Category "projects"

This time I'd like to write a quick post about a small project we've been working on at the The Things Network** community in Barcelona** (@ttncat). We were worried about the monitoring of the gateways we have deployed, both as a community but also as individuals. Some of our partners have also deployed their own gateways and they are part of the community. The TTNCat gateway at Vista Rica in Barcelona So how do we get (almost) real-time notifications of incidences in the local TTN network?...

Some time ago I worked on a home project to get a notification when my washing machine had done its job based on monitoring its power consumption. There was a good reason for that, the machine was outside the house and I had already forgotten about the laundry several times. And when that happens your only option is to wash it again, because it really smells musty… Monitoring your appliances Use ESPurna :)...

You might have heard about The Things Network (TTN from now on) here or somewhere else. If you have not, then it's a good opportunity to visit the project and check if there is a community of users around you. I have been a core member of the TTN Catalunya community for over 2 years now. This year we are working hard deploying several new gateways in Barcelona and doing workshops and hackathons with the main goal of helping individuals and social entities to carry out projects around a LoRaWan open, libre (free as in freedom) and neutral telemetry network....

I have a couple of IKEA-like boxes in my home office labeled “Inbox”. They are full of stuff I buy and store waiting for some free time to spend on them. From time to time I pick one of the boxes and take a look at its contents. They are actually full of “wow” stuff. I would buy again most of the things there but at the same time I fear I'm just collecting stuff that will become junk....

Sorry for the tongue twister ;) I've been somewhat busy lately and it's been a long time since my last post. I have a few projects on the go but not much time to sit down and write about them… Let's see if this one goes through… I've been lately looking for a reliable UPS system for Raspberry Pi 3. I moved my home server to a RPi a few months ago and even thou its behind an ACS UPS a couple of other projects involving RPis required mobility (one of them) and unassisted power backup (the other)....

A few weeks ago a user came with a request to add support in ESPurna to a power meter that had been hacked by Karl Hagström. It is a very cheap chinese power meter with plenty of room on the inside, enough to house an ESP8266 module and a DC/DC power supply and the main IC protocol had been reverse engeneered. There even was a repository by the Harringay Maker Space with sample code for an arduino compatible platform....

Itead Studio has been releasing interesting gadgets for the Home Automation community based on a low price tag and extreme hackability. You can google “sonoff” (the main brand for Itead Studio home automation devices) to get more than a million hits, including official pages, reviews and lots of hacks. The ubiquitous ESP8266 (or its sibling ESP8285) is the core of all those devices, using WiFi instead of the traditional RF messages, replacing a remote with mobile apps or voice commands....

A few months ago I wrote about the Sonoff SC sensor hub by Itead Studio. It's a device with a Sharp GP2Y1010AU0F [Aliexpress] dust sensor, a DHT11 humidity and temperature sensor, an LDR as light sensor and a mic. The sensors are driven by an ATMega328P microcontroller but there is also an ESP8266 on board for WiFi communication, a pretty standard set up when you have several sensors and the ESP8266 GPIOs are just not enough....

15 months ago. This is when I started working on this project. The Solr digital wrist watch is a clock that won’t work without a battery but it will neither work without sun. Even more: the vintage display is really cool but it’s hard to read outdoors. A complete nonsense. It is almost a joke and some might easily file it under the “useless projects” label. But it's still quite useful....

Tindie is a great place to find uncommon electronic components or weird/interesting boards. I use to stroll around it's products to basically see what's new. It's like Kickstarted but for real. One such uncommon and new electronic components is the Panasonic's Grid_EYE AMG88 [datasheet, pdf] infrared sensor. And I first learn about it through Peasky Products breakout board at Tindie. And if you have been reading me lately you might know I'm going through my own LED fever....