I’ve worked remote for 4+ years and could not see myself going back. I love being able to leave a meeting and hang with my wife & kids, even for 5 minutes, it makes my day better.

That said, many of the people that report to me are part of a co-contractor whose policy is essentially structured to force low performing assets into the office. I’m not quite sure how I feel about that, but in my role, I’ve seen it be successful for them.

It’s primarily used in audio/video from my experience. They’re quite expensive, or they were when I last interacted with them: https://www.rossvideo.com/control-systems/routing-control/ultritouch/

Honest comment with a bit of a question buried in here this novella… I use Google devices; Pixel Pro’s, Pixel watches, Nest hubs, Nest thermostats, etc. This is a understood agreement (not symbiotic) between me and the behemoth that is Alphabet: I pay them for hardware, and use their “free services” that are heavily subsidized by pillaging my data. I know the hardware does it too, and I’m paying.

I’ve switched most of my networking and cameras to UniFi, my browsers are all Firefox… The question is what’s next? I dislike Apple iPhones but like my wife’s MacBook, but I’m a nerd. All of my devices need to “play nice” in their respective ecosystem. I’m tired of having the inbox app, hangouts, etc only to find Google has grown tired or doesn’t care and scraps them.

When the iPhone 15 comes out, I was getting the wife that and myself the Pixel 8P. Now I struggle. The “ultra” premium phones (we both care most about camera) are few and defined. I don’t want to jump to Apple, it’s the same thing, just packaged differently. Ugh.

Duplicati. It just works. Paired with Backblaze (not free) it’s been our default home backup for a long time.