The author details their journey from commercial smart speakers like Google Nest and Amazon Echo to building custom open-source voice assistants using ESP32-based hardware, ESPHome, and Home Assistant, highlighting benefits like privacy, control, and cost savings.
The author details their switch from Google Docs to Outline, a free and open-source collaborative editor, highlighting its simplicity, Slack integration, privacy features, and sufficient functionality for their needs, despite some missing features like advanced table creation and detailed version history.
Huginn is presented as a robust, open-source alternative to IFTTT, offering greater customization, privacy through self-hosting, and the ability to handle complex workflows with API integrations. While it requires more technical expertise than IFTTT, it provides significantly more power and control.
