Category "analysis"

Six months ago I was reviewing the AiThinker AiLight, a great looking light bulb with an embedded ESP8266EX microcontroller, driven by a MY9291 LED driver. Just before summer IteadStudio released it's Sonoff B1 [Itead.cc] light bulb, heavily inspired (probably same manufacturer) by the AiLight, at least on the design. Now that IteadStudio has become popular between the home automation community you can also find the Sonoff B1 on global marketplaces like Ebay or Aliexpress for around 13€....

Some weeks ago I talked about the Magic Home LED Controller as I was adding support for it in my ESPurna firmware. At the time a user pointed me to the H801 Led WiFi Controller by Huacanxing. The user in question (Minh Phuong Ly) even did a pull request with some preliminary support for it. So I decided to give it a go. The H801 is a 5 channels controller that you can find for about 9-10€ at Ebay or Aliexpress....

Last February 7 I attended a workshop at a the SokoTech in Barcelona to assemble my own Fenderino, the coolest guitar ever (my knowledge about guitars is very limited, so take this sentence with a grain of salt). The guitar is actually a shield for the Arduino UNO and has been designed by the people at abierto.cc, an initiative aimed to provide open(-sourced) tools for educators, created amongst others, by David Cuartielles, co-founder of Arduino....

Really busy these days. I have some drafts ongoing but I wanted to publish this short post right away. One of the readers of this blog, Michel Clavette, sent me these pics just yesterday. He bought 5 Ai Light bulbs and to his surprise two of them do not have an ESP8266 microcontroller but instead this IC labelled KK2015. KK2015 powered Ai Light. Picture by Michel Clavette It looks like a drop-in replacement for the ESP8266 since it has the same footprint and all the other components are (apparently) the same....

November was a busy month and the Sonoff Dual that IteadStudio kindly sent me to review was bored in a box waiting for some free time. But it was just fair that another board that has been waiting in the boards-to-review box for longer had it's chance to have some fresh air too. So here we have the Itead Studio Sonoff Dual and the Electrodragon ESP Relay Board face to face....

Some months ago I wrote about a hack I did to one of my Sonoff devices to be able to use a simple current sensor to monitor my washer machine process and alert me whenever my laundry was done. A few weeks ago Itead Studio released two new models for their Sonoff line, the POW and the DUAL. And the POW is Itead's answer to my hack. I'm not saying they copied me, just that the Sonoff POW makes my hack utterly unnecessary....

Itead Studio keep on creating interesting products for the hacker community. A few weeks ago a new version of the already classic Sonoff TH came to life. This new version comes in two flavours: the Sonoff TH10 and TH16 and you can buy them at Aliexpress: Sonoff TH 10A/16A Temperature And Humidity Monitoring WiFi Smart Switch. In this article I will briefly talk about what's new in this device to quickly go to explore one of those novelties: it's external interface....

A few weeks ago the 4D Systems announced one of its latest products: the 4Duino-24, an Arduino compatible display module with built in 240x320 resolution TFT LCD Display with Resistive Touch and an ESP8266 ESP-06 module on board. it looked like a great product for a home automation control panel, although the screen could have been bigger. Anyway I contacted the people at 4D Systems and they were kind enough to send me a sample to review, and hack!...

For months I've been searching for a settings manager for my Arduino and ESP8266 projects. There are basically two issues to take care of: On memory settings or** how do you access to the configuration values** from your code Persistence or how do you store the configuration across reboots For the first issue common solutions in high level languages are key-value solutions in the form of containers or hash arrays....

Some weeks ago I received a parcel from Itead. Previously, I had written about the Sonoff and they were kind enough to send me two more of their home automation products for me to review: the S20 Smart Socket I wrote about two weeks ago and the Slampher. The Slampher comes in a simple cardboard box with no documentation at all... just visit their wiki! The Slampher is kind of a Sonoff RF that sits before any light bulb with an E27 screw....