My Adaptive Smart Light Setup
A Guide, and a Glimpse Into the Mind of a Madman (Me)
I’ve previously written about why I think Smart Bulbs > Smart Switches.1 And one of the reasons I think that, is that I (for some reason) really love having the colour temperature of my lights change throughout the day.
Sadly, I’ve found the automatic systems for this really lacking. But here I wanted to show how I’ve created a system I like.
The goals:
- Be effortless to use (and relatively easy to adjust)
- Both provide a good experience with simple switches, and with dimmers.
- Working with different brands of switches and bulbs.
- Keep everything in HomeKit.2
I want a smart home. But, in use, I want it to be as simple as a dumb one. I want guests to be able to operate things at, at least, the same level as they would in another unfamiliar home.3 And then I want to add smart benefits on top of this, like colour temperature, automations, some hidden button features, and being able to override stuff with things like a phone.
My most used switch is the Flic 2. And when the light is off, I want one click to turn on to a setting that’s almost always the right one. But as the “right setting” changes throughout the day, I have to do some adjustments in the background…
While you can adjust the brightness in Home.app, I also wanted to be able to do it with a dimmer switch at some places. So I’ve bought a couple of Flic Twists 🖇️ as well.4 HomeKit/Matter, sadly, hasn’t delivered support for dimmers, though – so I had to be a bit creative to get these to work as I wanted.
The principle
I’ve created three “moods” (which correlates to brightness and colour temperature):
- Glow (warmest)
- Cream
- Glass (coldest)
And, currently, my home moves through these moods at these times:
- From the night before 🌙: Glow
- 1 hour after sunrise ⛅: Cream
- 3 hours after sunrise ☀️: Glass
- 3 hours before sunset 🌥️: Cream
- 1 hour after sunset 🌙: Glow
If you turn on a light during “Cream time” it will turn on to that setting, and so on. And when the mood changes (during the day), it will go through the lights that are turned on, and adapt them to the current mood.
The how
My Wishes for NotePlan
I like and use NotePlan (via Setapp 🖇️), and feel good recommending it to people. But there are a couple of reasons why I don’t love it. So while I keep all my notes and tasks in Markdown files in the NotePlan folder, I prefer editing those in other apps – like Paper. Below are the changes and improvements I would need for me to love it.
The basics needs to be improved
The NotePlan developer is very active, seems like a great guy, and is pumping out updates. Some of these are really ambitious (like more collaboration and a web editor). But the app is, at its core, a Markdown editor – and I think this core requires some improvements, and that getting this right is foundational for the rest.
I get that I can’t expect it to be as good here as the dedicated Paper, and some of the more advanced features, like the Typewriter Mode:
But NotePlan should be better…
Bold and italics
Why I Value Doing Stuff on My Mac With One Hand
And How I Do It
I get that it sounds shady1 or like a great accessibility story, when I talk about being able to use my Mac one-handed. But it’s neither. Allow me to explain!
My default mode for using my Mac …
… is with my right hand on the trackpad, and my left in the home row position – for instance like this:
I totally get that both hands on the keyboard is the default for many. And I’m there quite a lot as well, and love keyboard-driven software.2 But, for some reason, the tasks I’m doing call for the above even more.
So I’ve optimised my Mac to be able to do a lot with only that left hand on the keyboard, and only that right hand on the trackpad.
I really like the Magic Trackpad, as I can have the “desktop” setup be really similar to the laptop one. I do have a gaming mouse at the ready – but if I had to use a mouse, I guess I would try to recreate as much as possible on the Magic Mouse.3
The right hand and trackpad
I’ve used BetterTouchTool (and some default options) to have the trackpad be extra useful. (I can also recommend Swish, even though it doesn’t fit what I want to do with the trackpad.)
Here are the main gestures I’ve set up, and that work in “every” program:
Rumble Nation – a Terrific, Minimalistic, Japanese Strategy Board Game
Comparison Between the Old, Regular Version and the New, Deluxe Version
A couple of years ago, I got a great recommendation from the Board Game Barrage podcast: The minimalistic area majority board game, Rumble Nation. It only takes about 30 minutes to play, is easy to learn, and is cheap and compact. And all of this while still offering a lot of player interaction and interesting choices.
A rundown of the game:
You're competing for control over 11 areas in feudal Japan numbered from 2 to 12. These will give 2-12 points to the winner (and half points for second place). The winner is the person with the most points.
The game has two phases: One where players will take turns, and there are both chance and choices – and one where you'll see who wins the fights. (But with no chance or choices.)
In phase 2, the person who has the most armies in an area will win it. But here's the most interesting part: You'll determine the winner in order, from 2 to 12. And if you win area 2, you'll be able to add reinforcements, 2 armies, to every adjacent area you have at least 1 army in (and that hasn't been determined yet). So, prioritising high numbers is great, as you'll get a lot of points. But low numbers will give you a lot of extra armies in other higher value fights!
When placing armies, in phase 1, you'll throw 3 dice. You then combine two of them to determine where you place them (if you select 3 and 6, you'll place them in the 9), and the last die determines how many you'll place (half its value, rounded down). You can also, once per game, use a special card ability.
This means you'll place between 1 and 3 armies every round – so everyone won't be done in the same number of rounds. You can't (without using special abilities) move armies you've placed. So, in general, it's best to be the last to commit your armies – but the game has handled this in an interesting way, by having the tiebreaker in the phase 2 fights be whomever finished their phase 1 first.
And as mentioned, phase 2 is 100% deterministic, so the game wraps up really fast and smoothly.
I ordered the original version from Japan, and it’s been a treasured possession. But recently, I was looking at some other games from Japan, and saw that they had made a deluxe version 🖇️ of it – so I ordered it.
I got it in the mail today, and wanted to show how it compares to the original, as I haven’t seen this done anywhere.
The rules
The only gameplay changes compared to the base game is that one tactic card is nerfed a bit,1 and that the deluxe version includes a Daimyo variant/mini-expansion.
Quick Recommendation #3: What Makes This Song Stink (YouTube)
In general, I prefer positive content. So I prefer the vibe of CinemaWins over CinemaSins. But the series called What Makes This Song Stink, by Pat Finnerty, is an absolute treasure of YouTube content.
I think it can work for anyone – but it’s especially funny if you’ve spent any time on “Music YouTube”. (The series is packed with Rick Beato beats.)
I recommend starting at the beginning (of the playlist linked above), with Kryptonite by 3 Doors Down, and watch them in order. Then you’ll see the evolution of the form, and be in on all the terrific in-jokes. And already the third video, on Weezer - Beverly Hills, is a highlight.
It’s hard to explain, but the series just has so much heart, and Pat is just delightful. I highly recommend giving this series a try! (Also, he releases like a couple of videos a year – so its easy to stay on top of.)
Quick Recommendation #2: Better Markdown Preview in Finder
Hitting space to preview files (Quick Look) is one of my favourite Finder features. However, it does a pretty mediocre job with Markdown files. QLMarkdown is a little utility that makes these previews richer.
You can install it from this link, or by using this Homebrew command:
brew install --cask qlmarkdown
The app isn’t signed – so you need to do the little dance to convince macOS that you want to run the app. (This is detailed in the original link share up top.)
You need to open the app once for the utility to work. And that’s also where you change settings.
I get that many Markdown contexts are outside of Finder – but if you do use them there, I hope this little tool can be useful!