Roger Frost: science, automation and sensors Blog

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iPad LCD magnifier or microscope for SMD soldering or other close work

, If you’re a casual electronics hobbyist like me, the idea of using a LCD magnifier or microscope may seem attractive. For example this music spectrum display kit requires soldering 240 SMD LEDs, with each LED less than 1mm x 2mm in size. (It’s ridiculous yes but it’s no worse than doing jigsaws). A fancy magnifier can be replaced...

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Huawei watch, Huawei watch fit new and Huawei Band 6 – useful, affordable smartwatches for 2022

If you’re looking for a smartwatch, look at the Huawei Watch / Huawei Band 6 / Huawei Watch Fit New wearables If you’ve yet to get yourself a smartwatch I’ll have a guess at the reasons other than you don’t want one. One negative may be that Google Wear OS and Apple Watches have the battery life that just...

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sync Huawei Health watch data into Google Fit; Google Drive or fitness apps like Strava or Komoot

… I can now see my Huawei health data in Google Fit and Google Drive. The Health Sync app acts as a go-between, and connects Huawei health to several other apps or services. In 2022 Huawei had an impressive line of smartwatches and fitness bands at attractive prices. I succumbed to buy a Huawei smartwatch and was delighted that...

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how to stop a smart light and switch states getting out of sync

what do we mean by getting out of sync: Scenario one: You’ve two table lamps which are controlled independently either because they’re smart lamps or because you’ve two regular lamps controlled by two smart plugs/sockets. Scenario two: Smart light bulbs can be turned on or off by the manufacturer’s app, or by a switch, or by a timer or...

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Robot arms reach out to the Raspberry Pi: this is art

What’s going on? Hec, I’m in a room with robot arms and fingers twitching as they respond to social media. THIS can only be art but it’s art powered by makers. Tucked away is a spaghetti bowl of technology with Raspberry Pi Zeros as the thinking heart of it. For a first and maybe last time I’ve chosen to...

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upgrade your router firmware to ‘FreshTomato’

The Netgear Nighthawk r7000 is a router, switch and powerful Wi-fi access point in one unit and even in 2021, years on from when it was made it still offers your network a boost today. Changing the firmware to Tomato, as explained below, adds versatility to the power. I would only sell the R7000 if a mesh system or...

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addressable LED light strips put to use

There are LED strip lights where every LED can be doing something different with the result that you can create peculiar effects. You can start with a commercially available kit but after a while you might branch out. For example I’ve attached a microphone to one of the LED controllers and that in turn controls the pulsing of the...

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access your Home Assistant remotely using DuckDNS, Letsencrypt and the nginx SSL proxy

The Home Assistant home automation hub is more useful if you can access it remotely. In addition to having anywhere access with a browser URL, there’s an excellent phone app to access Home Assistant. A bit of nginx magic achieves this but the resulting benefits are not only great, the mobile app can access sensors (GPS; battery, status) in...

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use the smart device app even if you use an automation platform

Your smart bulbs, switches and door bell all come with a useful manufacturer’s app – over time you’ll accumulate many such apps. While Home Assistant might make them redundant, here are couple of tips for making use of these apps. My smart devices have an app and a login account for each of them. That’s a lot of clutter...

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Dim display problem on large LED digital clock

The digits at one end of a large LED clock displayed much more dimly than they ought. I’d say they were about half the brightness – and it was quite a puzzle. The clock was powered by a 5v USB charger and a cable with 5mm barrel plug. The solution appeared as I was dismantling the device to a)...

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how to know when the washing machine has finished

If you need to know when a device, like a dryer or washing machine has finished working, get a ‘smart plug with energy monitoring‘. Amazon list many of them but whichever brand you get, you’ll have more versatility if it can be integrated with your home automation platform. For example TP-link has the HS110 with energy monitoring and it...

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automated fade up dimmer for analogue LED Strips – using a MOSFET and ESPhome

This ceiling ‘coffer’ is lit by four 5m LED strips cut down to size fitted in 2017. If you wanted really, really bright light, these analogue white LED strips were the thing to get. At £8 for 5m at 150 LED/m and high lumens I could not complain. You might use digital, addressable and dimmable LED strips (eg WS2811) but...

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see your sensor readings on a TTGO T-display ST7789V TFT LCD

If you use Home Assistant you can show temperature, time and other sensor entities on this cute display. The inspiration for this mini-project came from a need to display my oven temperature in a convenient place in the kitchen. I might instead need to see the time of the next train, the oil tank level, my broadband speed or...

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send a screenshot to your phone, instant message or email using cloud storage such as Google Photos – this really is the best workflow

Without copying a screenshot to or using a USB stick (no!) All the day I capture useful or interesting images from facebook, instagram, desktop apps and web pages. I copy bits of images to use in lectures, newsletters, web pages, emails and Whatsapp messages. I capture images to remember a membership number, an address or map, a booking reference,...

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what is the temperature of your oven? how to cook reliably with an inaccurate oven

Ovens may have digital controllers or analogue temperature controllers and cooks seem to have blind faith in their settings. In this household the cooks were burning food so I checked the oven temperature. It was so inaccurate that I decided to fit a device to monitor its temperature. Background: The dial on my shiny Smeg oven not only set...

how to integrate 433MHz temperature & humidity sensors with Home Assistant 0

how to integrate 433MHz temperature & humidity sensors with Home Assistant

A home automation platform, such as Home Assistant, allows you to make temperature v time graphs using sensors that you might place around the home. Monitoring temperatures allowed me to get my heating devices to turn on/off at optimal times. In a future post I’ll discuss how we might use data to be economical. You’ll have your own reasons...