhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/whats-a-workback-schedule/https://lukeangel.co/blog/whats-a-workback-schedule/I tend to get a lot of projects that start with a launch date and then come to me with a product vision and little else. This requires the reverse of normal planning forward technique. We now…Thu, 20 Oct 2016 10:59:19 GMTprojectsiron-triangleproject-managementschedulingwork-backhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/how-does-iot-work-with-the-smart-clothing-market/https://lukeangel.co/blog/how-does-iot-work-with-the-smart-clothing-market/While I was at an event last weekend I got into conversation where I was explaining to a group of people what the term IoT(internet of things) means. Since the term is used so broadly now I can…Tue, 18 Oct 2016 07:10:36 GMTtoolsiotsmart-clotheshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/docker-swarm-mode-beggining-built-in-orchestration-and-service-creation/https://lukeangel.co/blog/docker-swarm-mode-beggining-built-in-orchestration-and-service-creation/What’s new in Docker 1.12 Multi-Host and Multi-Container Orchestration built-in Docker Service and Node added to Docker Engine Security is built into Swarm by default New File format – …Mon, 17 Oct 2016 20:26:28 GMTtoolsdockerorchestrationserviceshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/save-two-lives-at-once-by-fostering-a-pet-at-your-home/https://lukeangel.co/blog/save-two-lives-at-once-by-fostering-a-pet-at-your-home/By being a pet foster parent, you provide a temporary home for an animal prior to adoption. Fostering animals is a wonderful and personal way to contribute to saving homeless pets. Dogs and…Sun, 16 Oct 2016 06:50:18 GMTgivevolunteergratitudepetshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/how-to-get-to-your-mobile-app-to-market-faster-by-optimizing-your-mobile-development-release-pipeline/https://lukeangel.co/blog/how-to-get-to-your-mobile-app-to-market-faster-by-optimizing-your-mobile-development-release-pipeline/By historical standards, writing code is easy. Today we enjoy enormously powerful tools like IntelliSense, auto-complete, syntax coloring, error highlighting and support through communities…Fri, 14 Oct 2016 09:29:20 GMTtoolsdevopsmobilehttps://lukeangel.co/blog/six-months-on-whistle-3-cellular-realities/https://lukeangel.co/blog/six-months-on-whistle-3-cellular-realities/I bought the Whistle GPS Pet Tracker for Atom in May to evaluate the cellular path I'd bet on since 2013. Six months of logged data: the real battery number under load, GPS accuracy by environment, the subscription math, and the Mars recommendations layer arriving on schedule.Sat, 08 Oct 2016 21:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iotwhistlecellulargpspowerhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/angular-2-zones/https://lukeangel.co/blog/angular-2-zones/At NG-Conf 2014, Brian gave an excellent talk on zones and how they can change the way we deal with asynchronous code. If you haven’t watched this talk yet, give it a shot, it’s just ~15…Sat, 01 Oct 2016 22:08:57 GMTtoolsangularfront-endzoneshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/how-instagram-scales-by-the-architect-himself-mike-krieger/https://lukeangel.co/blog/how-instagram-scales-by-the-architect-himself-mike-krieger/Mike Krieger's deck on scaling Instagram is the single best resource I've found on the 'keep it boring until you absolutely can't' principle. Five things every architect should steal from it.Mon, 26 Sep 2016 05:08:29 GMTtoolsarchitecturescalingproducthttps://lukeangel.co/blog/what-is-responsive-design/https://lukeangel.co/blog/what-is-responsive-design/Every person these days wants a mobile version of their website. It’s practically essential after all: one design for the Android, another for the iPhone, the iPad, netbook, Kindle — and all…Mon, 26 Sep 2016 04:42:00 GMTtoolscross-platformdesigndesktopmobileresponsive-designtablethttps://lukeangel.co/blog/learn-css-in-16-post-it-notes/https://lukeangel.co/blog/learn-css-in-16-post-it-notes/Cascading Style Sheets Operate on Inheritance CSS has a ancestor-descendant relationships. Anything previously defined by an ancestor will automatically be inherited by one of its children…Sun, 25 Sep 2016 09:47:42 GMTtoolscsshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/angular-2-dependency-injection/https://lukeangel.co/blog/angular-2-dependency-injection/Dependency injection has always been one of Angular’s biggest features and selling points. It allows us to inject dependencies in different components across our applications, without needing…Wed, 14 Sep 2016 05:10:10 GMTtoolsangulardependency-injectionhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/hue-motion-sensor-purpose-built-lighting-automation/https://lukeangel.co/blog/hue-motion-sensor-purpose-built-lighting-automation/Philips finally shipped the Hue Motion sensor. Battery-powered, Zigbee Light Link, joins the Hue bridge natively. First hardware that lets us automate without rules.Wed, 31 Aug 2016 00:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homehuezigbeemotion-sensorlightinghttps://lukeangel.co/blog/volunteer-at-nkla/https://lukeangel.co/blog/volunteer-at-nkla/You can walk dogs and play with cats at your local animal shelter for free. It's a workout, a friend-maker, and a community good rolled into one. Here's how it actually works.Tue, 16 Aug 2016 06:23:11 GMTgivevolunteergratitudehttps://lukeangel.co/blog/run-windows-and-linux-containers-on-windows-10/https://lukeangel.co/blog/run-windows-and-linux-containers-on-windows-10/At DockerCon 2016 in Seattle Docker announced the public beta of Docker for Windows. With this you can work with Docker running Linux containers in a very easy way on Windows 10 Pro with…Sat, 13 Aug 2016 21:24:24 GMTtoolscontainersdockerlinuxwindowshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/the-docker-ecosystem-scheduling-and-orchestration-digitalocean/https://lukeangel.co/blog/the-docker-ecosystem-scheduling-and-orchestration-digitalocean/The Docker Ecosystem: Scheduling and Orchestration Introduction The Docker tool provides all of the functions necessary to build, upload, download, start, and stop containers. It is well-suited…Wed, 13 Jul 2016 21:40:24 GMTtoolsdockerorchestrationschedulinghttps://lukeangel.co/blog/homekit-and-the-mfi-chip-moat/https://lukeangel.co/blog/homekit-and-the-mfi-chip-moat/Nine months with HomeKit (since iOS 9). Three HomeKit devices working, ten more I wish would work but can't. The MFi chip is the moat.Thu, 09 Jun 2016 23:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homehomekitappleprotocolshaphttps://lukeangel.co/blog/netflix-deck-on-data-pipeline-with-kafka/https://lukeangel.co/blog/netflix-deck-on-data-pipeline-with-kafka/Netflix posted a deck on their Kafka-based data pipeline in 2016 and I haven't stopped pointing at it. Four ideas every PM and engineer should steal.Thu, 26 May 2016 05:10:54 GMTtoolsarchitecturenetflixkafkascalingproducthttps://lukeangel.co/blog/whistle-3-cellular-mars-acquires-whistle/https://lukeangel.co/blog/whistle-3-cellular-mars-acquires-whistle/Whistle's GPS Pet Tracker finally put cellular and GPS in the puck — the convergence I bet on back in 2013 — and within the same month, Mars Petcare bought the company for a reported $117M. The feature I'd wanted for years arrived owned by a pet-food giant. Notes on the radio, the subscription, and the conflict of interest.Thu, 14 Apr 2016 23:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iotwhistlemars-petcarecellularacquisitionhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/the-docker-ecosystem-networking-and-communication/https://lukeangel.co/blog/the-docker-ecosystem-networking-and-communication/Introduction When constructing distributed systems to serve Docker containers, communication and networking become extremely important. Service-oriented architecture, undeniably, relies heavily…Wed, 13 Apr 2016 21:37:30 GMTtoolsdockernetworkinghttps://lukeangel.co/blog/the-docker-ecosystem-service-discovery-and-distributed-configuration-stores/https://lukeangel.co/blog/the-docker-ecosystem-service-discovery-and-distributed-configuration-stores/Introduction Containers provide an elegant solution for those looking to design and deploy applications at scale. While Docker provides the actual containerizing technology, many other projects…Sun, 13 Mar 2016 21:38:03 GMTtoolsdistributed-configuration-storesdockerservice-discoveryhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/wearable-predictions-for-2016/https://lukeangel.co/blog/wearable-predictions-for-2016/Set aside thoughts of mince pies and look ahead to what’s in store for wearable tech in 2016. 50. Gran Turismo Sport The upcoming 2016 VR explosion needs games and games don’t get much …Thu, 18 Feb 2016 06:42:15 GMTtoolshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/the-docker-ecosystem-an-introduction-to-common-components/https://lukeangel.co/blog/the-docker-ecosystem-an-introduction-to-common-components/Introduction Containerization is the process of distributing and deploying applications in a portable and predictable way. It accomplishes this by packaging components and their dependencies…Wed, 13 Jan 2016 21:39:59 GMTtoolscomponentsdockerhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/iot-predictions-2016/https://lukeangel.co/blog/iot-predictions-2016/Apple Watch landed, Echo took the kitchen counter, and Nest got swallowed by Google. The 2015 connected-device score sheet, plus eight bets I'm placing for 2016.Fri, 08 Jan 2016 10:00:00 GMTtoolsiottrendshardwarewearableshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/2015-in-review-and-2016-forecast/https://lukeangel.co/blog/2015-in-review-and-2016-forecast/Echo went GA, Alexa Skills Kit shipped, HomeKit got real with iOS 9, first piece of a security system built.Tue, 22 Dec 2015 23:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homeyear-in-reviewforecasthttps://lukeangel.co/blog/2015-pet-iot-year-in-review/https://lukeangel.co/blog/2015-pet-iot-year-in-review/A SureFlap door went on the wall for Joule, a second tracker went on Atom's collar, and a feeder finally arrived two years late. I score last year's eight bets, log what actually entered the house, and put 2016 on the record — including the cellular Whistle I've been waiting on since 2013.Tue, 22 Dec 2015 22:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iotyear-in-reviewforecasthttps://lukeangel.co/blog/the-docker-ecosystem-an-overview-of-containerization/https://lukeangel.co/blog/the-docker-ecosystem-an-overview-of-containerization/Docker: An Overview of Containerization Introduction There are often many roadblocks that stand in the way of easily moving your application through the development cycle and eventually into…Sun, 13 Dec 2015 21:38:40 GMTtoolscontainersdockerhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/aeotec-multisensor-6-five-sensors-one-zwave/https://lukeangel.co/blog/aeotec-multisensor-6-five-sensors-one-zwave/Aeotec shipped Multisensor 6 — motion, temperature, humidity, light, UV, and vibration in one Z-Wave Plus device.Wed, 28 Oct 2015 20:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homesmart-home-securityzwavesensorsaeotechttps://lukeangel.co/blog/why-mentor-with-spark/https://lukeangel.co/blog/why-mentor-with-spark/Spark matches middle-schoolers with workplace mentors for 10 weeks. Two hours a week of the most fun work you'll do all month — and it makes a real dent in a kid's trajectory.Fri, 16 Oct 2015 07:38:41 GMTgivegivementoringleadershipgratitudehttps://lukeangel.co/blog/help-your-community-out-by-becoming-cert-certified/https://lukeangel.co/blog/help-your-community-out-by-becoming-cert-certified/In Los Angeles, there are more than four million people in the city every day, whether they’re residents or visitors. The diverse nature of the city, not to mention more than 470 square miles…Sun, 11 Oct 2015 07:15:17 GMTgivevolunteergratitudepreparednesshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/fitbark-2-pet-activity-tracker-market-2015/https://lukeangel.co/blog/fitbark-2-pet-activity-tracker-market-2015/Two activity trackers on one dog's collar for a week — the bone-shaped FitBark next to Atom's Whistle. Notes on what's actually different (it's the radio, not the data), where they disagree, and whether a second number told me anything the first one didn't.Tue, 15 Sep 2015 19:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iotwhistlefitbarkbleactivityhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/zwave-vs-zigbee-vs-wifi-year-with-smartthings/https://lukeangel.co/blog/zwave-vs-zigbee-vs-wifi-year-with-smartthings/A year living with all three protocols on the SmartThings hub plus Hue's separate Zigbee bridge. The frequency bands, the mesh behaviors.Wed, 17 Jun 2015 15:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homezigbeezwavewifiprotocolshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/sureflap-microchip-cat-door-joules-first-iot/https://lukeangel.co/blog/sureflap-microchip-cat-door-joules-first-iot/Joule turned one and earned yard privileges, so I installed a SureFlap microchip cat door. It reads the same chip the shelter put in her shoulder and unlatches only for her. Notes on the read-and-latch loop, the chip allow-list, and why calling this 'IoT' is generous — there's no network anywhere in it.Fri, 22 May 2015 15:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iotsmart-pet-healthcatsureflaprfidmicrochiphttps://lukeangel.co/blog/first-security-automation-door-presence-smartthings/https://lukeangel.co/blog/first-security-automation-door-presence-smartthings/Six months on SmartThings. Starter kit's door/window sensors and Arrival Sensors sat in a drawer waiting for the first useful automation.Mon, 16 Mar 2015 00:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homesmart-home-securitysmartthingsgroovyhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/2014-in-review-and-2015-forecast/https://lukeangel.co/blog/2014-in-review-and-2015-forecast/Big year. SmartThings + Samsung happened, Echo arrived, Lutron Caseta solved the no-neutral problem, HomeKit got announced.Tue, 30 Dec 2014 22:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homeyear-in-reviewforecasthttps://lukeangel.co/blog/2014-pet-iot-year-in-review/https://lukeangel.co/blog/2014-pet-iot-year-in-review/A full year of Whistle on Atom, eight months of Joule. The dog's activity data finally turned into something I trust; the cat's whole stack is still one chip in her shoulder. What I learned about pet-tech this year, and where I think 2015 goes.Tue, 23 Dec 2014 22:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iotyear-in-reviewforecasthttps://lukeangel.co/blog/amazon-echo-arrives-alexa-lights-first-voice-automation/https://lukeangel.co/blog/amazon-echo-arrives-alexa-lights-first-voice-automation/Amazon launched Echo on November 6 as Prime-only invitation pre-order. Mine arrived this week. Notes on what voice control actually does and doesn't do in 2014.Thu, 04 Dec 2014 23:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homealexavoice-assistantechohttps://lukeangel.co/blog/smartthings-starter-kit-unboxing-zwave-zigbee-first-hub/https://lukeangel.co/blog/smartthings-starter-kit-unboxing-zwave-zigbee-first-hub/Samsung just closed the SmartThings acquisition two weeks ago. The hub they ship today (Kickstarter-era v1 design) is the first credible all-in-one.Wed, 27 Aug 2014 00:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homesmart-home-securitysmartthingszigbeezwavehubhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/joule-arrives-microchip-rfid-primer/https://lukeangel.co/blog/joule-arrives-microchip-rfid-primer/Brought home a 9-week-old tabby and the shelter had already chipped her. So I spent the evening figuring out what's actually under Joule's skin — a battery-less RFID tag the size of a rice grain. It is not a tracker, and that distinction is the whole post.Fri, 18 Apr 2014 22:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iotcatmicrochiprfidprotocolshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/light-switches-wemo-failed-lutron-won-no-neutral-nightmare/https://lukeangel.co/blog/light-switches-wemo-failed-lutron-won-no-neutral-nightmare/Smart bulbs are useless when someone flips the wall switch off. So the switch has to be smart too — except my 1948 house has no neutral wire in the switch boxes, which rules out most of the market. Two vendors failed on that wiring. The fix is a no-neutral RF switch, and I think I know which one I'm waiting for.Tue, 18 Mar 2014 23:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homelightingswitcheslutronwemoprotocolshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/the-internet-of-things-version-0-5/https://lukeangel.co/blog/the-internet-of-things-version-0-5/Last night when my friend showed up to my house I answered the doorbell through my phone while still down the street picking up dinner. I told her I would be there in a few minutes, and…Tue, 18 Feb 2014 04:28:37 GMTtoolshome-automationiothttps://lukeangel.co/blog/2013-in-review-and-2014-forecast/https://lukeangel.co/blog/2013-in-review-and-2014-forecast/Year-end check-in. Hue is solid, Wemo is fine, IFTTT is duct tape. Forecast: 2014 is the year of the hub — SmartThings looks set to take it to retail, Amazon's rumored to ship a voice device, and Apple's smart-home play is the one to watch.Sun, 29 Dec 2013 22:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homeyear-in-reviewforecasthttps://lukeangel.co/blog/volunteer-fight-fighting/https://lukeangel.co/blog/volunteer-fight-fighting/Most public fire stations accept volunteer firefighters. Harder than mentoring, easier than full-time fire service, one of the most rewarding things I've done.Mon, 16 Dec 2013 07:10:58 GMTgivegivevolunteercommunityemergency-serviceshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/tagg-vs-whistle-cellular-vs-ble-base-station/https://lukeangel.co/blog/tagg-vs-whistle-cellular-vs-ble-base-station/A month into the Whistle on Atom's collar, and I keep almost-buying a Tagg instead. They're the two 2013 answers to the same question — cellular GPS that finds your dog anywhere, or BLE-and-Wi-Fi activity that only syncs near home or your phone — and the difference is in the radio, not the marketing.Fri, 22 Nov 2013 20:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iotwhistletaggcellularbleprotocolshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/atom-arrives-whistle-activity-monitor-launches/https://lukeangel.co/blog/atom-arrives-whistle-activity-monitor-launches/Brought home an 8-week-old yellow lab on Sunday. Named him Atom. Two weeks ago a startup called Whistle shipped the first consumer fitness tracker for dogs. Suspiciously perfect timing.Wed, 16 Oct 2013 00:00:00 GMTtoolspet-iotwhistlebledoghttps://lukeangel.co/blog/ifttt-first-cross-vendor-automation/https://lukeangel.co/blog/ifttt-first-cross-vendor-automation/IFTTT recipes connect Hue to Wemo to Gmail. The latency is bad, the reliability is patchy, but it's the first thing that's crossed vendor lines. Notes on what works and what doesn't.Sun, 08 Sep 2013 20:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homeiftttwebhooksintegrationhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/wemo-plugs-and-the-multi-vendor-app-problem/https://lukeangel.co/blog/wemo-plugs-and-the-multi-vendor-app-problem/I now have a Wemo Insight plug controlling the coffee maker. The Wemo app is fine for the plug. It can't see my Hue bulbs. The multi-vendor app problem starts here.Sat, 22 Jun 2013 18:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homewifiwemoupnpsoaphttps://lukeangel.co/blog/wifi-as-smart-home-transport-the-always-on-tax/https://lukeangel.co/blog/wifi-as-smart-home-transport-the-always-on-tax/A year on SmartThings + Hue. WiFi smart bulbs and plugs sounded great — until the router was rebooted and 30 devices went offline at once.Mon, 20 May 2013 15:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homewifiprotocolsnetworkinghttps://lukeangel.co/blog/bluetooth-low-energy-4-0-in-the-smart-home-primer/https://lukeangel.co/blog/bluetooth-low-energy-4-0-in-the-smart-home-primer/BLE 4.0 has been shipping in phones since the iPhone 4S (Oct 2011). It's now showing up in fitness trackers, beacons, and the first smart-home devices. A protocol primer before the products land.Tue, 12 Mar 2013 14:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homeblebluetoothprotocolshttps://lukeangel.co/blog/hue-scenes-and-the-local-rest-api/https://lukeangel.co/blog/hue-scenes-and-the-local-rest-api/Two months with Hue. Time to move past the app. Notes on scene storage, group commands, and the cron job that turns on the porch light at sunset.Sun, 16 Dec 2012 00:00:00 GMTtoolssmart-homehuerest-apipythonautomationhttps://lukeangel.co/blog/philips-hue-gen-1-zigbee-light-link-debut/https://lukeangel.co/blog/philips-hue-gen-1-zigbee-light-link-debut/Day one. Picked up the Hue starter kit at the Apple Store on launch morning — Philips and Apple did an exclusive launch. Three bulbs, one bridge.Wed, 31 Oct 2012 00:30:00 GMTtoolssmart-homehuelightinghttps://lukeangel.co/blog/big-bother-and-sister/https://lukeangel.co/blog/big-bother-and-sister/Being a Big through Big Brothers Big Sisters is the most fun volunteering I've ever done. Low time commitment, big payoff for the kid, embarrassingly high for the adult.Wed, 16 Jun 2010 07:46:04 GMTgivegivementoringgratitudeleadership