See updates at the end – this is an original article I started in June 2023 – updated at the end in June 2025. I’m finding the brand new Switchbot Outdoor Spotlight Camera to be quite exciting. I have a pair of them with separately supplied solar panels. Elsewhere on…
Cheap AliExpress Zigbee SmartPlugs
I’ve had mixed results with WIFI plugs from AliExpress – but I could not help myself when an offer of €3.79 for a Zigbee smartplug if-you-buy-3 came along. Would they be any good? To look at these plugs, they seem high enough quality with a nice orange rim (not illuminated)…
And As Promised – the IoTorero Products
I’m a lot better informed now – the company formerly called ATHOM now have IoTorero (get it? Iot) branding on their smartplug boxes – and I now have three different types. The boxes all have the same product number on them (confusingly) – Model PG01 – but on the actual…
Iotorero/Athom AliExpress Smart plug
After an interesting week that included one of my smartplugs failing (turning on a loud fan at midnight) I’m pleased to say the above-named plug has arrived. The troublesome plug was a Meross MSS310 – though as it turns out, after I decided to investigate cosmic rays, the supposedly duff…
ESP8266, Tasmota and a Cautionary Tale about AI
I’ll not re-iterate detail about the work on a ping tester I’ve been slaving over, using up all my spare time for the past week as it is in the previous blog entry, but here are thoughts worth showing re: the experience. So, several things… the ESP8266, long claimed to…
Super Mini ESP32-S3, Broadband Testing and more
I recently flashed a pair of Super-Mini ESP32-S3 boards using the online Tasmota flasher here. As I had no need for Bluetooth I went straight for the standard Tasmota (ENGLISH) option – which for anyone who doesn’t know, somehow works automatically for both ESP8266 and some ESP32 boards (ESP32-C2, C3,…
Tasmota Smartplugs
Why Tasmota smartplugs? Well, I have lots of Smartplugs – Tuya, Sonoff and others on WiFi and several on Zigbee. Being unable to open these plug up and reprogram easily means you’re stuck with what you get. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve used many and I quite like the Sonoff…
An Orange Pi Week
It’s been a while since I’ve had any Orange Pi products (earlier) (even earlier) to play with, but last week in the mail arrived a package comprising Orange Pi RV, Orange Pi RV2, a “5.1v5A GAN” USB-C power supply and a small packet which took me a few minutes to…
Meross Smart Switch, Presence Sensor and More
Every so often I get a bunch of stuff from Meross (no payment or commitment – just stuff to play with) and today in the post, a package via CTT courier arrived. I opened up the package and… Meross Smart WiFi Switch MSS815 If you’re new to Meross – another…
3M VHB Tape – The name’s Bond – James Bond
Sorry – couldn’t resist it. I saw a YouTube video yesterday where a guy was griping about LED STRIP and the rubbish adhesive on most of it – my thoughts exactly. He thoughly recommended 3M’s VHB foam tape (Very High Bond – that keeps making me laugh) – and he…
Home Assistant at long last BUST?
Sorry, I could not resist at least one of those stupid end-of-the-world headlines so popular with children disguised as adults who seem to dominate YouTube…. So the very much abbreviated story is this: Months ago, I put Home Assistant on a cheap miniPC for speeding up my HAOS installation –…
Automatic DHCP and Home Automation
This is SO obvious once you grasp the idea – for some reason it missed me for the longest time. Let’s say you have a load of devices on your home control network… we’ll ignore Zigbee devices here as they don’t have IP addresses – as they work on a…
Aqara G4 Video Doorbell and FP2 Presense Sensor – Updated
Important April 2025 update – see FP2 section further down…. Jan 2024: I just received my first packages of the new year, a duff screen protector from AliExpress, some USB shelf-lamps from the same (more on that later) meanwhile from Aqara, my eagerly-awaited Aqara G4 Smart video doorbell and their…
Home Assistant Tuya Socket Woes
In my Home Assistant set-up – HAOS on a mini-PC, documented elsewhere in here, I have an AliExpress-sourced cheap WiFi Tuya (Smartlife) socket controlling a salt light and as it is part of my livingroom lighting set – I have an HA entity change helper turning the socket entity into…
New Sonoff Goodies – Plug and Thermometers
In today’s postbag, a new Sonoff Zigbee smartplug – S60ZBTPF type F/E – so an EU plug… nothing special to look at – just an EU-fitting Zigbee 3.0 smartplug with no lights anywhere – not on the manual on-off button, not around the frame… for testing you can just hear…
M5Stack DIAL V1.1 in Brief
The M5Stack Dial is a small (45mm hole dia) USB-C-connected rotary dial with touch-sensitive LCD display. Here it is – short video…. And here are a couple of links with potentially useful information on using the M5stack Dial – ESPHOME 1 and ESPHOME 2
Zigbee2MQTT Lights – A Quick One
Some weeks ago in an order to AliExpress, I included a Zigbee E27 220v light bulb. It works perfectly in Zigbee2MQTT (in Home Assistant). Perfectly that is except for one thing – the default state setting does not work and in the event of a power failure and subsequent reconnect,…
Seeed Studio 60Ghz mmWave Sensor
Billed as a “Breathing and Heart Rate Sensor (reference MR60BHA2)” this new device from Seeed Studios got me quite excited…. the device arrived on April 2, 2025 in a well-packed large box maybe 10cm*9cm*13cm. Inside, a small box (9cm*2.5cm*2.7cm) containing the sensor and a double-sided business card pointing the buyer…
Whatever happened to everlasting solar garden lights?
I have MANY years experience of solar garden lights from the cheapest rubbish to quite expensive… what happened? Well, price – greedy importers out to make a quick buck is what happened – along with the public’s need to get something for nothing. The result is that the manufacturer builds…
Aqara FP1E Revisited Briefly
I’ve had an Aqara FP1E movement/presense sensor for some time and for some reason, only checked movement sensing. Today I plugged the unit in and Home Assistant remembered it perfectly from my last tests back in August 2024. This time I went to my Zigbee2MQTT panel which I get to…