RoomTested Guides
Start here if you're shopping or setting something up — checklists and walkthroughs from real installs.
Signal vs WhatsApp: same encryption, different owners, and the owner is the product
Signal vs WhatsApp use the same encryption protocol, so the real comparison is metadata, backups, business models and what each hands to police. The honest answer for UK users is both.
Is Brave the best privacy browser? Yes for most people, with the settings pass it deserves
Is Brave the best privacy browser? Across independent studies, owner reports and reviews: strong engine level blocking, a trust record with a pattern, and who should pick LibreWolf instead.
Jellyfin vs Plex in 2026: the price rises settled most of the argument
Jellyfin vs Plex after the 2025 remote streaming paywall and the 2026 lifetime price jump: what each really costs, both trust records, and the run both trick that ends the debate.
Does NordVPN protect your privacy? What the audits, the court tests and the renewal maths say
Does NordVPN protect your privacy? The audits, the court tested rivals, the renewal trap and the affiliate money behind the rankings, weighed honestly for UK buyers.
Aquacomputer Quadro: the fan controller for a custom loop, and whether you actually need it
A UK guide to the Aquacomputer Quadro fan controller: what it does, the coolant-temp control that justifies it, the aquasuite licence reality, and whether you actually need one.
The best GPU for running AI locally in 2026: VRAM, the used 3090, and the CUDA question
A UK guide to picking a GPU for local LLMs and Stable Diffusion: why VRAM is everything, the used RTX 3090 value play, CUDA vs AMD ROCm, the CUDA-version reality, and what to buy.
Presence sensors: the fix for lights that turn off while you sit still, and which to buy
A UK guide to mmWave presence sensors: why radar beats a PIR motion sensor, the cheap-sensor label trap, the fan and ghost false-triggers, and which to buy from Aqara FP2 to DIY.
Energy-monitoring smart plugs: which to buy, and the 13A trap the listing hides
A UK buyer's guide to energy-monitoring smart plugs: Tapo P110 vs Shelly vs Sonoff vs cheap Tuya, the 13A socket trap, how accurate the readings really are, and which to buy.
What is local AI? A plain-English guide to running LLMs on your own hardware
What is local AI? A plain-English guide to running LLMs on your own computer: what it is, why people do it, the honest limits versus ChatGPT, the easy tools to start, and the hardware you need.
Best single-board computers: 3 picks, and what to build with each
A UK guide to three single-board computers: the all-rounder Raspberry Pi 5, an RK3588 powerhouse like the Orange Pi 5, and the NanoPi R6S firewall box, with what to build on each.