use a smart switch to turn off a lithium battery charger
I know that I ought not leave things powered on. Knowing that is easier than remembering that an e-bike or drone or laptop battery is still connected. Below I show how to turn on...
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this motion detecting night light tells Home Assistant when you pass by
The very popular, but hardly-known Xiaomi nightlight, which lights up a dark space when you pass, now has a ‘smart’ version. A night light is nice on a dark stairway and toe-saving on a...
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diet: keep a graph of your weight changes with a Huawei smart weighing scale
A ‘smart scale’ that records my weight to a phone might be seen as ‘gadgety’ but when you’re dieting, a weight record is satisfying and very encouraging. A downside is that the scale doesn’t...
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convert a bicycle to an ‘e-bike’ or electric powered bike
when you want an e-bike and you don’t want another bike:
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iPad LCD magnifier or microscope for SMD soldering or other close work
, If you’re a casual electronics hobbyist like me, the idea of using a LCD magnifier or microscope may seem attractive. For example this music spectrum display kit requires soldering 240 SMD LEDs, with...
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the Google Fit app helps record walking tracks, sleep, weight, bike rides and calories
topics on this page: what do I eat? how does my weight change? do I get enough sleep? where did I go today? how does my body react to exercise? introducing Google Fit You...
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Huawei Watch and Huawei Band 6 – useful, affordable smartwatches of 2021/2
If you’re looking for a smartwatch consider the Huawei Watch / Huawei Band / family of wearables If you’ve yet to get yourself a smartwatch I’ll have a guess at the reason. One negative...
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sync Huawei Health watch data into Google Fit; Google Drive or fitness tracker apps like Strava
… but then I found that I could see my Huawei data in apps such as Google Fit and Google Drive. With the Health Sync app acting as a go-between, you can connect different...
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connect remotely to your home network using the WireGuard add-on in Home Assistant
Why do this? At an early point on the journey to network heaven you may have a need to connect from some holiday location say, to a camera, your computer, a home automation setup...
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how to stop a (hue) light and switch state getting out of sync
how a light can be on when its switch is off I’ve a number of smart light bulbs that, in addition to a wall switch, can be turned on or off either by say,...
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Robot arms reach out to the Raspberry Pi: this is art
What’s going on? Hec, I’m in a room with robot arms and fingers twitching as they respond to social media. THIS can only be art but it’s art powered by makers. Tucked away is...
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upgrade your router firmware to ‘FreshTomato’
The Netgear Nighthawk r7000 is a router, switch and powerful Wi-fi access point in one unit and even in 2021, years on from when it was made it still offers your network a boost...
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addressable LED light strips put to use
There are LED strip lights where every LED can be doing something different with the result that you can create peculiar effects. You can start with a commercially available kit but after a while...
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access your Home Assistant remotely using DuckDNS, Letsencrypt and the nginx SSL proxy
The Home Assistant home automation hub is more useful if you can access it remotely. In addition to having anywhere access with a browser URL, there’s an excellent phone app to access Home Assistant....
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use nginx proxy manager with home assistant to access many network devices
If you need to access Home Assistant remotely away from home, skip this page and instead go to access your Home Assistant remotely using DuckDNS, Letsencrypt and the nginx SSL proxy. This page is...
use the smart device app even if you use an automation platform
Your smart bulbs, switches and door bell all come with a useful manufacturer’s app – over time you’ll accumulate many such apps. While Home Assistant might make them redundant, here are couple of tips...
Dim display problem on large LED digital clock
The digits at one end of a large LED clock displayed much more dimly than they ought. I’d say they were about half the brightness – and it was quite a puzzle. The clock...
how to know when the washing machine has finished
If you need to know when a device, like a dryer or washing machine has finished working, get a ‘smart plug with energy monitoring‘. Amazon list many of them but whichever brand you get,...
automated fade up dimmer for analogue LED Strips – using a MOSFET and ESPhome
This ceiling ‘coffer’ is lit by four 5m LED strips cut down to size fitted in 2017. If you wanted really, really bright light, these analogue white LED strips were the thing to get....
see your sensor readings on a TTGO T-display ST7789V TFT LCD
If you use Home Assistant you can show temperature, time and other sensor entities on this cute display. The inspiration for this mini-project came from a need to display my oven temperature in a...
send a screenshot to your phone, instant message or email using cloud storage such as Google Photos – this really is the best workflow
Without copying a screenshot to or using a USB stick (no!) All the day I capture useful or interesting images from facebook, instagram, desktop apps and web pages. I copy bits of images to...
what is the temperature of your oven? how to cook reliably with an inaccurate oven
Ovens may have digital controllers or analogue temperature controllers and cooks seem to have blind faith in their settings. In this household the cooks were burning food so I checked the oven temperature. It...
how much oil / electricity do I use in a day – Home Assistant or espHome
The measurements that I take around the home provide two things: – a picture of a moment in time – a room temperature for example. – how something changes over the course of a...
how to integrate 433MHz temperature & humidity sensors with Home Assistant
A home automation platform, such as Home Assistant, allows you to make temperature v time graphs using sensors that you might place around the home. Monitoring temperatures allowed me to get my heating devices...
can I integrate ‘HomeEasy’ 433MHz devices with Home Assistant?
Yes. Below you’ll see how to control HomeEasy devices through Home Assistant and the RFlink receiver/transmitter. (This also controls other manufacturers’ wireless sockets). You’ll be able to create timers and automation to turn things...
use GitHub and Arduino IDE to create an ESP32 web camera
If you want to use a GitHub project with Arduino software follow this step-by-step guide. We’ll make an ESP32 camera web server using the Github code from ‘easytarget’. An ESP32-CAM module consists of a...
coping with 18650 batteries with and without button tops
I discover my bicycle headlamp wasn’t working because some 18650 batteries have a button top. Oh my, that was embarrassing to admit The 18650 ‘battery’, like many batteries, is named according to its dimensions....
use Google lens to search the Internet using a picture or photo
Here’s what to do when a restaurant asks you to scan a QR code for their track and trace (written in 2020). And here’s how to identify a plant, an animal and lots more....
use one switch to turn on two lights – in any combination
The need: you use a table light for watching TV and a main (wall) light at other times and you want a coffee table button to switch between one or the other or have...
T4EU1C and Home Assistant
a 3-gang wall switch for your home automation – using eWelink, T4EU1C and Home Assistant I got to a point where I had plenty of ‘smart’ lights and gadgets but few switches. But then...
set up rflink to respond to 433MHz devices and then integrate them with Home Assistant
In this project we integrate inexpensive 433MHz RF devices with modern smart devices see also: 433MHz smarter letterbox how to set up RFlink so that it will read your RF sensors The easiest ready-to-roll...
project: plot the temperature of your fridge-freezer, pet home or fermenting wine on a history graph in Home Assistant
In a previous project I set up temperature sensors in my room and sent the data via Bluetooth to Home Assistant, the home automation platform. Home Assistant is software that can record measurements and...
how to toggle the state of a light or switch for Alexa in Home Assistant
Toggling a light switch means that a press of the switch will turn the light off or on depending it what it was last doing. There is nothing clever about that but if I...
take your D-Link DCS-D150 out of the cloud and into Home Assistant
I wouldn’t especially recommend the D-Link DCS-D150 motion sensor but it does have some features that had me buy it. Firstly it plugs into a wall socket above a worktop so it can sense...
recycle laptop 18650 lithium batteries in a DIY power bank
If you could look inside an old replaceable laptop battery pack like this you’d find 4 or 6 cells. Usually the cells are 18mm diameter, 65mm long and are called 18650 lithium batteries. Each...
project: plug-in energy meter with graphs of energy use over time
‘Smart meters’ and metering devices usually measure the electricity used by the whole house*. However I prefer to pay attention to the electricity used by individual devices, such as a combination oven, fan heater...
control a sonoff switch using eWelink and Home Assistant – without IFTTT or firmware flashing
In this project I control a Sonoff light switch using Home Assistant. You can do the same with other Sonoffs. The switch shown here is the T4EU1C wall plate switch. It works over wifi...
control a sonoff switch from Home Assistant using IFTTT
The regular way to switch a Sonoff relay is to use the official ewelink app. Other ways require you to ‘flash’ the Sonoff device with Tasmota or ESPHome software and then control it with...
send sensor data from Home Assistant to a spreadsheet
The Home Assistant dashboard (aka ‘Lovelace’) is very good at displaying live sensor data as well as historic sensor data. The display below shows a ‘just now’ reading of the sun and also a...
433MHz (aka RF) sensors and devices are good value
How to make inexpensive, ‘old’ technology, 433MHz devices work with today’s smart devices see also: 433MHz smarter letterbox RF sensors and receivers If you’ve used any of the following examples you probably own some...
best uses for a smart socket
smart sockets have uses. A smart socket adds a little cleverness to a table lamp or electric heater. The printer upstairs takes five minutes to warm up so switching it on by remote control...
project boxes for ESP32 and other microcontrollers
How do I safely house an electronics project? Is there a better way to mount a ESP-CAM camera? I’d been looking for boxes in the wrong shop so I found a better shop. My...
IKEA bulbs & dimmers work with a Philips hue hub
they work together but not everything is possible As an early adopter I’ve come to feel that Philips Hue lighting system gains more praise than it needs. Dozens of other makers now do pretty...
433MHz smarter letterbox – for when you don’t want to walk to the letter box
see also more about 433MHz devices The letterbox is five doors and fifty metres from my desk. The uncertainty of the post lady arriving in the afternoon means that I make wasted journeys to...
estimate energy bills – the cost of living
This quick post is for anybody wondering how much money they need to put aside for energy. If you don’t use electricity for keeping warm, your summer and winter electricity bills will be similar....
smart sockets vs smart bulbs – introduction
smart bulbs and sockets have select uses. A smart socket adds a little on/off cleverness to a table lamp, electric heater or the printer upstairs that takes five minutes before it’s warm and useful....
introducing what home automation offers
When you look for home automation equipment you find many systems. They turn on lights and plug sockets; water the garden; unlock a door, turn up the heating; record a security camera, open the...
the need to use a home automation ‘platform’
In the beginning there was the smart bulb that changed colour and convinced me that here was something trivial and fanciful. Today I’m surprised by the usefulness of the smart gadgets on sale. There...
calculate how long is the day
… and see how to add features to the Home Assistant display An interest in solar energy is a possible reason to record the sun’s azimuth and the time of sunset. Home Assistant can track...
project: smart thermostat – nest and hive
The Google nest thermostat (or its Hive equivalent) are devices which I’d be happy to pay for and recommend. I could easily make something that turned on the heating with temperature as it is...
find the IP address of your things – introduction
When you set up a gadget or device you’ll sometimes be asked what its IP address is – and gosh – becoming at ease with that question is good for you. Every gadget connected...
add your own smart devices to Home Assistant using ESPHome
what’s needed to start using ESPhome? option 1: an ESP32 development board with a micro-USB socket option 2: an ESP8266 development board – less power use, but no Bluetooth option 3: an ESP32 development...
starting with Home Assistant
Home Assistant is software that connects smart devices. It enables them to have a useful life outside of the app that they come with. You will gain unusual flexibility where a Philips Hue lamp...
flash ESP32-CAM with arduino ide software
Arduino IDE is software that lets us develop code for a writing on a chip. Explore its menu and we soon see it’s made to transfer a great many capabilities to a great many...
