This Week with Taylor & Gordon

Opening night of Gordon’s play – Taylor has been helping backstage, with a full update next week

Taylor has been sorting out his smart home with Home Assistant

Making the home feel smart – automations that work without needing to open a dashboard

Motion-controlled lighting, with guest and sleep modes to stop lights coming on when they shouldn’t

Using pen.dev to design a custom Home Assistant interface

Working out which controls need to be one tap away by noticing what you use most often

Local voice control, with commands that understand which room you’re in

A rotating desk display showing calendar events, tasks, door and window status, and the alarm

Countdowns for when to leave – traffic-aware travel times are still to be added

Automatically switching on a meeting light when Taylor is home, and turning everything off when he leaves

Gordon has been 3D printing good luck presents for his fellow cast members

Old, brittle filament breaking in the feed tubes and causing failed prints

Keeping filament dry – checking humidity and refreshing the silica gel beads in the AMS

Finding a way to reactivate the silica gel rather than throwing it away

Using ChatGPT to turn the successful process into a visual guide, saved in Evernote for next time

Documenting jobs you don’t do often so you don’t have to work them out again

SOPs – standard operating procedures – help you follow each step and avoid forgetting anything

Making processes available to the team so you aren’t the only person who knows how to do a task

Taylor recommends Layla at ProcessDriven for advice on documenting business processes – https://processdriven.co/

Keeping instructions visual, easy to find and updated when things change

Visit the website: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk

Drayson Design Website – https://www.draysondesign.com

Facebook: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk/facebook

* Full transcript will be available on the website. We may receive a referral fee from any of our links which help towards the costs involved in creating this content for you.

pen.dev – https://pen.dev

Figma alternative – which connects to agents and MCP

Creating components

Thinking about the UI

Starting with the look of the finished product

AI makes people think less

Keeping control of the project

Speeds up progress

It has access to your codebase and can build factually

Checking accessibility

Building in vector – makes it easier to build the project

BYOK – Bring Your Own Key

Free and Paid options – 5 agent days for free per month

Really clever pricing model

Once the design is done the coding doesn’t need to ask as many questions

Cloud Claude – need to look into it – https://code.claude.com/docs/en/claude-code-on-the-web

Claude Mods is brand new – https://www.claudemod.com/

Create mods that run within Claude

Examples – Progress bar for Claude steps – see how far it is along

What’s Next – suggest 3 things you can do next

Cache Control – 1 hour server side cache

Create context handover, clearing the chat and adding handover

Video with some good Claude Mods: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5JSvXig3Ig&t=333s

Visit the website: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk

Drayson Design Website – https://www.draysondesign.com

Facebook: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk/facebook

* Full transcript will be available on the website. We may receive a referral fee from any of our links which help towards the costs involved in creating this content for you.

Murder in the Mine

The audience get to ask questions of the cast to figure out who did it

Recording the lines to then listen to it

ChatGPT was brought into service to fix issues

I needed a personal mp3 with just my cue lines and my lines so I could listen just mine

It suggested a recording with gaps the length of my line to allow me to speak it

I ended up with two versions with the line and without, adding a gap

Tip: Tell AI not to cut off words at the cut

I was surprised that AI was able to do this – however it worked really well

What else can it do that you don’t already know about

Flat cleaning and organisation

Neat workspaces are supposed to give you more productivity – not sure it that is true

Water Softener installed – helps with cleaning, keeps your pipes clear of limescale

Less detergent needed when washing

Drinking water, when you are not used to it ,shouldn’t be softened – leave it as a bypass

Taylor’s soft water has an app which you can bring data into Home Assistant

Visit the website: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk

Drayson Design Website – https://www.draysondesign.com

Facebook: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk/facebook

* Full transcript will be available on the website. We may receive a referral fee from any of our links which help towards the costs involved in creating this content for you.

Waveshare ESP32 -C6 – a small low-cost, low-power system on a chip microcontroller with WiFi and Bluetooth

It has a 1.47″ screen, and needs USB C plugged in for power

Claude was then given access and it flashed the software I designed onto it

Spark Graph to see  Solar Generation vs House Load

Also purchased an ESP32 JC243W328C 2.8″ touchscreen

Printed 3D cases for both of them – once again no battery so needs plugging in

Small one was used for Solar Generation details at a glance

Larger one for a Dashboard of sorts that shows me Home Assistant details

Showing main details for the rooms in the house and the family members that are in or out

They can be programmed to show whatever you need or want

YouTube video that started me off – https://youtu.be/Zvb01TRY6UY

ESP32-C6, 1.47″ screen on Amazon – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DS9VSD9W

ESP32 – 2.8″ touch screen – JC2432W328C – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0D5H84RDB

ESP32-S3 Round Touch Display – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DMJZPH2R

Reactions, Comments and Web mentions on Taylor’s Website

23 Days work – the scope keep changing and expanding

Adding emoji, likes and mentions to each activity

Pulling in from other apps around the web like Strava etc.

Thinking through mentioning other people or articles, including his own

Scope creep is not normally great for developers

Go take a look to see on his website: https://taylordrayson.com

Visit the website: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk

Drayson Design Website – https://www.draysondesign.com

Facebook: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk/facebook

* Full transcript will be available on the website. We may receive a referral fee from any of our links which help towards the costs involved in creating this content for you.

The jumper is on, it’s getting colder.

Spatie / Bloom – GitHub repository

Worktrees in parallel

Setup and startup scripts

Icons showing the states

Keep an eye on all projects

Open Source – free to use

Limitations – Herd app didn’t work due to hard coding

Devs fixed the issue

Agents able to now view their work and check it

Lots of alternatives, but this is being used by the company developing it so it should continue development

Spatie / Bloom – https://github.com/spatie/bloom

Apple News – September Announcements

iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max announced

I have been upgrading every 2 years, and so am looking at the 18 Pro

Look after the iPhone so you get a better trade in value

Trade in is safer than selling it privately

AirPods 5 and Apple Watch 12 and Ultra 4, plus the big reveal which looks interesting but not something I want to purchase at this time

Making sure you know is available and what they can do

Researching the upgrades to see what benefit I will get

Knowing if the upgrade will do what you want in the future

Software updates that give you new functionality

Checking software compatibility so you don’t have to downgrade

Know the capabilities of your existing and next gen hardware and software

I’ll let you know what I decide

Visit the website: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk

Drayson Design Website – https://www.draysondesign.com

Facebook: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk/facebook

* Full transcript will be available on the website. We may receive a referral fee from any of our links which help towards the costs involved in creating this content for you.

Getting Back To Normal

Christmas, Summer Holiday, Easter – normal schedules change

Everyone is now back and things are going back to normal

Available for Events for adults – https://www.pipkennedy.co.uk

Busy Bar now shows me shows that are happening that day

Lots of backups to make sure I don’t miss a show

Making Tax Digital is taking me more time than expected as I had to move to a new application

Matching transaction between accounts, has caused issues when re-importing

Do you have seasonal times like this?

Life Characters to personal website

Including pets, places and people

Adding tags so you can see interactions with these entities

Framework has been created nothing showing on the website yet

Visit the website: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk

Drayson Design Website – https://www.draysondesign.com

Facebook: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk/facebook

* Full transcript will be available on the website. We may receive a referral fee from any of our links which help towards the costs involved in creating this content for you.

We are back after the holiday break

Taylor’s personal website is now online

Rebuilding to make sure it doesn’t easily break like the previous versions

Keeping automations and syncing out of services like Make or another 3rd party

Scalability was important with this amount of data

Tracking sleep, food, flights, activities, notes, and loads more

Data is fascinating, and thats why tracking it is so interesting

It will never be complete it is a playground that will have things added to it continually

Web Mentions is something that could be added soon

Visit it at: https://taylordrayson.com

Search facility works really well – with and / or ability

Stories take data and make them into an interesting story

2500 days tracked so far

Solar Panels – looking into them

20 years ago it wasn’t as attractive as it is now

Louis from Discover Solar came round to speak with me – https://discoversolar.uk/

Battery technology has improved and are much more efficient now – powering your house overnight when there is no light

Fuel costs continue to rise, so now is a good time to look into this.

I went for a 16 panel, 11 kWh battery and a 6 kWh Inverter

Spoke to other companies but they quoted on the wrong house and the other asked for my annual usage and then they didn’t contact me back

Went with Louis as he answered all my questions, took time out of his day to come and see me, and I felt like I could trust him

They are all on the back roof so you don’t see them from the front – 25 years warranty on the panels and 10 years on the inverter and battery

Not getting credit on the electricity I am sending back yet

Should be a good investment in the long run

Visit the website: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk

Drayson Design Website – https://www.draysondesign.com

Facebook: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk/facebook

* Full transcript will be available on the website. We may receive a referral fee from any of our links which help towards the costs involved in creating this content for you.

Unified Calendar

When sharing a calendar with people it gets difficult to manage

When you have group activities there are duplicate entries

Creating a custom calendar that hides duplicate entries

Create different custom calendars as required

Writing notes in events could still be a challenge

Keeping event details in the diary where you would expect to find them

Concept is working – control panel coming

Home Assistant – Busy Bar

Creating notifications on the screen in case I miss the audio announcements

Writing apps for the device – not available yet – but will be great when it is

Making Instagram followers as an app

Dashboard is a real mess in Home Assistant – needs organising

Big job ahead of me

Decided on the look and style, just need to work out the layout now

Dark theme as a test

New people sensor to show who is home and who isn’t – added thumbnail images and coloured borders

Cards should grow when it is clickable

Layout and figuring out the way things are organised

Integration to show which bins are due

How is Taylor getting on with Home Assistant

Lots of decisions to be made to make it autonomous

Making it more informational rather than controls

Showing information when it is relevant

Visit the website: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk

Drayson Design Website – https://www.draysondesign.com

Facebook: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk/facebook

* Full transcript will be available on the website. We may receive a referral fee from any of our links which help towards the costs involved in creating this content for you.

Code Workflow

Touching the same files with different agents confuses things

Using worktrees and separate branches

Reviewing code to make sure they are as expected

Too many files to check easily

20 issues can be separate and open a new branch for each one, set up an agent and then merge

Paid vs Free GitHub Account

.env security

Busy Bar – https://busy.app/

Pomodoro Timer with a display

Developer toolkit

Connects to Matter and Wifi

Turn on Focus Mode on your mobile when you are busy

Have it show you when something has completed using Home Automation

If it makes your life better then the high cost may be worth it for you

Next meeting shown on the display

Mono screen on the back

We will report back

Visit the website: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk

Drayson Design Website – https://www.draysondesign.com

Facebook: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk/facebook

* Full transcript will be available on the website. We may receive a referral fee from any of our links which help towards the costs involved in creating this content for you.

A hot week

End of the school year shows

Zen Browser – https://zen-browser.app/

A calmer internet – reimagined ways to browse the internet

Left sidebar tabs – keeping your browsing area clean

Taylor didn’t like Chromium based browsers and this one uses the Firefox framework

Three different frameworks available – Chromium, Webkit and Mozilla

Browsers adopting newer technologies

Build your website based on the browser that your visitors are likely to be using

Panto auditions – I will be playing the part of Dame in January 2027

Before that I am in “Murder in the Mine” with ATG

Booked Solid OS has a new owner, right after I purchased it

Collect, triage and draft replies for emails

Non-birthday parties don’t currently have a follow up sequence so Booked Solid OS could deal with those

Communicating with regular customers, keep you in their mind for other events

If you don’t manage to book one year then they may get someone else and stick with them, losing an annual gig, which isn’t good

Make sure AI keeps on top of these

Nurturing relationships, check in on them

Keeping track of when you last spoke to each of them

Visit the website: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk

Drayson Design Website – https://www.draysondesign.com

Facebook: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk/facebook

* Full transcript will be available on the website. We may receive a referral fee from any of our links which help towards the costs involved in creating this content for you.