iFixit made the proper equipment for all of your tiny residence repairs

Hi, buddies! Welcome to Installer No. 135, your information to the very best and Verge-iest stuff on this planet. (If you’re new right here, welcome, crank the AC, and likewise you’ll be able to learn all of the outdated editions on the Installer homepage.)

This week, I’ve been studying about cold plunges and Colson Whitehead and the food truck mafia, lastly attending to the theater to see Obsession, watching The Agency as a result of it’s apparently everybody’s favourite underrated present, nodding sadly to Adam Conover’s video about the death of sitcoms, making quite a lot of noises in the course of the Dune: Part Three trailer, testing Atlas as a visible journal, laughing endlessly on the new InfoWars, and slowly perfecting the artwork of constructing s’mores on the grill.

I even have for you an inexpensive toolkit value preserving round, a pair of earbuds you may need to attempt, a pleasant new spin on toys for adults, and extra.

And don’t overlook to inform me about your studying setup! I’ve been loving all of your cool Kindle hacks, enjoyable book-shopping tips, and the numerous methods to get stuff off the web and onto your studying machine. Tell me extra! I need to hear all of it! More to return on that subsequent week. For now, let’s get into it.

(As all the time, the very best a part of Installer is your concepts and suggestions. What are you watching / studying / taking part in / listening to / shopping for on Blu-ray this week? Tell me every thing: installer@theverge.com. And if you already know another person who may take pleasure in Installer, ahead it to them and inform them to subscribe right here.)

Ian Bogost is one among my favourite writers on tech, as a result of he all the time appears to be asking the appropriate query: Is any of this new know-how good for us as individuals? I’ve come again many instances to his love letter to landlines, his clarification for why email sucks, and plenty of others.

Ian has a guide out this week referred to as The Small Stuff: How to Lead a More Gratifying Life, which solutions the identical query in a much wider and albeit far more weird means. His argument is that we’ve fully misplaced contact with the world round us, each figuratively and actually, and that we have to discover methods to get it again. To clarify any extra would make me sound like your excessive buddy speaking about their very own hand, however that’s type of the enjoyable of it. (If you need to hear that, I had Ian on The Vergecast this week, and it was nice. And form of trippy.)

I requested Ian to share his homescreen with us this week, however let him decide which machine he wished to share. I wasn’t positive what he’d decide as his digital residence, however I positive didn’t count on Homebridge! I like it, although. Here it’s, plus some data on what he makes use of and why:

The machine: This is the plugin web page — form of just like the apps web page — for my residence’s Homebridge set up. Homebridge is server software program that makes smart-home gadgets that don’t work natively with Apple’s home-automation app seem and function within the Apple Home app. It’s a reasonably nerdy factor, and it requires working an always-on server, so it’s not for everybody. But it’s, apparently, for me.

The wallpaper: You most likely thought the reply was “what wallpaper?” however no, even server software program that no one sees permits personalization. Mine is working the Orange theme in Dark mode. (Other choices embody Purple and Deep Purple. I suppose I must also admit that Orange is the default.)

The apps: So a lot occurring right here. Bond permits me to manage ceiling followers from Apple Home. Pico permits me to reprogram Lutron Pico wall change remotes to do something I would like — equivalent to controlling ceiling followers or opening storage doorways and gates.

Speaking of which, Garage Door Shelly1 connects a Shelly relay that I soldered to a non-code-cycling, oldschool gate distant, which opens the gate on the finish of the alley behind my home, which implies I can press a button in Carplay and open it, my storage door, and unlock my home. UniFi Protect makes my Ubiquiti safety cameras seem in Home — and likewise helps my doorbell work (lengthy story). No cloud — I retailer all my digital camera footage domestically on a 24TB RAID in my basement. Having all that supposed surveillance truly makes my home appear extra boring and fewer attention-grabbing — a subject I wrote about for The Atlantic just a few years in the past.

I additionally requested Ian to share just a few issues he’s into proper now. Here’s what he despatched again:

Here’s what the Installer group is into this week. I need to know what you’re into proper now as effectively! Email installer@theverge.com or message me on Signal — @davidpierce.11 — along with your suggestions for something and every thing, and we’ll function a few of our favorites right here each week. For much more nice suggestions, try the replies to this post on Threads and this post on Bluesky.

“Re-reading Neuromancer following Apple TV’s latest teaser. The Verge is totally right on Apple TV crushing sci-fi shows.” — Austin

“Playing the new puzzle game 4 x 3.” — Rohit

“Really loving Myke Hurley’s podcasts, hard to pick just one, but his Designed in California Kickstarter with Jason Snell on the history of Apple just completed with $300K raised. Pretty cool!” — Rowan

“I spent a few hours setting up a new Brother printer for my mom. It’s like the opposite of enshittification. Reasonable prices and it just prints. It shouldn’t be a breath of fresh air, but it is.” — Ben

“Reading the so-far excellent but bittersweet Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro, before Taika Waititi’s movie version comes out in October.” — Gatherer Hunter

“I took my Sony Aibo ERS210 out of my mom’s attic to bring back to the US. But it didn’t fit in my luggage… So I will need to come up with another plan.” — Bart

“This video about the development of Western musical scales and notation was not only fascinating, but the production value was off the charts. Highly recommended even if you don’t know a ton of music theory!” — Arden

“The new The Ghost in the Shell anime on Amazon Prime is fantastic, true to the manga and done by the same studio that did Dan Da Dan! Only one episode out so far but I’m already psyched.” — Ryan

“‘The Story Behind Star Wars Galaxies’ Notorious Jedi Problem.’ Best interview / video I’ve watched on YouTube in a while. It’s a fascinating story of developing software for millions of users. Specifically the central role psychology plays, and whether the best interests of users can ever be reconciled with the incentives of corporations.” — JStaal

The unhappy product information of the week is that TV Time, which a lot of individuals use to search out and observe their favourite exhibits, is shutting down. And you solely have till July fifteenth (subsequent Wednesday) to get your information out. The higher information: Basically each different app on this class has since constructed a TV Time importer! You can import your information right into a service like JustWatch, or use an Installerverse favourite media tracker like Trakt, Sofa, or Sequel, all of which have importers. Make positive you do that all ASAP, as a result of dropping years of monitoring information would actually suck. Here’s hoping that is the final of those apps to vanish for a very long time to return.