Over the years I’ve seen IOT-related projects come and go – the latest, greatest home control APP at one time was going to be Imperihome (swiftly followed by Blynk). Unlike both Node-Red and Tasmota, both of which are today very popular, As far as I can see, the Imperihome website…
Category: General
Smartphone Covers and Screen Protection Issues
I know – what an odd thing to write about. Well, over time I’ve had LOTS of smartphones either purchased or sent to me to review and hence lots of cases and screen protectors – so I have a little experience on the subject. Here I’m going to talk about…
Perlas De Gel Para Plantas
Something new! Well, not new to me, but they MAY be new to you? Plant Gel (water crystals) are a (supposedly) 100% non-toxic, biodegradable, and odourless super- absorbent Polyacrylamide crystal, that absorb up to 400 times their weight in water. In English, these are tiny capsules, available DIRT cheap from…
AliExpress and Athom Smart Bulbs Compared
A while back I wrote about a really cheap AliExpress Smartlamp – which had to work with the Smartlife App as it was (is) WiFi based. The lamp in question was the AUBESS lamp and I wrote about it here. All very nice – my comments were that this (fairly…
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…
Tiny Remote for the New Hohem iSteady M6 AI Gimbal
The plan was to simply to produce a really tiny video to show you the new remote control (for the M6 gimbal) which arrived in the post yesterday from Hohem. That expanded out to this explanation, photos and a link back to my Hohem M6 entry as well as a…
Hohem iSteady M6 Gimbal – Could this be the BEST?
Readers may know I’ve looked at several other AI Gimbals including the inexpensive PowerVision S1, Hohem’s own iSteady v2 and the rather exciting-looking Zhiyun Smooth 5S. But if you’re in a hurry – YES, the M6 is the best I’ve had to date… read on… Background So up to now,…
Switchbot Hub 2 and Pan/Tilt Cam 2K
I took the new HUB 2 (above) out of the box, plugged it into a handy micro-USB supply, turned it on and remembered instructions I’d heard about removing the MK 1 hub before adding the new one to the Switchbot APP (on my phone) I checked to see if my…
The Imou Cell 2 4MP Lithium-Powered WiFi Camera Revisited
For some reason I was expecting a huge ugly camera when Imou asked me to look at this one In January 2022 – and I was worried in case it would be out of place on one of my external walls. I should have known better. I hade high expectations…
Spring Is With Us and New Toys Are Here
I’ll soon have lots of new toys to play with but for today I’ll talk briefly about some new AliExpress purchases.. here at Bedrock I have typical Spanish rural electricity – there’s a wisdom that they don’t have live and neutral mains wiring here but thanks to some new toys…
Holidays are Here Again
I’m about to head off for a few days holiday in Segovia in the north of Spain so I thought I’d leave you with some thoughts while I go off in search of culture… Do you get as sick as I do of YouTube headlines which contain “… will change…
Fenvi AX1800 WiFi 6 Adaptor
Well, I was doing some 4G testing (covered elsewhere in the blog) and when I realised that my Windows 11 Beelink Mini-PC was not picking up a very fast signal from the 4G router, I took into account that my WiFi adaptor is an old 2.4Ghz-only USB 2.0 version (I…
The Sonoff iHost Smart Home Hub – revisited
Just another Zigbee Bridge? or Bluetooth bridge? No. The iHost originally ended up on my doorstep back in March 2023 and at the time I commented that this looked WAY more interesting. The iHost arrived with a 32GB Kingston “Select Plus” microSD. I also commented that the unit “does not…
Zhiyun Smooth 5S Gimbal Combo
I have in front of me the best looking smartphone gimbal I’ve come across to date. Also the most complex. If you just want to know about the gimbal without context, skip to “Enter the Zhiyun Smooth 5S”. Why a Smart Gimbal for a Smartphone? As you’ll soon gather, I’m…
The Aqara Zigbee 3.0 Smart Pet Feeder and the TVOC Sensor
As you may know I’m increasingly becoming a fan of Zigbee where possible (as against WiFi) because with the latter, signal quality varies depending on availability of WiFi access points. I manage, but as I’ve fitted more and more Zigbee smart sockets and Zigbee lights around the house – by…
More from AliExpress – Zigbee Electronic Hygrometer
Much as I hate to promote AliExpress, I took a chance and bought one of these devices and it was only €9.19 (Euros) delivered to me in Spain – ordered February 18, 2023, delivered March 2. The chance I took was that it might only work on the Smartlife APP…
More Cheapies from AliExpress and a VALUABLE Experience
I couldn’t help myself – AliExpress had one of those “3 items for a fiver” sales and I simply couldn’t stop myself. The Not Worth-a-Light Solar Grasshopper First on the list – a solar grasshopper. Marvelous idea for a toy to annoy the cats… the grasshopper works (worked) in the…
My ESPHOME Adventure
Back in 2021 I wrote about experimenting with the LILYGO TTGO ESP32 development board and my first attempts at using ESPHOME as against my firmware of choice Tasmota. Well, I then went heads-down for several days of learning – with several false starts I may add. The short version of…
New Smartlife Desk/Wall Temperature/Humidity Display from Banggood
This is just going to be a quick one. Not seen much of Banggood recently but now that the Chinese New Year is over and hopefully we’re on the other side of the Chinese Policy reversal on Covid, it seems that Banggood are bouncing back. So here, I have a…
Another Fun Aqara Weekend
I LOVE getting new tgadgets from Aqara. Before I start, lets get this out of the way.. You can skip to New Aqara Devices if you’re familiar with the company, Zigbee2MQTT etc. Aqara Aqara sell IOT products in 192 countries and I was first introduced to them by purchasing (almost…