Hey everyone,

With all the Linux content LTT has been producing over the last few years, I think there is a massive piece of tech history that would make for a fantastic deep dive or Techquickie.

We all know about Linus Torvalds and the kernel, but it would be awesome to see a video dedicated to Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation. As we watch companies like Microsoft shift their focus to enterprise cloud services, it's highly ironic that their massive Azure infrastructure is fundamentally running on Linux. But none of that would exist without the GNU tools and the GPL license that the FSF championed.

Stallman is definitely an eccentric (and sometimes controversial) figure, but the philosophy of "free as in freedom" shaped the entire enterprise and homelab tech landscape we rely on today.

A video exploring the difference between open-source and free software, and the history of how GNU/Linux actually came together, would be a great history lesson for the audience.

Would you guys watch a history-focused video on this? Would love to see the LTT writing team tackle it.

Update: I had no idea about all these controversies. An LTT video strictly about the history of the Free Software Foundation and the GPL would still be super valuable.

I have automations within my home that heavily relies on the fast and responsive LAN control features of my Govee lights.

I’ve discovered that LAN control option is missing for the device and I’m assuming this happened after an OTA update.

I’ve tried controlling the lights over ble using an esp32 and a custom component but this no where near stable…

Can I somehow downgrade the firmware of the t2 light or could Govee support perhaps push a version with LAN control enabled? I’ve tried using the standard aws (cloud) control, but this is nowhere near as responsive as LAN control.

How are you locally controlling your lights?

Hi everyone,

I wanted to share a fun project I recently finished. Like many of you with toddlers, my daughter has developed a fascination with standing about two inches away from the TV screen. To protect her eyes and teach her to keep her distance, I decided to automate the parenting.

Whenever she gets too close (< 240cm), the TV automatically pauses. Once she steps back, it resumes. She actually adapted to it immediately and now stays behind the "invisible line" on her own!

Hardware

• Sensor: Hi-Link HLK-LD2410C (24GHz mmWave Radar)
• Board: M5Stack Atom Lite (ESP32)
• Mounted directly under the TV edge (I initially hid it inside my wooden TV cabinet, but the wood density messed with the radar scattering).

The Netflix Hurdle: Everything works perfectly for apps like SmartTube and my local TV provider app, but the official Netflix app actively blocks state updates (playing/paused) via the Android TV integration. I had to build a bypass in Node-RED to ignore Netflix so the flow doesn't get stuck.

Demo & Code:

• YouTube Demo: https://youtu.be/AO_Pd3kCA3k]
• GitHub Repo with ESPHome config & Node-RED export: https://github.com/digira1n-tuxabyte/Homelab/tree/master/home-automation/tv-proximity-sensor (it's in Dutch)

Has anyone else found a reliable workaround for reading the play/pause state of the Netflix app on Android TV?