Home Gadget Geeks

From Prime Day to Power Play: Jim’s Solar Experiment Begins – HGG653

Home Gadget Geeks

Show Notes

I recently kicked off a solar power project at home to test the efficiency of two 100-watt, 18-volt bifacial panels I picked up for $99 each during Prime week. The goal is to see how they perform in different areas of my property and learn how to optimize small-scale solar setups. I’ve added some essential tools to my kit—crimping tools, wire strippers, and connectors—and I’m running everything through a BLUETTI AC180 inverter with a 500-watt MPPT controller. I chose to wire the panels in parallel to ensure that shading on one doesn’t compromise the output of the other. To monitor

More from Home Gadget Geeks

Oct 17, 2026

Erin Lawrence returns to HGG692 with IFA Berlin robotics, DJI cameras, ECOVACS robot vacuums, AI TVs, Mazda CX-70, GM Super Cruise, smart lighting and the question of whether smarter gadgets are becoming too complicated.

Oct 3, 2026

Phil Hawthorne joins me to talk Home Assistant AI automation, the upcoming 2026.10 release, Tesla Full Self-Driving, smarter energy monitoring, climate zones and a 3D-printed presence-sensor planter. We also discover why my Home Assistant Container installation had fallen several releases behind.

Sep 26, 2026

Gavin Campbell is back, and this one turns into a tour of what happens when Home Assistant stops being a dashboard and starts becoming the operating system for the house. We talk through Gavin’s first Tesla, garage-door automation, water and leak monitoring, ESPHome projects, lawn and soil sensors, emergency power, camera systems and the growing role AI can play in making sense of all that home data.

Sep 19, 2026

Do kids need a full smartphone just to stay in touch? Mike Wieger joins me for HGG689 with a different answer: push-to-talk-over-cellular radios built around simple family communication. We also dig into practical off-site backups with Unraid, TrueNAS, ZFS and Tailscale, Apollo and Moonlight for using one gaming PC from almost anywhere, and Frigate 0.18 for a much easier local-camera and NVR setup. For a broader setup walkthrough, see the complete guide to Frigate and Home Assistant. Chapters / Timestamps Guest Context Mike Wieger returns to Home Gadget Geeks with three practical technology topics aimed at parents, gamers and homelab

Sep 5, 2026

Jay Franze joins HGG688 to discuss concert photography gear, Nikon cameras, RAW workflows, redundant backups, AI photo editing, mastering and spatial audio.

See all episodes →