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…
H801 LED RGBWW Strip Controller + 4-relay ESP8266 Board
This blog features two gadgets who’s common thread is the ESP8266 processor and the use of Tasmota firmware Firstly the H801 LED WiFi Controller ! I could have sworn I wrote about these incredibly useful H801 controllers some time ago but apparently not. If you are new to the H801…
Baseus T2 Wireless Smart Tracker
The 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…
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 Netac N930ES M.2 2242 SSD 512GB Flash Internal Solid State Drive 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…
Chuwi Larkbox – Windows + Celeron Mini PC – Update
See Feb 2021 update at the end of this article. This is one of those devices you just have to SEE – I’ll do my best. The Chuwi Larkbox Mini PC comes with Windows or Linux and has an Intel Celeron J4115 running at 2.5Ghz (according to the box –…
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 30w/20w DIY Laser Engraving Machine (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…
Raspberry Pi Pico – would you bother?
Friday Rant: The New “Raspberry Pi Pico” trades on the name “Raspberry Pi” which many of us find to be a cost-effective home -automation hub, thankfully widely supported by lots of third parties even though the Raspberry Pi Foundation is sticking with their “for educational use” mantra. But the Pico…
More Printing Goodness – and now the Crealty LD-002H
This write-up is about the Creality 3D® LD-002H LCD Resin 3D Printer. I can’t find any reference to one of one of the originally promoted features in the manual – i.e. WiFi. So should I simply point you back to my 2020 sprawling entry on the Creality 3D® LD-002R LCD…
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 12 Inch LED Ring Wall Clock 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…
Bakeey POCO X3 NFC Case
This lovely, transparent (with armoured black edges) Bakeey case for the Poco X3 phone 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…
Bakeey 8-in-1 USB-C Hub Docking Station Adaptor
This inexpensive Bakeey Adaptor 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…
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…
Athom Smart Socket pre-Tasmota’d and Smart Light
I’m so excited about this so I’ll dive straight in. The company is called ATHOM and they make smart sockets and lights pro-programmed with TASMOTA. I took the smartsocket out of the box, plugged it into the mains, told my phone to look for access points and it found “tasmota_D3F950-6480”.…
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…
BigTimer
Node–RED is a fantastic and powerful yet easy to use programming tool for wiring together hardware devices, APIs and online services in new and interesting ways. For more information on Node-Red go to the Node-Red site. BigTimer is my own creation and is (IMHO) the most powerful and best-ever, most…
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…