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 remained my favourites for a long time – one or the other being…
Category: General
First of the Summer Toys – Solar RGB Owl
Sick of the usual boring solar garden lights? Well, here’s something different. While writing about (completely unrelated) ESP8266-based OLED and LCD displays in here earlier, I mentioned an RGB Perspex “3D” Shark which came from China which quickly found a place in our living room. Well, this OWL came from…
More Itead Goodies – the Sonoff DIY DualR3
The Sonoff DualR3 () is the latest iteration of Itead’s 2-gang WiFi Smart Switch. It handles 10A per gang for a total of 15A non-inductive load. The device is typically used with the eWeLink app and can be Bluetooth paired to the app during which time the blue WiFi LED…
New Goodies from Itead (Sonoff) – Worth the Wait?
I always love getting new stuff in the post from the makers of Sonoff products – Shenzhen-based Itead. They’re a very enthusiastic lot and I’ve tried out every new product or upgrade of theirs since the release of the original Sonoff WiFi power block. B05 Smart RGBWW Lamp First off…
More Trivia – Blitzwolf BW-FUN11 Humidifier
It’s a while since I had a new humidifier and I can never resist an opportunity to kit out the house with more pretty lights. The Blitzwolf BW-FUN11 is another of those humidifiers that generates cold “steam” using ultrasonics. Early humidifiers (not to be confused with dehumidifiers) were effective but…
Foaming Soap Dispensers for a Covid-Stricken World
What seems like years ago, at the start of the Covid pandemic, back in the UK I reviewed a foaming soap dispenser, still in use over there – nice but not wall mounted which meant another gadget taking up valuable bathroom real estate.. The first of a pair of wall–mounted…
Baseus T2 Wireless Smart Tracker
is a neat little gadget from Banggood. It arrives in a small thin box and the unit itself is 37*25*6mm thick, It comes complete with a tiny but strong, string lanyard, the whole thing weighs 5gm and consumes a peak 75ma from it’s internal CR2016 battery – standby time is…
Thursday Gadget Roundup and More Displays
This first week of Feb 2021 I received lots of gadgets and some more displays from Banggood including an old favourite – the ILI9341 – good, cheap LCD display – which I’ve always supported in ESP-GO – but now I want to run on an ESP8266 (again) this time using…
Netac N930ES 512GB SSD and Enclosure
Late last year I received the for use with my Chuwi Larkbox, blogged elsewhere in here. The Larkbox can handle an extra internal M.2 2242 SSD as against it’s default internal 128GB eMMC – unfortunately only up to 128GB (I discovered that too late) and not the kind of SSD…
Banggood 1.3″ OLED I2C Displays
I just wrote about the 10-pack of GeekCreit Wireless IOT Modules – or as most of us know them – nodeMCU ESP8266 boards – at a very reasonable €23 for 10 – i.e. 2.30 each inc post. So what better to test them with than the freely-available tasmota-displays.bin and a…
Banggood 30W DIY Laser Engraving Machine
Described as a (Coupon: BG6C7ZG1) – this inexpensive engraver caught my attention over the Christmas holidays and here it is: Normally, Banggood provide brand names but in this case I guess they are branding it as their own product. I note the laser module has tick-boxes for everything from 20-40W.…
More Printing Goodness – and now the Crealty LD-002H
This write-up is about the . Should I simply point you back to my 2020 sprawling entry on the ? Hell no, because the H model has lots of upgrades, but if you want more generic info on the Crealty LD-002x range, I strongly recommend you look at the original…
HK1 RBOX R1 5G WiFi Android 10 TV Box
Before I delve into this new box from Banggood – let’s go back a step: I’ve had quite a number of Android TV boxes over the years and there are lots on the second-hand market. But something to consider… I just had to bin two boxes that were not that…
More New Year Gadgets – 12 Inch LED Ring Wall Clock
I just received this US/EU Plug 12/24 hour from Banggood (pre-assembled), complete with a US plug – but as that’s a separate USB charger it’s not that important – they do supply both EU and USA USB adaptors. You may be aware that I’ve put together several 60-LED modules with…
Bakeey POCO X3 NFC Case
This lovely, transparent (with armoured black edges) was always going to be a difficult one to write about. I can show you the case but I need my phone to take a photo so I can’t show it ON the phone 🙂 If you read my blog about the Poco…
Bakeey 8-in-1 USB-C Hub Docking Station Adaptor
This inexpensive does everything – HDMI out, RJ45 network out, TF, SD, a pair of USB 3 outputs and two USB-C outputs – one of which is for power charging (PD – or POWER DELIVERY). This slim unit has USB-C input. In fact the only thing wrong is my PC.…
RGB Smart Socket – EH?
I think I’ve seen it all now. What’s an RGB Smart Plug I hear you say? Well, it is just what it sounds like. It’s a smart socket – 3840W (resistive) max with power monitoring – so nothing new there, but they’ve added RGB LEDs inside the socket itself for…
Second 2021 Treat – a New Doorbell
Regular readers may recall one of last year’s blog entries called “A ZemiSmart Weekend” in which I wrote about, amongst other things, my new (at the time) doorbell, a simple kinetic door push (no batteries) with a UK-plug-based “bell”. This was back in April 2020 and I bought it from…
NodeMCU 10-pack Bargain – first treat of the New Year
My first January 2021 present-to-me arrived between Christmas and NYE while we were hiding at the coast – and I’ve just made a start at testing this pack of ten inexpensive ESP8266-based NodeMCU boards. If you’re not familiar with these and similar products, they are a very popular and generally…
Merry Christmas and a New Poco X3
First things first – I hope all of my subscribers and new readers had a wonderful Christmas – I’m sure it will be FAR from the best on record but hopefully Santa brought you some new gadgets as he did for me. Top of the list for me HAS to…