A couple of weeks ago I ordered a Zigbee TUYA Mini-PIR Sensor ZG-204ZL from (in my case) AliExpress – taking a leap of faith – as I wanted initially to see if it was worth turning Alexa Show off overnight. Today the sensor appeared in the mail (standby current 12uA)..…
Category: General
The Compact PowerVision S1 Gimbal for Smartphones
The PowerVision S1 is a 3-axis smartphone stabiliser with wireless power bank and “PowerFollow” tracking. If you’ve read my blog entry about the new Hohem iSteady V2 Smart AI Gimbal for Smartphones, you may wonder why I want two such devices. Well, one reason is that these are very different…
The Topic of Power Saving and IOT
I regularly use Smart Sockets to save power on various devices – been doing it for years and never given it a second thought. I was just today pondering the fly-killer we run all day every day in our living room. Now, let’s say we have a standard LED UV…
The Ugoos Media TV Box with Android 11 ROCKS
The new Ugoos X4Q Android 11 box (AMLogic S95X4-based unit) looks neat.. I’d love to show it to you completely unopened but the wrapping messes with my camera 🙂 So… Back in April 2022 I reviewed the Ugoos UT8 Pro TV box. That box was quite impressive and has been…
The Sonoff NSPanel Pro and NEW FEATURES
Firstly, what’s an NSPanel Pro? It’s like an NSPanel but newer – and – erm – different. In my photos below, you can see that this is a full screen display – there are also two holes near the top. One hole is for sound input, the other a light…
eWeLink Web and using an Old Phone as a Security Camera
As many of you know, I’m always testing Sonoff products – and as such I have their eWeLink APP on my Android phone. I spotted an ad/link this week and just out of boredom (just recovered from Covid and have been playing with gadgets in-between coughing fits) I went off…
The Mi Band 7 from Xiaomi – More Smart Band Updates
Note: Big update October 2022 to the included original June 2022 article – see the end. I’ve written in here several times about my love for the Xiaomi Mi Band range – I’ve had them all and in June 2022 the brand-spanking new Bluedtooth 5.2-based Mi Band 7 arrived on…
Hohem iSteady V2, Samsung S22 Ultra and Video Production
Last update: Oct 16, 2022 – I’ve been playing with the new Hohem iSteady V2 handheld AI gimbal for Smartphones on my Samsung S22 Ultra phone. First things first, after opening the box, I went off to the Google Play Store and found the HOHEM PRO App. Firstly a small…
Meross Whole Home Mesh WiFi System MMW120
An interesting title with the assumption of a certain “home” size. I’m confident this mesh WiFi router pair will handle our small-ish home here in Spain – the box claims “Covers up to 300m2” and “Ideal for 1-500Mbps fibre”. It says nothing about 100Mps incoming 4G but then I guess…
Chuwi Larkbox – Windows + Celeron Mini PC – Updated
This is one of those devices you just have to SEE – I’ll do my best. I started this blog entry around October 2020 but checkout the updates toward the end. The Chuwi Larkbox Mini PC (that Banggood link is no longer valid – there is a newer model but…
Blitzwolf BW-S25 75W Fast Charger
Firstly take a quick look at one of my blog entries from way back from August 2020 – the Blitzwolf BW-S16 75W Fast Charger cost at the time (and I think still is) something like 56 Euros from Banggood (I hesitate to convert that to other currencies due to the…
TOX3 Android 11 TV Box and More
I’ve just finished setting up the new TOX3 TV box currently on pre-sale at AliExpress at a somewhat silly range of price depending on which Ali store you select. Bearing in mind this is brand new in September 2022, I’m guessing I may have a pre-release model – but here…
Another Athom Day
I always get excited when a package arrives from Athom. Last time it was various ESP-HOME-compatible lamps and I’d previously had some Tasmota-pre-programmed bulbs from them – which now light up my living room and office. I’m not so familiar however with their general smart-home products, hence I was excited…
The All-New KNIGHT from Imou
~I recently wrote about the new(ish) 4MP Cruiser from Imou – went off on holiday (to the UK) and I’ve returned to find the new Imou KNIGHT 4K camera sitting here waiting for me! This was mid-July 2022. Bang goes another spare microSD I guess 🙂 (the SD is only…
TUYA and the iHORN T3 (Zigbee) Smart Home Kit
I’m sure many of you like me have some idea as to what TUYA is. Well, I contacted them to find out more. I’ve always known they were a cloud platform but as a Node-Red-on-Raspberry Pi user prone to preferring local control, in the past I used something called Tuya-Convert…
The All-New ZIMABOARD Single-Board Server from IceWhale
The Zimaboard is a new “Single-board Server” based on The Intel N3350 or N3450 Processor. Actually there are three units in the range – the Zimaboard 216, 432 and 832 models. I’m inclined to suggest sticking with the 432 or 832 models – so in some ways you could compare…
Sonoff CAM Slim FHD Smart Home Security Camera – Neat.
The title pretty much covers it, this is a small, internal-use Smart camera from Sonoff (Itead) which works with their eWeLink APP, Google and Alexa. From the box – 1080p HD images, IR night vision, motion detection, Alerts, Smart Scene, supports cloud storage (as well as TFT card option) and…
The 4G GL-iNET Spitz GL-X750V2 – At LAST
The GL-X750V2 is the latest encarnation of the original SPITZ 4G router from GL-iNET. I reviewed the original here. The 3G/4G LTE dual-band router, like all GL-iNet routers was and is great apart from one minor detail – it’s 4G sensitivity is a bit lacklustre – and so I’ve been…
QUNTIS RX-1919-5 Fast, Smart PD Charging Station
So what’s the difference between the Quntis RX-1919-5 Smart PD Charging Station (with IntelliSense whatever that is in this context) and dozens of other similar-looking chargers out there? Certainly there are many out there which look the same – but looks can be deceiving. To be sure, visually they blew…
Smart Lamps and Sockets with Pre-Installed Tasmota Firmware
Update of original 2021 entry with new info on the Athom 7W RGBWW lamp and a video – see the August 2022 update at the end as I have a new set of the 7W lamps. I’m so excited about this so I’ll dive straight in. The company is called…