I’m currently awaiting delivery of new laser engraver but in the meantime, down at San Jose (the original one in Spain) on our weekend off, I just picked up this wonderful USB desk light – I could not resist showing it to you guys – as it occurred to me…
Category: General
GL-iNET Brume-W Travel Router
I’m currently playing with the Brume-W (GL-MV1000W) “Edge Computing Gateway”. To test, I turned on the virgin Brume – and connected the WAN to my network via a handy network lead. That’s it – nothing else – not a single extra step. I then pointed my phone to a new…
Lilygo TTGO ESP32 T-Watch-2020
OK, that’s a mouthful… The Lilygo watch is particularly interesting to us technical folk as it runs on an ESP32 processor. I’ve been after one of these for ages for those tech moments – i.e. for the few times I get to go drinking with other technically minded folk who…
Tasmota – TDM, Tasmotize and TasUI
This is a never-ending story about Theo Arends’s much-loved alternative firmware for IOT (http://ota.tasmota.com/tasmota/tasmota.bin) as Tasmota is now at development version 8.5.0.1 “Hannah” (update September 13, 2020) – I’ve upgraded my various ESP8266-based devices including Itead Sonoff BASIC, TH10, 4CH Pro, ProR2, Powr2, Shelly One, Blitzwolf and others). Warning, there…
Xiaomi Mi Band 5
Back in 2019 I wrote about the wonderful Xiaomi Mi Band 4 and it is no secret, despite owning and reviewing many smart watches and bands in detail, that the Xiaomi Mi 4 and Samsung Galaxy Watches remain my favourites – one or the other being in use every single…
False Review Epidemic
You HAVE to see this. Blackview company just sent me emails promoting their new products – they wanted me (and others) to follow their official store – so being me, I sent back an email to suggest that if they wanted to ship one to me, I’d have a play…
Eachine E520S GPS WIFI Quadcoptor
I started this blog entry to tell you a little about the nice-looking Eachine E520S GPS WIFI FPV With 1080P HD Camera Quadcopter which I received from Banggood Back in June (but read on) – I’ve added some VERY short videos further down – and I have an upgrade. My…
Bakeey T90 Bluetooth Earbuds Smart Watch
This is new – a smartband with built-in Bluetooth earbuds – WELL, THAT’s handy for travelling. This entry is about the Bakeey T90 Wireless Earbuds Smart Watch. I went out on a limb with this one – never seen anything quite like it but as the T90 was “different” –…
SOOCAS X3 Electric Sonic Toothbrush
A good start to the week, I think. Today our new “smart” Soocas Electric Sonic toothbrushes arrived in the mail and very nicely packed they were. This interesting sonic toothbrush (with APP) looks well made – and after the boring colours of my regular old non-sonic Braun electric, provides a…
Honorable Mention Weekend
Lots of things going on this weekend, nothing completed sufficiently to blog about in isolation but I felt the need to keep subscribers up to date and thank some people in the process. I’ve been trying to brighten up the blog a little – and CSS was never my strongest…
KSGER T12 Soldering Station
A quick writeup about the V2.1S T12 Digital Temperature Controller Soldering Station courtesy of Banggood – the unit comes minus mains power cable and with a single all-in-one tip – but looks very sturdy. So above I’ve shown what you get with the package, below I’ll show the unit assembled…
GL-iNet Spitz 4G LTE Smart Router
I’m impressed already – as a long-term occasional user of the GL-iNet Mango travel router, I thought I’d give their upmarket products a look – there is a lot more to this router than it first seems. The Spitz is LOVELY. Check pricing in your area. Tiny and open-source, the…
M5Stack Core 2 ESP32 IOT Development
Regular readers may recall a couple of years ago I wrote about the M5Stack – https://tech.scargill.net/the-m5-stack/ and here we are again with the M5Stack Core 2 – the ESP32 IoT development kit which comes complete with 2 inch touch display. The new, upgraded Core2 has 8MB or RAM, a 390maH…
Blitzwolf BW-UP2 USB 3.2 Flash Drive
This morning in the post, arrived a Blitzwolf BW-UP2 USB 3.2 Gen 2 Flash Drive. As a first simple write test, I copied one of my videos from my PC D: drive to the BW-UP2 – ok, not very scientific – but the copy time took exactly 8 seconds for…
Xiaomi ZAJIA Auto-sense IR Induction Water Saver
I LOVE getting new toys. The original Zajia was sent to me in January 2020 by Banggood and it turned up in the UK in February. The battery-powered, USB-charged Zajia clips straight into the tap in the kitchen or bathroom to provide proximity-controlled water. If you are on a water…
Mustool MT8208 2-in-1 Multimeter and Oscillosope
A couple of years ago, regular readers may recall I took a look at the Mustool MT8206 2-in-1 Multimeter and Oscilloscope. Well, things change and now there is the improved MT8208 2-in-1 Multimeter and Oscilloscope – how’s that for a dynamic change of name 🙂 They have of course improved…
Blitzwolf BW-S16 75W PD Charger
To give this beauty its full title – BlitzWolf® BW-S16 75W 6-Port USB PD Charger. Hard to believe our local stores are still selling USB chargers that are not even Quick-charge, never mind PD (Power Delivery). These days, such terms are mandatory to gain my interest. This monster from Blitzwolf…
Single-Use Disposable Masks
Ok, I know, this is a tech blog – but given the heat we have in Southern Spain right now, sometimes the best thing to do is either soak in the pool, write reviews or better – both at the same time. Right now I’m catching up with a backlog…
FriendlyArm R2S and NEO3
After writing a less than stellar report on the original R2S and giving the board to my Italian friend Antonio, he managed some success with the board but not without it suffering excessive heat. Well, it looks like the company have been working on that and have sent me a…
Argon ONE Case for Raspberry Pi 4 Updated
The Argon ONE case is very pretty (but then it is not cheap so you’d expect that). It has variable control over the built-in fan and I had to ramp up the settings as the fan was initially off even though the case was very warm – now the whole…