That is, as in “trials and tribulations”. I’m busy getting myself familiar with the ESP32 and ESPHOME to see how far I can push these devices now that the price is not a LOT more than the ESP8266. Regular readers will know that years ago I and others developed “ESP-GO”,…
Category: General
Weather APIs and OpenWeatherMap
I’ve had a morbid fear of using API calls since I first heard the term years ago, just before I developed a morbid fear of JSON. Well, the latter didn’t last too long but JSON responses from websites can get awfully complicated, awfully quickly. And that’s how tonight I ended…
Meross MSL120 RGB E27 Light Bulb
This is going to be a quick one. The Meross MSL120 E15 RGB light bulb works just fine with their Meross APP, giving the usual RGB control features including warm and cool white + RGB. Sadly, Meross continue to use chips other than ESP8266 or ESP32 so their lamps at…
Zigbee – The Ongoing Sonoff and Electrorama Story
You may recall for a while I got fanatical about Zigbee – I’ve not lost interest – it’s just that by and large, Zigbee just WORKS – in particular, I have a load of Zigbee sensors around the house, mostly AQARA, mostly running on CR2032 batteries and the (rather short-range…
ESPHOME on RPI plus my First October Postbag
ESPHOME By now you’ll have seen my frantic posting about ESPHOME, running on the PC command line to allow the creation of ESPHOME-equipped ESP32 and ESP8266 devices… I’ve been making little display projects, the likes of which I could only dream of in TASMOTA. I originally tried ESPHOME on the…
Another TTGO with ESPHOME
The first time I did this last week, I was a complete newby to ESPHOME – a popular yet free firmware option for ESP8266 and ESP32-based boards. I also had no idea how to make use of the ESP32-based which Banggood sent me some time ago so I was picking…
M5Stack Core 2 ESP32 IOT, STAMP PICO and ATOM LITE
Regular readers may recall a couple of years ago I wrote about the M5Stack – at the time I didn’t have much to say about the original as I could not find much in the way of software tools for it – yet here we are again with the M5Stack…
Xiaovv Q12 H.265 2MP 1080P HD Smart IP Camera
The H.265 2MP 1080P HD Smart IP Camera just arrived from Banggood. Take into account that this camera is under €20 so an ideal starter camera, but I have questions. I made sure it has the latest firmware installed – it has – yet there is some LAG and movement…
ESP32-Based TTGO Module Revisited with ESPHOME
Described as the , back in March 2021 I received two of these ESP32-based modules, so as you can imagine, I’ve had yet another learning experience – le’s take a look at these lovely modules complete with colour display. So I’ve put together a very short video and as just…
Condenser Microphone Kit from Banggood
Thanks to some Covid-related postal delays this turned up later than expected but as it turns out, the mic is a winner so – Banggood did their best to ship this earlier in the summer – but ultimately this microphone kit arrived with some other gear last week instead of…
M5Stack® M5Paper ESP32 WiFi + Bluetooth
TheI just received from Banggood is – well, I’ve not gotten into detail yet but it’s a neat, slim ESP32-based unit with low-power 4.7″ e-Ink touch display. As it came out of the well-packed box, it was showing a menu and presumably had been since sitting at Banggood’s depot before…
Geekcreit CH9102X QFN28 ESP32
Ok, I know, that was one hell of a title. What I just received from Banggood on returning from our mini-holiday at the beach was and it occurred to be that since I’ve started to get to grips with using the ESP32 and especially with using special builds and even…
A Constructive Tasmota Weekend
A week or so ago I was struggling to get everything I wanted in one ESP8266 running Tasmota – for example, the tasmota-sensors.bin file has lots of sensors and very little display capability while tasmota-display,bin has very few sensors. One of the guys suggested I tackle doing my own Tasmota…
Plug-In TV Simulator From Redline Security
A new device in the UK called the Defender Plug-in TV Simulator has just arrived for me here in Spain, from the UK. The device emits an ever-changing series of lights to imitate a real television. The consumer site for this product is called Redline Security and no I’m not…
Android File Copying – Watching Paint Dry
Am I just being unlucky here? I copy huge volumes of files on my Windows 10 (64-bit) PC all the time – and today I decided I had FAR too many phone-related files (downloads, photos and video) all over the place. I started by taking my PC “screenshots” folder” and…
Midweek Banggood Round-up
First item in today’s postbag – my new. And what’s special about that? We have a mains powered mosquito/fly killer which sits in front of the bedroom and runs all night – had it for some time now – we also have disposable battery-powered swatters which act on the press…
Aqara Opple – Learn with Peter
Anyone here old enough to remember the BBC show “Watch with Mother”? Well, I just acquired a pair of Aqara OPPLE wall switches from Banggood – 1 panel – 2 buttons – Zigbee (3.0) – no wires, Chinese-only instrucions – so why not “learn with Peter”!! First things first, above…
Banggood Fun – Aqara Opple Triple Zigbee Switch
Aqara Opple 6-button Wall Switch offers a total of 30 actions – very useful
Pete’s First World Problems and a new “Wingle”
Observant regular visitors may notice I’ve a couple of existing reviews to complete and I’ve not been writing at anything like my usual speed over the past week or so. Well, I’ve been having my share of first world problems – here goes: Firstly the weather here in Southern Spain…
Ravpower Goodness – their 30W 2 Port Wall Charger
I’ve written about Ravpower in the past several times – I like their stuff. Another item that just arrived for me but has actually been sitting waiting for me in the UK since Christmas (thanks to lockdowns etc) – thank you for the samples Sun Valley – so this won’t…