There’s only so much to tell about my new Redme Airdots earbuds – mainly as the instructions were entirely in Chinese. The important stuff is all over the web – Bluetooth 5.0, noise cancellation and control touch button. If you look back over my blog (check the link above), I’m…
Month: October 2021
X96 X4 Amlogic S905X4 Android 11 TV Box
The latest Android box from Banggood 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…
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…
M5 TOUGH and other M5Stack Goodies
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…
New Athom ESPHOME-Ready Smart 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…
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 –…
Death by flossing? the Fairywill FW-5020E Water Flosser
Ok, I admit, I needed a snappy title to make a water cleaner interesting. 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…
An Aqara Week and New Headphones
It’s been a good week for gadgets so far. Here we go… SuperEq sent me their new SuperEQ S1 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…
ESP32 Development Trials – The Sunday to Thursday Sermon
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”,…
Sonoff NSPANEL – I Like It
The new Sonoff NSPanel has been sitting on my desk for some time now, awaiting the go-ahead to put it on the blog. It has now been released on Kickstarter so you may wish to take a look! And here’s a photo. The NSPANEL looks great and out of the…
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…
Meross MSL120 RGB E27 Light Bulb
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…
Zigbee – The Ongoing Sonoff Story
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…
ESPHOME on RPI plus my First October Postbag
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…
Another TTGO with ESPHOME
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 LILYGO TTGO module which Banggood sent me some time ago so…