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There are a lot of opinions around this, from experts and non-experts alike. Tidal and others are built on the premise that "lossless" audio is better. Even Spotify is finally jumping on the bandwagon and offering lossless quality sound. Apple has had it for years. But can you really tell? There are so many other variables at play, besides the compression: the quality of your headphones or speakers, the computer and/or amplifier, the conditions of your listening environment (i.e. your room), your own age and ears,... I personally believe almost nobody can tell the difference between a 320 Kbps compressed recording and a lossless one in 99% of the situations. This whole "lossless" movement is marketing and hype, despite what the audiophiles will tell you.

If you want to experience it for yourself, try the classic NPR audio test. It's been around for over a decade and it's still just as relevant as it was:

NPR: How Well Can You Hear Audio Quality?

I would say I have a good number of smart home features deployed around my house. It's an older home, from the 1950s, and so I have had to add smart features on my own.

Today I will talk about my vibration sensors. I have a few deployed around the house. They do things like tell when when the pool pump starts and stops, when the pool heater starts and stops, or when mail is delivered! Not terribly exciting stuff, but I like the metadata, having a log of events that I can trace in the event of any issues.

These sensors are tiny, and very easy to setup. They work with a gateway and use "LoRa" technology (and not WiFi). LoRa is a form of long range communication (up to 1/4 mile, open air) which allows for operation in larger homes and in areas difficult for other wireless systems, such as basements, separate garages/structures, and even outside your home. It uses 923.3 mHz Chirp Spread-Spectrum long range & low power. They are power by 2 AAA batteries. The brand I use is YoLink. They work well, and I use the YoLink app on my phone to setup and control them. They are also Alexa-compatible.

Below is an illustration of the sensor telling me my package arrived 5 minutes before eBay notified me (which is very good for eBay)

What is cool is that you can also adjust the sensitivity, so that a big truck for example won't trigger the sensor when driving by. I have the mail sensor at 4 on the 10 scale.

You can also configure how you receive the notifications, whether they are push or text or email notifications. Overall, it's neat little system. Reliability seems acceptable but not perfect. When sensors are far from the house they may drop off the network occasionally. If they are within a reasonable range, they are rock solid.

One of us hanging out on the front porch over the weekend, and one of Laia and Sofia at Sofia's middle school orientation last week.

And off they go, 8th and 6th grades respectively....