I’ve re-written this blog today – as the people at Blynk have been quite useful – promising to fix some items I’ve griped about/commented on. I hope they don’t mind me pinching some of their imagery. One of the problems with home control – is making a nice web interface…
Pion One
No, I’d not heard of it either but I recently received a parcel in the post with a new ESP8266-based board – and a bunch of modules. The description on the box says “Iot, CLoud Supported, Plug & Play Modules, Android App, No Hardware Programming Requirement, API supported”. And with…
Blog Improvements
A little update for you…. I’ve added something new to the blog – user profiles – and I’ve taken something away. Lots of you have taken the time to register for the blog – but lots of folk visit and don’t bother to log in – I figure something for…
Nextion Talking Thermostat
Yes, I changed the title. As often happens with these things, I got carried away. The Nextion display is a touch-sensitive intelligent display. Essentially, you buy the display and you program it with a free editor serially – which lets you easily place icons, buttons, images, text, gauges and more…
Raspberry Pi Serial and Node-Red issues
SOLVED: Node-Red serial I/O Looks simple doesn’t it – tie RX and TX together on your Raspberry Pi and press the button – text comes out of the other end – except that it doesn’t. More likely the Pi will CRASH (not something you see every day). Serial out seems…
Talking Raspberry
Updated 21/DEC/2015 This entry is now DEAD. Google have changed the goalposts and removed the API access for their language translation and text to speech system so that the base program behind this work – a program called Normit – is no dead in the water. I’m doing an update…
Orange Pi PC
This blog item last update May 2016 – and it is all thanks in large part to you, the readers. Thank you. Well, let’s see shall we… The Orange Pi PC (note, specifically the PC version, I’ll make no comment about others – this is the CHEAP one – cost me…
Node-Red Madness
As of right now – this is page one of my node-red setup – today I managed to get text to speech running on the Raspberry Pi (not on the Orange Pi as that’s not having sound at all) and note at the bottom right – my latest additions ready…
Raspberry Pi Monster Script Part 3
I’ve updated the script – gotten rid of MYSQL – too many questions about SD life – and I have to say, SQLITE3 – though slightly different takes mininal modification of SQL assuming you’re doing things like logging of data and relatively straight-forward queries – it really is worthwhile. Apart…
You Big Jessie
While waiting for inspiration as to why the new ESP8266-based controller OTA coding is crashing the boards, I thought I’d have another go at rescuing my ill-fated Orange Pi. After much time spend putting operating systems onto microSD and failing to get ANYWHERE, I gave up. Having short of SDs…
ESP8266 Remote Access
Notice I titled that remote access as against remote programming – but that’s part of it. Years ago, having gotten sick and tired of dismantling my home control Arduinos just to upgrade the code, I purchased a couple of small units from China which I’ve just thrown in the bin. …
ESP-12F
The ESP-12F seems to have appeared out of no-where. It appears to be nothing more than the ESP-12E – perhaps someone can enlighten us. It is cheap, no doubt about it at $2 inc. shipping or around what, £1.32 UK money? This things are now so cheap that the support…
Raspberry Pi Monster Script Part 2
Updated 10/10/2015: This won’t make sense without reading part 1 first. In the first of these articles I hopefully got you to the point of having basic access to your Pi2 from a PC – and actually running a simple script that says “Hello”. From there on it’s just a…
Raspberry Pi Monster Script Part 1
It all started innocently enough… Updated 10/10/2015: All I wanted to do was control some ESP8266 and Arduino boards – I spent hours looking at various packages and ultimately decided that none of them really did what I wanted – I resolved to learning about the Raspberry Pi (though frankly…
SQLite on the Pi
This weekend gone I was having a play with dSQLite for my Raspberry Pi2 and thanks to some helpful guys here in the comments section and at Node-Red Google forums – and a little inspiration of my own – I manage to get everything up and running – so I’ve…
QD Tech Displays on the ESP8266
I’ve seen a number of projects using an Arduino and an ESP8266 to drive LCD displays. You may know that my home control has used a 1284-based board (MEGA type) to run a nice Thermostat display for some time now. The displays look very pretty in the right box. THIS…
ESP8266 RAM
I recently put out a question about the RAM in the ESP8266. In a typical compile, for me I might see… Sections:Idx Name Size VMA LMA File off Algn0 .data 00000894 3ffe8000 3ffe8000 000000e0 2**4CONTENTS, ALLOC, LOAD, DATA1 .rodata 0000275c 3ffe88a0 3ffe88a0 00000980 2**4CONTENTS, ALLOC, LOAD, READONLY, DATA3 .bss 00009a80…
Backing up Node-Red
For anyone looking in for the first time – I have a home control system based around ESP8266 boards and the odd Arduino. They talk MQTT to a Raspberry Pi which acts as a central controller – using Node-Red – the greatest thing since sliced bread. I’m in the process…
Idling
In case anyone was thinking I’d fallen off a cliff.. I’m waiting for my Orange Pi PC to turn up so I can find out if it works of if the doubters are correct. In the meantime I’m working on my script to install everything but the kitchen sink –…
DiskStation Pi
Just in case you thought I’d gone off on holiday.. I’ve been sat at the terminal over the last couple of days, experimenting. You will have seen concerns mentioned here and elsewhere about using a Raspberry Pi as a central hub to control ESP8266s using MQTT and Node-Red. The issue…