2023 HomeTechHacker Year In Review

In 2023 we increased our content, released new products, and stepped up our social media game to help you make the most of your home technology. At the same time, we improved our foundation and extended our infrastructure to make tech simple for you.

Read on to see what changes you may have missed, our most popular and favorite articles, and what’s coming in 2024!

Changes at HomeTechHacker in 2023

Since I didn’t publish any books this year I originally felt like it was a slow year. But in writing this section, I realize it definitely wasn’t. Here are some of the highlights of the changes at HomeTechHacker in 2023:

• In 2022, we launched my author site, MarlonBuchanan.com. In 2023, we launched another site, HomeTechHacker Academy. This site offers self-paced online courses to help make technology easier. It currently has free courses to help you get started building your smart home and secure your home network. More free courses are on the way.
• On the heels of the best-selling The Personal Cybersecurity Manual book I published at the end of 2022, we created a premium online course called Personal Cybersecurity Protection on the HomeTechHacker Academy platform. This is a comprehensive course that provides step-by-step instructions to stop cybercriminals from stealing your money, your identity, your privacy, and your peace of mind. The feedback for this and my other courses has been overwhelmingly positive.
• Speaking of feedback, we added a way for you to give us a testimonial for our books, courses, tools, and any of our other products. I would really appreciate it if you left a review!
• We continued expanding the HomeTechHacker Technology Advisor tool. We added personalized tech advisors for surveillance cameras, networked attached storage units, and more. We also updated the recommendations and recommendation engine for all of the other technology advisors.
• We upgraded our email service to give us the ability to send you better-formatted emails and the ability to change your email address and name. Also, you can specify if you want to receive new article notifications right after the articles are published or a weekly or monthly summary of all published articles.
• We beefed up our Instagram presence and created a LinkedIn page. Are you following us on those platforms? If not, you should be!
• Last, but not least we added some new authors to our site. Check out articles from Raquel Santos, Ash Brooks, and Leroy Jackson.

My five favorite articles of 2023

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

• 5 Home Assistant Automations That I Love (2023) — I love talking about Home Assistant, as it is the brains of my smart home. I am constantly writing and tweaking automations to make my home more efficient and convenient. This article details five of my favorite automations.
• The Current State of My Smart Home (2023) — I enjoy writing this article each year. I like taking inventory of the changes I’ve made to my home. Much like with the Home Assistant automations, I’m always trying to improve something.
• Creating The Perfect Smart Home: 10 Key Steps When Starting From Scratch — Nobody creates a smart home completely right the first time. Or the second time. Or the third… because technology is constantly evolving. But, if I were creating my smart home from scratch now I’d take a look at this article.
• My Experience Moving To Lithium Ion UPSes — I love solving problems. I’ve had a few large clunky lead acid UPSes give out on me over the years. But, what I found, is that in many cases, Lithium Ion UPSes are better. This article details when, why, and what UPSes to buy.
• Fixing Garage Door Opener Range: Ferrite Cores — This is one of my favorite articles because it was inspired by a reader who tried my DIY smart garage door opener project. I love reading and responding to feedback from my readers.

A bonus article that I’d like to mention is A Smart Home Powered With Shelly Products. Shelly products are my favorite smart home products, and it was a treat to see how much of my smart home I could recreate using only Shelly products.

The five most popular articles of 2023

• 5 Home Assistant Automations That I Love (2023) — One of my favorite articles, and one of yours too! I know my audience is fond of Home Assistant (as am I) and I’m glad to provide content on it that you enjoy reading.
• The Best Wi-Fi 6 Access Points For 2023 — Wi-Fi is very important to everyone these days, and this article details devices that can significantly improve your Wi-Fi. You should check it out if you want to expand or speed up your Wi-Fi.
• 5 Great Choices for 2.5GbE pfSense Hardware — I’ve been using pfSense for years and enjoy its features. Y’all think so too, and you want faster network speeds! This hardware works even if you want to use something different, like OPNsense.
• The Top 2.5GbE Proxmox Mini PCs — I’m glad I transitioned to Proxmox a few years ago. I’ll probably buy another host soon, and if I do, it’s likely to be one of these boxes. Lots of my readers have bought one of these recommendations.
• My 8 Favorite Home Assistant Integrations — Home Assistant is the most important part of my smart home, and that’s because of all the integrations it has. That’s why a lot of people have read this article.

Final thoughts and a sneak peek at what’s coming in 2024

Every year I aim to make positive improvements to my sites, tools, and services to help you. I have plenty of plans for 2024. Here are some highlights:

• I went all of 2023 without publishing a book (in fairness, I did publish one book towards the end of 2022). But, I have plans for a book that I’ve started on already for 2024, and I think you’ll want to read it. You’ll hear more about it as the year goes on.
• I plan to publish at least one new course at HomeTechHacker Academy next year, and if I do more than one at least one of them will be free!
• I’m thinking about getting into AI. What would that look like? Stay tuned…
• I’ve heard from many of you that our Home Tech Advisor is useful. I’ll be sure to update it and expand it next year.
• I also plan to make more press appearances as an expert contributor to articles and appear on podcasts. Stay tuned and follow my press page.
• Also, to start the year off right I’ve recommended some tech resolutions for 2024.

What would you like to see from HomeTechHacker in 2024? Let me know in the comments or contact me via email or X (Twitter).