Thanks to all that participated in the IoT tech talk session that was held late yesterday, as promised I am adding a recording of the session It was suggested that the topic of the next hangout will be the ESP8266,…
IoT tech talk recording
Google video tech-talk hangout anyone?
I’ve been meaning to hold a video Google hangout session on IoT topics for some time now, how about giving it a try? I imagine it as informal 1 hr tech-talk with the following structure 35 min presentation of a…
WiFi IoT 3 channel relay board with MQTT and HTTP API using ESP8266
The ESP8266 DHT22/LED blinker project grew into an M2M relay board project with the following features in mind: Relatively small (10x5cm) PCB Powered via the onboard power supply or externally via a micro-USB plug Has three 2A Sharp Solid State…
ESP8266 powered web server + LED control + DHT22 temperature/humidity sensor reading
[Edit] Make sure to check my much more advanced example here The ESP8266 System-on-chip (SoC) has recently came out of nowhere and has been taking by storm the IoT DIY world. It is a $4.50 Wi-Fi capable chip that has remarkable specs, obsoleting…
Exposing Raspberry Pi’s network setting files to /boot so that they are visible on a PC
I needed to clone my current Raspberry Pi SD card image to use for another headless project (on another network), but then realized the network settings were my home ones. I had access to a PC only, so could not…
MQTT topic tree structure improvements
I’ve been unhappy with my old MQTT topic tree structure for quite some time now and did some thinking/research on how to improve it. Google pointed me to Tinkerman’s article on a similar subject, and I started planning on improvements. I will repeat…
Monitoring my home automation system uptime
I’ve set up a uptime monitor for my home automation system so that I’m notified when it is down. Such event could mean two things: either Internet connectivity issue, or system is down due to power failure, crash etc. The service…
Duck DNS updater in Node-RED
Dyn and No-IP have been for long time my choice for dynamic DNS, but both have recently made steps towards commercializing their services and implementing monthly confirmation process. I think it is time for me to move away and look for…
Improving my home automation system’s Data Quality
Data Quality is one of the areas I have been neglecting in my home automation system so far. As a result, I seem to be capturing some ‘garbage’ data along with the good quality data. Bad data can affect downstream…
DIY Internet of Things Fire Alarm
I purchased a battery operated smoke/fire alarm few days ago and it showed up today. It runs on 9V and will make a loud sound if smoke is detected. My intention was to hook it up with my home automation system…
Interfacing with Paradox home security system attempt 2
I toyed a bit with the Paradox security protocol last year, tapping into the keypad’s interface in an attempt to decode the messages being exchanged between the base station and the keypads. I had some success: I was able to…
You watch too much TV
I have the feeling that my teenager son spends too much time in front of the TV. We have a house rule that he is allowed to watch TV only after all homework is done, room is tidied up and for no…
Live streaming to USTREAM.TV using Raspberry Pi
The Raspberry Pi nest camera project turned out interesting, but provides static images upon motion detection. I’d rather have a live view of the bird’s nest and decided to go for live ustream.tv streaming. Setting up the software for it…
House martin cam
A common house martins couple started building their nest in an unfinished tool shack at the far end of my yard few days ago. I still don’t have a door or window on that building, so they can enter and leave freely.…
Presence detection using phone’s WiFi and Node-RED
Nathan tweeted a cool idea couple months ago, use static IP lease for your phone, ping it every minute to see if it responds, and if the ping times out that most probably means that the phone and his owner…