Ask Paul: May 8 (Premium)

Happy Friday! Here’s a great set of diverse reader questions to kick off the weekend a bit early.
From G Suite to Microsoft 365
SherlockHolmes asks:

Not a question per se but I wanted to asked you how is your companys move from G Suite to Microsoft 365 going? Im asking because my company is in the same process. Im working for the catholic church in Germany and we have a lot of E-Mail inboxes to move.

We’re just starting this up now, starting with Teams this coming Monday. So I don’t have much to report yet. I will say that this is happening outside of the Thurrott.com domain---that is, in my case, I’m just getting a new email address at our corporate domain (really, an old email address I never use)---so I’m not sure whether this will impact me all that much, beyond using Teams instead of Skype for work calls and FRD.
OnePlus and auto-brightness
Simard57 asks:

I have a OnePlus 7t that i am happy with but one thing that i wish were different is the brightness level when in auto mode. If i manually set it brighter, it will fill to where it wants it instead of what i set it to. How can i make auto mode work better for me?

You are highlighting one of my key complaints about OxygenOS, and I never found a way to make it work: Auto-brightness (or what OnePlus calls Adaptive brightness) is always too dim in low lighting conditions, in my experience. It drives me nuts. I don’t know of a good fix, sorry.
WINK out
Simard57 asks:

Looking to replace my WINK lights and hub because they are going to start charging a subscription. What are the advantages of having a hub instead of controlling directly from my Amazon Echo? PS - I got the WINK starter kit because it was a cheap and easy way to try home automation. it is "OK" but has had some issues. I am ready to replace it due to the subscription fees.

I can’t think of any real advantage per se, beyond not having to pay a subscription fee. But I have found that I prefer using the apps from each smart home provider (the Hue app from Philips Hue for the lights, for example) over a centralized controller. That said, having a central interface for this stuff is the dream, and if you just want voice control, Amazon Echo, Google Home/Assistant, or Apple Siri/HomeKit whatever could do that for you assuming your smart home equipment was all cross-compatible, which most of it is. If you’re using Amazon, you should be all set, compatibility-wise, with whatever pieces you choose.
Panos from home
will asks:

Curious if you saw the video that Panos posted on the launch of the new Surface devices, and what your thoughts were on the video? I know it was on Instagram, not sure where else.

Yeah, and anyone hasn’t seen it, you can view it here.

One of the things that’s interesting about the pandemic and all the stay at home stuff is that we’re seeing famous people in their own homes and in more natural conditions. I’ve enjoyed a lot of the music that’s been broadca...

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