
Pi-hole Setup on a Raspberry Pi: Block Ads Across Your NZ Home Network
Pi-hole is a free, network-wide ad blocker you run on your own hardware — most people put it on a Raspberry Pi — and once

Pi-hole is a free, network-wide ad blocker you run on your own hardware — most people put it on a Raspberry Pi — and once

Port forwarding tells your router to send incoming internet traffic on a specific port to one device on your home network — so you can

Signal and WhatsApp both promise private messaging, and both use the same underlying encryption for your messages. The real differences sit around the edges: who

Microsoft Teams is Microsoft’s all-in-one app for chat, video meetings, calling and file sharing, built around the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. It comes in a genuinely

Wi-Fi Calling lets your phone make and receive ordinary calls and texts over a Wi-Fi network instead of the mobile tower, so you can still

If you have had a letter saying your copper phone line is being withdrawn — or your old landline has simply stopped working — you

Which Freeview box do you need? UHF vs satellite, twin-tuner recorders, the Freeview Streaming TV app and HDHomeRun network tuners with Jellyfin or Plex, plus a free setup chooser.

Control a Mitsubishi heat pump from your phone: the official Wi-Fi Control adapter and app, the local ESP32 CN105 method that began on the nicegear blog in 2016, and IR blasters, with a free route picker.

Size a solar panel, battery and charge controller for a bach, shed, van, camera or Starlink Mini with monthly sun data for nine NZ centres, plus EECA figures on home solar cost and payback.

Where does your power go? How NZ households can monitor energy use with smart-meter data, smart plugs and CT clamp monitors, what needs an electrician, and a free running-cost calculator.