Just wasted part of the day trying to get Python 3 working properly on an upgraded Raspberry Pi 2 updated from Wheezy to Jessie without luck – very depressing – so I think an early night (yes, on NYE – having seen the fireworks in Moscow and the “special” fireworks…
Month: December 2015
A successful Techy Day
So much going on today I thought I’d put the lot into one blog entry. So, I’ve spent the day with my pal playing with one of several IOT solutions – familiar to regular readers – node-red-contrib-ui. This just keeps getting better. So we spent our afternoon getting to grips…
ESP 32 Unofficial Development Kit
Michael Grigorev has released a Beta version of Unofficial Development Kit for Espressif ESP32 (Windows) From Michael: The kit includes the following components and tools:* Unofficial GCC compiler for SoC Xtensa L108.* Official Espressif ESP32 RTOS SDK v1.1.0* Documentation for SoC ESP32.* Examples in the firmware source code in C…
Node Red Speech – The Sequel
Some time ago, I wrote about speech output (text to speech) on the Raspberry Pi using Node Red. Well, that’s been running just fine but like most things – it works until it doesn’t. In this case the nice people at Google have decided it is time to make money…
Node Red UI Mysteries
Yes I did think when writing the title that it reminded me of “Ruth Rendell Mysteries”. There are times when I consider taking up a new career in bricklaying and this is one of them. So I’m working with Node-Red and the UI (node-red-contrib-ui) which has a FUNCTION node which…
Pm2, Node-Red and the Rock
Well, this isn’t really about the Rock – but does this scenario mean anything to you? You’ve installed Node-Red on a new setup of Debian… and while it has always worked in the past, it just isn’t having it – you can run manually but attempts to run at powerup…
ESP 32 Update
An update for you. As you may know the ESP-32 is Espressif’s latest venture, a new, hopefully more powerful alternative to the ESP8266 – with Bluetooth 4 and all sorts of other goodies. I received my ESP-32 module this week along with 0.1” header adaptor board. All very nice you…
Christmas 2015
Just a quick note to wish our many subscribers a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Our plans for Christmas are simple – we’ll be spending time with family and friends. Sadly in the modern world many people who have come to be friends are scattered all over…
Radxa Rock Pro
Up to now, my delving into tiny computers has been limited to the Raspberry Pi, the Pi2, Zero and the Orange Pi. The latter still isn’t doing it for me as the latest attempt to get it working (DietPi) turned out to be not so good (no hardware acceleration, no…
Thermostat Christmas Wishes
Still ploughing away with the thermostat side of my home control. Having had working code for some time now using ESP8266 modules (and hopefully soon the odd ESP32 device) to control things with Node-Red on the Raspberry Pi acting as the central controller and in charge of mobile and serial…
ESP32 Arrival
And here it is – the ESP32 – or rather the ESP-32 development kit. Mine is in a batch that is running late so my pal has given me his to play with. I figured I’d take a pic in my hand so you can gauge size. This tiny box…
Node Red UI Miracles
I’m writing this at 5am in the hope that some of our American friends are up and about to save me going mad. You recall I wrote recently about Node-Red-Contrib-UI which allows you to make a UI for Node-Red for your mobile phone etc. Don’t get me wrong, there are…
New ESP Boards
Are these new? Reader Christian brought these to my attention this evening – price is ok – and if size is at a premium…. Small footprint, USB-to-TTL is on the underside. This is quite interesting when space is an issue. Supplier also has a DHT11 shield: http://www.aliexpress.com/item/D1-mini-Mini-NodeMcu-4M-bytes-Lua-WIFI-Internet-of-Things-development-board-based-ESP8266/32529101036.html Next is a…
DietPi
Those of you who have been here for a while will recall my rants about the Orange Pi PC, a Rasperry Pi lookalike that costs around £12 if you get it from China (Aliexpress etc). Indeed some of you have one of these and will no doubt have shared my…
CodeLobster
The more I dig into Node-Red the more I end up coding my own routines – and the internal function has nice colour coding etc but eventually you start to get a little frustrated with the internal editor especially if you are used to using an IDE. It just so…
Even More Node Red Contrib UI
As I write this – several conversations are going on around node-red-contrib-ui – and in the process I’ve found issues with the security setup in Node-Red itself – which have been fixed. Since I started this – the designed of the UI has responded to requests for gauges and a…
More Node Red UI
Updated 01/11/2016: Node-Red-UI is of course now Node Red Dashboard – you might want to check out the updates Andrei has now added the gauges below natively to node-red-contrib-ui so my code below is of use only if you want to add something different – though the LEDs are still…
Node Red UI
In my last blog item, I wrote about the IOT-Manager App for Android – much to the annoyance of a pal of mine who uses Apple (snigger). Among the replies was the questions “have use you used “node-red-contrib-ui”? This was something I looked at when it first came out and…
Smoke Alarm by Email
Reader Christian brought this to my attention.. (http://www.simpleiothings.com/10-diy-wifi-smoke-alarm-notifier-roost-nest-alternative-full-tutorial/) The guy uses a NodeMCU, a USB wall power supply and audio sensor (microphone) to catch the audible alarm and start a WiFi alert via IFTTT. The smoke alarm unit stays unaltered and you never have to think about running out of…
Enter the Photon
The details Particle.IO have been trying to send me a Photon for as long as I can remember. This all started in the summer when I was in Spain. I was expecting the device to arrive and the Spanish postal authorities got hold of it. I don’t know if they…