I created a Node-RED RFM2Pi gateway few weeks ago, have it running nicely since then. I decided to use that approach instead of a python script, since it is very flexible, visual and easy to extend. Prior to Node-RED I used the…
I sometimes have home automation projects that require detecting AC voltage (on/off only), previously have experimented with non-contact AC detection. Here is another approach that may be more suitable for low-power AC detection node: using a NE2 neon lamp and…
I am not a big fan of voice control, but this particular project turned out quite practical. What I wanted to achieve is to pick up my phone, speak out a command and so control connected things like my TV, heat…
I have published the Eagle design files for the Funky v3 and YAPM projects here and here respectively for anyone interested to try them out. A quick re-cap – Funky v3 is a miniature low power battery operated Arduino Leonardo…
I live in a small village ~25km from Sofia, Bulgaria and commute daily to the city. My house’s alarm system would occasionally ring me and I would rush back home to see if all is fine, that can be pretty…
It often happens that I need to know the the min/max/average values of an emonCMS feed or do basic data analysis/querying, I was running a SQL query on the database end to get my answers. In some cases, however, one…
Here is a quick home automation project: controlling a LG smart TV over the Internet using a Raspberry Pi computer. There is a Python script already developed for that, so getting all this working was a 5 minute effort. The…
Sparkblocks are a text-only version of the sparkline charts, using just unicode symbols. These are a convenient way to represent trends in pure text, quite useful when you want to use SMS, tweets or even the subject line of an…
I fiddled with a new keypad today, this is not the first time I have a keypad project, but this time I want it to act as a USB keyboard instead. This is a convenient way to enter numeric data…
I accidentally landed on a site called ‘quantified self’ last month and immediately realized I am doing lots of lifelogging myself. I track my commutes, log my weight, my body temperature when sick, my hot water usage habits, visitors to…
I log the AC mains voltage at my house starting July 2013, you may recall my post where I was concerned about the unusually high voltage readings at home. Now that I have few months of data collected, it is…
I use Google Analytics on this blog to track visits and have collected statistics for couple years now. I toyed with these a bit today to see where are the visitors from, just out of curiosity and for no particular other reason.…
It has been a while since my last post, I have a new job and little time left for hobby stuff 🙂 Anyway, I have put together the PCB for the Yet Another Power Monitor (YAPM) project and was able to…
I have finally found some time last weekend to finalize my smart hot water tank controller project, finalized the code and have it now running for a week. I also put up a small and simple html page to control…
I am working on a smart IoT controller for my solar hot water tank and I need to be able to control its mode of operation over the Internet. My plan is to have the controller subscribe to an emonCMS…