More precisely called the Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 Global Version Smartphone this phone came late last year from Banggood – and Maureen still absolutely loves it. Wonderful – because though lovely and reliable, her little, inexpensive Cubot X19 was not in the same league as the (budget) Note 8, which…
Category: General
High Power Mains Switching with Sonoff
I am as most of you know a great fan of the Sonoff BASIC modules – because, in the main, they are cheap and reliable – but increasingly I’ve been faced with challenges that involve the need for isolated contacts – or high power (immersion heating) or both. Well, here…
Owon ODP3033 Bench Triple Power Supply
And why would anyone write abut a power supply? Not the most interesting subject, but like many boring things such as backups, essential. I created a short video last month about the Owon P4603 – a single channel job of particular interest as it has a “proper” toroid instead of…
First Solar Lamp of 2020
Having been through hundreds of PoundStretcher cheap solar lights over the years, most of which manage one UK winter if you are LUCKY, I’ve taken to moving just a little upmarket recently and with some success. This 100-LED Solar Motion Sensor light just turned up for me today (Jan 2,…
Sonoff RF Bridge
I JUST received my neat little Sonoff RF Bridge. <<Quicky – as I’m here – happy new year to all my subscribers – ESPECIALLY those who provide feedback, ask questions and provide tips – thank you all >>. It took all of 30 seconds for the brand new (and surprisingly…
LA104 Logic Analyser by e-Design
It’s Chistmas and time for some new gadgets. I’ve used all manner of logic analysers from the tiny Salae analysers (and the clones) through to expensive and large ZeroPlus monsters. The former are not really a lot of use due to limited bandwidth, the latter (in particular the big 64…
Tasmota – TDM, Tasmotize and TasUI
This is a never-ending story about Theo Arends’s much-loved alternative firmware for IOT as Tasmota is now running at development version 8.1.0.2 Doris (update Dec 30, 2019 – I’ve upgraded most of my units including Itead Sonoff BASIC, TH10, 4CH Pro, ProR2, Powr2, Shelly One, Blitzwolf and others). Previously I…
Sonoff GK-200MP2-B WiFi IP Camera
To give the camera it’s full title – GK-200MP2-B WiFi IP Security camera, this is a nice camera from Itead. No power supply, just the camera, you need 5v DC (3.5mm x 1.35mm dia – i.e. the smaller type) to run it and it handles WiFi or RJ45 connection. It…
10 inch 2560x1600P 2K FHD Monitor
This blog entry is about a really NEAT 10 inch 2560x1600P 2K FHD Monitor from Banggood. So what’s good about it?. Surely that resolution in a tiny monitor is useless? Well ,it might be if you could not perfectly scale it down (but if you are mainly watching high quality…
Christmas RGB Animation with ESP-GO
My ESP8266 home control code ESP-GO doesn’t get a lot of attention in here as I’m a “Tasmota” fanatic but that does not mean that ESP-GO is dead – far from it. ESP-GO contains not only RGB code for serial 5v LEDs but also a complete programming setup to generate…
Amazfit Stratos Smartwatch
Up to now, apart from my Samsung Gear, regular readers will have only seen me ranting about low-cost smartbands and will know that my all time favourite up to now is the Xiaomi Mi4. Well, today I’m moving upmarket a little, heading back towards the likes of the Gear and…
Auslogics Disk Defrag Ultimate – Why?
If you are using a WindowsPC and are anything like me you have likely been using Auslogics Disk Defrag Free for countless years as it is so much nicer than the one that comes with Windows. Well, after many years as I was about to move upmarket to Disk Defrag…