Back in 2017 I wrote a blog entry called “A Thermostat Weekend” – some weekend that turned out to be. Well, to cut a long story short, the stat worked but I was at the time just finding out all about NEST and other modern stats and so my ESP-GO/Node-Red…
Month: April 2020
Mosquitto and Aedes on Raspberry Pi 4
I currently have The Eclipse Mosquitto MQTT broker running on the Raspberry Pi 2, 3 and 4, Buster Raspbian, not to mention countless other variations of Debian and Ubuntu on various boards used at one time or another in the past (Orange Pi, various FriendlyArm boards and many others). Below…
Cutting or Bleeding Edge – RGBCCT Lamps and Tasmota
I’ll let readers decide if we are on the cutting or bleeding edge here. Having received a 6-pack of ZemiSmart new GU10 Smartlamps to test, I installed them in my kitchen where I have a pair of ceiling 3-lamp non-smart fittings and duly replaced the six normal GU10 LED lamps…
T95 MAX+ Android TV Box
I could not tell you how many TV boxes I’ve had over the years. I’ve had ROKU 2 (no VPN, restricted, takes over everything), “proper” “Android TV” boxes with pathetically restricted PlayStore and severe limits on what you can install, through to a range of “full Android” TV boxes and…
RFLink – 433Mhz Remote Control and Node-Red
Many moons ago I just happened to be staying overnight with my pal Jonathan and he had some surplus (and so free) Byron 433Mhz wireless doorbell-pushes to demonstrate. He showed me a universal RF 433Mhz receiver board he purchased with which could look at the signals from the various kinds…
The Predictable End of Free Apps – eWeLink?
I read today that eWeLink, the app used by Itead for their Sonoff products, is looking to offering a “paid” option. “What!?!” I hear you say? But we already paid for the hardware… Well, for some time now, I and others have been writing about taking the time and effort…
A ZemiSmart Weekend
Today, I received a shipment of goods from ZemiSmart including a small but surprisingly bright 5W E27 RGBW Smart Bulb, a WiFi Smart Socket (max load 16A – 1875W (non-inductive)) with twin USB (5v@2A) and a really neat battery-free (yes, battery-free bell-push) Smart Doorbell. The WiFi Smart Bulb Well, I…
Weather Data using Node-Red and APIs
With the forthcoming descent of Dark Skies into an Apple-Only universe (a sad loss for the rest of us) I’ve been looking into alternative APIs to use for grabbing weather forecasts and related data. While I struggle with the MET Office behemoth, here’s a little information on yr.no I’d not…
Scargill’s Covid-boredom-fighting Idea #1 Smart Kettle
My friend Antonio just pointed me to an expensive Australian “Smart” kettle which heats up coffee in the morning for you. All very nice but not cheap AND not ACTUALLY available right now.. also, simple timers assume you always get up at the same time of day – right now,…
Ravpower PD Pioneer 61W Wall Charger RP-PC112
Wall chargers for phones are not something I generally get excited about but as this handles “Power Delivery” (a new standard for charging) for phones AND has enough power for a Raspberry Pi 4 or modern tablet/notebook, here goes. The RP-PC112 UK version is a white, neat-looking USB-C wall charger…
Sonoff Mini with Tasmota versus the competition
You can’t get away from it, the iTead products are inexpensive – and sometimes that is very important. But are they the best solution for Home Control? Well, that depends… I think they are very good… Sonoff products have always been inexpensive. But bear with me. At one time the…