When I started the blog entry for this new entry-level laser engraver from Ortur, shipped to me by Zbanx back in November 2021, I thoroughly expected to spend half the day putting it together. I’d even thought of doing a video of the assembly process. Well, I was wrong –…
Category: General
The All-New Imou Cell 2 4MP battery WiFi Camera
For some reason I was expecting a huge ugly camera when Imou asked me to look at this one – and I was worried in case it would be out of place on one of my external walls. I should have known better. I won’t lie – I have high…
Shelly Plus 1 Power Controller
Way back in August 2019 I wrote about the Shelly 1 controller produced in Sofia, Bulgaria. This at the time was one of a small but growing number of competitors to the likes of the very inexpensive Sonoff Basic. Later on, in March 2021 I followed this up with an…
The Death of a Sensor and other Tales of Woe
We tend to rely more and more on our clever electronics these days – but here’s a timely, cautionary tale! My friend MAT over at NotEnoughTech has just TODAY written about the Tonga volcano and one of his Zigbee sensors which includes not only temperature but also a (generally) not…
52PI Raspberry Pi Mini Tower NAS Kit
I’m really not sure what to say about this 3D-printed kit – I’m not sure what I was expecting but not quite this. I was going to do a video but the way things turned out, a series of photos made more sense as I was putting this together. Here…
Aqara temperature sensors and Node Red – Info Overload?
AsI was sitting checking ny Aqara Zigbee temperature sensors (blogged a while ago) using the Node-Red nodes for the job, I noted that if I covered the sensor with my hand for a few seconds, I’d get a reading – sadly, not just that but THREE readings within a second.…
Audew AX-6601 Handheld Vacuum from Banggood
Ok, not exactly a SMART device but it’s the first thing I’ve had from Banggood this year (UK stock) so I thought I’d give it a quick comment with pics in here – my wife gets quite excited when something arrives which she can use!! The “AUDEW Rechargeable 3500PA Mini…
PerfectPrime Tiny IR501 Thermal Camera Add-on for Android
I’m no stranger to PerfectPrime cameras – I’ve had several of them over the years and today I have the tiny IR501 in front of me – on my Pocophone X3 NFC. The link above will tell you all about the IR501 Multi-Point Dynamic monitoring Thermal Camera for Android Phones.…
The All-New GL-iNET FLINT Router GL-AX1800
By now I own or have owned and reviewed most GL-iNET router products. I started with the little travel MANGO router a few years ago and worked my way up so that now GL-iNET are currently my favourite routers (earlier in my tech life I was a great fan of…
Meross Smart Plugs in 2022 – The MSS110
It’s quite a while since I did my original write-up on Meross Smart Plug devices. I have a new one here in the UK, a Meross MSS110. This device has a UK plug on it and is SLIM – and that’s important – I have lots of smart plugs which…
A Special Sonoff Christmas
Prelude Before I go off on one, talking about Itead’s recent gadgets which arrived on my doorstep this week, let’s take a quick step back: Sonoff is a brand name, Itead is the Shenzhen-based company who make various devices using the Sonoff brand and very often relying on the APP…
Trio Max Portable Laptop Monitor from Mobilepixels Inc
Just today I opened a newly-arrived package from MobilePixels – a 14″ 1080FHD USB-C extension monitor. Made primarily for laptops and tablets the monitor provides up to 1920*1080 as a secondary or third monitor. I should say right away, these are not cheap. I opened the package, thinking it would…
UGREEN HiTune X6 Hybrid Active Earbuds
The full title should be “UGREEN HiTune X6 Hybrid Active Noise-Cancelling Earbuds“. Well, earbuds are earbuds, right? These were sent to me FOC so I thought the least I could do was give them a good run. Bluetooth 5.1. Playback time 6 hours of music without resorting to the case,…
TP-Link Tapo C200 Pan/Tilt WiFi Camera
Regular readers will know I’ve had MANY WiFi cameras in here but never TP-Link so this is a first. For clarity I should say I’m currently in the UK. The very first thing that struck me during box opening was the almost complete lack of throw away plastic. The camera…
Amazon AWS Polly Neural Speech on RPi
Regular readers will know that for years I was a great fan of using Ivona speech on my Raspberry Pi. In Node-Red I used the free Ivona service to provide high quality speech in Node-Red at the heart of my home control setup. Well, Ivona, good as it was, has…
The Confusing World of Zigbee featuring ZemiSmart
Of course – this could all be down to my age – but I find Zigbee in practice to be both exciting and confusing. I am currently supposed to be reviewing some devices from ZemoSmart. So, the Zemismart company sent me one of their nice warm/cool E27 lamps (Model ST64)…
Time For A New Watch? Bakeey U98
The last watch (technically BAND) I bought was the Xiaomi Mi 6 Band – it is on my wrist every day. That acquisition was many months ago so I figured I’d try something new and asked Bangood to ship me the Bakeey U98 1.7″ Full Touch-Screen Smart Watch (to use…
2.7V-6V HTTM Series Capacitive Touch Switch Buttons
This is an interesting one – these devices are tiny touch-sensitive buttons – handy for lots of projects – I’ve been working on this for a while (and not getting far until now). These buttons have been around for a while – we used them in our thermostat project AGES…
ESCAM PVR008 Auto-Tracking H265 IP Camera
No, this is not new. Back in October 2019, Banggood sent this little, inexpensive WiFi Escam auto-tracking PTZ pan-and-tilt 1080p night vision camera to me and for reasons beyond me I did nothing with it. While sorting my stuff to take away with me last summer I was about to…
Grove Starter Kit for Raspberry Pi Pico
No doubt you’ve heard of the SeedStudio Grove Starter Kit for Raspberry Pi Pico. Just in case I’m wrong, the Pico is a recent development from the Raspberry Pi people, a small board that in fact is actually nothing like a Raspberry Pi. While I am here, I should point…