IPv6 is a newer version of the Internet Protocol that provides a vastly larger pool of IP addresses than IPv4, allowing more devices to connect directly to the internet.

Why is IPv6 adoption still slow?

IPv6 adoption has been slow because IPv4 continues to function using technologies like NAT, which allows many devices to share a single IP address. Since most users see no immediate benefit, adoption has been gradual.

Should I enable IPv6 on my home network?

In most cases, yes. Enabling IPv6 is usually straightforward and worth trying. If it works reliably with your ISP, you can leave it on. If not, you can disable it without impacting connectivity.

Is IPv6 faster than IPv4?

IPv6 can sometimes be faster, but performance depends on routing and ISP support. In many cases, users will not notice a significant difference.

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Best NAS for Home Use in 2026: Synology, UGREEN, TerraMaster or DIY?

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Product links may earn a commission at no additional cost to you.

I built my own NAS. That does not mean I think you should.

My current NAS runs TrueNAS on a low-power Intel N100-based system. I like having complete control over the hardware and software, and I like knowing that if I want to change something later, I am not waiting for a NAS manufacturer to decide whether I am allowed to do it.

But building a NAS also means owning the problems. You choose the hardware. You install the operating system. You troubleshoot it. You decide how backups work. When something breaks, there is no single company responsible for the whole box.

If a friend asked me what NAS to buy for a house today, I would probably send them toward a prebuilt NAS instead. Pre-built means all you do is install hard drives.

The interesting part in 2026 is that Synology is no longer the only obvious answer. UGREEN and TerraMaster now sell boxes with considerably more aggressive hardware, faster networking and surprisingly capable processors. For a while, I owned a QNAP. Meanwhile, building your own NAS remains attractive if you actually want the flexibility rather than simply wanting somewhere safe to store your files.

Quick Answer: The Best Home NAS in 2026

NAS	Best For	Why I Like It	My Take
Synology DS925+	Most homes	4 bays, DSM, dual 2.5GbE, expandable memory	Safest recommendation
UGREEN DXP4800 Plus	Best hardware value	10GbE, 2.5GbE, Intel CPU, 8GB DDR5, 2 NVMe slots	Very compelling alternative to Synology
TerraMaster F4-425 Pro	Power users and media	Intel N350, 16GB RAM, dual 5GbE, 3 NVMe slots	A lot of hardware in a 4-bay box
Synology DS225+	Simple 2-bay NAS	DSM, 2.5GbE, compact and easy to manage	Good first NAS
Build Your Own + TrueNAS	Maximum control	Choose your own CPU, RAM, networking, case and drives	What I use

If I wanted the easiest recommendation for most people:

Check the Synology DS925+ diskless on Amazon

If I cared more about getting the most hardware for my money, I would look very closely at the UGREEN DXP4800 Plus.

Best NAS for Most People: Synology DS925+

Synology remains the easiest NAS company for me to recommend to someone who wants storage to behave like an appliance.

That is what I always wanted from my NAS. I enjoy building computers, but once storage is running, I want it to sit quietly in a corner and serve files.

The Synology DS925+ is a four-bay NAS built around an AMD Ryzen V1500B processor with four cores and eight threads. It comes with 4GB of ECC memory and can be expanded to 32GB.

There are two 2.5GbE Ethernet ports and two M.2 NVMe slots that can be used for caching or storage pools with compatible SSDs.

Four drive bays are also a sweet spot for a home NAS.

Two bays work, but they limit your choices. With four drives you can build an array that provides redundancy while retaining substantially more capacity. Four bays also give you room to grow without jumping into a large, expensive box.

The reason I would buy Synology, however, is DSM. DSM is Synology’s software platform.

The hardware specifications are no longer particularly exciting compared with UGREEN and TerraMaster. You are buying a mature storage platform with integrated backup, snapshots, file sharing, photo management, remote access and a large application ecosystem.

I would buy the DS925+ for: someone who wants a NAS to be reliable infrastructure rather than another hobby.

I would skip it for: someone who wants the most CPU, RAM and network bandwidth possible for the money, or someone who enjoys replacing the manufacturer’s software with their own.

Check the Synology DS925+ on Amazon

Synology Backed Away From Its Worst Hard-Drive Restriction

There is an important update if you followed the controversy around Synology’s 2025 NAS models.

Synology initially became much more restrictive about which drives could be used with its newer DiskStation Plus systems. That was a serious strike against the platform for me. A NAS is a box whose main purpose is holding hard drives. I do not want the manufacturer unnecessarily narrowing my choices.

With DSM 7.3, Synology loosened that policy.

Current 2025-model DiskStation Plus systems including the DS925+ can create storage pools using non-validated third-party 3.5-inch hard drives and 2.5-inch SATA SSDs. Synology still recommends checking its compatibility list, and restrictions remain around some features such as M.2 storage pools.

You can read Synology’s current drive compatibility policy here.

I still prefer completely open hardware, but this makes the DS925+ considerably easier to recommend.

Best Hardware for the Money: UGREEN NASync DXP4800 Plus

The UGREEN NASync DXP4800 Plus is the NAS that makes the Synology hardware look conservative.

It has:

Four SATA drive bays
Intel Pentium Gold 8505 processor with five cores and six threads
8GB DDR5 RAM, expandable to 64GB
One 10GbE Ethernet port
One 2.5GbE Ethernet port
Two M.2 NVMe slots
HDMI output
Intel Quick Sync support for compatible hardware transcoding

That is a remarkable amount of hardware for a four-bay NAS.

The 10GbE port is especially interesting if you regularly move large files. I recently wrote about 2.5GbE versus 10GbE for a home network, and a NAS is one of the places where 10GbE can actually make sense. Large backups, video files and bulk transfers can use bandwidth that ordinary web browsing never will.

You still need the rest of the network to keep up. A 10GbE port on a NAS does not magically make a gigabit switch or a slow hard drive ten times faster.

UGREEN also officially supports third-party drives from manufacturers including Western Digital, Seagate and Toshiba.

The tradeoff is software.

UGREEN has put substantial development into UGOS Pro, but Synology has been building DSM for a long time. If I were buying a NAS primarily because I wanted the most polished turnkey storage experience, I would still lean Synology.

If I were looking at the specifications and thinking about Docker, media serving, 10GbE and other home-lab uses, the DXP4800 Plus becomes extremely appealing.

I would buy it for: a technically comfortable home user who wants stronger hardware and 10GbE without building an entire NAS.

I would skip it for: someone whose highest priority is having the longest-established NAS software ecosystem.

Check the UGREEN DXP4800 Plus on Amazon

Best Power-User 4-Bay NAS: TerraMaster F4-425 Pro

The TerraMaster F4-425 Pro may be the most interesting hardware configuration in this group.

The N350 version comes with:

Intel N350 eight-core processor
16GB RAM
Four SATA drive bays
Three M.2 NVMe slots
Two 5GbE Ethernet ports
Hardware 4K transcoding support
HDMI output

Three NVMe slots in a four-bay NAS is unusually generous. So is shipping it with 16GB of memory.

The dual 5GbE ports are also an interesting compromise. Most houses do not have 10GbE everywhere, and 5GbE can provide considerably more bandwidth than 2.5GbE without pushing every component toward 10GbE.

TerraMaster runs its TOS operating system. TOS 7 has continued to add backup, security and application features, and the hardware provides enough resources for Docker and media workloads.

Again, my hesitation compared with Synology is not the box. It is whether I value the extra hardware more than Synology’s software ecosystem.

I would buy it for: someone who wants a prebuilt enclosure but thinks like a home-lab user.

I would skip it for: someone who wants the simplest possible NAS experience and does not care about 5GbE, extra RAM or multiple NVMe slots.

Check the TerraMaster F4-425 Pro on Amazon

Best Simple 2-Bay NAS: Synology DS225+

Some people do not need four drives.

If the goal is a central place for photos, documents, computer backups and a modest media collection, the Synology DS225+ is much easier to justify.

It has two drive bays, an Intel Celeron J4125 processor, 2GB of memory, one 2.5GbE port and one 1GbE port.

For a two-drive NAS, the obvious configuration is usually a mirror: two drives containing the same data. If one fails, the other remains.

The downside is capacity efficiency. Two 4TB drives mirrored together give you approximately one drive’s worth of usable capacity rather than 8TB of protected storage.

That is the price of redundancy.

If you already think you will eventually need more than one mirrored pair, I would spend the money on four bays at the beginning. Replacing the entire NAS later is usually more annoying than buying a little extra room today.

I would buy it for: backups, photos, documents and ordinary home storage where two bays are enough.

I would skip it for: anyone who is already thinking about a large Plex library, several users, surveillance storage or substantial future expansion.

Check the Synology DS225+ diskless on Amazon

Should You Buy a NAS With the Drives Already Installed?

Amazon also sells some of these systems bundled with drives.

That can be appealing. If part of the reason you are buying a Synology is that you do not want to build your own NAS, having someone else choose the drives is consistent with that goal.

But I would compare the numbers before clicking Buy, especially now with the price of hard drives having gone up in recent years.

For example, we found a DS925+ bundle with four 12TB Seagate IronWolf drives. That gives you 48TB of raw disk capacity without separately shopping for four drives.

A four-drive RAID configuration will not give you all 48TB as usable protected storage. With one drive’s capacity devoted to parity, you are looking at roughly 36TB before filesystem and formatting overhead. Using two-drive fault tolerance reduces usable capacity further.

The alternative is straightforward:

Buy the DS925+ diskless.
Buy four NAS hard drives yourself.
Compare the combined price with the preloaded bundle.

Installing hard drives in a NAS is not much of a build. You slide the drives into the trays, install them and let the NAS initialize the array.

So I would happily buy a preloaded bundle if the premium were small. I would not pay a huge premium merely to avoid putting four drives into four trays.

There is also a DS225+ bundle with two 4TB IronWolf drives for someone who wants a smaller ready-to-go system.

Which Hard Drives Would I Buy?

I would use NAS-rated CMR hard drives for the main storage array.

Two current choices I would consider are WD Red Plus and Seagate IronWolf Pro.

WD Red Plus 12TB: My Home NAS Choice

The WD Red Plus 12TB is the drive I would start with for an ordinary home NAS.

WD Red Plus drives use CMR recording and are designed specifically for RAID-equipped NAS systems. The line carries a three-year limited warranty.

Check the WD Red Plus 12TB on Amazon

Seagate IronWolf Pro 12TB: The Step-Up Drive

The Seagate IronWolf Pro 12TB is a higher-end option.

The ST12000NE0008 is a 7200RPM NAS drive with a five-year limited warranty. Seagate also includes its Rescue Data Recovery Services with the IronWolf Pro line.

For a normal household NAS, I would compare the current price against WD Red Plus before paying extra. For heavier workloads or where the longer warranty has value, the Pro is easier to justify.

Check the IronWolf Pro 12TB on Amazon

When Four Bays Aren’t Enough

Four bays are enough for a lot of households, including mine for many years.

If you already know you need more, buy the larger enclosure now. I went with 5 bays and am now looking to expand.

UGREEN’s DXP8800 Plus provides eight SATA bays, two M.2 NVMe slots, an Intel Core i5-1235U processor and dual 10GbE Ethernet ports.

That is the one I would look at for a serious home media archive, content-creation storage or a home lab where four drives already feel restrictive.

Check the UGREEN DXP8800 Plus on Amazon

And then there are systems like the TerraMaster T12-500 Pro.

This is a 12-bay NAS with an Intel Core i7-1255U, 16GB DDR5 memory, two 10GbE ports and two M.2 NVMe slots.

It is impressive hardware. It is also far beyond what I would recommend to someone who simply wants family backups and a photo library.

If you need twelve drives, you probably already know why.

Should You Build Your Own NAS?

I did.

I have built storage servers before, used commercial NAS products and eventually returned to a homebuilt system. My current machine runs TrueNAS on low-power Intel hardware.

I like the flexibility.

If the motherboard dies, I can replace it. If I want faster networking, I can change it. If I want more RAM, a different case or another operating system, I am not limited by what a NAS vendor decided to expose.

TrueNAS also gives me ZFS, snapshots and a storage-first operating system that fits how I want the machine to behave.

I wrote about that decision in TrueNAS vs. Unraid vs. OpenMediaVault.

There is a cost to all that freedom: your time.

If you enjoy choosing motherboards, SATA controllers, cases, power supplies and software, building a NAS can be rewarding.

If your real objective is to back up your family photos and stop worrying about storage, buying a Synology makes a great deal of sense.

Build your own if:

You enjoy maintaining hardware
You want complete control over the operating system
You need unusual drive or networking configurations
You want to reuse existing hardware
You care about avoiding vendor lock-in

Buy a prebuilt NAS if:

You want one company responsible for the hardware and operating system
You value simple updates and administration
You want storage to disappear into the background
You have better things to do than troubleshoot a storage server on Sunday afternoon

If you want to see how I got here, start with my Building My NAS series.

How Many NAS Bays Do You Need?

This may be the most important purchasing decision.

Two Bays

Best for simple household storage, backups and smaller photo or media collections.

A mirrored two-drive configuration is easy to understand, but expansion is limited. When you need more capacity, you usually replace the drives with larger ones.

Four Bays

This is where I would start for most serious home NAS purchases.

You get much better choices around redundancy, capacity and expansion without turning the NAS into a giant machine.

The DS925+, DXP4800 Plus and F4-425 Pro all live here for a reason.

Eight Bays

An eight-bay unit makes sense if you have a large media collection, video-production files, extensive backups or already know four drives will not be enough.

The DXP8800 Plus is the step-up option in this guide.

Twelve Bays

This is specialized territory for a home user. If you can explain exactly what you are going to put on twelve hard drives, great. Otherwise, I would rather buy fewer larger drives in a smaller NAS.

RAID Is Not a Backup

This is worth repeating every time I write about storage.

A RAID array can protect you from a hard-drive failure. It does not protect you from everything else.

If you accidentally delete a folder, ransomware encrypts your files, the NAS is stolen, the house floods or something destroys the entire machine, having another copy of the data matters much more than how clever your RAID configuration was.

I use redundant backups rather than trusting the primary NAS as the only copy.

I have even experimented with refurbished enterprise hard drives for secondary backup systems. I am more comfortable taking that risk on an additional redundant copy than on the primary storage array.

For anything you genuinely care about, I would aim for multiple copies with at least one copy physically separate from the NAS.

Don’t Forget the UPS

A NAS is one of the devices I care most about shutting down cleanly.

I have experienced an unsafe shutdown during a power outage, and I have also had a UPS battery fail when I expected it to protect my equipment.

That is why I would budget for a UPS as part of the NAS purchase rather than as an optional accessory sometime later.

If the NAS lives with your router, switches, PoE cameras and other network equipment, see my guide to the best UPS for a home network closet, NAS and PoE equipment.

If you are only protecting a smaller networking configuration, I also have a guide to the best UPS for a router and modem.

What NAS Would I Buy Today?

If I were buying for a family member who wanted a NAS and did not want a new hobby, I would buy the Synology DS925+.

Four bays provide enough flexibility for most homes, DSM is mature, 2.5GbE is appropriate for a modern home network, and Synology’s decision to restore broader third-party hard-drive support removed one of my biggest objections.

Check the DS925+ diskless on Amazon

If I were buying for myself and wanted a prebuilt unit, the decision becomes harder.

The UGREEN DXP4800 Plus gives me 10GbE, more RAM and an Intel processor with Quick Sync.

The TerraMaster F4-425 Pro goes further with 16GB of memory, dual 5GbE and three NVMe slots.

Both tempt me because I like hardware.

And then I remember why I built my own NAS in the first place.

For most people, though, that last sentence is probably a warning rather than a recommendation.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best NAS for home use in 2026?

For most people, I would choose the Synology DS925+. It provides four drive bays, dual 2.5GbE networking and Synology’s mature DSM software. Buyers who prioritize hardware specifications should also consider the UGREEN DXP4800 Plus and TerraMaster F4-425 Pro.

Is a 2-bay or 4-bay NAS better?

A two-bay NAS is sufficient for basic backups and storage. A four-bay NAS gives you much more flexibility for redundancy, capacity and future expansion. If you expect your storage needs to grow, I would start with four bays.

Is Synology still worth buying?

Yes. Synology hardware is often less aggressive than competing systems from UGREEN and TerraMaster, but DSM remains a major reason to buy a Synology NAS. DSM 7.3 also restored support for creating storage pools with many non-validated third-party hard drives on 2025 DiskStation models.

Is UGREEN NAS better than Synology?

UGREEN currently offers stronger hardware specifications at several price points, particularly around processors, memory and networking. Synology’s advantage is its mature DSM software ecosystem. Which is better depends on whether you value hardware capability or a more established turnkey NAS platform.

Should I build a TrueNAS server instead of buying a NAS?

Build a TrueNAS server if you want control over the hardware and software and are comfortable maintaining it yourself. Buy a prebuilt NAS if you want a simpler appliance with one vendor responsible for the platform. Even people who are capable of building and maintaining a server may opt to let someone else handle those details.

How much storage do I need in a home NAS?

Estimate how much data you have today, include the devices you plan to back up, then leave substantial room for growth. Remember that RAID redundancy reduces usable capacity. Four 12TB drives do not normally provide 48TB of protected usable storage.

Do I need NAS-specific hard drives?

I prefer NAS-rated CMR drives for a primary NAS because they are designed for continuous operation in multi-drive enclosures. WD Red Plus and Seagate IronWolf Pro are two current examples.

Published on August 16, 2026

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Best UPS for a Home Network Closet: NAS, PoE, Cameras and Wi-Fi

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Product links may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.

A modem and Wi-Fi router are easy to protect with a UPS. A full home network closet is a different problem.

Once you add switches, wireless access points, PoE cameras, a NAS, a firewall, smart-home hubs and other equipment, you have more power draw, more devices that need to shut down cleanly and more reasons to care about what happens when the power stays out for longer than five minutes.

I use UPS units for both my networking gear and my NAS. My current NAS runs TrueNAS on a low-power Intel N100-based system, so it does not require a giant UPS by itself. But the NAS is only one part of the load. The router, switches, access points and other network equipment all need power too.

I have also had both sides of the UPS problem: an unsafe shutdown after losing power and a UPS battery that failed when I expected it to protect the equipment. Those experiences changed how I think about sizing a UPS. Capacity matters, but so do battery condition, monitoring, graceful shutdown and the reliability of the power where the equipment actually lives.

Quick answer: For a home network closet with a NAS, PoE switch and several other devices, a good starting point is looking at a 1500VA-class UPS with sine-wave output, USB or network monitoring and replaceable batteries. The CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD is the value choice I would consider first. For a NAS or server setup where management and expandability matter more, I would step up to the APC SMT1500C or Eaton 5P1500.

UPS	Capacity	Best For	My Take	Check Price
CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD	1500VA / 1000W	Most home network closets	Best value	Check price
APC Back-UPS Pro BR1500MS2	1500VA / 900W	Large home networks without server-class needs	Good bridge between consumer and network-closet UPS units	Check price
APC Smart-UPS SMT1500C	1440VA / 1000W	NAS, servers and serious network closets	My step-up APC choice	Check price
Eaton 5P1500	1440VA / 1100W	Premium network and server setups	Excellent management-oriented option	Check price
APC Smart-UPS SMT1500RM2UC	1440VA / 1000W	Rack-mounted network closets	Best fit if the rest of the equipment is already in a rack	Check price

When a Router UPS Is No Longer Enough

I have a separate guide to the best UPS for a router and modem. If your entire critical load is an ONT or cable modem, router and perhaps one small switch, start there. You probably do not need the equipment in this article.

A network closet becomes a different problem when it contains things like:

A modem or fiber ONT
A router or dedicated firewall
One or more Ethernet switches
A PoE switch
Multiple Wi-Fi access points
Security cameras
An NVR
A NAS
A small home server
Home Assistant or other automation hardware
Smart-home bridges

At that point I care less about finding the smallest UPS that can technically support the equipment and more about building enough margin into the system that it remains useful as the network changes. Also, remember not every device needs to have redundant power.

Start With Watts, Not VA

Measure the actual network load instead of guessing using a smart plug or similar device. Knowing whether the closet uses 90 watts or 350 watts completely changes your considerations.

UPS marketing leads with VA ratings, but the watt rating is just as important. A UPS can be rated at 1500VA and still support a different maximum number of watts than another 1500VA model.

That is visible in the products above. The APC Back-UPS Pro BR1500MS2 is rated for 900 watts, the CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD and APC Smart-UPS models here are rated for 1000 watts, and the Eaton 5P1500 is rated for 1100 watts.

You do not want to add the wattage printed on every power adapter and assume that is your actual load. Those labels generally describe what the power supply can provide, not necessarily what the device consumes continuously.

Measure the whole network closet

If everything is already connected to one UPS, the UPS display may show current load. You can also use a plug-in power meter between the wall and the equipment while temporarily running it without the UPS.

Measure during normal operation and then consider what changes under load. A NAS may draw more power while its disks are active. A PoE switch may consume considerably more as additional cameras and access points draw power.

I would also leave room for the next device. Home networks have a habit of growing.

PoE Makes UPS Sizing More Interesting

A normal Ethernet switch has a relatively predictable load. A PoE switch is powering other equipment through the network cable, so the switch itself is only part of the calculation.

If the switch powers cameras, wireless access points, phones or other PoE devices, that downstream load is also being supplied by the UPS.

This is one reason backing up the switch can be so useful. One UPS connection may keep an entire group of cameras and access points online. It also means that adding another six PoE cameras later can materially change the amount of battery runtime you have.

When sizing the UPS, look at actual PoE consumption rather than simply the switch’s maximum advertised PoE budget. Then leave enough capacity for growth.

A NAS Changes What I Want From a UPS

A router reboot is annoying. An abrupt NAS shutdown is something I work harder to avoid.

A NAS may be writing data, updating filesystem metadata or running applications when utility power disappears. The goal of the UPS is therefore not necessarily to run the NAS for hours. It may be to keep the machine alive long enough for the outage to prove that it is not a momentary flicker and then shut the system down cleanly.

This is why I consider communications support essential when a NAS or server is part of the load.

TrueNAS and NUT

TrueNAS includes UPS support using Network UPS Tools, commonly called NUT. A compatible UPS can communicate with the NAS over USB, serial or, with suitable hardware, over the network.

TrueNAS can then react to UPS status and initiate a controlled shutdown rather than waiting for the battery to become completely exhausted.

The exact UPS and driver still matter. If automatic shutdown is important to you, check the current TrueNAS UPS documentation and the Network UPS Tools compatibility information before buying.

TrueNAS can also operate with one system acting as the UPS monitor while other systems receive status across the network. That is useful when several servers share one sufficiently large UPS.

If you are interested in the NAS side of my setup, I have an entire Building My NAS series covering the hardware and software decisions.

How Much Runtime Do You Actually Need?

This is where I think a lot of UPS recommendations go wrong. The correct size depends on the power where the equipment is located.

A network closet in a city apartment with an occasional one-second flicker has a very different problem from equipment sitting unattended at a vacation house where an outage might last six hours.

If your problem is brief flickers

Your main goal is continuity. You want the modem, router, switches and NAS to ignore a brief voltage drop that would otherwise reboot everything.

Runtime is secondary. Even a modest amount of battery capacity may be enough, although I still prefer reasonable headroom rather than running a UPS near its maximum load.

If you get occasional short outages

Now runtime becomes useful. If most outages last five or ten minutes, I want the network to stay up rather than immediately begin shutting things down.

A 1500VA-class unit becomes attractive because a network closet usually draws far less than the UPS’s maximum watt rating, allowing more runtime than it would provide to a heavily loaded desktop computer.

If outages are frequent

Battery wear and monitoring become more important. Every battery discharge uses part of the battery’s useful life.

This is also where Automatic Voltage Regulation is valuable. A line-interactive UPS with AVR can correct certain voltage variations without moving to battery every time the incoming voltage wanders outside its preferred range.

For a deeper look at AVR, waveform, communications and other UPS features, see How to Choose a UPS With the Right Features.

If long outages are common

A larger UPS may delay the shutdown, but eventually this stops being primarily a UPS-sizing problem.

If the power regularly disappears for hours, you may need a generator, a much larger battery system or another backup-power strategy. The UPS can bridge the gap, protect the equipment from short disturbances and give servers time to shut down properly.

If the network is at a remote or vacation property

This is the case where monitoring becomes especially valuable.

If nobody is there to hear the UPS beeping, I want some way to know that the property lost power and that the battery is being depleted.

There is another limitation: keeping your router alive does not guarantee that your internet service remains alive. Your cable company, fiber provider or other ISP has equipment upstream from your house. A neighborhood-wide outage may eventually take that infrastructure offline too.

If remote connectivity is important enough, consider cellular failover as a separate layer.

I discuss the rest of that problem in my guide to vacation-home remote monitoring.

Best Value: CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD

For many home network closets, the CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD is where I would start.

It provides 1500VA/1000W capacity, sine-wave output, Automatic Voltage Regulation, 12 outlets and USB communications. CyberPower also supports optional network management for the model.

That is a lot of capability for a home network, NAS and PoE setup without moving all the way into enterprise UPS pricing.

I would buy it for: a serious home network closet where value matters and USB shutdown is sufficient.

Check the CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD on Amazon

Best Consumer Step-Up: APC Back-UPS Pro BR1500MS2

The APC BR1500MS2 sits between the small consumer UPS and the more IT-oriented Smart-UPS line.

It is rated at 1500VA/900W, has 10 outlets, AVR, an LCD and a user-replaceable battery.

If your closet is mostly networking gear with perhaps a low-power NAS, this may be enough. If I were protecting a more substantial server or knew I wanted network-management options, I would move up to the Smart-UPS or Eaton choices below.

I would buy it for: a large home network that has outgrown a basic router UPS but does not need the management features of a higher-end unit.

Check the APC BR1500MS2 on Amazon

Best APC for a NAS or Server: APC Smart-UPS SMT1500C

The APC SMT1500C is where the product starts to feel more like network infrastructure.

It is a 1440VA/1000W line-interactive sine-wave UPS with eight outlets, AVR, a replaceable battery, USB/serial shutdown support, a SmartConnect Ethernet port and a SmartSlot for additional management options.

The difference is not simply another hundred watts. I am paying for a platform designed around servers, storage and network closets.

I would buy it for: a NAS or server I care about enough to justify spending more for management, monitoring and a more IT-oriented UPS platform.

Check the APC SMT1500C on Amazon

Premium Tower Choice: Eaton 5P1500

The Eaton 5P1500 is the premium tower option in this group.

It is rated at 1440VA/1100W, has eight outlets and true sine-wave output. Eaton includes USB and serial connectivity, with an optional network card for remote management.

The higher watt rating also gives a little more room for equipment growth, although runtime still depends on the actual load.

I would buy it for: a serious home lab or network closet where management, build quality and server-oriented features justify the higher cost.

Check the Eaton 5P1500 on Amazon

Best Rackmount Choice: APC SMT1500RM2UC

If the network already lives in a rack, the APC SMT1500RM2UC is the cleanest choice here.

It is a 2U rackmount Smart-UPS rated at 1440VA/1000W with six outlets, sine-wave output, AVR, SmartConnect, SmartSlot expansion and USB or serial shutdown support.

The advantage is organizational as much as electrical. Instead of putting a heavy tower on the floor or a shelf beside the rack, the UPS becomes part of the rack itself.

Remember that a rackmount UPS is heavy. Install it low in the rack and make sure the rack and mounting hardware are designed to support it.

I would buy it for: a permanent rack-mounted network installation where clean organization and IT-style management matter.

Check the APC SMT1500RM2UC on Amazon

Tower vs. Rackmount UPS

Choose a Tower UPS If…	Choose a Rackmount UPS If…
Your network equipment sits on shelves	You already have a standard equipment rack
You want the lowest cost for the capacity	You want the UPS integrated neatly into the rack
You may move the UPS between locations	The installation is relatively permanent
Rack space is limited	Floor and shelf space are limited
You do not need rack-oriented cable management	You want UPS and PDU wiring contained in the rack

Do not buy rackmount simply because it looks more professional. Tower units generally give a home user more flexibility and often better value.

Should You Use a Rack PDU?

A rack PDU can make sense when the UPS does not provide enough conveniently located receptacles for all the low-power equipment in a rack.

A proper PDU is a power-distribution device, not another UPS. Eaton specifically describes a UPS feeding a PDU as a normal basic network-closet architecture, and APC also distinguishes rack PDUs from ordinary surge strips.

Do not solve an outlet shortage by daisy-chaining UPS units. Do not casually add a household surge strip or extension cord to the output either. UPS manufacturers have specific requirements for what can be connected to their equipment.

If you need more outlets, check the UPS manufacturer’s guidance and use an appropriately rated PDU intended for the application.

Do You Need Pure Sine Wave?

For a simple modem and router, I would not make waveform the only buying criterion.

Once a NAS, server or other equipment with an active-PFC power supply is involved, I prefer a sine-wave UPS. It removes a compatibility question and is already standard on the CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD, APC Smart-UPS models and Eaton 5P1500 covered here.

This is one of those features where I would rather buy it once than diagnose a strange shutdown later.

Battery Replacement Matters More Than the UPS Brand Name

A UPS is not a permanent appliance. Its battery is a consumable.

I learned this the irritating way when equipment protected by a UPS went down even though there had not been an obvious outage. The UPS was still sitting there doing its job in theory. The battery was no longer capable of doing its job in practice.

I wrote about that experience in UPS Batteries May Only Last 2–3 Years — And They Usually Fail Without Warning.

For a network closet, I would:

Buy a UPS with replaceable batteries
Write the battery installation date on the UPS
Enable battery and self-test alerts
Check reported battery condition periodically
Test whether the UPS can actually carry the network load
Replace a weak battery before an outage exposes the problem

A UPS showing a green light is not the same thing as a UPS with a healthy battery.

What Should Be on Battery Backup?

Prioritize the equipment that either keeps connectivity alive or needs an orderly shutdown.

For my network closet, the battery-backed side would include:

ONT or modem
Router or firewall
Core network switch
PoE switch if it powers critical cameras or access points
NAS
Essential Wi-Fi access points
Home-automation controller
Critical monitoring gateways

I would be much less interested in using battery capacity for:

Monitors that do not need to stay on
Printers
Speakers
Decorative lighting
Chargers that can wait
Nonessential lab equipment

What Should Never Be Connected to a Normal Network UPS?

A UPS designed for computers and networking equipment should not become a general emergency outlet.

High-draw heating and motor loads can quickly overload it. I would not connect things such as:

Laser printers
Space heaters
Vacuum cleaners
Refrigerators or freezers unless the UPS was specifically selected for that load
Air conditioners
Large pumps
Other appliances with substantial startup current

Keep the UPS focused on the network and computing equipment it was purchased to protect.

Ancillary Gear I Would Buy With the UPS

The UPS is the major purchase, but a few inexpensive additions make the installation better.

A plug-in watt meter

Measure the actual network load instead of guessing. Knowing whether the closet uses 90 watts or 350 watts completely changes the runtime discussion.\

A proper rack PDU if you need more outlets

For rack installations, use suitable power distribution rather than a pile of consumer power strips. Follow the UPS manufacturer’s recommendations for connected distribution equipment.

An optional network-management card where it adds value

This is most useful when the UPS sits in a remote location, supports several machines or needs to be monitored without depending on one USB-connected computer.

The Eaton 5P supports an optional network card. APC’s Smart-UPS models include SmartConnect and a SmartSlot for additional management options. CyberPower supports optional remote network management on the CP1500PFCLCD.

A replacement-battery reminder

Put a calendar reminder in place when the UPS is installed. Waiting until the battery fails defeats a large part of the reason you bought the UPS.

My Buying Decision

If I were building a normal home network closet today, I would buy the CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD first. It gives me the combination of capacity, sine-wave output, communications and price that makes sense for most home setups.

If the NAS or server were more important, or if I expected to invest in better UPS management, I would move to the APC SMT1500C or Eaton 5P1500.

If the entire installation were rack-mounted, I would strongly consider spending the extra money on the APC SMT1500RM2UC rather than finding somewhere to put a tower.

But I would make that decision only after measuring the actual load.

A 1500VA UPS is not automatically better because the number is larger. The goal is to buy enough capacity and runtime for the equipment, give the NAS time to shut down cleanly, and make sure the UPS can tell you when its battery is no longer ready to do the job.

Frequently Asked Questions

What size UPS do I need for a home network closet?

Measure the actual wattage of the modem or ONT, router, switches, PoE devices, NAS and other equipment you want to protect. For a larger network closet containing a NAS and PoE equipment, a 1500VA-class UPS is a useful starting point, but the correct size depends on both total watts and the runtime you need.

Is a 1500VA UPS overkill for a router and modem?

Usually. If you are only protecting a modem or ONT and Wi-Fi router, see our router and modem UPS guide. The larger units in this article make more sense when a NAS, PoE switch, cameras, access points or servers are part of the load.

Should my NAS be connected to a UPS?

Yes, if the NAS contains data you care about. A UPS can protect it from brief outages and, with compatible communications and software, provide enough warning for a controlled shutdown during a longer outage.

Can TrueNAS shut itself down when the UPS battery is low?

Yes. TrueNAS uses Network UPS Tools for UPS monitoring and shutdown functions. Verify that your exact UPS is supported and configure and test the shutdown behavior before depending on it.

Should a PoE switch be on the UPS?

If the PoE switch powers equipment you want available during an outage, such as cameras or Wi-Fi access points, putting it on battery backup can protect all those devices at once. Remember that their combined PoE consumption is part of the UPS load.

How long will a UPS run my network?

Runtime depends on UPS model, battery condition and actual load. Do not estimate it from the VA rating alone. Measure the network’s wattage and use the manufacturer’s current runtime chart or calculator for the specific UPS.

Should I buy a rackmount or tower UPS?

Buy a tower UPS if you want flexibility and value. Buy rackmount when the network already lives in a rack and the cleaner installation is worth the added cost and rack space.

Will a UPS keep my internet working during a blackout?

It can keep your equipment powered, but it cannot guarantee that the ISP’s upstream infrastructure stays online. For a remote property where connectivity is critical, consider cellular failover in addition to UPS backup.

Can I plug a surge protector into a UPS?

Do not assume that an ordinary surge strip or extension cord is acceptable. Manufacturers including APC and CyberPower warn against common surge-strip configurations with their UPS products. If you need more rack outlets, use an appropriately rated PDU and follow the UPS manufacturer’s instructions.

How often should I replace a UPS battery?

Battery life varies with battery chemistry, temperature, discharge frequency and UPS design. Instead of relying only on age, monitor the UPS, perform tests and make sure the battery can still support the actual load. Replace a weak battery before you need it during a real outage.

Published on August 9, 2026

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Elegoo Promised a Free Centauri Carbon Cable. Support Offered to Sell Me One

In a previous post, I talked about Elegoo finally releasing the Canvas upgrade for the original Centauri Carbon. I quite like the Centauri Carbon, which is my first Core XY printer. It has been a great workhorse for me. But this interaction disappointed me.

The Broken Cable

As I prepared to complete the installation of the Canvas, I discovered that the cable that transmits power and data was damaged. This was a common complaint online, that the cable would wear under the strain of use. I was not willing to continue using a damaged cable providing power to a motor and preheating a nozzle to 250 degrees celsius, this seemed a potential problem. I stopped working on the printer upgrade and contacted Elegoo for the upgraded cable the company had publicly promised to customers with this problem, that was less likely to experience this problem..

Many users expressed concern about this wear as a safety issue. On Reddit Elegoo acknowledged concerns about wear on this part and would start providing an upgraded and revised part, and they noted that they would provide a free cable to customers in need. Elegoo denied that their testing had revealed any fire risk, regardless. Online comments report the cable sparking when shorting out, data and power issues after repeated strain, etc.

Out of Warranty?

Elegoo’s initial response was to agree with me the cable should be replaced immediately. but that my printer was out of warranty. Support asked whether I wanted a quote for the replacement cable. I pointed to their own post in support of their commitment.

But the statement I was out of warranty on the printer was surprising for another reason. When they released the Carbon, they promised an upgrade for multi-color…then they released a sequel, the Carbon 2. After receiving public criticism from early adopters for not releasing the upgrade(which they finally did more recently), they offered an apology gift to purchasers of either a coupon for their store, a discount on the CC2, or an extended warranty. I took the one year extended warranty.

I shouldn’t have even had to discuss the warranty because of their commitment on the cable. In both cases, I needed to remind them of their own promises.

So, they:

gave me an extended one-year warranty as an apology for not delivering an upgrade they said was coming soon
they publicly offered a replacement for the cable for people who needed it
they tried to ignore my warranty extension
they tried to charge me for the cable.

Rather disappointing from Elegoo. When I pushed…they agreed I in fact had been given an extra year and they had offered replacement cables to people, and promised to send me one….then they told me they appreciate my patience as there might be a delay in shipping. It didn’t seem to be that long though, so not sure why I had to be patient.

Replacing the Cable

I am not claiming to be the best or most experienced at repairing 3d printers. But I had just dismantled large pieces of the Centauri Carbon without issue to install the Canvas upgrade. I had no issue following the instructions after watching the instructional video. I removed the old cable, and then discovered how incredibly hard it is to fit the cable through a very narrow opening…a fact they cut past in the instructional video. After I got the cable installed, the functionality returned..but without the Canvas plugged in. So still more to do there. Hopefully, whatever isn’t working is still under warranty.

Despite the Issues Elegoo Still Makes a Compelling Product

No one expects a company to provide replacement parts forever. But it is expected they honor their warranty agreement and any offers they make. When Elegoo released the Carbon, there were significant differences between all the production models. Early models had flaws that were fixed in later production. So, when they quickly released the Carbon 2…it was seen by many as if they’d beta tested a product for Elegoo and Elegoo had turned around and quickly moved on.

A customer should not have to find a company’s public statements or remind it of offers it made in the past. It should have given me the right answer the first time.

I will ultimately continue using the Elegoo Centauri Carbon, as it has been a generally good workhorse for me. Elegoo makes a good product, and they keep coming close to making good decisions around it…and falling short. I hope they address these issues in the long term.

Published on August 9, 2026

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Early Prime Day Ring and Blink Camera Deals: Are They Actually Worth It?

Amazon is already offering early Prime Day deals on Ring and Blink cameras. That makes sense. Amazon owns both brands, and smart-home cameras are exactly the kind of product that gets pushed hard during Prime Day.

But the better question is not whether a Ring or Blink camera is on sale.

The better question is whether the deal is actually worth buying once you include subscriptions, recording limits, local storage, battery life, and what you want the camera to do.

Prime Day 2026 runs from June 23 through June 26, but early deals are already appearing. If you are looking at a discounted Ring doorbell, Blink Outdoor camera, Blink floodlight camera, or Ring outdoor camera, this is the moment to slow down before clicking buy.

Quick Answer: Are Early Prime Day Ring and Blink Camera Deals Worth It?

Ring and Blink camera deals can be worth it if you want an easy, inexpensive camera system and understand the subscription tradeoffs. Blink is usually the better budget choice if you want some local recording options. Ring is usually better if you already use Ring devices, want a polished app experience, or care more about convenience than avoiding a subscription.

The key difference is recording. Blink has a local-storage path through Sync Module hardware, using USB storage with Sync Module 2 or microSD storage with Sync Module XR. Ring cameras can still be used without a subscription for some basic features, but recorded video history and saved clips generally require a Ring Protect plan.

Choice	Best For	Main Tradeoff
Blink	Budget camera setups, simple monitoring, some local storage options	Less polished and more limited than higher-end systems
Ring	Easy doorbell/camera setup, polished app, existing Ring households	Recording and many useful features require a subscription
Local-first alternatives	People who dislike subscriptions or want more control	More setup, more decisions, less “just works” convenience

Why Ring and Blink Deals Are Complicated

A discounted smart camera is not just a camera purchase. It is often a system decision.

The camera itself may be cheap. The ongoing plan may not be. That does not automatically make Ring or Blink a bad deal. It does mean the sale price is only part of the math.

Before buying, ask yourself:

Do I need recorded clips, or only live view?
Do I want to avoid monthly subscriptions?
Do I already use Alexa, Ring, or Blink devices?
Is this for a primary home, vacation home, garage, or rental property?
Do I need indoor cameras, outdoor cameras, a doorbell, or all of them?
Do I care about local storage?
Do I want the easiest setup, or the most control?

Those answers matter more than the sale badge.

Disclosure: This article may contain affiliate links. If you buy through these links, Gadget Wisdom may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.

Blink Cameras: The Budget-Friendly Option

Blink is usually the more budget-friendly Amazon camera brand.

That does not mean Blink is always better. It means Blink tends to make more sense if you want basic cameras at a lower hardware cost and are willing to live with a simpler system.

The biggest advantage is that Blink has a local-storage path. With compatible Blink cameras and the right Sync Module, you can save clips locally to USB or microSD storage instead of relying only on cloud recording. That makes Blink more interesting for people who do not want another monthly subscription.

That said, local storage is not the same thing as a full professional camera system. You are still buying an inexpensive consumer camera setup. The app, features, and responsiveness may not satisfy someone who wants a serious local NVR or advanced smart-home integration.

Blink Deals I Would Check First

If I were looking at early Prime Day Blink deals, I would focus on outdoor cameras, doorbells, and bundles that include the hardware needed for the setup I actually want.

You can see the current Blink camera and doorbell deals on Amazon.

Blink Outdoor 2K Plus — the first Blink deal I would check if you want a multi-camera outdoor setup.
Blink Outdoor XR — worth comparing if range or outdoor placement is the main issue.
Blink Wired Floodlight Camera — a better fit for a driveway, garage, side yard, or exterior area where lighting matters.
Blink Battery Doorbell — useful if you want a lower-cost doorbell camera and do not want to depend on existing wiring.
Blink Wired Doorbell — worth comparing if you already have doorbell wiring and want to avoid battery charging.

For Blink, pay close attention to the bundle. A deal that includes the right Sync Module or multiple cameras may be more useful than the lowest-priced single camera.

Ring Cameras: Easy, Polished, And Subscription-Heavy

Ring is the better-known brand, especially for video doorbells.

The Ring app is polished. Setup is easy. The doorbells and cameras are mainstream enough that many people already understand them. If you want a simple consumer security-camera setup and do not mind paying for Ring Protect, Ring can be a very reasonable choice.

The subscription is the catch.

Without a Ring Protect plan, you can still use certain basic features. But if you want recorded video history, saved clips, and many of the features people expect from a security camera, assume the subscription is part of the real cost.

Ring Deals I Would Check First

If I were looking at Ring deals, I would start with the doorbell and outdoor-camera deals. Ring makes the most sense when you want simple setup, an easy app, and you are comfortable with the subscription model.

You can see the current Ring camera and doorbell deals on Amazon.

Ring Battery Doorbell — the most obvious Ring product to consider if you want a simple doorbell camera.
Ring Outdoor Camera — useful if you already use Ring and want outdoor coverage in the same app.
Ring Doorbell deal — compare carefully against the Battery Doorbell and make sure you know which model and bundle you are buying.

If you are starting from zero and want to avoid subscriptions, Ring is a harder sell. If you already use Ring Protect and want another device in the same app, the deals may make more sense.

Ring vs. Blink: Which One Should You Buy?

I would choose based on what you are trying to avoid.

If you are trying to avoid subscriptions, start by looking at Blink or a local-first alternative. Blink is not a perfect no-subscription system, but it at least gives you a local-storage path with the right hardware.

If you are trying to avoid complexity, Ring may be the better choice. Ring is simple, familiar, and polished. The tradeoff is that you should assume the subscription is part of the real cost if recording matters to you.

Situation	Better Fit	Why
You want the cheapest multi-camera setup	Blink	Lower hardware cost and useful bundles
You want a polished doorbell camera	Ring	Strong app experience and mature ecosystem
You want recording without a monthly plan	Blink or local-first alternative	Ring recording depends heavily on Ring Protect
You already use Ring Protect	Ring	Adding more Ring devices may be simpler
You want a serious local camera system	Neither	Look at PoE cameras, NVRs, or local smart-home setups

When I Would Skip Ring And Blink

I would skip both Ring and Blink if your main goal is a serious local security-camera setup.

There are other systems that offer more local control, better continuous recording options, higher camera quality, local NVR support, or better integration with platforms like Home Assistant. Those systems are more work. They are also less dependent on a company subscription plan.

That is the tradeoff.

Ring and Blink are easy. Easy has value. But easy often means you are accepting the company’s app, cloud, subscription, and feature limits.

If you want a camera system for a vacation home, rental property, garage, or primary home and you mostly care about quick alerts, Ring or Blink may be fine. If you want long-term local recording and full control, they may be the wrong place to start.

Are These Good For A Vacation Home?

Ring and Blink can both be useful for a vacation home, but I would not treat cameras as the entire monitoring plan.

Cameras can show you doors, driveways, garages, decks, or outdoor activity. They do not tell you everything. A camera will not detect a hidden water leak, a freezing pipe, a humidity problem, or whether your router went offline unless you build the rest of the system around it.

If the camera is part of a broader second-home setup, think about:

router and modem backup power
water leak sensors
temperature and humidity sensors
door and window sensors
smoke and carbon monoxide alerts
whether someone can respond if an alert comes in

For the broader setup, see my guide to vacation home remote monitoring.

How To Judge An Early Prime Day Camera Deal

Do not judge the deal only by the percent off.

Before buying, check:

Is this the current model? Older models can still be good, but the discount should reflect that.
Is the Sync Module included? This matters for Blink local storage and multi-camera setups.
How many cameras are in the bundle? Some deals look similar but include different quantities.
Does it require a subscription for what you want? This is especially important with Ring.
Is it battery-powered, wired, or plug-in? Battery cameras are easier to place but require battery management.
Will Wi-Fi reach the camera location? A cheap outdoor camera is not useful if the signal is weak.
What happens if the internet goes down? Cloud-dependent cameras may lose much of their usefulness.

A good deal is not just a lower price. It is the right hardware for the way you plan to use it.

My Take

If I were buying during the early Prime Day sale, I would look at Blink first for budget outdoor cameras and places where local storage matters.

I would look at Ring first for a simple doorbell camera or a household that already uses Ring Protect and wants everything in one app.

I would not buy either one expecting a professional local camera system. That is not what these are.

These are easy consumer cameras. If the sale price is good and the subscription/storage tradeoff matches what you want, they can be worth buying. If you are only buying because the deal looks big, slow down and do the subscription math first.

Early Prime Day Ring and Blink Deals To Check

Published on June 5, 2026

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Door and Window Sensors for a Vacation Home: What to Monitor First

Door and window sensors are usually sold as security devices, hooked to alarm systems.

That is true, but when integrated into broader systems, they can do much more. For a vacation home, a door sensor is not just there to tell you someone broke in. It can tell you that a cleaner arrived, a contractor left, a guest forgot to close the back door, a garage entry door is still open, or a window is unsecured while you are hours away.

That makes door and window sensors for a vacation home less about building a security system and more about solving a simple problem: you are not there to see whether the house is secured.

Quick Answer: Where Should You Put Door and Window Sensors in a Vacation Home?

The first door and window sensors in a vacation home should go on the entry points most likely to be used, forgotten, or vulnerable: main entry doors, garage doors, basement entrances, sliding doors, and windows that are easy to access or commonly left open. If the home has guests, cleaners, contractors, or seasonal use, sensors can also help confirm that people came and went when expected.

Location	Why It Matters	Priority
Main entry door	Most common entry point	High
Garage entry door	Often forgotten or left unsecured	High
Sliding door	Easy to leave unlocked or partly open	High
Basement or side entrance	Less visible both inside and outside the house	High
Accessible windows	Useful for ground-floor or deck-level openings	Medium
Rarely opened upper windows	Usually less urgent unless they are often left open	Low

Why Door Sensors Matter When Nobody Is There

While these same ideas apply at home, in your primary residence, you usually notice if a door is open for too long. You feel the draft. You hear the alarm. You see the light. You walk past it.

In a vacation home, none of that helps if you are not there. You need more help and might prioritize investment there over a place you are at more often.

A door left open for a few minutes may not matter. A door left open overnight, during a storm, during freezing weather, or between guest stays is a different problem. It can mean water, animals, theft risk, heating or cooling loss, or just the unpleasant discovery that the house was not secured when you thought it was.

Door sensors are useful because they answer a basic question:

Is the house closed when it is supposed to be closed?

That sounds boring. It is also exactly the kind of thing you want to know from far away.

The First Doors To Monitor

You could put a sensor on everything. But thatg can get cost-prohibitive. Start with the doors that actually matter.

Main Entry Door

The main entry door is the obvious first sensor. It tells you when someone arrives, when someone leaves, and whether the door is still open after it should have closed.

If you use the home yourself, this may not seem pressing to know who opens and closes it. If cleaners, guests, relatives, or contractors use the property, it becomes much more useful.

Garage Door And Garage Entry Door

Garages are easy to overlook because they are not always treated like part of the living space. But a garage can contain tools, stored items, mechanical equipment, access to the house, or vulnerable plumbing, not to mention an actual car.

If the garage has a person-door into the house, monitor that too. It is often not as secured as your front door. A garage door sensor tells you whether the garage is open. A door sensor on the interior garage entry tells you whether someone entered the home from the garage.

Sliding Doors

Sliding doors are worth monitoring because they are easy to leave slightly open and easy to forget about, especially on decks, patios, and lake or mountain houses where people are constantly going in and out. They also, because of their design, are a weak point should someone try to break them to enter.

They are also common access points for guests, kids, cleaners, and anyone using outdoor space.

Basement, Side, And Utility Entrances

These doors may be less visible, which makes them more important. A basement or side door can be left open without anyone noticing from the street or main living area.

If there is a door you would not see from the front of a building, it probably deserves a sensor.

Which Windows Are Worth Monitoring?

Window sensors are useful, but you should again, be selective.

Not every window needs a sensor. If a second-floor window is rarely opened and not realistically accessible, it may not be the first priority. If a ground-floor bedroom window is often opened, faces a deck, or is easy to reach, that is different.

I would prioritize:

ground-floor windows
windows near decks or porches
basement windows
windows often opened by guests
windows in rooms that are easy to forget
windows near valuable equipment or storage

The goal is not to make a perfect diagram of every opening. The goal is to catch the openings most likely to matter.

Vacation Rental vs. Private Second Home

The right sensor setup depends on how the property is used.

For a private second home, door and window sensors are mostly about peace of mind and early warning. You want to know whether something changed while you were away.

For a vacation rental, the situation is more complicated. You may want to know when cleaners arrive, when guests check in, whether a door is left open, or whether someone entered a utility area they should not be using. But you also need to think about guest privacy and disclosure.

Privacy

Outdoor cameras and entry sensors are usually easier to justify than indoor cameras. Door sensors can provide useful operational information without recording people inside the home. You also have occupancy sensors, which detect if someone is in a space without any more details.

That is one reason I like sensors for this job. They tell you what happened without turning the house into a surveillance project.

Sensors vs. Cameras

Cameras and sensors answer different questions.

Device	What It Tells You	Limitation
Door sensor	A door opened, closed, or stayed open	Does not show who did it
Window sensor	A window opened, closed, or was left open	Only covers that window
Presence Sensor	Someone is in a space	Accuracy can be limited
Camera	Who or what is visible in the camera view	Can miss activity outside its angle and can raise privacy issues
Smart lock	Lock status, entry codes, and access history	Does not always prove the door is physically closed

A smart lock can tell you the lock is engaged. A door sensor can tell you whether the door is closed. A presence sensor can tell you if someone is occupying a space. Those are not always the same thing.

For a vacation home, I like the combination: smart lock for access, door sensor for open/closed status, a presence sensor to specifically identify individuals in strategic spaces and exterior camera for context.

What Kind of Door and Window Sensors Should You Buy?

I would not start with the fanciest sensor/ I would start with sensors that fit the smart-home system you already use and are reliable enough to place on the doors that matter.

If you already use a platform like Home Assistant, it can combine sensors from multiple systems. Whether you use Ring, Aqara, YoLink, SmartThings or another smart-home system, compatibility matters more than brand loyalty. A sensor that sends alerts through the system you actually check is more useful than a technically better sensor that lives in an app you ignore.

For a basic setup, look for:

reliable open/close alerts
good battery life
low-battery warnings
support for your existing hub or app
enough range for garages, basements, or detached spaces
an alert history so you can see when someone came and went

For long-range or detached spaces, systems like YoLink-style sensors can be interesting. For Home Assistant or Zigbee setups, Aqara offers a popular budget item. For alarm-system users, the best answer may be to use the sensors that tie into the monitored system you already have.

What Alerts Should Actually Notify You?

The biggest mistake with smart-home alerts is sending yourself too many of them.

If every door opening sends a push notification, you will eventually stop caring. That is especially true if guests, cleaners, or contractors are using the property.

Start by making a list of things you want to know, and when you want to log them, or get alerted.

Useful Immediate Alerts

a door opens when nobody is expected to be there
a door remains open for more than a few minutes
a garage door is still open at night
a basement or side door opens unexpectedly
a window opens while the home is supposed to be empty

Useful Logged Events

cleaner arrived
cleaner left
contractor entered
guest checked in
guest checked out

Not everything needs to buzz your phone immediately. Some information is useful as history. Some information is urgent.

The trick is knowing the difference.

What To Do When A Sensor Goes Off

A sensor alert is only useful if it connects to a response.

If a door opens unexpectedly, you may check a camera. If a door stays open, you may call a guest, cleaner, neighbor, or property manager. If a window opens while the house is empty, you may need someone to inspect the property.

Before relying on sensors, decide who can act:

a neighbor with a key
a local property manager
a cleaner or caretaker
a family member nearby
a contractor who already has access
local emergency services if there is a real security issue

The point is not to know about a problem faster and then stare helplessly at your phone. The point is to know early enough that someone can do something.

How Door And Window Sensors Fit Into A Vacation Home Monitoring Setup

Door and window sensors are one aspect of monitoring.

They do not replace leak sensors, temperature sensors, smoke and carbon monoxide alerts, cameras, or backup power for your network. They answer a different question: whether the house is physically open or closed when you are not there.

For the broader system, see my guide to vacation home remote monitoring.

If you are still building the rest of the setup, these are the other pieces I would think about:

The Bottom Line On Door And Window Sensors For Vacation Homes

Door and window sensors are not the most glamorous smart-home devices. That is part of their appeal.

They answer simple, practical questions: Did someone open the door? Did they close it? Is the garage still open? Is that window unsecured? Did the cleaner come and go? Did a contractor enter the house?

For a vacation home, those small bits of information can matter a lot. You are not trying to watch everything. You are trying to know when something important changed.

Start with the doors people actually use, the windows most likely to be left open, and the entry points you would worry about if you were not there for a week.

Frequently Asked Questions About Door and Window Sensors for a Vacation Home

Where should I put door sensors in a vacation home?

Start with the main entry door, garage entry door, sliding doors, basement entrances, side doors, and any door commonly used by guests, cleaners, contractors, or family members.

Do I need window sensors on every window?

No. Prioritize ground-floor windows, basement windows, windows near decks or porches, and windows that are often opened or easy to forget. You can assess based on how hard/easy it is to access that window from the outside.

Are door sensors better than cameras?

They do different jobs. Door sensors tell you whether a door opened or stayed open. Cameras show visual context. For a vacation home, the best setup may use both, especially at exterior entrances.

Can door sensors tell me if a guest or cleaner arrived?

Yes. Door sensors can show when an entry door opened and closed. If paired with smart locks or access codes, they can be part of a useful guest, cleaner, or contractor access log.

What should happen if a door sensor goes off while I am away?

Have a response plan before the alert happens. That may mean checking a camera, calling a guest or cleaner, contacting a neighbor, or asking a property manager to inspect the house.

Published on June 1, 2026

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The Great Migration: When Moving Day Comes Around for Your Server

In New York City, from colonial times to the mid-20th century, May 1st was “Moving Day”, when the majority of leases in the city would expire and much of the city would pick up and move.

Every few years, it is time to update my servers. While servers require regular bug fixes, every few years, it is time to clean out the cruft. Just as people move because of changes in conditions and for new opportunities, the neighborhood that is the internet has become a noisier dirtier place.

Why Your Server Needs a New Neighborhood

The world changes so much in between major upgrades. Now we have AI bots scraping the internet, hammering websites and using up resources, requiring new solutions. We didn’t need a heavy deadbolt to keep the bots out, a simple lock would do. Moving isn’t just about a new view; it’s about surviving the new climate of the web.

I could just fix things that are worn, sometimes you just need complete replacement. Even with the same specs, this ensures a clean start, and a better server.

When it comes to home servers, moves usually happen when I am upgrading the hardware. But when it comes to my VPSes, which are hosted online, I tend to build a new server, migrate to it, and then shut down the old one. It also allows me to reexamine and refresh myself on things that may have developed in the interim. Review new software options, new features, configuration settings.

So, how do you go about this.

Packing Your Digital Boxes: The Audit Before the Move

Inventory the services you have. Docker containers, databases, servers. It is not just the services, but what they are used for.
Toss out the junk you don’t need anymore…old software that isn’t active, cron jobs that don’t need to run.

Security and Monitoring: The Modern Dilemma of Convenience vs. Control

In the modern world, security gets harder and harder for the average person. There is a reason why people are turning to companies like Cloudflare to handle it for them. Cloudflare does offer a generous free plan, but it adds a dependency not under your control, and a free plan can so easily turn into a paid trap. Even though my firewall has held for many years, it lacks more modern tools to help me manage it, as I still do everything in a text window. For the same reason that people use Cloudflare, I don’t always have the time to get down into the code, and need the ability to do quick monitoring on the go.

When a Total Rebuild is the Only Cure

This is a great time to review new operating systems, new servers, and if sticking with the same, new configurations. If you never rebuild anything, you also forget how your system works.

In the end, you will have a brand new server, ready to face new challenges and you’ll be set for a few years. And as I work on this, I will be commenting on some of those tools.

Published on May 6, 2026

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Elegoo’s Promised CANVAS Upgrade Is Finally Coming to the Centauri Carbon

After months of controversy and growing skepticism about it ever coming out, Elegoo’s long-promised CANVAS multi-color upgrade for the original Centauri Carbon has finally gone on sale. The surprise? The official launch price is just $55, a far cry from what people expected.

The Backstory

The internet was abuzz when the Centauri Carbon came out. A CoreXY 3D Printer with a $300 list price with an enclosed chamber. And with a promised future multi-filament upgrade to print multiple colors as part of the same print.

The Centauri Carbon sold a lot of units when it released in Spring of 2025, but the multi-filament system never materialized. Elegoo released the Centauri Carbon 2 in January…so only months about the release of their big hit. The Centauri Carbon 2 is a refinement of the original Carbon, with:

reinforced body to reduce vibration
upgraded belts, motors, and pulleys to increase smoothness
redesigned extruder
improved hotend
improved cooling system and stronger fans
better included build plate
quieter motors reducing sound
the multi-color system, called CANVAS, on day 1.

That meant an improved version of the printer that Elegoo shipped to people while still refining it was suddenly no longer a production model. Pre-orders of the Carbon vs the later production models came with improvements and fixes, leading some to say they were using early adopters as beta testers. And now, without offering the promised accessory, they had released a version 2. That produced concerns that the promised multi-color support would never materialize, and that replacement parts for the original Carbon would dry up quickly.

Prusa, a long standard in the industry for open printers, offers upgrade kits. You can keep buying the improved components and turning your version 1 into a version 2, and so on. Considering how close the Carbon and Carbon 2 are and how many people bought them, and the short lifecycle of the original, it is surprising that Elegoo or third party hardware manufacturers wouldn’t consider supporting some of the improvements of the Carbon 2 on the original.

Elegoo apologized and insisted they had some issues, but they still intended on completing the system for the original Centauri, and offered an apology gift, a choice between a $50 coupon at their store valid for 3 months, an $80 discount on the Carbon, or a year long extension on the warranty, excluding consumable parts. It was starting to look as if they’d never offer the item. And they took a lot of heat for it.

On Monday, I woke up to see not only had it gone live, but the initial pre-order window for May delivery was already sold out, with shipping for the second round to be in June. And the price… $55. As of the evening, shipping dates for new orders were at end of July.But scandal hit rather quickly, at least the sort of thing the internet calls a scandal.

At a recent 3d printing event in Boston, Elegoo’s booth had a Centauri Carbon with the CANVAS system on display, and promised that units were shipping to warehouses around the world, and it would go on sale soon. A page went up, with a price of $150. Then the page went down. Several people get advance units to look at, so we got some ideas of what it was. Then the big reveal at $55, and some advance reviews started to leak out, very slowly.

What We Know about the CANVAS upgrade

This isn’t just installing a unit and plugging it in. Early reviews of the item reveal you have to perform some major surgery on the printer to upgrade it. The sheer amount of parts is why most people thought it would be a lot more than $55.

The CANVAS unit is mechanically identical to the one used on the CC2, but has a different circuit board.
It uses the same spool holders as the CC2, but it supplies adapter brackets to mount them as there aren’t the same holes to install them as are on the CC2
A new toolhead circuit board has to be installed. It contains ports for three new sensors. A filament detector sensor on the printhead, a filament cutter sensor, and a front cover removal sensor….all features present on the CC2.
There is no opportunity to upgrade to the hotends and the higher temperature rating that the CC2 has.
The improved CC2 extruder is supplied, replacing the original extruder. I had several problems with the extruder on the CC1.

Even without wanting the CANVAS unit, the new sensors and extruder are improvements of their own, and would probably cost nearly as much on their own for other printers.

What We Don’t Know

There is one downside to the CANVAS upgrade. The original Carbon had a glass lid that served to enclose the unit when printing filaments that required it. The CC2 has a large plastic hood. Visually, this is significantly less elegant than a glass top. The Carbon upgrade prevents the original glass lid from being used, and the upgrade provides no cover, which means you have a choice between not printing those materials or not installing the upgrade.

We don’t know if Elegoo has a solution to this problem, but we know either Elegoo, hobbyists, or both will figure out a solution to that problem. My personal prediction is that hobbyists will come up with something, as they usually do. But Elegoo will have to say something. They mismanaged this situation, and they are trying to recover, partially by selling the pre-orders at such a low price.

We don’t know enough yet about the reliability of the solution overall, although it is the same basic design as the CC2, so the reviews of that should bear out for this version. As reviews trickle in, and I await my delivery date, we will see what news develops.

Is it Worth Buying?

This upgrade doesn’t turn a Carbon into a Carbon 2, but it gives a variety of upgrades present on the two. If you bought the Carbon for the multi-color printing, it is a no-brainer at the price. If you bought the Carbon to do filaments that required the lid to be on, I’d still pre-order the device and trust a solution will come. And in the meantime, you get the other upgrades.

Published on April 28, 2026

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Yuzu Keycaps Review: Custom Keycaps for Weird Keyboard Layouts

This week I opened a box I had been waiting weeks for: my first fully custom keycap set.

Quick Answer: Is Yuzu Keycaps Worth It?

Yuzu Keycaps is worth considering if you need a custom keycap set for an unusual keyboard layout, want colors or legends that standard sets do not offer, or are trying to build something more personal than an off-the-shelf kit. It is not the cheapest way to buy keycaps, but the set I ordered looked professional enough that you would not know it was custom-made.

Best For	Why Yuzu Works
Unusual keyboard layouts	You can design around nonstandard key sizes and legends
Custom color schemes	Yuzu offers a large color library instead of a fixed kit
PBS or PFF profiles	Useful if you want newer profile options that are not common in mass-market sets
One-off personal designs	Good for making a set that does not look like everyone else’s keyboard
Budget keycap shopping	Probably not the best fit; generic sets are cheaper

Why Buy Custom Keycaps

If you’ve ever bought a keyboard with an unusual layout—or just wanted something no one else has—you’ve probably run into the same problem I did: standard keycap sets don’t fit your needs.

I’m a collector of keyboards and I have:

Ortholinear keyboards
Split Keyboards
Keyboards with Enter, Tab, Shift, and Backspace keys in atypical sizes
Low Profile Keyboards

But beyond that, sometimes you want to create something no one else has, or some other variation. The design sites for these services are relatively easy, but putting together an entire design is not always easy.

The Options Explored

I opted to order from Yuzu, who offers Cherry, KAM, and what prompted me to order, the recent introduction of PBS and PFF profiles. PFF is a low profile keycap profile that only recently was designed. They also offer a lot of different color choices.

There are two other purchase alternatives:

FKKeycaps, who offers custom MDA, Cherry, XDA, DSA, LPF, SLK and MBK. SLK and LBF are also low profile keycaps that work with MX style low profile switches, and MBK, which only works on Choc V1 switches. FKKeycaps only seems to offer one single color of keycap.
Thockfactory, who offer only Cherry profile. Their price for Cherry is lower than the competition, but they don’t allow for custom layouts, only several presets, but they allow a variety of colors.

The Profiles Explained

If you look down at your keyboard now, you may notice one of two things. The keycaps are all the same shape and height. This is called uniform. Where each row is a different shape and height, that would be a sculpted profile. Typists who rely on the subtle angle changes of a sculpted profile to orient their fingers may take a short time to adjust.

Standard Switch Profiles

Cherry – one of the most recognizable and popular sculpted keycap profiles. It has a maximum height of 9.4mm with a cylindrical top.
DSA – uniform profile with a height of 7.6mm and a spherical top
XDA – uniform profile with a 9.1mm height and spherical top as well as a larger surface area than DSA
KAM – uniform profile with a 9.1mm height and spherical top and a surface area in between DSA and XDA
MDA – sculpted profile with a maximum height of 12.36mm and a spherical top
SLK – A 7.5mm uniform spherical keycap that extends below the typical bottom of a switch
PBS – uniform profile with a height of 7.5mm tall, which makes it similar in height to DSA, but combines cylindrical front-to-back curvature with a spherical scoop

Low Profile Switch Profiles

Generally speaking, low profile keycaps are uniform.

PFF – 5mm tall, using the same cylindrical front-to-back curvature with a spherical scoop used in PBS, which makes it one of the few low profile keycaps that isn’t flat
LPF and MBK – are only compatible with Choc V1 low profile switches. Choc V1 switches can be lower than low profile MX switches, which PFF supports, but there is a lot less variety in general.

Yuzu: A Review

In terms of flexibility, Yuzu can’t be beat with over 300 colors. This allows you to pick colors, fonts, icons and graphics to create sets that no one has.

It is the ultimate in customization for keyboard enthusiasts. I placed an order when they started offering PBS, and received my first custom design a few weeks later…the delay due to the popularity of the new offering creating a backlog. You would not be able to tell these were custom keycaps. They look as good as the commercial ones. Why? Because Yuzu is a project of Keyreative, a commercial keycap manufacturer. Keyreative started out as an OEM manufacturer of keycaps before branching out into direct sales, so they are already the manufacturer of many keycap sets.

At the end, custom keycaps aren’t as cheap as generic sets, but they are comparable with more boutique sets. I opted for the below custom set, which is based on the popular Space Cadet design. Space Cadet was a keyboard designed in 1978 and used on LISP machines at MIT. I made some mistakes on my first foray into this, but Yuzu created a professional grade set of keycaps for me at a price that is comparable to a high quality set.

A QAZ style keyboard with custom PBS keycaps based on the popular Space Cadet design

Published on April 23, 2026

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IPv6 Explained: Why Adoption Is Still Slow Decades Later

Most of us don’t just use the internet once a day — we’re constantly surrounded by connected devices. Phones, laptops, TVs, cameras, even appliances. And that number keeps growing.

At the center of all of it is the basic Internet Protocol (IP), which is what allows devices to talk to each other.

The current version most of the internet still relies on is IPv4. The problem is that IPv4 only supports about

Most of us don’t just use the internet once a day — we’re constantly surrounded by connected devices. Phones, laptops, TVs, cameras, even appliances. And that number keeps growing.

At the center of all of it is the basic Internet Protocol (IP), which is what allows devices to talk to each other.

The current version most of the internet still relies on is IPv4. The problem is that IPv4 only supports about 4,294,967,296 billion unique addresses — and in practice, even fewer than that.

Large blocks are reserved for special purposes
Early allocations gave organizations far more addresses than they needed
Devices are now always connected instead of sharing connections
Broadband adoption continues to expand globally

IPv6 has been around since the late 1990s and became a formal internet standard long before most people ever heard of it. Despite this, adoption has not moved forward very quickly. This expands addressing to 340 undecillion total addresses. What’s an undecillion? 10 to the 36th power- a trillion trillion trillion.

IPV6 and IPV4 can coexist, but one is not backward compatible to the other. You can run a ‘dual stack’ connection, that connects over both versions. Usually this will be IPV6 with an IPV4 fallback. A protocol called ‘Happy Eyeballs’ is used to pick the best option of the two.

Why Has IPv6 Adoption Been So Slow?

IPv6 was introduced in the late 1990s. We are now decades into its existence, and yet most home networks — and a surprising number of enterprise ones — still lean heavily on IPv4.

Yes, we “ran out” of IPv4 addresses on paper. But instead of forcing a painful transition, the industry engineered its way around the problem. Most users wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between using IPV4 or IPV6.

Network Address Translation

Network Address Translation (NAT) became the default. Instead of every device needing a public IP address, entire homes — and even large networks — now sit behind a single one. Your router quietly handles the translation, and for most users, it just works. It is only users who want to host their own services who care as much about having publicly routable IP addresses.

That one workaround removed the urgency that IPv6 depended on. If nothing is visibly broken, nobody is motivated to replace it. Businesses had little motivation to do so, leaving it as important to a much smaller group of people.

Internet Service Providers

Most Internet Service Providers support IPV6, but good luck getting support. Performance is inconsistent. So, your mileage as a customer may vary. Over the last few years, I have turned on and turned off IPV6 at various times, due to reliability issues, but despite limited adoption, it continues to get more reliable and hopefully will continue to do so in the future.

The one exception here is mobile. Mobile providers, especially in Asia, are going native IPV6 mostly due to the need for increasing address space. This is slowly making its way to carriers in the rest of the world. So, considering that, it may be what has caused home ISPs to improve, and may drive additional business adoption as well.

Major platforms like Google and Facebook already see a significant percentage of traffic over IPv6.

Advantages

IPv6 is objectively better in a lot of ways:

Vast address space
End-to-end connectivity
Simpler routing (in theory)

But here’s the problem: there’s no killer feature that users notice.

Switching to IPv6 doesn’t:

make your internet faster
improve your Wi-Fi
unlock some must-have app or other features

IPV6 can be faster than IPV4, but that isn’t strictly because of the protocol. It depends. You may find that one protocol or the other is faster depending on the route your traffic takes.

Should You Enable IPv6?

By default, whether you have a commercial router or a homebuilt one like I do, it is usually very easy to turn on IPV6. If it doesn’t immediately work, you may have to google and adjust a few settings for your ISP. At this point, you can judge for yourself whether or not it is beneficial. Keep it on unless you have issues and see what happens.

If you want a full experiment, turn off IPV4 just to see what happens. You may, like on mobile, not even notice.

Why has IPv6 adoption been so slow?
IPv6 adoption has been slow because IPv4 never actually stopped working. Technologies like NAT allowed networks to stretch limited IPv4 addresses, removing urgency. Since IPv6 offers few noticeable benefits to everyday users, most networks continue to run both protocols without fully transitioning.

Published on April 20, 2026

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Can’t Buy a New Router But You Can Build One

Recently, the FCC in the United States banned foreign made routers made by some of the most popular manufacturers…which means…well, pretty much all not already approved from popular brands. It means you can continue to buy current routers, but any new technology…not so much. The ruling is something of a joke. For one, manufacturers can just continue to sell old models of routers without new innovation.

The argument is that foreign entities can compromise these devices, however, they could compromise the existing ones, and even the new ones…they could deploy updates at any time and open a hole that wasn’t there previously. So, what is the solution? For me, that was build my own. I had gone back and forth on this over the years.

For one, if you wanted to stay with the most common routers, there exist many third party firmwares for consumer routers. These are open source options that give you more control, like dd-wrt, and openwrt. Routers are effectively little computers, and very limited ones at that. These routers have:

low power and relatively slow CPUs
extremely limited RAM
limited space to store additional programs

There is a lot of room therefore to move up. Instead of using a purpose-built router appliance, you can simply replace it with a low-power PC running router software Modern low power CPUs like the N100/N150 series are perfect for this function. You can use a mini PC, or there are manufacturers offering ones with specifications specifically in mind to act as firewall and router appliances. A more powerful processor gives your new router plenty of room for advanced networking functions.

To run my router, I chose Opnsense. Opnsense is an open source firewall and router, with a load of features and installable extensions.

Enterprise-grade firewall controls
VPN support
traffic shaping
DNS filtering
detailed monitoring and logging

The default gives you a robust and secure router, and beyond that, any enhancement you can imagine can be added. And because it is modular, you can install additional functionality through plugins. This makes it far more flexible than most commercial routers.

What could be considered an advantage of building your own router is separating routing from Wi-Fi. It means you can upgrade and maintain these systems separately. These systems don’t actually have to live together. By addressing each piece individually, you can have better quality equipment, more reliability, and easier upgrades. If Wi-Fi standards change (and they always do), I can simply replace the access point without touching the router.

My Opnsense instance handles a lot more than a simple embedded appliance can. It:

Secure Site to Site VPN to multiple locations
Private VPN for my laptop and phone when on the go
Encryption for self-hosted services
Advanced firewall rules
DNS Management
Network isolation for IoT devices

For technically inclined users, it is relatively easy to get started and expand and learn over time. I cannot say how many times I have dug deep into the options when I added those VPNs, when I moved securing LetEncrypt certifications for my homelab onto the router, and more.

It isn’t just a long term solution, it is an adventure.

Published on April 6, 2026

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