Same, including an IR led is such a simple thing, why did this ever go away. Though I’m pretty sure most Chinese phones still have them, Xiaomi phones do for sure

Hell yes, just jumped on the ulefone train myself!

I actually meant to reply to your comment but replied to the main thread by mistake, I had the same frustrations with modern phones losing features, and even fairphone dropping the 3.5mm jack was a wtf decision to me. See my comment on the ulephone 18t, it had virutally everything I wanted in a phone.

I’m going to chime in here to plug the ulefone power armor 18t I just got. I was pretty nervous to get a chinese phone as I’ve only had samsung and lg phones before, but this thing legit blows me away. Not only does it fully support every band that my carrier uses (rare even for phones made for the US market), but it has:

• Replaceable battery that lasts 3+ days between recharges

• Extremely rugged, IP69 waterproof and designed for underwater photography (physical shutter button and diving camera app)

• 3.5mm jack, sd card slot, FM radio (with built in antenna - no headphones need to be plugged in), and an RGB notification led

• Dimensity 900 chipset that beats a lot of the snapdragon chips on the market.

• 12 fucking GB of RAM… yes, 12…

• Wifi 6(ax)

• Wireless charging and reverse charging

• A fucking 60x magnification microscope? (Why???)

• A FLIR thermal camera (Just because, why the fuck not)

• Runs mostly bloat free stock android

All that for under $600 (on aliexpress)

The only thing it’s missing is an IR blaster, otherwise this is the best phone I’ve ever had, bar none. It is a chonky beast though, be warned.

This has really changed my view on Chinese electronics, especially at a time when phones for the western world are losing features and functionality all the time (including stuff from South Korean). Turns out capitalism isn’t that great for innovation!

Interesting, can I ask a couple questions about that setup? How did you go about connecting all the pieces? Is it all handled locally? What hardware are you running it on? Do you have any good resources/tutorials you followed?

I have foscam cameras and have been pretty happy with them. Regardless of the brand, make sure you firewall them from the internet or they will phone home.

Reason I went with foscam was because at the time they were the only brand with an outdoor PoE camera that had a spotlight, 2-way audio, PIR, and ONVIF support. Which was what I wanted for an entryway camera. They’ve since discontinued that “SPC” model, so if I had to do it over again I would be just as likely to pick reolink (had shitty luck with amcrest).

I have been very happy with my venstar colortouch. It has a well documented local API, with a cloud option and mobile app if you’re comfortable with that. The HA integration is great as well.