Things for the House

Internet Services

Home Generator

T-Mobile Home Internet

Cost:  $50/mo including Fees & Taxes

I tested this service and I was surprised how well it performed.  It uses T-Mobile 5G cell service.  If you have T-Mobile Cell Phones, you know how well it works.   If you Telecommute, this is a great Primary or Backup Service to Xfinity.

130-135mbps download speed

10-15mbps upload speed

Latency is really good and service never went down.

I ran 3 concurrent Apple TV Streaming shows, over 100 Internet connected devices and it performed great.  Yes, I can control over 100 items in my house from my phone.  Some times my wife is not happy about that. 

The benefit to T-Mobile Home Internet is thieves can not cut the cord before entering your house.  So if your alarm system is using Xfinity or Qwest, the alarm can’t send alerts.

Does not support IPv6 yet. 

Xfinity 

Cost:  Is all over the place depending on plan you choose.

I currently have Xfinity and when it’s working, it’s a little better than T-Mobile in the latency test, but not enough to bother you.  The sells catch is the speed numbers they throw at you.  How many people really need 200mbps, 400mbps, 600mbps or 1Gig.  How many non tech people even know what mbps and how to translate that.  How many people have 600mbps service, but can never see it.  

The other catch is the Xfinity DVR.  In order to have DVR server, you must have Xfinity Internet Service.  If it wasn’t for that requirement, I would have ditched Xfinity and gone T-Mobile.  I just haven’t gone totally Streaming yet.  Mostly due to lack of a RF remote to control everything for streaming.

Pro:  Support IPv6

 

Several people in the HOA have a generator for those times when the power goes out.  There are basically two types.  Portable Generators and Whole House Generator.  One of the bigs questions is how big of a generator should I get.  I’ve been dealing with this delima myself.

Portable Generators:  I only like the ones that run on natural gas and can easily connect to a grill outlet.  Typically, you’d want one that’s 30amps, 240v.  This allows each line in the house to get 30amps 120v.  This will typically power necessities like 2 gas furnaces, 2 refrigerators / freezers, some LED lights.  During the last big outage, I rented a 2200 watt 120v generator from Home Depot.  Shockingly, I was able to power all of the above after a little rewiring because the generator was only 120v.  

I’ve been thinking of buying the Firman 7500 watt tri fuel generator from Costco because it can run off my unused natural gas grill outlet.  Keep in mind the rated watts is the total watts.  So if you want to run a 240v device, you divide the running watts / 2.  So for Natural Gas, I’ll get 2,750 watts per line.

Key Features:

  • Runs on Gasoline, Propane Fuel or Natural Gas
  • 9400 Starting Watts / 7500 Running Watts – Gasoline
  • 8450 Starting Watts / 6750 Running Watts – LPG
  • 6900 Starting Watts / 5500 Running Watts – Natural Gas
  • CO Alert System (Carbon Monoxide Warning and Shutdown)
  • Noise Level is 74 dB at 1/2 load
  • Battery or Manual Start
 
Whole House Generators by Generac
These are awesome.  The bigger ones can power your whole out in the summer.  However, they will drink a lot of Natural Gas.  But when the power is out, who cares about Natural Gas Price.
Some Key Features
  • Can Power your whole house
  • Auto Runs whether your home or not
  • quieter than Portable Generators.