Today we can flick a switch remotely and get numbers from thermometers miles away. Here are my projects that aim to connect devices so that we can save energy and gain security from knowing what’s happening around the home. Almost everything here is connected by ‘Home Assistant’ running on a Raspberry Pi and we’ll show how it’s configured and what there is know.
visitors this year: 63 it’s not hard to make use of old or inexpensive 433MHz RF devices so that you can use them with modern smart home devices. For example, a 443MHz bell push...
visitors this year: 365 control all your smart thermostats from the Home Assistant dashboard When you have several thermostats there’s a need to see them at a glance. Home Assistant has a ’tile card’...
visitors this year: 256 This tank level sensor produces surprising detail about my heating oil usage. It’s a bit like a smart meter for oil so I now know say, how many litres I...
visitors this year: 559 what you need to set up a Bluetooth proxy A Bluetooth proxy requires almost any of the ESP32 development boards you can find at maker shops or Amazon. You need...
visitors this year: 126 You can connect the Switchbot water leak detector with Home Assistant without the need for a Switchbot hub. The detector uses Bluetooth and wifi to send out its alarms which...
visitors this year: 737 The Google Nest thermostat dial can have a wired connection and/or a wireless connection with the Heat Link base. A loss of wireless connection is a rare event and it...
visitors this year: 360 Smart devices often find their best uses in Home Assistant ‘automations’. ‘Automations’ are better known as ‘routines’ and they make quite unrelated devices interact with each other as will be...
visitors this year: 691 why the Creality K1C impressed can’t you think of any any negatives? For a critical reviewer, bringing more experience I’d point you to Daniel’s ‘CROSSLINK’ channel on YouTube. This is...
visitors this year: 132 The situation: in addition to the router that serves your home with internet you’ve another router that could perhaps improve your wireless or wired coverage. The extra router could be...
visitors this year: 463 Remote homes and farms can get their water from a borehole – years ago the owner of my house drilled the garden until they found a water source. Today I...
visitors this year: 722 why a server? what can I use a home server for? a vpn, a router, an ad-blocker, storage for backups, a photo library, a music server, a printer server, a...
visitors this year: 922 TLDR: one morning too often I’ve woken to find that my ‘smart’ things has gone stupid and they haven’t turned on because the Raspberry Pi running Home Assistant has gone...
visitors this year: 679 With today’s energy issues it feels unnecessary to heat rooms we aren’t using. Back in the day we fitted thermostatic radiator valves (TRV) to radiators in central heating systems. We...
visitors this year: 1,165 My boiler burns heating oil from a tank and unlike the ‘gas’ that most homes burn it’s finite – so when it’s gone I’m cold. Ordering heating oil is tricky...
visitors this year: 2,067 I’ve been using the Wireguard or nginx to access my home network* securely and I’ve explained in other posts (links below) how they’re used and set up. Tailscale however is...
visitors this year: 560 WS2812B strip – INMP441 microphone – WLED SR software – ESP32 board shopping list for these motion activated stairway lights – see photos wiring diagram for a microphone controlled LED...
visitors this year: 72 An LED strip 2 metres long runs beside the staircase. A sensor detects movement which triggers a light pattern along the strip. But if the sensor is a microphone, rather...
visitors this year: 5,924 You can graph temperature on this cute display and use buttons to turn on the heater as needed – the project works with Home Assistant and needs very little else...
visitors this year: 2,957 If you have curiosity and/or paranoia about what happens across your network there are tools which can gather information for you. This post will show how to install tools to...
visitors this year: 1,013 Moodle is a web-based platform where you can create learning activities, manage course assessment and pretty much run a school or sell courses. If your needs are small enough, you...
visitors this year: 315 This smoke alarm piqued my interest as a way to create an smoke/fire alert when I might be elsewhere. It’s unbranded and labelled as “C50D/W (1527, can skip code)” which...
visitors this year: 4,617 your need for a (nicer) sub-domain: At home you access an IP camera, a router, Home Assistant, a wi-fi access point, a NAS drive (eg Synology or QNAP) or perhaps...
visitors this year: 6,479 Time Machine is a backup utility on the Mac. This can work for years and then one day it doesn’t. If you need a file you had an hour ago,...
visitors this year: 2,710 Here is a tank level sensor that’s more useful than anything you can buy. This post focuses on my housing and the calibration for a basic sensor to measure oil...
visitors this year: 2,350 how to make a heating oil tank level sensor that’s more useful than anything you can buy. This sensor… Background: homes like mine use oil as a fuel to keep...
visitors this year: 4,241 how to make a heating oil tank level sensor that’s more useful than anything you can buy. This sensor… Background: homes like mine use diesel oil as a fuel to...
visitors this year: 528 tips on choosing cameras and using POE / passive POE and waterproofing the connection. how do I record activity from cameras? Buying a security camera system isn’t just for professionals....
visitors this year: 8,984 Let’s start with the reminder that an easy route to a security camera setup is to buy a kit with cameras and a system box to record events on site...
handling data from experiments / home & garden / monitoring at home
by Roger · Published Mar 2022 · Last modified Mar 2023
visitors this year: 1,705 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...
visitors this year: 3,723 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...
visitors this year: 1,163 see version 2 of this project here My initial want was for the stairs to have soft glow lighting … but what the hec, LED strip lights do more than...
visitors this year: 917 A ‘smart scale’ that records my weight to a phone might be seen as ‘gadgety’ and unnecessary but I’m now many months into this and think it’s fabulous. Almost fact:...
visitors this year: 363 GoPro, microphone and camera fittings are so ridiculously different, so here are some pointers to help buy the right bits to mount them. In all cases, even a GoPro (below)...
visitors this year: 1,164 when you want an e-bike and you don’t want another bike:
visitors this year: 307 , 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...
visitors this year: 1,019 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?...
visitors this year: 274 If you’re looking for a smartwatch, look at the Huawei Watch / Huawei Band 6 / Huawei Watch Fit New wearables If you’ve yet to get yourself a smartwatch I’ll...
visitors this year: 15,008 … I can now see my Huawei health data in Google Fit and Google Drive. The Health Sync app acts as a go-between, and connects Huawei health to several other...
visitors this year: 20,518 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,...
visitors this year: 613 two meanings of getting out of sync: Scenario one: You’ve two independently controlled table lamps which you’d prefer to turn on or off together. The lamps could be smart lamps...