Step up from 1 AA cell – again

Intro A while ago I have evaluated the powering options for my smart home sensor nodes. One thing was really clear: I would try to avoid small batteries and using anything else besides the common AA(A) sizes. This makes nodes last a long time on a battery that is easy and cheap to find. And I was right about this – the plethora of commercial remotes and sensors that I also used (like the ikea ones)… Continue reading

10002 The hidden database

A long due update A while back I setup influx DB to store the sensor and activity data on my smart home system. And i thought the raspberry pi 3 was not enough to run the server anymore. And moved to a NUC and all was fine. But recently I wanted to upgrade from Ubuntu 18 to 20 and thought about making an image of the SSD first, as a quick and easy way to… Continue reading

Ikea TRÅDFRI review

Intro Part of my home automation project I would have some controllable lights, of course. On one hand, I used quite a few LED strips, controlled by dimmer modules. On the other, current technology allows for a plethora of wireless light bulbs.  Philips HUE is probably the biggest and best known because it has existed for quite a long time, but I am not that attracted due to the price. Once Ikea came up with… Continue reading

10002 Progress

This article is part of my 1000² Smart Home project. Check out the Architecture and Software and then move on to Hardware. An most importantly, check the Lessons learned and why I did what I did. There are already some first results, connecting all parts of the system. Progress Finally, enough pieces of the puzzle are starting to fit together in my Smart Home project, so that I can have some end to end functionality: press a button here… Continue reading