What are incorrectly touted as “x-ray-like” photos, the OnePlus 8 Pro phone supposedly has IR capability and of course, all the media can think about is that pervs will abuse this feature as it can see through certain materials – such is our sick 21st century world. But there are…
Category: General
RAVPower – something new from an old favourite
I’ve been using RAVPower battery packs for years and recently taken kindly to their new high power PD (60w and 65w) phone chargers, so my excitement at receiving the new PD Pioneer 20000maH 65E 2-port Power House should come as no surprise. That didn’t stop me getting excited when it…
Xiaomi Mi 2100 WiFi Router
Let’s start with a photo. The Xiaomi Mi AC2100 WiFi Router arrived today and about all I can get out of it initially is the MAC address and serial number along with a website mewifi.com – that’s because the entire box is in Chinese – as is the instruction leaflet…
Viva “Recharge” Kickstarter Mug
It isn’t that often I look at Kickstarter but a few weeks ago I happened to be checking in and this travel mug came to my attention. Not that I’ll be travelling anywhere significant in the next several weeks but I am hoping for an overseas trip in the summer.…
Not ANOTHER PI Editor?
What’s your favourite text editor? In a recent blog entry I updated “The Script” for IOT fans and as usual, got myself incredibly frustrated with the lacklustre “Nano” editor that comes with Raspbian on the Raspberry Pi, only to discover that my backup editor “MCEDIT” is really only marginally better…
Sunday Filler – Alexa for the Bone Idle
Well, it is Sunday, after all… so, while I would never actually rely on Alexa or other personal assistant to control my home or office, precisely because of their reliance on the cloud, there is no getting away from the simple fact that they can make life easy for techies…
New for 2020 – Bluetooth 5.0 Earbuds and much more
Having spent much of January 2020 visiting family in Chicago, USA – I came back to the UK full of enthusiasm for new product testing. Here’s a quick update on the first new toy I opened on my return to the UK (and its eventual demise). First, the back-story: On…
Safekeeping
A new lock-down gadget to play with! The Vecta Personal Safe is designed in the UK, manufactured in China and mine came direct from Vecta Safes (UK) Ltd. The safe is suitable for storing money, keys, passports, keys etc and despite it’s small size is rock solid. For sizes, see…
Ravpower PD Pioneer 65W 2-Port Wall Charger
The important bit here is 65W PD – model RP-PC133. The new charger from Ravpower has both USB C and USB3 outputs and is able to deliver up to 3.25A at a range of voltages suitable for high speed charging phones and tablets. The first photo depicts the USA version,…
Lucky Weekend
Despite abysmal weather here in lockdown Northeast of England, it’s been a good weekend. One of my biggest daily challenges when running the blog is effortlessly, wirelessly transferring image from my Android phone to my PC for inclusion in the blog or elsewhere. As many of you will know, the…
Xiaomi ZAJIA Auto-sense IR Induction Water Saver
I LOVE getting new toys. This one 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 meter…
Cutting or Bleeding Edge – RGBCCT Lamps and Tasmota
I’ll let readers decide if we are on the cutting or bleeding edge here. Having received a 6-pack of ZemiSmart new GU10 Smartlamps to test, I installed them in my kitchen where I have a pair of ceiling 3-lamp non-smart fittings and duly replaced the six normal GU10 LED lamps…
The Predictable End of Free Apps – eWeLink?
I read today that eWeLink, the app used by Itead for their Sonoff products, is looking to offering a “paid” option. “What!?!” I hear you say? But we already paid for the hardware… Well, for some time now, I and others have been writing about taking the time and effort…
A ZemiSmart Weekend
Today, I received a shipment of goods from ZemiSmart including a small but surprisingly bright 5W E27 RGBW Smart Bulb, a WiFi Smart Socket (max load 16A – 1875W (non-inductive)) with twin USB (5v@2A) and a really neat battery-free (yes, battery-free bell-push) Smart Doorbell. The WiFi Smart Bulb Well, I…
Weather Data using Node-Red and APIs
With the forthcoming descent of Dark Skies into an Apple-Only universe (a sad loss for the rest of us) I’ve been looking into alternative APIs to use for grabbing weather forecasts and related data. While I struggle with the MET Office behemoth, here’s a little information on yr.no I’d not…
Ravpower PD Pioneer 61W Wall Charger RP-PC112
Wall chargers for phones are not something I generally get excited about but as this handles “Power Delivery” (a new standard for charging) for phones AND has enough power for a Raspberry Pi 4 or modern tablet/notebook, here goes. The RP-PC112 UK version is a white, neat-looking USB-C wall charger…
Sonoff Mini with Tasmota versus the competition
You can’t get away from it, the iTead products are inexpensive – and sometimes that is very important. But are they the best solution for Home Control? Well, that depends… I think they are very good… Sonoff products have always been inexpensive. But bear with me. At one time the…
Sonoff RFbridge 433
I just received two neat little inexpensive Sonoff RFbridges from Banggood, this is a great boxed gadget from Itead for converting 433Mhz RF signals from various devices into WiFi. The POINT of 433Mhz RF sensors of course is that they are very cheap and run for long periods on battery.…
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 8.2.0.1 “Elliot” (update March 22, 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…
NanoPi R2S OpenWrt miniRouter – where’s the WiFi?
The new FriendlyElec R2S is more fully described as NanoPi R2S: a Raspberry Pi alternative that incorporates two Gigabit Ethernet ports. That’s not strictly true, it is not even remotely like an alternative to the Raspberry Pi 4, for example, but with 1GB RAM it runs OpenWrt – the FA…