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Month: October 2021

Redme Airdots 2S TWS Earbuds

October 30, 2021June 17, 2022 Peter ScargillGeneral

There’s only so much to tell about my new Redme Airdots earbuds – mainly as the instructions were entirely in Chinese (Note I’ve changed the link to the updated airdots 3 as the 2S are no longer available). The important stuff is all over the web – Bluetooth 5.0, noise…

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X96 X4 Amlogic S905X4 Android 11 TV Box

October 29, 2021January 5, 2022 Peter ScargillGeneral11 Comments on X96 X4 Amlogic S905X4 Android 11 TV Box
X96 X4 Android 11 Box from Banggood

The latest just arrived in the mail and after setting up and having a brief play – I think it could be a winner. At any time I usually have a few such boxes attached to my TV. After all, they don’t last forever and you never know when support…

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Synology DS720+ NAS – Big Upgrade

October 25, 2021March 21, 2025 Peter ScargillGeneral14 Comments on Synology DS720+ NAS – Big Upgrade

By “big upgrade” I mean mainly for me… I’ve been using a Synology DS214+ NAS (Network-Addressable-Storage or box of disks 😎 ) back in the UK for several YEARS. In my IT Director role at the FSB, before I decided to go down the early-retirement/enjoy-Spanish-sunshine route, I needed reliable backup…

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M5 TOUGH and other M5Stack Goodies

October 23, 2021February 2, 2022 Peter ScargillGeneral
M5 Tough from M5 Stack

I’ve written a couple of articles on M5Stack, the most recent being a re-look at the M5Stack Core 2 now that it is supported by Tasmota – and I’m hoping soon by ESPHOME. I got as far as putting my own little Tasmota-based display on the Core2 in a previous…

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New Athom ESPHOME-Ready Smart Bulbs

October 20, 2021May 22, 2025 Peter ScargillGeneral2 Comments on New Athom ESPHOME-Ready Smart Bulbs
Athom E27 RGBCW Bulbs

Regular viewers will know I had a thing about Athom a little while ago. When my handy Tuya-convert rig became redundant and it was no longer possible to convert smart bulbs from various suppliers to run TASMOTA (and hence be locally controllable without signing up for someone elses CLOUD), Athom…

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Raspberry Pi 4 plus SSD Case

October 19, 2021October 20, 2021 Peter ScargillGeneral24 Comments on Raspberry Pi 4 plus SSD Case

Funny how things come around. I originally started this blog back in September 2020 as a request for feedback from you guys, having recently (at the time) mastered then blogged about Raspberry Pi 4 and the speed benefits of using an SSD drive via a USB3 to SATA adaptor –…

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Death by flossing? the Fairywill FW-5020E Water Flosser

October 18, 2021October 19, 2021 Peter ScargillGeneral13 Comments on Death by flossing? the Fairywill FW-5020E Water Flosser

. Two things I’ve always wanted but never got around to buying: one of these water irrigators and a bidet. The later is still on my todo list and will probably remain there, but I’m pleased to say, I now have my very own water cleaner at last – in…

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An Aqara Week and New Headphones

October 14, 2021November 20, 2021 Peter ScargillGeneral
Aqara

It’s been a good week for gadgets so far. Here we go… SuperEq sent me their new noise-cancelling headset – rather handy for any upcoming flights. Bluetooth and 3.5mm jack. I’ve included their links above – they also sent me Amazon links but I’m not that keen on offering Amazon…

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ESP32 Development Trials – The Sunday to Thursday Sermon

October 13, 2021November 29, 2021 Peter ScargillGeneral8 Comments on ESP32 Development Trials – The Sunday to Thursday Sermon
ESP32 + ESPHOME

That is, as in “trials and tribulations”. I’m busy getting myself familiar with the ESP32 and ESPHOME to see how far I can push these devices now that the price is not a LOT more than the ESP8266. Regular readers will know that years ago I and others developed “ESP-GO”,…

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Weather APIs and OpenWeatherMap

October 12, 2021October 15, 2021 Peter ScargillGeneral14 Comments on Weather APIs and OpenWeatherMap

I’ve had a morbid fear of using API calls since I first heard the term years ago, just before I developed a morbid fear of JSON. Well, the latter didn’t last too long but JSON responses from websites can get awfully complicated, awfully quickly. And that’s how tonight I ended…

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Meross MSL120 RGB E27 Light Bulb

October 12, 2021October 23, 2021 Peter ScargillGeneral

This is going to be a quick one. The Meross MSL120 E15 RGB light bulb works just fine with their Meross APP, giving the usual RGB control features including warm and cool white + RGB. Sadly, Meross continue to use chips other than ESP8266 or ESP32 so their lamps at…

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Zigbee – The Ongoing Sonoff and Electrorama Story

October 6, 2021April 11, 2024 Peter ScargillGeneral7 Comments on Zigbee – The Ongoing Sonoff and Electrorama Story
Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus

You may recall for a while I got fanatical about Zigbee – I’ve not lost interest – it’s just that by and large, Zigbee just WORKS – in particular, I have a load of Zigbee sensors around the house, mostly AQARA, mostly running on CR2032 batteries and the (rather short-range…

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ESPHOME on RPI plus my First October Postbag

October 6, 2021October 7, 2021 Peter ScargillGeneral10 Comments on ESPHOME on RPI plus my First October Postbag
Keystudio ESP32 Base

ESPHOME By now you’ll have seen my frantic posting about ESPHOME, running on the PC command line to allow the creation of ESPHOME-equipped ESP32 and ESP8266 devices… I’ve been making little display projects, the likes of which I could only dream of in TASMOTA. I originally tried ESPHOME on the…

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Another TTGO with ESPHOME

October 2, 2021October 7, 2021 Peter ScargillGeneral
LilyGo TTGO module

The first time I did this last week, I was a complete newby to ESPHOME – a popular yet free firmware option for ESP8266 and ESP32-based boards. I also had no idea how to make use of the ESP32-based which Banggood sent me some time ago so I was picking…

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Recent Posts

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  • ESP8266, Tasmota and a Cautionary Tale about AI
  • Super Mini ESP32-S3, Broadband Testing and more
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  • M5Stack DIAL V1.1 in Brief
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  • Seeed Studio 60Ghz mmWave Sensor
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  • Aqara FP1E Revisited Briefly
  • Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition vs Google
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  • M5Stack Goodness
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  • Apollo Air-1 CO2 and other Sensors for Home Assistant
  • Argon40 Argon NEO5 + Poly+5 RPi5 Cases
  • The Reolink RLC 1224A UHD PoE Camera
  • The Sonoff Mini-D (MINI-Dry) WiFi Smart Switch

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As I have no idea of your level of technical skill or the requirements of your country laws in terms of electricity supply etc, I accept no responsibility for any damage attributed to following advice in these pages.

When dealing with wall outlet (high) voltages you should satisfy yourself that whatever you are doing is safe and if unsure, seek advice from someone who is sure.

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