To any readers considering Vodafone broadband – here’s the story of my first 3 months with Vodafone UK. It begins with the promise of a free gift to join Vodafone but read on, there is more and some good news… When we moved home last year, I was very excited…
Sonoff, Tasmota and Alexa
I always think it is worth periodically re-visiting things you’ve tried before, even when the first attempt led to tears. Things change. And so it was that I pulled out and old (original 4-pin connector) Sonoff Basic recently and gave Tasmota a go. It is some time since I looked…
Tips for T12 Soldering Station
Remember my blog entry about the T12 soldering station? I had a slight concern about tip availability.. solved.. Can’t say fairer than that… £26 inc. post for a complete set. And these look far more substantial than those in my other soldering station so hopefully they’ll last a while. I…
Geekcreit Large Rainbow Clock Kit
If you know me, you know I’m a sucker for pretty colours, which is why I had to have this Geekcreit Large Size Rainbow Colour Clock DIY kit. I kind of glossed over the kit bit when looking at it, but never mind, I’m up for a challenge (and if…
Newwear Q3 Plus Smart Watch
I figured I was just about done with cheap smart watches as as couple I really like (Xanes B06 and Bakeey M30 and Maureen LOVES the Xiaomi Mi 3 – only charged it twice since she got it – I need colour) but then along comes another one I like.…
Raspberry Pi RPI-CLONE Issues
As I normally rave about RPI-CLONE – I thought I’d share the dirty laundry this time. ** Update Jan 13 2019 It seems pretty obvious in hind-sight that the issues I was having below were power supply related and one bad SD card. I’ve just finished my 7th successful backup-clone…
3.5 inch LCD Touch Screen and RPI Case
That was in danger of becoming a very long title. I just bought this display/case combo for Raspberry Pi – I’m pretty sure from Banggood (no clue in the package) – but anyway as they have the driver links and the driver was not included in the box – see…
XANES B06 0.96" IPS Screen Smart Bracelet
Here’s yet another smart bracelet – the Xanes B06… I want to bring a couple of items to your attention about this pleasant but otherwise unremarkable bracelet. I received the orange version – the display is wide – and lovely – unlike some which use only a narrow area of…
USB DVR
This promising looking 1080P FHD Auto DVR Camera Video recorder with WiFi ADAS G-Sensor from TomTop will apparently work in the car to take videos (rear or front) and store them on a (not supplied) SD card. I installed an SD I had lying around and plugged the USB-powered camera…
Eachen WiFi IR Universal Remote
First reviews of 2019 coming up… starting with the Eachen WIFI-IR Universal Remote (touted as Sonoff but it isn’t Sonoff). This inexpensive unit needs USB power to run and comes with it’s own microUSB cable – the assumption being that you have spare USB supplied lying around (not a good…
Hantek DSO 5102P Digital Storage Scope
The DSO 5102P Oscilloscope was the last Christmas present to arrive and so it has not had a hammering yet but here it is anyway – and it’s a beauty. Not expensive either. The specs look good for an entry-level scope. Here’s the DSO 5102P oscilloscope on my bench: Hantek…
Solar 30 LED Dual Head Light
I’ve had MANY solar lights in my garden over the years, sadly you won’t see that many today as some simply were not designed for the UK climate and had to go. Others lasted just fine but with inadequate light output. Yet others gave out enough light but due to…
Bakeey NY01 HR Monitor Smart Watch
The Bakeey NY01 HR Monitor Smart Watch is looking good up to now – nice, solid looking, big display, single real touch button on the side so no fingerprints on the screen. 1.3” display, matt black, 3 decent main time displays with calendar and other info all in one place,…
Christmas with Sonoff and Alexa
So, as I mention briefly earlier, I’m now the proud recipient of a number of Itead products including Sonoff Basic which I’ve discussed and used in the past, always with 3rd party software, Sonoff POWR2 (I’ve now used this version before) Sonoff S26G – the UK version of Itead’s smart…
IkaLogic SP209i
I mentioned this logic analyser device earlier – it turned up this week for me and deserves a little space to itself. This unit plugs into your PC or laptop like other devices from the same company (www.ikalogic.com) which I’ve looked at in the past, including the pocket IkaScope WS200.…
Holiday Goodness
“It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas” – well, certainly here in the Scargill household it is. I’m up early, checking out the Christmas sales on Banggood and GearBest (if I’m missing out, please do let me know!). I’ve just sent off an AliExpress shopping list including yet another…
Lenovo HF03X SmartBand
I picked the HF03X from Gearbest because it seems to have all the right features in a smartwatch/smartband at a reasonable price. Colour, decent battery charge life, pulse, blood pressure, oxygen levels, sleep, sport, notifications, alarm etc. The last watch from GearBest was the Xiaomi Mi 3 – lovely, gets…
BigTimer 2.06 update questions answered
I’ve been asked questions about output from my Node-Red-Contrib-BigTimer in the 2.06 update and also the new(ish) “timer X” option. Here is a working demo, I’ve added a timer to my desk with a Sonoff BASIC attached and a lamp to test. Output 1 is as you can see working…
T12 Digital Temperature Controlled Soldering Station
Another potential winner from Banggood, or rather would be, if I’d had my act together when ordering. The V2.1S T12 Digital Temperature Controlled Soldering Station is a small, neat soldering station complete with iron and combined bit/element – it looks good and well built. I would advise getting spare parts…
Bakeey Fabric Protective Case for Pocophone F1
Christmas could well be arriving early, I got more post this morning… first off the new case for my Xiaomi Pocophone F1 which, I may add (and thanks to Antonio for reminding me to upgrade) now also has Android 9 Pie. I didn’t have high expectations as many of these…