Skip to “present day” if you don’t want any background:-) As a current Node-Red/MQTT fanatic with some leanings toward HASS, It’s no secret that I’ve been playing with home automation since the mid-80s when a company founded by Aidan Ruff and myself created something called APPCON (for Application Controller). I…
70mai Midrive TP03 12V Portable Car Tire Inflator
Ok, I’ll grant you, not very high-tech – but when I got the opportunity to get on of these to test, I happily jumped at the opportunity as I don’t trust the tire pressure inflators in the few garages out here in the wilds that actually have one (I think…
Crealty 3D LD-002R LCD Resin Printer and MORE
For those looking in for the first time, I’ll simply start at the end to show you my current 3D model collection (minus models I’ve given away) now that I’ve cracked using this excellent Crealty printer – and then we’ll head back to where it all started after the printer…
RunCam 5 Orange Ultra-light 4K HD FPV Camera
The full title of this tiny 4K camera is RunCam 5 Orange 12MP 4:3 145°FOV 56g Ultra-light 4K HD FPV Camera and despite having 4K capability on my mobile phone, decided I just had to take a look at this model. Of course the gold standard for these sports movie cameras…
Fun with the MUDI 4G LTE Private Router for Road Warriers
The Mudi Travel Router (GL-E750) is another product from my new favourite router company and is a neat, portable router for business travellers and others who want to secure their data on the go while sharing a mobile connection. First things first – the obligatory opening pics – here it…
Boxym Home Automatic Wrist Blood Pressure Monitor
The Boxym blood pressure monitor (model CK-W133) is simple enough and fits on the wrist – as against the more usual type that fit around the upper arm and that means rolling up or removing your shirt. As someone who checks their blood pressure regularly I’ve wanted one of these…
Sonoff DIY 4CHR3 and 4CH PROR3
This week I received a set of Sonoff units from Itead including the 4CHR3 and 4CHPROR3 (described as 4-gang Interlock/Self-locking/Inching WiFi DIY Light Switches) as well as a ZBMINI. I’ll cover that last item elsewhere as it is a small, Alexa/Google-compatible single-channel 10A power controller using Zigbee protocol. As for…
General Itead Sonoff ramblings – now with Zigbee
Sonoff Zigbee Bridge Early in June 2020 I received my long-awaited Sonoff Zigbee bridge along with Itead‘s pre-programmed Zigbee CC2531 USB dongle which means I have written about low-power-consumption Zigbee devices including Itead devices (also some from ZemiSmart). In this update I’m including the new Sonoff sensors, the ZBMINI which…
INUX3D TerraPi Dual SSD Assembly
This TerraPi Dual SSD “case” or “assembly” for the Raspberry Pi 4 is different, to say the least. Available in red, black or blue, this vertical case is also available in single and dual SSD versions. I can best describe this beast in pictures – so I will. I just…
PM2.5 O3 Ozone Detector
Some time ago I looked at an air quality monitor but this was not cased and though it worked perfectl I had to hide it in my l;ab to avoid wife comments. This PM2.5 unit from Banggood on the other hand is ready to go and looks the part. Complete…
UUGear RasPiKey eMMC module for RPi4
Arrived this week and now checked out – The UUGear RasPiKey. While a far cry from an SSD speed-wise, the RasPiKey seems like a nice alternative to an SD when running a Raspberry Pi 4 or similar because RasPiKey uses eMMC, which, while more expensive than SD, gererally has an…
BigTimer
Node–RED is my own fantastic (well, I would say that) 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 the the most powerful and best-ever,…
SQLITE3 Raspberry Pi Problems and Solutions?
I KNOW I’m not the only one who has issues with SQLITE3 in Raspberry Pi and Node-Red, so next time it happens to you… here is some invaluable info… I just used the lines below on my second Raspberry Pi 4 which had been upgraded to Raspbian Buster (from Raspbian…
LAOTIE N7S 3-Mode Foldable Electric Scooter
I’ll grant you the LAOTIE N7S 300W 36V 10.4Ah 3 Mode Foldable Electric Scooter is a little out of the ordinary for this blog – but when Banggood asked what I thought about the idea, I simply could not help myself as I’ve never owned an electric bike/scooter of ANY…
EDUP MESH WiFi Routers
I have a couple of rectangular EDUP EP-AC2937 Wireless Mesh Routers in my office on test… Easy to use and with English instructions, the first of these neat , inexpensive routers hooked into my network immediately, providing WiFi connectivity immediately as well as high speed Ethernet output. These devices are…
Tasmota – TDM, Tasmotize and TasUI
This is a never-ending story about Theo Arends’s much-loved alternative firmware for IOT (http://ota.tasmota.com/tasmota/tasmota.bin.gz) as Tasmota is now at stable release version 8.5.1 “Hannah” (update October 2, 2020) and development version 9.0.0.1 – I’ve upgraded my various ESP8266-based devices including Itead Sonoff BASIC, TH10, 4CH Pro, ProR2, Powr2, Shelly One,…
Raspberry Pi 4 plus SSD Case
Right now this is a request for ideas from readers – hopefully someone will have answers and I can then write about them here. Having recently gotten to grips with and blogged about Rasberry Pi 4 and the speed benefits of using an SSD drive via a USB3 to SATA…
PiSugar 2 and PiSugar 2 Pro
I’m now the proud owner of both the PiSugar 2 and PiSugar 2 Pro These are un-interruptible power supplies for the Raspberry Pi Zero and Raspberry Pi (3A, 3B, 3B+, 4B. Both of these boards come complete with magnetically attached Lithium battery – 1200maH capacity in the case of the…
Carku 64B versus D28A Portable Car Jump Starters
I have a couple of cars, one of which has a battery in doubtful state afet being flattened a few weeks ago. It works perfectly but knowing car batteries and their ability to recover from being flattened (or not) I at first figured I’d buy a battery charger – and…
Mikato S2 Smart PIR Toothbrush Sterilizer
It seems like an age ago that I wrote about the Soocas X3 Electric Toothbrushes.. and yet in fact it was just a couple of weeks ago – and now THIS – the Mikatu S2 Smart PIR Induction Electric Toothbrush Sterilizer Holder (to give it the full title). I was…