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I love getting mail. It's like a surprise gift that arrives six days a week, and I look forward to seeing what I've gotten, even if some days it is only bulk mail.
But I don't like walking out to the mailbox and finding it empty. That's always a disappointment.
So I decided to add a home automation sensor that would let me know when the box has been opened, so I can rush out and see what treasures the carrier has delivered.
The mailbox is too far away from the house for a traditional sensor. Fortunately, I'm already running a LoRa network, which has a very long range (up to 1/4 mile), so I investigated the devices available from YoLink. I briefly considered their vibration sensor, but rejected using it because my mailbox shares a mounting post with my neighbor's box. And both boxes jiggle whenever either is opened. I only want to be notified when my box is opened, not theirs.
I ended up using the YoLink motion sensor instead. It's a standard passive-infrared device, but putting it inside the mailbox avoids all the usual false triggers that those devices inevitably spew. Its sensitivity to shifts in light and heat actually works in my favor, reliably detecting when the mailbox door opens.
The device comes with a magnet for mounting, which works very well for deployment inside the metal mailbox. After trying different locations, I found putting it high on the back wall works best. It's out of the way of incoming packages, and pointing it towards the opening gives it the best chance of being triggered.
LoRa signals are capable of pushing through metal, but as I wrote twenty years ago in Smart Home Hacks, when a door is open any sensor's signal can escape. But I do receive a single daily notice from the YoLink app that the device has dropped offline. That's OK because the motion trigger still gets sent reliably, thanks to that open door, so I've mostly convinced myself not to worry about the hub complaining that the device isn't constantly checking in.
An unexpected bonus of installing this system occurred during a recent out-of-town vacation. I had filed a vacation-hold request with my post office, and after a few days I started receiving notifications that the box was opened. A call to my local branch revealed that a newly hired carrier had mistakenly resumed delivery. Without those notifications, I would never have known.
Finally, a technical note: YoLink devices don't integrate with the rest of my home automation setup. I'm a firm believer in redundancy when it comes to automation, and having separate, parallel systems doesn't bother me in the least. (But there are third-party methods for integration, such as Home Assistant and Homebridge.)
This 2025 book by Steve Spangler is subtitled "Cultivating Experiences that Ignite Connection, Build Trust, and Inspire Action." (Sort of a mouthful, but don't let that turn you off!)
You might be familiar with Spangler from his twenty-seven appearances on The Ellen Show, his billions of views on YouTube, or even just as the guy who went viral with the "Mentos in Diet Coke" stunt a few years back. He's essentially the archetype of the "Wacky Science Experiment Guy" who rules talk shows and feel-good news segments.
But don't make the mistake of dismissing him as a stunt performer. He's an educator, a serious businessman, and a legacy magician. I've been a fan ever since I started using his Energy Stick in my performances.
The Engagement Effect is one of the most enjoyable "business" books I've ever read. I'll discuss the content shortly, but as an instructional designer, I was impressed by its direct, simple, and folksy style. Each chapter ends with a summary of important points, making it easy to revisit and retain what you've learned.
Furthermore, the book makes the most effective and humane use of supplemental videos that I've ever encountered. These are accessed via QR codes, but unlike some authors, Spangler doesn't take the lazy approach. The videos are both supplemental and enlightening, but the written text covers what you need to know, ensuring that the book will remain useful long after the sites hosting the videos disappear or the QR codes become unreadable.
In terms of the content, here are just a few of the things that stood out to me, among the sixty-five pages that I chose to earmark:
Oh, there's much, much more. Although this book is aimed at leadership and business studies, I think it's of equal importance to performers. I'd shelve it next to Henning Nelms as essential reading for magicians.
I bought my copy directly from Spangler, but you can also find it on the Amazon.
I have previously written about the remarkably inexpensive Matter-enabled Myggbett door/window sensor. After living with it a while longer, my enthusiasm has diminished.
My Myggbett sensor is spewing false open/close messages at least once a day, sometimes more often. After asking people who follow IKEA more closely than I do, several problems have become arisen.
I was surprised to discover this limitation, as none of the glowing reviews of the IKEA line has mentioned this limitation. Given that the hub costs $110, the expense and hassle of IKEA's devices begin to outweigh their low cost. (I'd need to buy 15 Myggbett sensors just to break even on the Dirigera's cost.)
Moreover, adding a Dirigera Hub to an existing system is not a good idea because having multiple Matter hubs can cause confusion in the Thread network.
So I'm essentially stuck with a flawed Myggbett sensor. Fortunately, a friend suggested a workaround. In Apple Home, I created a shortcut‑based automation that waits two seconds before checking whether the sensor remains open. Because the false open/close signals occur less than a second apart, the automation can safely ignore them.
Update: About a month after posting this, a firmware update for one of my IKEA devices appeared in the Home app. Hope is not lost!
Midnight Sessions is a technical volume aimed squarely at practicing magicians. The subject is advanced card conjuring.
I missed the boat when this book was released, so the standard edition was sold out by the time that I decided that I wanted to read it. Thus, I ended up purchasing the deluxe edition, which is a limited print run, and is (I presume) a finer production with a slipcase and better binding. But both editions are of the same layout and design, which is quite stunning and surprisingly good for a niche publication. (I will, however, lodge a complaint about the aesthetic quality of the pseudo-handwritten typeface used in some sections.)
The book's unusual conceit is that the author meets an unnamed magician who challenges him to reconstruct whatever trick they've just shown. The reader is encouraged to do so too, a unique and intriguing approach among books in this genre, which typically just "spill their secrets" without challenge or enticement. I rather enjoyed the approach, and I tried to play along as best I could.
Before buying it, I read reviews that seemed oddly proud of "discovering" that more than one unnamed magician was involved. After reading it, the multiplicity is obvious, which makes the reviewers' self‑congratulation feel a bit misplaced.
The content of the book is intricate, clever, and thought-provoking. But the focus, as you can surmise from the premise, is on so-called magician foolers. The methods are deep, complex, and damn delightful. As such, in my opinion, the book is best described as c0njuring p0rn. I picked up nice techniques that I hadn't thought of, and some that I'm eager to try, but mostly I enjoyed the spectacle and how it all fits together.
I loved this book. It engaged me like few other technical magic books have, and I suspect that when I reread it in the future, I'll like it even more.