By @edent · IoT SmartHome zigbee · 650 words · read ~285 times.
The people who built my kitchen were idiots. They designed it to be lit with a dozen recessed GU10 spotlights. That's not so terrible - GU10 LED bulbs are only about £1 each - but because I am a bigger idiot, I decided I wanted remote-controlled bulbs. And ZigBee bulbs are expensive! Five years ago, […]
Continue reading →By @edent · ActivityPub fediverse IoT Social Networks · 15 comments · 550 words · read ~2,860 times.
One of the most frustrating things in modern technology is the effort spent trying to artificially restrict abundance. Take, for example, this tale from museum-worker Aaron Cope: I was out with a friend who worked for Twitter and I asked them whether it would be possible for the museum to “create 200,000 Twitter accounts, one […]
Continue reading →By @edent · HomeAssistant IoT SmartHome · 6 comments · 500 words · read ~6,541 times.
I have a lovely, and reasonably priced, Mini Panda Rice Cooker. It does not have any SmartHome features. You put in water and rice, press a button, it cooks rice. Nice! The only problem is - I don't know how long the rice will take to cook. It uses "Fuzzy Logic" to work out exactly […]
Continue reading →By @edent · HomeAssistant IoT Meross SmartHome · 5 comments · 500 words · read ~961 times.
Matter is coming to fix all your smarthome woes! A single IoT standard, working across multiple radio protocols, bringing together different products from many different manufacturers. And… it works! Mostly These are the Meross 315 Smart Plugs. They are small(ish), cheap(ish), and easy(ish) to use. As soon as I plugged them in, before even configuring […]
Continue reading →By @edent · IoT · 9 comments · 500 words · read ~225 times.
There's a popular meme that Internet connected domestic appliances are a useless fad that no-one wants. I disagree. Obviously, a crappy oven with an app that upsells you cleaning products is a bit shit. As is a dishwasher that borks on firmware update and lets itself be hacked by the Eurasians. But those are just […]
Continue reading →By @edent · IoT Smart Home · 16 comments · 200 words · read ~1,801 times.
Another blog post which is a long and complex search query. I have a bunch of smart plugs. Some use WiFi, some use Zigbee, some use Bluetooth. None of them use PowerLine Ethernet. Why is that? I have a bunch of PowerLine Ethernet adapters. They let me use my home's electrical wiring as a network. […]
Continue reading →By @edent · IoT ip cameras network · 6 comments · 400 words · read ~237 times.
There's an absolutely delightfully bonkers post doing the rounds called "My Overkill Home Network" - which is a look into what happens when a computer geek goes feral and stuffs as many Internet connected thingamajigs in a living space. We're talking professional grade, rack mounted, doubly redundant, over-specced, equipment. Overkill is underselling it. I wondered […]
Continue reading →By @edent · hci IoT ui · 2 comments · 350 words
The best gadget I got in lockdown was a set of motion activated lights. They have no user interface. I walk by them in the dark and they turn on. Midnight piss? No fumbling for a light switch, no shouting to a digital assistant, no logging in to an app. Simple. I love it. It […]
Continue reading →By @edent · gadgets IoT network Smart Home · 13 comments · 600 words · read ~4,493 times.
They say that The Best Camera Is The One That's With You - the same is true of Raspberries Pi. As much as I'd love a 4B, they seem permanently sold out. So I dug through my scrapheap of old tech and resurrected an ancient Pi2. It's old, outdated, slow, with limited RAM, and has […]
Continue reading →By @edent · electricity IoT · 10 comments · 850 words · read ~370 times.
The first indication I had that anything was wrong at home was my solar panels's cloud service casually emailing me to say they hadn't generated any electricity that day. We were on holiday - literally on the other side of the planet - and there were reports of snow at home, so I didn't think […]
Continue reading →