North Meets South Web Podcast

Wildfires, Fitness Tracking, and CCTV

July 17, 2026·46 min
Episode Description from the Publisher

Michael and Jake catch up ahead of Laracon in Boston, beginning with Michael's increasingly complicated home extension. Jake shares a family trip to Cedar Point, then the conversation moves to how a Laravel Cloud weekend challenge inspired Michael to build Fitrack, a personal app for coordinating training around a single fitness goal. We then move on to home network and security upgrades, including a larger rack cabinet, a new NAS, locally accessible alarms and CCTV, Power over Ethernet cameras, Home Assistant, HomeKit, RTSP feeds, and using Claude to handle unfamiliar smart-home configuration. We also discuss Kitze hacking his NordicTrack treadmill and Michael’s experience connecting his own treadmill with Apple Fitness.Finally, Michael and Jake look ahead to Laracon, discuss conference merchandise and accommodation in Boston, and finish with a conversation about donuts, candy, and the lengths parents go to when quietly disposing of their children’s leftover sweets.Show linksCedar PointLaravel CloudTaylor’s Laravel Cloud weekend shipping challengeEdwin’s Google Meet alternativeFitrackDavid HemphillHome AssistantAqara camerasKitze's treadmill hackCaleb Porzio on code imprinting on our brainsLaracon USMoxy Boston Downtown

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