I’m sitting here, early morning in the UK, devoid of my normal IOT devices and with reviews waiting for me.. but all of that will have to wait for our return to Spain at the end of the month and after getting our new house in order. Meanwhile I’m getting…
Category: General
A sometimes-forgotten reason to use Tasmota
With humble apologies to those of you who use TASMOTA all the time…. TASMOTA is a piece of firmware for IoT devices running on ESP8266 and ESP32 that has been around for a long, long time. It runs entirely locally on your network, there are no adverts, there is no…
NEW – Sonoff Airguard PM3.5 and Airguard CO2
Released on December 11, 2025, these two new identical-looking products run on USB power (each comes with a 2m USB-A to USB-C lead). On opening the package, I thought at first that Sonoff had sent me two of the same product. It took me a few seconds to realise the…
AthomTech IoTorero LS6P Addressable Strip Controller
I make my own WLED strip controllers regularly from either ESP32-C3 or ESP8266 boards – cheap, easy – a bit more painful when you add sound reactive ability as you really need a little PCB for the sound sensor – and of course a box – but here we have…
IoTorero Door Sensor, Temperature, Humidity
After all the setup simplicity of the last two IoTorero products, this one was not initially doing quite so well for me but it turns out I did things the hard way. Firstly no product ID on the box (but it turns out that on their website – there’s a…
The IoTorero Presence Sensor PS02C3MZ
You can guess why the “C3” in the name – an ESP32-C3 chip at the heart. By now, I’m well familiar with modern radar presence sensors, having used and reviewed the Seed product and various from Apollo to name, but two. I did think Apollo was going to be unbeatable,…
The very first 2026 Review – IoTorero RGB
What a GREAT start to the new year. In case you don’t know, IoTorero is the new brand name for AthomTech products. I was expecting some boring old lights for our new home from AliExpress, but no, a package from AthomTech arrived this morning and the very first thing I…
Another Year, Another Thermostat
Hard to believe — I put together my first thermostat in 2015. I started making a stat for our then holiday rental to make something idiot-proof for holiday makers (almost impossible to do incidentally as people can be REALLY thick). I worked my way through various displays and software setups…
Christmas Instant Tip
If ever you get the urge to buy one of these as a quick fix for automatic external lighting – don’t – just don’t. I bought a pair of these PIR lights locally in the UK on a trip over earlier this year, from PoundStretcher – sadly, I didn’t keep…
Christmas Giveaway – Sonoff Z-WAVE 800 Dongle Plus
I started my IOT “career” with my own wired solution before WiFi was a thing – but no sooner did I get into proper IOT than I had my first Sonoff BASIC (WiFi) devices – wonderful stuff – and when Zigbee came on the scene, my first “coordinator” was a…
Quick Thoughts on CO2 and Particle Monitoring
Elsewhere I’ve covered CO2 sensors from Sonoff and Switchbot to name but two companies, but not really developed it, so I decided I’d have a good look. I managed to get a second CO2 monitor from SwitchBot, and I’m hoping to get a spare from Sonoff. I also have a…
Aqara Doorbell Camera Hub G410
Back in 2024, I received my Aquara Video Doorbell Camera Hub G4, which looked great at the time. It is good and it still works 24/7 in my home in the UK, however I have to use the Aqara app on my phone to access the camera. It won’t run…
NFC Card Reader – Full Blown Project
I’m including a link to a Smart Home Junkie YouTube video which does a good job of explaining how to add a card reader to Home Assistant.. Ok, so the above, Smart Home Junkie has grabbed someone else’s work as we all do at some point, made modifications and created…
The New Aqara LB-102E Smart Light
I have to say this one caught me completely off-guard. The light turned up today – pretty box and very nice looking lamp though it looked small enough to be not that bright – wrong! The box says “Protocols: Thread, Zigbee, Bluetooth”. As I’m not into Bluetooth and know zilch…
Sonoff BASIC Gen 5 Revisited in Matter
After passing remarks about some new Sonoff kit and Matter – and while awaiting feedback from Sonoff – I’m reminded that I have a BASIC Gen 5 lying around – linked to eWeLink as I’ve always done in the past (if not tempted to TASMOTA the product). Ok, here it…
The LattePanda IOTA SBC
So, you’re thinking – something to do with coffee? Nope – the LattePanda IOTA board is an SBC with 8GB RAM, 64GB eMMC and a host of available accessories. And I know this how? Because a big parcel just turned up from DHL with several nicely-packaged boxed boards inside. In…
New Ikea IOT products: revolutionary or hype?
Not a review of IKEA products. This is more of me asking questions in the hope of getting responses from people. I’ve just watched a video announcing a new range of IoT products from IKEA coming out in January 2026 i.e. next month. There are something like 20 products or…
The New Sonoff Airguard TH Sensor
This should be an easy one- the new Sonoff AirGuard TH is a Zigbee desktop LCD Temperature and Humidity Sensor – decent size – showing maximum and minimum values as well as current values. Other than that, nice but nothing outstanding – looks good – ignore that line in the…
More Sonoff Goodness – Mini-Duo, Mini Duo-L etc
Sonoff continue to bring out well-priced new products – I just received the Mini Duo (Zigbee), Mini DUO-L (Zigbee) and Mini Duo (WiFi) – all of the above are part of the Sonoff Mini Extreme series. I originally wrote this blog on December 8th, but here we are on December…
Sonoff Orb ZBW2 and Orb-MW2
In front of me I have 2 new products in the Sonoff Range. Well, new except that the controllers appears to be also-recently-released material packaged in very nice looking dual wall switches. In each case, these are standard-fitting wall switches – one runs on WiFi and the other runs on…