How-To Geek

I have a lot of gadgets in my smart home, and many of them can genuinely save me time. The trouble is, the list of things I want to do next with my smart home continues to grow, and there's simply not enough time in the day to get it all done.

Motion detectors are useful smart home devices for creating simple automations, such as turning on your lights when you enter a room or being alerted to motion in your home when you're away. Standard infrared motion detectors aren't always the best tools for the job. There are some compelling reasons to choose mmWave sensors instead.

The first graphics card I ever bought with my own money was a 16MB Voodoo 3 2000. That card introduced me to the world of hardware acceleration on PC. No more software-rendered Quake, only "real" 3D objects with smooth frame rates and sharp resolutions.

Laptops have become powerful enough that for most people it's not necessary to own both a laptop and a desktop PC. However, you don't have to put up with the cramped work environment of a laptop when you're at your desk. Here's how I use my laptops as desktop computers.

Serials have become the backbone of the streaming era, especially on Netflix. Serialized television is when a show's plot unfolds in sequential order over the course of a season. It's long-form storytelling that typically works best with dramas—Stranger Things, The Crown, etc. Watching the episodes in release order matters. Often, these shows are binged because the complex character arcs and cliffhangers encourage streaming multiple episodes at once.

Choosing the right motor oil is a major step toward keeping an older vehicle on the road, but simply picking a bottle off the shelf is only half the battle. While conventional oil has served drivers for decades, high-mileage engines, typically those over 75,000 miles, face unique mechanical challenges that standard lubricants aren't always equipped to handle.

The humble power button has been a standard feature on phones since before they were smart. For most of that time, the button has been used for, you know, power. That changed when virtual assistants arrived on Android phones—you don’t have to live with it.

For lots of makers, that magic of outdoor 3D prints vanishes quickly once their creations are exposed to nature. It's disappointing when you spend twenty hours printing something, only for it to warp into an unrecognizable blob in the July sun or shatter into brittle pieces after the first autumn frost.

While HBO Max revels in the success of hits like The Pitt, Industry, and newcomer DTF St. Louis (all of which we've written about and that you should totally get into), the streamer has a deep, award-winning catalog we still love to mine.

Third-party driver updaters pose a significant threat to Windows PC stability and security. These programs are often scareware, using aggressive warnings to push paid subscriptions for services Windows already provides through Windows Update. Relying on these uncertified utilities jeopardizes your PC's security, and it's not worth risking your computer or your own information when you can update your drivers the safe way. Instead, use the installers that were built to keep you safe and to ward off malware.

Naturally aspirated engines were once the heart of every great sports car, delivering linear power, high-revving excitement, and an unmistakable connection between driver and machine. But as emissions regulations tighten and turbocharging and electrification take over, this type of engine is rapidly disappearing. What was once the standard is now becoming a rarity, reserved for only a handful of performance-focused models.

Most PCs these days come with an SSD, but those main drives are often modestly-sized unless you splurged. Laptops still come with 500GB (or smaller) SSD capacities, and many desktop users settle for 1TB.

It's rough out there for mobile app developers. The Play Store is filled with millions of apps to compete with, and most of them are free. Yet, even with so many free apps to choose from, I gladly pay for many of my favorites, and I enjoy my phone much more as a result.

Free and open-source software gets a lot of praise thanks to how good it ends up being, especially compared to proprietary software. For years, I thought LibreOffice was the best option, especially with its new update this year. However, its push for feature parity and constant interface changes, which often mimicked the commercial rivals it wanted to replace, eventually made using it more of a hassle than a help. This evolution, while technically impressive, means sacrificing some stability and workflow consistency. I found my answer in Apache OpenOffice.

When I'm creating automations in Home Assistant, I always strive to make them work as well as possible. For a long time, however, I was trying to achieve perfection with my presence-based automations. I felt much happier when I stopped aiming for the impossible.

Soldered RAM is widely seen as a disadvantage, even as a pain point, on some laptops and compact PCs, including the MacBook. The thing is, it's usually seen as a solution only when you need to save space—like on a compact device, or a thin laptop.

I'm the tech guy in my family, which means I'm usually the one getting the call when something "isn't working right." Over the years, I've learned that half the battle isn't fixing the problem, it's figuring out what's actually going on in the first place. Windows gives you plenty of tools, but they're scattered, simplified, or buried behind menus that don't always tell the full story. That's a big part of why I've leaned so heavily on PowerShell, and why I've written before about commands and built-in tools you should try before jumping straight to a full reinstall.

I could go on talking all day about Fedora being one of the best "mainstream" Linux distros. It's great with updates, and it packs a lot of stuff usually considered bleeding-edge on other distros. But it also has a greatly useful tool that you probably didn't know you had.

The automotive world is currently split. On one side, there are people who love fully electric vehicles and can’t wait to see manufacturers improve their models. On the other side, there are those who won't even consider a vehicle without an internal combustion engine. Sure, EVs are fast and efficient, but without the sounds and vibrations of a traditional engine, an EV simply doesn’t measure up.

You can never have too many tools, right? While all the big-name brands like Milwaukee, DeWALT, and Ryobi are busy releasing new tools for 2026, they're not the only ones. Harbor Freight has capable new tools on the way from its in-house brands, including Hercules, Bauer, and more. If you're on a budget, here are some great tools coming in 2026 that you might want to wait for.