I recently flashed a pair of Super-Mini ESP32-S3 boards using the online Tasmota flasher here. As I had no need for Bluetooth I went straight for the standard Tasmota (ENGLISH) option – which for anyone who doesn’t know, somehow works automatically for both ESP8266 and some ESP32 boards (ESP32-C2, C3,…
Category: General
Tasmota Smartplugs
Why Tasmota smartplugs? Well, i have lots of Smartplugs – Tuya, Sonoff and others on WiFi and several on Zigbee. Being unable to open these plug up and reprogram easily means you’re stuck with what you get. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve used many and I quite like the Sonoff…
An Orange Pi Week
It’s been a while since I’ve had any Orange Pi products (earlier) (even earlier) to play with, but last week in the mail arrived a package comprising Orange Pi RV, Orange Pi RV2, a “5.1v5A GAN” USB-C power supply and a small packet which took me a few minutes to…
Meross Smart Switch, Presence Sensor and More
Every so often I get a bunch of stuff from Meross (no payment or commitment – just stuff to play with) and today in the post, a package via CTT courier arrived. I opened up the package and… Meross Smart WiFi Switch MSS815 If you’re new to Meross – another…
3M VHB Tape – The name’s Bond – James Bond
Sorry – couldn’t resist it. I saw a YouTube video yesterday where a guy was griping about LED STRIP and the rubbish adhesive on most of it – my thoughts exactly. He thoughly recommended 3M’s VHB foam tape (Very High Bond – that keeps making me laugh) – and he…
Home Assistant at long last BUST?
Sorry, I could not resist at least one of those stupid end-of-the-world headlines so popular with children disguised as adults who seem to dominate YouTube…. So the very much abbreviated story is this: Months ago, I put Home Assistant on a cheap miniPC for speeding up my HAOS installation –…
Automatic DHCP and Home Automation
This is SO obvious once you grasp the idea – for some reason it missed me for the longest time. Let’s say you have a load of devices on your home control network… we’ll ignore Zigbee devices here as they don’t have IP addresses – as they work on a…
Aqara G4 Video Doorbell and FP2 Presense Sensor – Updated
Important April 2025 update – see FP2 section further down…. Jan 2024: I just received my first packages of the new year, a duff screen protector from AliExpress, some USB shelf-lamps from the same (more on that later) meanwhile from Aqara, my eagerly-awaited Aqara G4 Smart video doorbell and their…
Home Assistant Tuya Socket Woes
In my Home Assistant set-up – HAOS on a mini-PC, documented elsewhere in here, I have an AliExpress-sourced cheap WiFi Tuya (Smartlife) socket controlling a salt light and as it is part of my livingroom lighting set – I have an HA entity change helper turning the socket entity into…
New Sonoff Goodies – Plug and Thermometers
In today’s postbag, a new Sonoff Zigbee smartplug – S60ZBTPF type F/E – so an EU plug… nothing special to look at – just an EU-fitting Zigbee 3.0 smartplug with no lights anywhere – not on the manual on-off button, not around the frame… for testing you can just hear…
M5Stack DIAL V1.1 in Brief
The M5Stack Dial is a small (45mm hole dia) USB-C-connected rotary dial with touch-sensitive LCD display. Here it is – short video…. And here are a couple of links with potentially useful information on using the M5stack Dial – ESPHOME 1 and ESPHOME 2
Whatever happened to everlasting solar garden lights?
I have MANY years experience of solar garden lights from the cheapest rubbish to quite expensive… what happened? Well, price – greedy importers out to make a quick buck is what happened – along with the public’s need to get something for nothing. The result is that the manufacturer builds…
Aqara FP1E Revisited Briefly
I’ve had an Aqara FP1E movement/presense sensor for some time and for some reason, only checked movement sensing. Today I plugged the unit in and Home Assistant remembered it perfectly from my last tests back in August 2024. This time I went to my Zigbee2MQTT panel which I get to…
Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition vs Google
Home Assistant Voice – Preview Edition is a small USB-powered unit made by the Open Home Foundation and supplied to me by SEEED. It is common knowledge that I hate to read instructions, so I took the unit out of the very nice box and plugged it into a handy…
Home Assistant to NAS to Mini PC – The Sequel
Mid last week, I wrote about the latest updates in my quest for an ideal Home Assistant (HAOS) setup -and I’d reached the point of using my Synology NAS (DS720+) for HAOS – this is the sequel featuring the Turewell HSI-N95 mini-PC. Firstly, no doubt about it the Synology is…
M5Stack Goodness
It’s quite a while since I heard anything from M5Stack but today I have some new goodies from them. First off – this handy little ESP32-based mini-camera: CamS3 5MP Camera. The device came complete with lead and USB-C adaptor. It costs something like $17 US dollars from their site –…
Apollo Temp-1 Sensor Unit – Apollo Automation
I’ve written elsewhere about Apollo Sensors but this weekend they sent me a set of updated Temp-1 and Temp-1B sensors so I thought I’d give them a quick entry. I’ll leave the Temp-1B to the end as it is similar but primarily battery driven and NOT a cheap battery at…
Home Assistant – Synology DS720+ The Story So Far
More reviews and gadgets coming up soon including the new SEEED Human Breathing + Heartbeat sensor (I can’t wait) and the Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition – and look out for the upcoming sequel to this post – meanwhile… Regular readers will know that I’ve been a fan of Raspberry…
The Ridiculous Windows 11 “Show More Options” and How To Bypass
I’m taking no credit for this one which I originally published on December 3, 2023. EVERY time I go to right-click a Windows Explorer window on a new PC, from as simple as DESKTOP to my SCREENSHOTS folder – I invariably want to COPY something… is it there? NOPE. I…
Reolink RLC-823S2 IP Camera – it’s a MONSTER
Well, this came as a surprise – I was expecting a WiFi new camera from Aqara to arrive this week, when this large box arrived – came as something of a surprise that the Reolink arrived first. The Reolink RLC-823S2 is a 12v or POE camera (POE adaptor not included…