This is the section for gadgets and IoT goodness.
Extreme Aquarium Automation
- Exposé on home-made, handmade, aquarium automation setup
This post describes my current aquarium setup, in particular, the technical, custom designed parts of it. There is a lot of monitoring and control going on; though virtually all of it is hidden behind the scenes, as my aim has always to create a natural looking environment. An aquarium is an eco-system, some aspects of it can stay in natural balance with maintenance, and other parts require active control. Things are more complicated with plants - I recently have become more serious about growing plants.
Published Sep 20, 2018
7 min read
internet of things
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sensors
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polestar
Energenie Integration with Python on a Raspberry Pi
- Using pyenergenie to do Energenie automation with out need for the cloud
It is disappointing what IoT hardware manufacturers provide regarding software with their products. I don’t want to single out Energenie - at least they created a tremendous hackable radio board specifically for the Raspberry Pi. The ENER314-RT provides two-way communication with all Energenie products including all their power switches, energy monitors and radiator valves. This means that you don’t need to buy an Energenie Gateway MIHO001, and you also don’t need cloud connectivity and the worry that somebody might be snooping on your data.
Published Sep 18, 2018
4 min read
internet of things
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sensors
My Experience Building an Alexa Skill
- Headline: it is actually pretty easy
Back in November I attended a talk on creating your own Amazon Alexa Skill at Bristech. It’s been something I’ve wanted to play with for a while, so when Amazon had their Black Friday sale I couldn’t resist. I was pleasantly surprised by Amazon’s own tutorial using Lambda: Alexa Python Tutorial - Build a voice experience in 5 minutes or less. It really was quite simple and quick. Amazon have worked hard to make it easy for you to get a custom skill up and running on real hardware.
Published Jan 14, 2018
4 min read
internet of things
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artificial intelligence
Quadcopter Down
- ...and I thought software was hard
I spent a good few months working on and off on the drone. Almost every day I’d get a nice little package in the post from China with a component or such like in it. Unfortunately, the last few things I received still sit unused. After I’d solved the basic architecture of the drone system in as far as how to get easily updatable algorithms both on board and on the ground, things got harder.
Published Dec 29, 2017
4 min read
internet of things
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drone
Beginnings of a Programmable Drone
- The struggle to put code in the loop airside and ground side of an autonomous drone
I think it was the final episode in season 3 of Black Mirror that motivated me to start thinking about building a drone again. That episode - Hated in the Nation - involved swarms of autonomous drones deployed across the UK to replace recently deceased bee colonies. In this work of fiction the drones wreak havoc. However the connecting of computation and AI to real moving entities in our world really intrigued me.
Published Apr 23, 2017
3 min read
internet of things
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drone
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artificial intelligence
Building a Pi Zero Photo Frame
- a self contained photo frame connecting to an RSS feed
This project builds a self-contained photo frame using a Raspberry Pi Zero and an old monitor. (Old monitors are better as the 4:3 ratio suits a mix of vertical and horizontal oriented photos better than a 16:9 ratio.) Figure 1: Finished Frame on wall Hardware Parts List Raspberry Pi Zero with micro SD containing Raspbian Power supply for Pi (see below) USB WIFI dongle VGA computer monitor VESA wall mount Custom made photo frame to fit monitor HDMI to VGA adaptor I had a photo frame made by a framing shop with the inner dimensions of the monitor.
Published Jan 25, 2017
4 min read
internet of things
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graphics
Radar Speed Camera Rebooted
- building a radar speed gun with a Raspberry Pi
Background This post is a follow-up from my previous post Building Radar Speed Camera and Traffic Logger with more information, improved design and experience from using the device in the field for nearly 2 years. This project is a self contained speed radar that can be used to give realtime traffic speeds, log traffic flows and statistics over a period of time and also possibly capture speeds of other objects in sporting environments, for example, though I haven’t specifically tested and tuned the code for this.
Published Dec 28, 2016
5 min read
internet of things
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sensors
Power Regulator repair on Photon
- How to bypass and replace power regulator on Particle Photon
I accidentally shorted the 3.3v pin in the Particle Photon with ground. Within a second a puff of smoke rose from the circuit board and the photon no longer worked - when I connected power nothing happened, no LEDs lit and no boot. After a little looking around I discovered that the problem was likely the regulator which lowers the USB input voltage VIN down to 3.3V which all arduino like platforms use.
Published Dec 21, 2016
1 min read
internet of things
Home Dashboard
Background There is something immensely satisfying about having something to hold which has been hand crafted. Working with code most of the time it’s rare to get an outcome that is tactile. This project recreates a Hive-like user interface experience with a few readily available components. These components connect easily to a micro-controller such as the Particle Photon. Figure2: Hive smart thermostat Figure1: Dashboard Construction Guide Parts List Photon Particle 500mA micro-USB power supply Breadboard 1602A LCD Display with I2C interface rotary encoder module knob for rotary encoder 2x 0.
Published Jul 15, 2016
2 min read
internet of things
Aquarium Lighting Controller
Background I’ve had a modest home aquarium for a many years. It has always been lit by a specialist aquarium fluorescent tube. This gave out a nice light which both helped plants to grow and counteracted the excess of green caused by plants an algae. Figure1: Spectrograph of Hagen Aquaglow fluorescent tube There were two problems with this fluorescent lighting solution however. Firstly, it switches on and off instantly which can be quite unnatural and startles the fish.
Published Jul 1, 2016
10 min read
internet of things
Build a Spectrometer
- using a Raspberry Pi for less than $50
This project promises to give you super-human powers. I still find it amazing that our eyes construct all the colours for the most part1 from the mix of red, green and blue that the cones in our eyes can detect. Despite this simple three valued approach to colour that pervades our eyes, cameras, monitors and computer graphics there is a deeper reality to colour in everyday life. This projects opens the door on that reality.
Published Jun 22, 2016
8 min read
internet of things
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sensors
Building Radar Speed Camera and Traffic Logger
- with a Raspberry Pi
There is a major update to this article, please see this later post Radar Speed Camera Rebooted. I’ve always been interested in connecting things up to computers that they were never designed for. I could reminisce about my first drawing capture arm that used captured the two joint angles with potentiometers and used them to control the pulse width oscillators that fed into the cassette input on a ZX Spectrum.
Published Mar 31, 2015
6 min read
internet of things
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polestar
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sensors
Home Monitor Reloaded
I can’t believe that the last time I mentioned my home monitor project was exactly six years ago! For those who haven’t heard of it before the home monitor project is a home automation system running in my house which attempts to capture as much useful information and control as much as is possible with the absolute minimum of expensive equipment. It is also acting as a bit of a playground for doing fun things with NetKernel.
Published Feb 10, 2011
4 min read
internet of things
Home Monitor Update
It has been about three months since I first got the NetKernel based home monitor system live. This post is an update about how it has performed and how it has evolved. Issues The major issues over this period have been hardware related. Loose connections where plentiful until I decided to commit the circuitry to a PCB, place it in a box and attach proper connectors. The rain sensor has been a real problem.
Published Feb 11, 2005
3 min read
internet of things
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sensors
NetKernel based Home Monitoring System
For a bit of fun I put together a low budget home monitoring system using an old PC, a few wires, sensors and 1060 NetKernel. The aim was to create a system to remotely monitor my home and its ambient weather conditions. I also wanted the data to be stored so that historical graphs could be generated. The Hardware The host PC was an old Gateway Solo Laptop with a Pentium 166MHz MMX, 64MB RAM running Win98SE with a USB network adaptor and with an in-built joystick port.
Published Nov 25, 2004
4 min read
internet of things
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sensors