u/also_your_mom

Anyone use a light meter to assist in the ideal placement of your plant?

Or is that going a bit crazy?

First time owner of a carnivorous plant.

N. Lowii X Ventricosa 'Red'.

Having a discussion as to where in the house it will do the best.

Update: I am referring to natural light.

I just got my first carnivorous plant at the Bay Area Carnivorous Plant Festival in Alameda, CA.

It is a "N. Lowii X Ventricosa 'red'". The gentleman I purchased it from said it would be good to put in the bathroom because higher humidity there. Other sources state that sunshine is significantly more important than humidity for these. The sun in our bathroom is filtered (typical frosted window glass in a bathroom) and is North facing. So I think it might be questionable. I've just put a hygrometer in the bathroom to check if the humidity there is really all that different than anywhere else in the house. I suspect humidity in bathroom is only higher for a few hours, maybe, during and after a shower.

Otherwise we have a West facing window that gets good sunlight that doesn't seem too intense. I've found feedback stating that these plants like sunlight of the sort where a human cannot stare at it for very long (which actually makes no sense to me unless the recommendation there is DIRECT sunlight).

The humidity in our house varies from low 50's during the heat of the day to mid 60's at night. So call it 55 average with a +/- of 5%. We've started using a whole house fan and I suspect this is resulting in our night time humidity approaching 65%, if that is relevant.

Take two people who are both "y" years old.

Person A is in great physical/cardio shape with a resting heart rate in the high 40's.

Person B is not in great physical/cardio shape with a resting heart rate in the high 80's.

Yet they would both have the same heart rate zones, because they are calculated based on "220-y".

I'm missing something.

Edit: I can't decide if the person whose resting heart rate is low should have a lower peak rate (because of low resting rate) or a high peak rate because of a "stronger" heart.

Left the vacuum doing its normal vacuuming. Came back after it should have completed the job. Found it wandering around, lost. Checked the ap and observed that the map was "new map" and it had apparently begun creating a totally new map of the house (perhaps explaining why it was wandering around). I tried to send it home, but it didn't know how to get there (based on observing it spinning in circles, going to a different roughly mapped room, spinning in circles, etc. So I paused it and brough it back to its dock. Then loaded the correct map, which luckily it had saved. That map showed what appeared to be a completed vacuuming job. History showed that it had completed the normal job also.

ALSO -- perhaps key to the event: There was a notification indicating that it had encountered a cliff. NO indication anywhere in the ap as to where that cliff might have been encountered.

1 capful of the solution in a tank of water.

Mops at night.

In morning all the floors it has mopped have a slight tackiness to them.

Medium water flow for the mop sequence.

I can't swear to it, because I didn't think it was something I should have been paying attention to, but it could be that the tackiness has slowly developed after 'm' mop operations. It would make sense in that there is no rinsing. The machine is basically just laying down a very thin sheet of mop water with solution in it.

update: The cap holds 3/4 oz. The tank is 4 Liters (I didn't measure it, but that's what Roborock specs state). The direction on the bottle are to dilute it at a 1:200 ratio, or put 1 capful in 4 Liters of water. Therefore I put 1 capful in the 4 Liter tank (the docking station tank). Interestingly, the math indicates that to be a ration of 1:187 (if using imperial measures) or 1:180 (if using US measures).

1 capful of the solution in a tank of water.

Mops at night.

In morning all the floors it has mopped have a slight tackiness to them.

Medium water flow for the mop sequence.

I can't swear to it, because I didn't think it was something I should have been paying attention to, but it could be that the tackiness has slowly developed after 'm' mop operations. It would make sense in that there is no rinsing. The machine is basically just laying down a very thin sheet of mop water with solution in it.

update: The cap holds 3/4 oz. The tank is 4 Liters (I didn't measure it, but that's what Roborock specs state). The direction on the bottle are to dilute it at a 1:200 ratio, or put 1 capful in 4 Liters of water. Therefore I put 1 capful in the 4 Liter tank (the docking station tank). Interestingly, the math indicates that to be a ration of 1:187 (if using imperial measures) or 1:180 (if using US measures).

Without doing anything different at all, I am getting a solid 1 1/2 hours additional sleep every night!

Running my new QX Revo Ultra 2 with the LiDAR Sensor Lowering option "Extreme Clearance" enabled. This is seriously "extreme clearance". It lowered the LiDAR and literally squeezed under a cabinet with zero clearance. Because the cabinet is not perfectly the same on both ends, when it tried to come out the other end it was just barely (microns) too high and could not scrape through.

An interesting functionality I was not aware of with these units: If they can't get over or through something (it turns out) the unit will back up a bit and kick into a High Speed I didn't know they even had and then go forward in order to ram itself over the threshold or, in this particular case, under a cabinet lip. It worked. It managed to ram its way out from under the cabinet.

On the subject of "high speed ramming" mode -- On a particular threshold like feature it go somewhat high-centered and so appeared to start alternating one wheel and then the other into high speed mode in order to rock itself over the feature. Very interesting to watch.

Just finished installing and playing/testing out the new QX Revo Ultra 2 (Costco). Observations/experiences:

update: It may seem like this is all bad, but that's because my expectation is that it works well so I don't comment much on "yup, that works". If something doesn't work as well as I expected/hoped for, it becomes a "bad".

The "bad":

1. It sucked up a few larger than normal pieces of dirt/mud (fell off bottom of a shoe). Kudos for cleaning it up. However, it ended up blowing them back out the exhaust port where the dock sucks out the on-board dust bin. It wasn't immediate. I followed it around for a bit wondering what that strange object was that was sticking out the side of it. I finally Paused it and observed it was the exhaust port cover (a piece of rubber) and a dirt chunk was half-way out.
2. I was tracking it via the UI (map) on my phone. Next thing I new the UI was showing the robot back at the dock charging yet in fact the robot was still just vacuuming away (the little white path line was updating but there was no vacuum). Eventually (many minutes) it went back to normal, showing the robot as it cleaned and nothing at the Dock.
3. Creating the schedules/routines is ANNOYING. Very poorly implemented. Good luck figuring it out and remembering how the next time. It was same on the previous QX Revo Plus that I had for a week. Nothing new to the Ultra 2 on that point.
4. The QX Revo Plus I had -- worth nothing here that it had a tendency to wander around like it forgot what it was doing in the middle of a task. It would be in the middle of a room and then decide to go wander about in another room or two (not vacuuming, just wandering as though it had a destination). Then it would return to the task, vacuum a bit, then wander off again. Very strange. Maybe I'll look around to see if this is a bug that got identified and then fixed for the Ultra 2 firmware. There's always a chance, slim as it might be.
5. (updates): Object Avoidance ends up avoiding by a significant margin. Several inches or more to the point where it refuses to go into areas around/behind "objects" even though there is plenty of room. It then tends to get stuck trying to figure out a path away/out of the area, spending significant time spinning in circles before finally getting out.
6. A very clunky interface for adding things like "pet bowl". Similarly, to remove a "cat bowl" you have to "add furniture" to then select existing furniture and delete it. Wasn't intuitive for me. I was expecting "delete furniture". The sizing and placement is suspect, trying to place a "cat bowl" in a specific orientation to the walls is trial and error as there is no way to know how close your item actually is to boundaries.
7. There is an option "vacuum carpets first" in the "Vacuum Carpets Only" options and only if "Vacuum Only" is selected. This doesn't make a lot of sense. It is about whether or not to leave the mop-heads behind (at the dock). The result is that with this selected, even though you aren't mopping anything at all it will first leave the mop pads behind, then go vacuum all the carpets in the house, then go back and pick up the mop heads, and vacuum the rest of the house (even though it isn't mopping anything). Unclear what the point of this option is.
8. It has the ability to add curtains. See #6 of "bad". I imagine this will then consider them an object to avoid (see #5 above) and swing WAY far away from curtains. A preference might be (like for me) to in fact go ahead and vacuum/mop under the curtains, simply pushing them aside. But it doesn't do that. The mapping /navigation goes around curtains.
9. "Deep Cleaning for Heavy Dirt or Stains" (Beta) - This is really a problem with the units inability to distinguish a stain/dirt from an artifact of the surface itself. Hardwood floor (in my case) with a variation in the surface coloring (it is old). The unit will pick out random places where it decides there is a "stain or heavy dirt" when in fact it is perfectly clean. It then goes around and around and around and around.....for a very long time mopping and vacuuming and mopping and vacuuming....until finally either it gives up (the algorithm says "try to clean this for five minutes and bail") OR it actually thinks the area is now clean when in fact it is exactly as it was before. I suspect the former. It doesn't actually "look" to see if it is clean but rather it is hard-coded to just spend 'x' minutes cleaning and then move on.

The "good":

1. It identified the pedestal mounting of some tables, avoided going up onto the pedestal, and posted a picture of the pedestal. You can tell it to ignore it if you want to, in which case (I assume) the next time it will try and go up onto the pedestal (the QX Revo Plus would just go up onto the pedestal and try to vacuumm/map it, making all sorts of unhealthy sounding noise). Similarly for lamp poles and such. It posts a picture, says it appears to be a lamp pole, and allows you to tell it to ignore it (as in try to vacuum it).
2. I like the way it lowers the Lidar when going under object it might otherwise not be able to fit under.
3. I like the extra little whirly "brush" arm that goes out when it turns inside corners. It doesn't always do it, though, interestingly. I'll study it more to see if there is an obvious reason.
4. Fun, but of questionable utility: You can turn on video and voice so you can remotely see where it is going and speak through it. I guess so you can check if there are teenagers having a party in your absence and then scold them? "Hey, all of you kids go home right now!". Tried to chase our cat around with it, but it wasn't having anything to do with it. WAY too slow to actually chase anything. More like "look for it".
5. Relating to #3 -- It has a Pet mode where you can tell it to go find a pet. I've not figured out how it will know if it is your pet. It did find a fuzzy coat while vacuuming it and identified it as "a pet" and posted a picture. It is VERY slow when looking for a pet. VERY thorough in every room. The "pet" would have to be soundly sleeping in a place where the robot could see it. Again, questionable utility.
6. You can drive it around VERY VERY SLOWLY like a remote control car. Turn on the video, etc.. Sounds way funner than it turns out to be.

I've not mopped anything with it yet.

update on "good"

7. see #6 of "bad" -- It sounds quite handy to be able to define "pet stations" and set cleaning mode to do extra cleaning on "pet stations". If it works. I've not yet tried it because of #6 "bad".

8. mopping is nice. It doesn't do a "hands and knees" type mopping/scrubbing. But so long as one stays on top of things it is like a good quick once-over with a damp mop (with no pressure on the mop). I guess good for getting that last bit of dust up after vacuuming or lightly soiled areas like if you dripped tomato sauce on the floor when cooking dinner. The little arm with the mop pad that extends is slick, going into corners and along edges fairly well (the robot in general is not totally on top of corners as it pertains to extending the arms).

I see that there is a firmware update for the ZenWifi XT9.

I am paranoid about updating. The system works fine. I HATE messing around with firmware updates that could bring my system to a halt.

my current firmware: 3.0.0.4.388_24768-g3135ff7

Update: 3.0.0.4.388_24814-g4979b32

I don't want to update firmware just to find out what the new version is and THEN find out that specific version is buggy. I would rather find out before I update.

Also would like to be able to know what was changed before using it (bug fixes, enhancements, etc.).

UPDATE (so I will mark as Resolved):

From Asus tech support: "Hello, Thank you for your inquiry and for being an ASUS customer. We understand your concern regarding firmware updates, especially when your ZenWiFi XT9 system is currently operating without issues. Many users prefer to avoid unnecessary changes to a stable network environment, and that is completely understandable. The update from 3.0.0.4.388_24768 to 3.0.0.4.388_24814 is an incremental firmware release within the same firmware branch. Updates of this nature typically include a combination of security enhancements, stability improvements, bug fixes, and compatibility optimizations. If your network is functioning normally, there is no requirement to install the update immediately. However, we generally recommend keeping firmware reasonably up to date, particularly when security-related improvements are included. Before updating, we recommend the following:

•Review the official firmware release notes to understand what changes are included. •Create a backup of your current router configuration through the web interface. •Perform the update during a period when temporary network downtime will not be disruptive. •Ensure the router remains powered on throughout the update process.

If you are currently satisfied with the performance and reliability of your XT9 system, there is no immediate need to update solely for the sake of being on the latest version. The decision should be based on whether the fixes and improvements in the release notes are relevant to your environment."

I can't find the MAC address of my RoboRock QA Revo Plus. So far recommendations I find are to go to the "Product Info" page of the ap. But I don't find it there. I find a "UID" but it has eight bytes rather than six (MAC addresses have six). None of the bytes correlate with any MAC address on my network, although the vacuum is definitely connected.

Why? Because I always like to give devices on my network a "real world" name so I can easily spot new devices. I.E. I would name this one "RoboRockQX".

update: Although I am still interested in where one could find this (curiosity) I have figured out what the MAC address is (I was looking too hard in my network connections and kept passing right over it, the device is already logically named "roborock-vaccumm-xxxx". LOL.

If the H5051 Thermometer/Hygrometer) is within good(great) range of my wifi router, as my phone does when in the same location as the H5051, shouldn't it always be connected via wifi?

I am noticing it seems to drop to bluetooth and then disconnects. I then have to go stand next to it to establish bluetooth connection and then have to reconfigure wifi to have it connected via wifi.

This doesn't seem normal. But possibly I'm not understanding the Govee implementation.

New Qrevo Plus. I observe it vacuuming a space and see it stop vacuuming in the midst of a carpet and roam around a bit before then coming back to the place it was and then continuing with the job.

Anyone else?

I just connected two new remote sensors from a two-pack. They both read 3-4 degrees higher than the thermostat itself as well as two other remote sensors and three separate non-ecobee sensors. The original six sensors all read within 1 degree of each other (withing 1 degree of the average).

Is this indication that both of them (the new pair) are defective?

I had to perform some electrical involving the electricity to my furnace and, subsequently, the main power to the Ecobee stat.

From the timing on the beestat data, the last data point looks to be right around the time I took power down (I did not mark the exact time, no reason to). Once I powered everything back up and hour later and checked beestat data I see that it hasn't updated since that time. I exit and enter beestat, it goes through its "fetching" routine, but in the end there still is no further data.

Ideas?

Note: I've not found the better way to ask questions nor to report problems, hence this post on the off-chance some other user has observed this before.

I sat in bed reading a book, then put the book aside, turned out the light, and went to sleep.

As usual, Fitbit sleep counted the time I was reading a book as "awake time".

Before this Google Health ap, I could simply edit the session and correct the start time.

Now, although I can edit it, I can not save it. Google tells me I can not do this because it "overlaps with another sleep time"....the one that I am editing....????....duh?