More precisely, two battery pack types. Just a little something that some of you might find useful. As you may know, we moved into a new home a little while back with no electricity so I bought a generator and an Oukitel lithium power unit (wish I’d bought a Bluetti)…
Sonoff S61S Outdoor Matter over WiFi Smart Plug
According to the Box this new Sonoff product is a Matter-compatible outdoor smart plug that runs on Wi-Fi, with: smart timer, Matter compatibility, energy overview, electricity bill tracking, overload protection and overcurrent protection. This is the EU version but there will be versions for the UK and USA etc. Details:…
Wispr Flow – speech recognition finally matured?
Original article November the 5th 2025. Updated today, May the 10th 2026. See the important update at the end. I got an ad this morning (original date) for a company selling speech recognition software that claims that now you can type as quickly as you can think. So I’m using…
NOUS – A Name to Remember – Part 2
Firstly I’m going to check out the NOUS Door/Window Sensor E3 Original article July 2025 – revisited May 2026 Immediately a nice-looking device – runs on Zigbee and I have of course used Zigbee2MQTT though NOUS no doubt have their own Zigbee hub. I’ve found Zigbee2MQTT running in Home Assistant…
Mains Extensions and Modern Smart Plugs – Problem
Is it just me or do others have the same problem? I’ve looked up EU and UK mains extension leads as I have lots of smart plugs, chargers and similar to test and use. In almost all cases I end up having to sacrifice every other socket as the smart…
The Aqara Hub M100 Compact Thread Border Router
The Aqara Hub M100 is Aqara’s latest ultra-compact smart home hub, designed to bring modern connectivity standards like Matter and Thread into even the simplest setups. Unlike traditional hubs, the M100 comes in a USB-stick form factor, making it discreet, portable, and easy to deploy anywhere you have a powered…
To Starlink or not to Starlink – that is the question
We’ve moved in January this year to another location in our small village in Spain… and once again, though we are just a stone’s throw from houses (on hills) which have fibre, there is no chance of having a pylon fitted to get broadband – and so we continue to…
NOUS – A Name to Remember – Part 1
Published originally July 4, 2025: Until a couple of weeks ago, I’d never heard the name NOUS – but now I have, I’m glad I have. I enquired for samples to demo in here and they quicky send off several of their devices – great stuff, slightly marred by an…
Home Assistant – a Quick Thank-You
Hard to believe it’s now something like two years since I made the break from many years of Raspberry Pi (2 through 5) and ultimately Node-Red + Node-Red Dashboard for my home automation during which I even developed and published my own packages for Node-Red (node-red-contrib-bigtimer for example) and a…
Semismart Smart Screen Switches
Just had my first play with a new Semismart Zigbee Smart Screen Switch ZMS-206EU-3 and I’m quite excited… See the main photo – this standard EU fitting wall switch – which requires neutral – switches up to 3 devices on and off – the blurb that comes with it says…
Shelly – The Pill
This is the last in my current round of Shelly product reviews. “The Pill” is a TINY little module which comes with brief instructions and a USB-to-3.5 mm jack female adapter. The device supports DS18B20, DHT22, digital input, and various add-ons. Shelly sent me The Pill along with several accessories:…
Shelly Presence Gen4
Another new Shelly product – this time a small, USB-powered presence detector from Shelly in Bulgaria. Rather than dive into the Shelly app I went straight for Zigbee use and added the device to my Zigbee2MQTT setup under Home Assistant. At first, Zigbee2MQTT accepted the device but said it was…
Shelly BLU H&T Display
This new device from Shelly in Bulgaria is a SLIM paper-white display temperature, humidity and light level sensor. I love the display, very low-power consumption, uses on a pair of CR2032 batteries (supplied – up to 2 years battery life) and the device comes with a flat magnetic, adhesive-backed wall…
Flint 3e (GL-BE6500) Router from GL-iNet
Through various communication and courier errors it has taken some time for my Flint 3e router to arrive but here it is at last. I have a pair of Flint routers (the originals) which offer WiFi 6 and I can definitely vouch that they have better range than WiFi 5…
Home Assistant Mutually Exclusive Buttons
I hope that title is obvious. Probably not. I have put up three power sockets in my garage and while we are on temporary power, I only want to use one at any time (so as not to overload the battery power unit or for that matter the generator –…
New Home Tech Successes
I’ve been a bit out of it due to the tremendous amount of work in getting a new (very old) home up to speed – no electricity and initial water issues… but we’re starting to make headway. Today I had a successful day…. Clarification: None of the power/generator devices shown…
WiFi 6 GL-iNET AX1800 (FLINT) Router and Tailscale
March 21, 2026 Update You’d think by now there’d be nothing more to say about this versatile GL-iNet router – but it is still supported and still receives regular updates – I’ve just this morning updated it to firmware 4.8.3. I run it on the back of an incoming 5G…
Switchbot 13.3 inch AI Art Frame – What Fun!
I’ve been eagerly awaiting this device for weeks now. Delivered by DHL, somehow they delivered it to a local store and neglected to tell me about it. Spanish couriers aren’t the best, to put it mildly. In at the deep end – no AI in this blog, just good old…
Aqara FP300 Presence Multi-Sensor
I finally have a few moments alone and some electricity to write a short review! And here it is, the Aqara Presence Multi Sensor FP300. This is Aqara’s latest feature thread and Zigbee compatibility, at which point it refers to a hub required and built on Thread, which requires a…
Generators and Lithium Power – A Cautionary Tale
Still in the process of getting things up and running in our new home and still without electricity – so apologies to various tech companies waiting for unbiassed reviews, meanwhile a quick cautionary tale for anyone thinking of buying a generator when moving home… Utterly oblivious to the complexities of…