You could well be thinking at this point “What’s he on about? Surely these aren’t new sensors, Sonoff have had the SNZB-01 Button and 02 Temperature/Humidity Sensor for ages?”. The MiniR4M is a development of the MiniR4 I covered here (not entirely sure why they didn’t simply upgrade the MiniR4…
New Goodies from SwitchBot – Indoor/Outdoor Thermo-Hygrometer
I’ve recently grabbed a couple of these new sensors from Switchbot and they come complete with two AAA batteries pre-fitted. The back comes off easily for replacement, no tools required. Model is W3400010. Don’t ask why the box is so dirty – no idea. Once set up in the Switchbot…
Linkind Powerful Solar Landscape Garden Lights
This morning, a package arrived for me containing a pair of decent-looking garden solar lights from Linkind (I’m a bit surprised their main website prefix as detailed in their manual is http, not https but the actual website is fine). Straight up I should say I’d never heard of Linkind…
TP-Link Archer MR600 AC1200 Dual Band LTE Router
Before I start this is in no way any kind of promotion of TP-Link – I just stumbled on the V2 version of this router originally and now own both the V2 and V3 and am very happy with the results with one caviat – see WiFi later in the…
Broadband or 4G / 5G mobile? That is the Question!
If you’re here for a quick look at 4G/5G for use as broadband – Skip to the end section 4G Routers – Revelations or my concluding article about the TP-Link MR600 4G LTE router, otherwise read on… For some years on and off, here in rural Spain, I struggled with…
And Now – MATTER
No puns please – and if you know all about MATTER this is not for you (unless you have some rock-solid corrections to anything I say). With that said, until this week, I had no idea what MATTER was – but now I do, I can’t learn fast enough. If…
Compact PowerVision S1 Gimbal for Smartphones – Update
The PowerVision S1 is a “smart” 3-axis smartphone stabiliser with wireless power bank and “PowerFollow” tracking. See the February 2023 through to May 2025 updates at the end of this article.The device and its website are now defunct. Original article: If you’ve read my blog entry about the new Hohem…
Tasmota and Node-Red Long-Term
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…
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…