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…
Category: General
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…
Gravastar Sirius Pro Zinc Alloy Gaming Earbuds
If that title alone didn’t grab your interest, maybe you’re not that into earbuds. I’d forgotten all about these and this morning opened the shipping packaging (Amazon) not having a clue what I was looking at, other than thinking to myself “this looks industrial”. My second fleeting thought was “what…
Advanced IP Scanner Tips from Famatech
If you’re running a PC on a network, you may well have used the free “Advanced IP Scanner” – I have for years, especially when I introduce new IOT devices to the network. This short blog entry isn’t an ad (it’s free anyway) but I thought I’d share this as…
The Brand New Sonoff NSPanel Pro
Firstly, what’s an NSPanel Pro? It’s like an NSPanel but newer – and – erm – different. I’m kind of hoping that in my rubbish photo on the left further down, you can see that this is a full screen display and that there are two holes near the top.…
GL iNET MT300N V2 (Mango) Travel Router Revisited
Update July 2022 Well, I never thought I’d be writing more about this router, but in the last couple of years I’ve become a firm fan of OpenWrt because of it’s ability to be administrated from the web interface LUCI or the command line. In particular I’ve been making great…
Banana Pi M5 SBC – Lots of Possibilities?
I rarely write about new SBCs (single board computers) these days, having covered LOTS of them in the past, then having pretty much settled on the Raspberry Pi 4. With the current inflated price and availability issues with the RPi, I’ve been asked to talk about other boards and the…
Momax SmartEye SL1S Internal IP WiFi Camera and more!
This is probably starting to look like camera week already – I just received some Momax products in the mail including a pair of internal WiFi IP cameras – ok, so who are Momax? I must admit I’d not heard of them until I heard from someone I’ve dealt with…
Broadband or 4G / 5G mobile? That is the Question!
For some years on and off, I’ve been struggling with inadequate broadband, that is, dish-based broadband from a local company here in Southern Spain – a company who have recently merged with another, who are something of a monopoly in the area and who’s customer skills need a lot of…
FriendlyElec NanoPi R5S for Geeks
Long-term readers of this blog will know I’ve reviewed MANY FriendlyArm/FriendlyElec boards in the past but things have been quiet for some time now (Covid won’t have helped). Well, it looks like they are back in action – new WiKi site and a new board. I have the boxed version…
Raspberry Pi PICO W – worth the bother NOW?
This article was originally written when the RPi PICO came out. I was not impressed. But things change and the RPi Foundation have now (late June 2022) released the Raspberry Pi Pico W complete with 2.4Ghz WiFi and Bluetooth 5.2 while being a drop-in replacement for the RP2040 chip used…
Sonoff Monday – New Products
POWR320D Here we have the POW Elite (POWR32OD), handling 20A max non-inductive load. Both of the controllers in this blog entry support Bluetooth pairing with the Sonoff eWeLink APP and have detachable DIN RAIL mounts on the back. It is worth noting for better or worse that as usual we…
UGREEN Nexode Gan X Fast 65W Charger – Very Nice
You may have seen me blog about the UGREEN T3 HiTune Earbuds and before that, the UGREEN X6 Active HiTune buds – both excellent. And before anyone says “who on earth is UGREEN”… I’d not heard of them before the X6 and was suitably impressed so I’m expecting much out…
The All-New Mi Band 7 – A Winner
I’ve written in here several times about my love for the Xiaomi Mi Band range – I’ve had them all and yesterday the brand-spanking new Mi Band 7 arrived on my desk from Hekka. How exciting!! (Yes, I’ve had the Samsungs and Garmins etc, ultimately I prefer the bands but…