I'm a techie person, often an early adopter. I bought an iPhone the very first day the first one was released. I love playing with and setting up new gadgets. But I keep looking at home automation and find myself thinking "what's the point?" I just haven't seen any killer applications or use cases that make me think this is something I would value. A friend of mine is kind of into it, and his best demo is using his Google Home to turn his lights blue and play music. Fun trick, but not something I need.

Does anyone here have examples of really valuable or killer use cases in their smarthome setup? For what it's worth, I live with my spouse and 2 young kids, we have a small 2-floor apartment that we rent, we already use our programmable thermostat, and we don't own a TV.

I recently had the pleasure of spending some time in a Bed and Breakfast that had a full Sonos system throughout the house. Ever since then, I've been a bit underwhelmed with my poor man's equivalent (a Google Home Mini in every room).

Right around the time Sonos announced the Beam soundbar, I came to the realization that the issues I've had with my Vizio soundbar aren't a one-time defect, and are instead a fundamental incompatibility with my TV. (Basically, my soundbar will randomly power off when connected to my TV, even when sound is playing). I'm hoping that the Beam doesn't have the same issue, so I'm considering getting the Beam and two Play:1s to replace my current 5.1 system.

I'm curious: for those of you with Sonos speakers (both in the home theater and outside!), what are your experiences? What are some of the things you love, and what are some of the things you wish Sonos would improve?

I have a gaming laptop that I mostly used as a desktop (bought used, was a good price) with external screen and devices attached. This past Sunday, I was wiping the dust off it and noticed that the trackpad felt oddly curved, then I also noticed that entire device body was slightly bloated as... which led to the discovery that the battery is swollen and that it needs to be replaced.

But I wouldn't have noticed it otherwise if I hadn't been cleaning my desk that day. It's placed on the far side of my desk on a laptop stand (although well ventilated) so I rarely pay attention to it, if at all. It might have gone on for much longer and eventually led to a disaster before I even caught on to the problem.

So, my question is: how does one track these potential hardware problems without having to manually inspect different parts of the device every now and then?

(While my device is a laptop with W10 OS, the question isn't limited to just that. Inputs for Mac and other related products are also welcomed.)

Next week the EU parliament will vote for their new copyright directive. In general it contains some good ideas, but also some extremely bad ones, such as article 13. It will require all uploaded content to be scanned, and deleted if it might contain references to other copyrighted material.

The issue here is the word might. Due to the possible fines for companies that accidentally leave up something that contains a copyrighted work, they are incentivized to act more harsh than often necessary. It's safer for them to delete everything that looks like it might infringe copyright than risk the fine.

This could be disastrous for the Internet as we know it. And this is why many movements are speaking out against it. One such example would be the open letter to EU parliament. More information is available on https://saveyourinternet.eu/resources/, and you can find much more about it all over the Internet if you search with your favourite search engine.

What's your opinion on article 13, and have you done anything to make your voice heard?

One of my friends said "hey why did you unfollow me" I check my following list (witch is really hidden deep into the gui) and I see I went from following 2k (from when I check a few months back) to follow 600 people. WHAT HAPPENED, so now I'm freaking out franticly making sure I didn't lose anyone.

I'm not sure if this is the right place for this, so please let me know if I should post this to a different group instead.

I have 3 drives on my current PC, but the C: drive is almost full (it keeps bouncing around between 2-1 GB left) and it seems to be slowing some programs down. Most noticeably Audacity stores temporary files in C: while I am working on large files and it often changes wait times on an edit to upwards of 30 seconds (meaning literally nothing happens for 15-45 seconds and then the change takes place, even if it's only a simple few second deletion).

Is there a way to set my D: or E: drive as the default drive of the computer so I can clear out some space on my C: drive and use the extra space I have on those drives? Thanks for any help or information you can give me.

Hi there everyone. I gave up on smart watches after Pebble sold out to fitbit and my OG Pebble started having screen issues (again). I never watched to spend hundreds on a smart watch or switch to the iOS ecosystem to use an Apple watch.

I was wondering if anyone here has had success with any other watches after having to give up their Pebble, something with a great battery life and good notification features without resorting to terrible china-watches.

Hope you have a great day!