CPF Medisave Changes in 2026

CPF Basic Healthcare Sum to rise to $79,000 for those under 65 from Jan 1

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/cpf-basic-healthcare-sum-to-rise-to-79000-for-those-under-65-from-jan-1

Starting today 1st Jan 2026, your Medisave Account (MA) limit is raised from $75,500 to $79,000. This means you can do a immediate top up of $3,500 based on self CPF top up (up to $8,000 a year) before your salary credit CPF in and bring your MA closer to the limit amount. Earning you an interest of 4% in MA.

If you have reach or about to reach your Full Retirement Sum (FRS) in in your Special Account (SA), you won't be able to top up your SA with the full allowed amount of $8,000.

This is your opportunity to top up your MA using your remaining allowed amount for income relief.

Why not do it end of the year? 

Cos CPF interest is incurred monthly, you lost out on interest doing it at the end of the year. Unless you have a higher interest in earning above 4% on that amount before the self top up.

 

CPFB | How is my CPF interest computed and credited into my accounts? https://share.google/0nBrbEtyMWlzRM4Ue

CPFB | Earning CPF interest https://share.google/uTzvYziFoFNzqABz0

What happen when my CPF is credited when my MA has already reached it's limit?

Any amount over the limit of MA, will be credited into your OA.

Reference

Homey Pro Webhook Integration with Unifi Protect for Fingerprint & NFC

In my previous post, I mentioned the long waited release from Unifi Protect on the G4 Pro Doorbell.

Having seen a few videos online people using webhook to have Home Assistant to work using Webhook with Unifi Protect, I believe Homey Pro will be able to do something similar.

However, Webhook is new to me and it took me awhile with some help in Homey forum. Finally I managed to have that integration completed.

First you need to prepare a few things:

1. Homey Cloud ID

It is under Settings, General and Cloud section.

2. You need to have a event name to be capture in Homey Flow Webhook Logic card. If you mouse over the information icon, you will see the screenshot below with the delivery URL to be use in Unifi Protect app.

https://webhook.homey.app/<homey_ID>/<my_event>?tag=<tag_name>

What we need to change is the <my_event> a name which you will be using to recognize the Webhook event call. The other is a <tag_name> if send a state. In my case, I am using fingerprint and I want to make sure all registered fingerprint in Unifi Protect via G4 Pro doorbell, will send a "yes". It will then looks something like this: 

https://webhook.homey.app/xxxxxx/fingerprint?tag=yes

The flow will looks like below. 

What happen here is whenever a registered fingerprint is triggered on Unifi G4 Pro Doorbell, an alarm is created with the Webhook URL with a POST containing an even name "fingerprint" and a tag name, "yes".

A separate alarm with Webhook URL with a tag name, "no" was also create to define the different. That only a message is send.

As you can see above, I also send a message for registered fingerprint to ensure my Webhook flow is correctly triggered.

So you can do the same with registered NFC. Once again, I do not recommend to use NFC due to the fact it can be easily duplicated as mentioned in my previous post.

Ubiquiti G4 Pro Doorbell New Features

With the new release of Unifi Protect, originally featured when this doorbell was release almost 2 years ago, it does came slightly late than never. This doorbell now support fingerprint and NFC.

To use this features, you will need to have some home automation or have a Unifi Access setup. I am not an office owner and only a simple home owner. So I do have my smart home setup using Homey Pro. Why I did not choose other platform, I will leave that to another article. I was able to refer to a video using Home Assistant and Ubiquiti G4 Pro and decide to try it on Homey Pro.

Back to our main topic. The registration of fingerprint and NFC is very simple, you can just add them easily and follow the screen procedure on the G4 Pro doorbell.

When you click on Add New (fingerprint), you will get a prompt and select a user. If the user is new, you can just add one. You do not need to assign any roles, it can be just a simple user with a name.

Press and register your fingerprint on the reader till you reach 100%. Tilt and turn your finger so it capture the bigger surface area.

Choose a user or add a new one.

Once that is done you will be able to just press the read and it will recognize the user and displaying the user name.

Unifi Protect with this update also include a new notification manager call Alarm Manager.

I created an alarm for known fingerprint and push out a Webhook. You can either push that to Slack or for my case, custom to my Homey Pro.

With my Smart Home integration with Homey Pro, I will then unlock my door and send a message to my user as a notification to my Homey mobile app.

I will not recommend any NFC card access, as it only register typical NFC card, those can be easily duplicated. It can register encrypted ones e.g. HID, but it cannot read from it after to use as an access. It is a bummer.

A video on how it looks like. A next article to show my Webhook integration into Homey Pro. 

p.s. my fingerprint sensor on my smart lock is no longer working so this feature comes just in time instead of number pad access which is very cumbersome.

Saving Account Comparison (UOB One & GXS)

Following up from my last article, many have asked why not other banks such as UOB One and GXS (which is the currently most attractive).

One main reason is, there must be manual task to be done and some criteria to be met.

Here I have done a table out to show you the effective interest with the criteria if you are mindful to complete all those steps.

Comparing the two, UOB One account would be best for the first $150,000 for interest. However, it only pays out monthly. 

GXS is good as it pays daily for the base balance ($25,000) or every 4 months for the 2 boost pods if you are mindful to do it every 3 months. Which I feel is an hassle. The moment you missed, your effective interest will be lower. Also it only allows you to leverage up to $75,000 though the additional from interest does earn you the based 2.38% interest unlike Mari or UOB.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rfBgrs6y5ZBamiX5uW4RYyck2GChll3EOICFlEVtCBA/edit?usp=sharing

Black Myth Wukong Review, Guide and Tips

Finally completely the hottest game, Black Myth Wukong on my PS5. Not just once but 3 times, in order to prepare for the DLC with maximum stats and inventory of all drinks, soaks, weapons, armor, etc.

This is is really well crafted. From the story line to the logic in every game play. Not just punching the buttons away. Certain bosses have certain logic behind them or certain items you need to be carrying to help you.

I have gone through walkthrough, youtube video to name some to enjoy the maximum of the game. So here are some of the list I would recommend. Below includes also some logic explanation and story line created by others so you will appreciate the game better. Do note no glitches are shared here as mostly everyone is been patched.

Information

• Story of the characters you met in the game.
• All characters Journal entries
• Additional dialogue when you use certain item on some bosses
• All trophy list you will need to play NG+ to complete some of the armor and weapons

Logic

• Chapter 2 Yellow Wind Ridge - The Yellow Sage help you by determining how good you are.\
• Chapter 5 Yin Yang Boss Logic - This boss, can be easy or tough depending if you know the logic. Interesting game play for this.
• How to unlock the 4th focus point. A reason why I played NG+2

Tips

• IGN Walkthrough - When I was playing they only have to Chapter 3. Now they have up to Chapter 5. So it is still a great guide to help you though. 
• Best place to farm for ingredients and level.
• Secret areas in every chapter. Before going to final bosses
• Bosses in each chapter and location include map of each chapter
• Drinks and Soak locations
• Gourd locations
• Curios locations. Note not every Curios can be obtain more than once
• Fire date seed which I was missing to complete the trophy after completing the game and repeat farming to finally got it
• Tiger Tendon Belt which I repeat a few times to get it to complete the trophy
• Venomous Armguard - In chapter 4, from Venom Daoist, hit 4 of hands off before defeating him. I missed this and have to do it in NG
• Summon 2 sets of Duplicate
• Bosses easy strategy

Hope the above helps you as it helps me.

Best Saving and Deposit Singapore

As a past financial adviser, I am a pretty thrifty person and always looking out for best deal. A so call "lobang" king labelled by friends and colleagues.

At the time of writing, I like to share two best deals that capture my eyes.

DBS/POSB Fixed Deposit (reference)

With a sum of $1,000 to $19,999, over a cause of 12 months, you will fetch 3.2% with their fixed deposit (FD). Do note you must not have any existing FD with them else you will not be eligible. And yes, the number is up to $19.999, the moment you enter $20,000, the interest will drop to 0.5%.

If you do have some money lying around that can be placed aside for 12 months, don't missed it.

Mari Saving Account (by Shopee)

This e-bank by Shopee gives you a 2.7% daily interest up to $100,000 in saving. You cannot top up more once your account have $100,000. You will need to cash out of it to top up. It support Fast transfer and PayNow, whether to transfer out or in. This is really convenient. Just in case you are worried, it's regulated by MAS up to $100,000.

Trying to top up beyond $100,000 and got denied.

Why I find this attractive where you might ask. Since many banks has salary account. Those salary account are pretty much activities driven. You need salary to be bank in and a minimum spend on their credit card. If you lapse paying the card you need to call in to waive off the charges. Not to mention to watch out of annual fee, etc. They pay out interest based on your balance daily at 12am.

Daily interest from $100,000.
$100,000 & 2.7% / 365 days.

As a past financial adviser before, you should always keep some liquidity money when you need it. Not lock away. So I find that Mari bank offers me this great flexibility. While been liquid, there is no salary or minimum sum and yet they pays you daily interest. No frills and even have added benefit when shopping in Shopee. What else can you ask for! Putting in a normal saving account will not make your money work hard for you.

So look no further if you just want a interest paying account and no requirements for it. Also gives you the flexibility. Use my referral code below:

Get $10.00 by signing up with MariBank Personal Banking!Simply download MariBank app and use my referral code: 4NVN97FE. T&Cs apply. Remember to make a price in Shopee within 14 days to get the $10.

Synology with Plex Media Server Unable to Browse Folder

So you have a Synology NAS. Great!

If you are like me who thinks that the Video Station from Synology isn't good enough and uses Plex. Fantastic!

However, if you like to have more function for the Plex Server such as RBAC (Role base access), live streaming of shows from Plex, etc. you might have to get a Plex Pass (their membership program). 

They come in a monthly, yearly and lifetime. You can check it out here. If you are not in an hurry, wait for Black Friday which falls on the 4th Friday after Thanks Giving every November. This year it falls on the 24th Nov 2023. That is when you might likely get a 50% discount off the lifetime Plex Pass which I got previously many years back. Trust me its worth it.

For Synology, you can just download the Plex Server binary here, and use Package Center to manually install it. Do choose the right package depending you are on the old DSM 6.x or new DSM 7.x.

So once you have Plex setup, you will want to map your existing Movies, Photos or even TV Shows folders. However, you might end up not able to let Plex Server browse it. Here is why.

Plex create a system, internal user, "PlexMediaServer". You will need to grant this user to permission to your media folders.

Hope this helps in case you encounter the same issue like me. I do forgot about this critical step all the time. So am recording this down for my future reference. :)