2022 HomeTechHacker Year In Review

2022 was another progressive year at HomeTechHacker. Read on to see what changes you might have missed, our most popular and favorite articles, and what’s coming in 2023!

Changes at HomeTechHacker in 2022

When I look back, there were many significant changes in 2022 at HomeTechHacker. Here are some of the highlights:

• In 2021, we redesigned and rebuilt HomeTechHacker.com. In 2022, we launched an entirely new site, MarlonBuchanan.com! This site focuses on my activities as an author and has detailed information about past and upcoming books. Check it out if you haven’t already.
• Speaking of books, I published two books in 2022! The first book, The Home Network Manual, is a complete guide to building your home network. The second book, The Personal Cybersecurity Manual, teaches you how to stop identity theft, fraud, and other cybercrimes. These books, along with my earlier book, The Smart Home Manual, make up my Home Technology Manuals series.
• We expanded the HomeTechHacker Technology Advisor tool and the HomeTechHacker Shop. We added personalized tech advisors for Wi-Fi routers, access points, and more. We also added many reviewed, recommended, and approved products to the shop. And, we kept our Buyer’s Guide updated.
• We added a new email course and a new personality quiz. Do you know which supervillain is your home network arch-enemy? After you find out, you may need to take our free Secure Your Home Network in 5 Days course.
• We beefed up our IG presence. Make sure to follow @HomeTechHacker on Instagram for educational and entertaining content.

The 5 most popular articles of 2022

Which articles end up being my most popular always intrigues me. Sometimes the articles I think might be popular aren’t. And often, articles that do become popular are a surprise to me. I just keep trying to write good and useful articles and roll the dice :). Here are the five most popular articles of 2022 (in no particular order):

• pfSense CE vs. pfSense Plus: Which Is Right for You? — pfSense split the direction of their popular router software this year. I did research to decide which one I would go with (for now) and apparently a lot of other people were looking for direction too.
• 5 Great Proxmox Small Form Factor Hardware Options — I moved to Proxmox in 2021 and it is the foundation of my home lab. It is also a very popular hypervisor choice for those into virtualization. Finding good hardware that is quiet and doesn’t take up a lot of space is important for home users. I’m glad this information has been useful for others.
• TP-Link EAP 610 Review: Adding Wi-Fi 6 to My Home — I finally upgraded to Wi-Fi 6 using this access point, which, along with the EAP 620, I highly recommend.
• Wiring the Shelly Plus 1 Relay — Shelly has revamped their popular relays and added new features, but also changed the way they are wired up. This article helps clarify the wiring for projects like automating your fireplace, your garage door, and light switches if you are using the newer Shelly relay.
• Top 7 pfSense Alternatives — I love pfSense and have used it for years as my router software. But it’s not the only router software out there. The popularity of this article means others are curious about alternatives too.

My 5 favorite articles of 2022

These are articles that I enjoyed writing or working on during the year for the reasons I describe below.

• Home Assistant: A Fingerprint Scanner for Your Garage — This was my first ESPHome-based project, and I’ve always wanted to integrate biometrics into my smart home.
• Make Your Own Air Quality Sensor Using ESPHome — I continued my love affair with ESPHome by making an air quality sensor. It’s accurate and helped me gain a lot of insightful information about my house. I found it so useful I built a second one, and eventually decided that I need to buy a smart air purifier.
• Wiring the Shelly Plus 1 Relay — It’s no secret that the Shelly 1 relay is my favorite smart home device. When Shelly released the upgraded version, I had to get my hands on one and review it. But, I also wanted to make sure my readers could easily adapt the wiring changes to my previous tutorials.
• Top 7 Ways To Get Money for Your Old Tech — Over the years I’ve accumulated a lot of tech that I no longer use. I researched this article for my own purposes, and the resources in this article allowed me to make some money while reducing the clutter of unused electronics in my house.
• Home Assistant: Migrating to Z-Wave JS — I dreaded migrating to Z-Wave JS because I have so many Z-Wave devices. And heck, just a couple of years earlier I went through the headache of migrating my Z-Wave devices to Home Assistant. I was happy to write this article because it meant I had successfully migrated and could explain to others how to do it.

Final thoughts and a sneak peek at what’s coming in 2023

Thank you, my readers, for another great year at HomeTechHacker. I really appreciate everyone who comes back and reads my articles, subscribes to my newsletter, buys my books, and supports me in any way. I plan to keep giving you loads of great content and improvements. Speaking of, here is a sneak peek at some of the things HomeTechHacker will bring you next year:

• I have been slowly but surely working on a new service I hope to bring you next year. It is still in the early stages, but I hope to have its first release next year. It aligns with our mission to help people with their home tech.
• I’ll add more tech advisors. I have received a lot of good feedback on these tools so I will expand their coverage. Is there a specific technology or product you need personalized advice for? Let me know in the comments or send me a message.
• I’ll be working on another book sometime next year. I haven’t picked the topic yet, but I have some ideas!
• Lastly, I will be working to get more press appearances in magazines, blogs, podcasts, and maybe even television or radio. Be on the lookout for me in 2023!