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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....

The Arduino Core for ESP8266 and ESP32 uses one SPI flash memory sector to emulate an EEPROM. When you initialize the EEPROM object (calling begin) it reads the contents of the sector into a memory buffer. Reading a writing is done over that in-memory buffer. Whenever you call commit it write the contents back to the flash sector. Due to the nature of this flash memory (NOR) a full sector erase must be done prior to write any new data....

It's not that other Sonoff products are not “serious” business, but there are a number of design changes in the Sonoff S31 that make this new product a world apart. For the functional point of view it looks like a S20 with POW-powers, but they have redesigned the product completely. The result is very very interesting. Revamped case, more compact and sturdy Redesigned PCB, actually 2 different PCBs for main and control Different power monitor chip: the CSE7766 (same as in the new POW R2) replaces the HLW8012 The only drawback: it's only compatible with plug types A & B, tat is central and north-america and few other countries....

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)....

I've been testing quite a few LoRaWan nodes lately for TheThingsNetwork.cat, some based on HopeRF RFM95W (over AVR, ESP8266, ESP32,…) others using Microchip's RN2483 (an old friend of mine). I have a RAK811 waiting in the INBOX but the last one I've been playing with has been the new Arduino MKRWAN 1300 (so new there is no product page yet) and I liked it, quite a lot. The device is one of the MKR series Arduino is pushing forward....

A few years ago (not many) I used to burn copper plates using acetic acid, a.k.a. vinegar. I was somewhat concerned about using stronger acids so it was OK to use another acid, even if it was soooo sloooow. If you were patient you could get to have decent boards using 50mil traces (or even thinner). But it required keeping a good temperature on the copper bath and regulating the ratio vinegar/hydrogen peroxide continuously, adding a little salt from time to time to speed things up....

Eight months ago I reviewed and hacked the AiLight WiFi light bulb by AiThinker. By the time there was a number of people doing the same because of a key reason: it sports an ESP8266 microcontroller and it is based on the OpenLight by Noduino, that had already provided open source code for the LED driver inside, the MY9291. Let time pass and I was doing the same with the Sonoff B1 light bulb by Itead Studio....

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€....

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....