Category: Technology

2 July 2024

Replacing ESPresense with Bermuda for BLE tracking

I really like using ESPHome, and the setup of ESPresense is similar in some ways, but focused on devices tracking. I had been hoping that ESPresense would eventually be fully integrated into ESPHome, but that has obviously not happened, or is a bit hard. “Bermuda BLE Trilateration” is a new project that could possibly replace my ESPresense setup.

Categories Home Automation/Technology Comments: 0

30 April 2024

MAME Cabinet Raspberry Pi 4

An old Taito standup arcade cabinet that I’d previously kitted out with MAME, came back from storage and I decided to refit it with something more maintainable. MAME and emulation should be a lot simpler now than it was back then shouldn’t it?

Categories DIY Projects/Electronics/Entertainment/IT & Networking/Projects/Technology Comments: 0

2 August 2021

Viewsonic Touch Screen for Home Assistant Display

Use of a pretty old Viewsonic All-in-One computer as a home automation display. I picked a couple of these up for around NZ$40 each, however found the touch screen didn’t work out of the box as drivers were missing from Linux.

Categories Electronics/Home Automation/Home Renovations/IT & Networking/Projects/Technology Comments: 0

27 July 2021

Home Automation of Rinnai Gas Heater

Our Rinnai heater is a wall mounted/flued gas fire. Current control is via a large LCD remote control that also acts as the temperature sensor, and thermostat. It has some auto timing capability via way of programming the remote, but it is a bit clunky and not intuitive. The goal was to enable a better PID control of the temperature, and switch off/on control (occupancy, remotely before arrival, voice control, better scheduling etc). This shows how I connected to it with Home Assistant.

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27 May 2021

zigbee2mqtt Setup in Docker for Home Automation

a setup to allow off the shelf zigbee devices to report to a mqtt server. Total cost

Categories Home Automation/IT & Networking/Technology Comments: 0

13 May 2020

Setting up Alt-f Firmware on Dlink DNS-320L NAS

These are cheap 2-bay NASs with replacement open Firmware install.

Categories Electronics/IT & Networking/Technology Comments: 0

13 November 2019

Home Automation: Future Thinking

So, home control with your own setup is great, but you have to think about what happens in the event you sell your house, get hit by a bus or someone needs to work on it in the future. Home Automation should add value to a house, not turn people off a sale. This is part 2 of some of...

Categories DIY Projects/Home Automation/Projects/Technology Comments: 0

13 November 2019

Home Automation: Electrical Safety

This is part one of some of my notes regarding Home Automation concepts. Part 2 is about planning for the future and house resale value. Electrical Isolation/Safety Electrical safety is very important obviously for home automation, and as well as my tendency to over-engineer, I’m often thinking about ‘what could possibly go wrong‘. One of the things I want to...

Categories DIY Projects/Home Automation/Projects/Technology Comments: 0

12 April 2019

Podcasts I Listen To

Ok, I do like to listen to the occasional podcast, and there are a bunch that I like to listen to regularly. Being in traffic for an hour or more most day gives me plenty of opportunity to catch up on various technology news, history and some light hearted humour. This list is occasionally updated when I fine more content,...

Categories Education/Entertainment/Lists/Opinion/Social Media/Technology Comments: 0

4 February 2019

5 Steps to DIY Home Automation

You can spend thousands on home automation equipment. You could get yourself an ecosystem like Apple Homekit, Samsung Smart-Things, Control4 or many others, however with just some moderate techo skills you can set up or convert your home to pretty awesome home control with DIY. My take on home automation is that it should be pretty much invisible. Things should...

Categories DIY Projects/Home Automation/Technology Comments: 0

9 January 2019

My car was broken in to… without my remote!

Someone recently sent an email to our local neighbourhood and it went something like this: We live at no 123, and I thought it was worth sending an email as my car was broken into last night on our driveway.  My husband’s car was also broken into on our driveway the other night. Both times, the burglars managed to open...

Categories Security/Technology/Vehicles Comments: 0

19 May 2018

Tips: Get Your Cabling in Tricky Places

Do you have an existing house or structure and trying to get a cable into a tricky place?  Here are a few tips from methods I have used over the years. Conduit Sucker There is nothing more annoying than finding a broken cable in a conduit or pipe and having nothing to pull the replacement wire though.  it is especially...

Categories Home Renovations/Projects/Technology Comments: 0

8 November 2017

Set up a Cheap Home Surveillance System

You can spend a lot on home security and surveillance.  Obviously, better quality, higher resolution digital systems are great and can be set up for more money, but as digital systems have become more common, analogue systems have become dirt cheap. In my opinion, more lower resolution cameras is as good or better than just a few of high resolution,...

Categories CCTV/Home Renovations/Technology Comments: 0

28 October 2017

Why Your Opinion May Not Matter

In recent society, there seems to be a fast growing trend toward a belief that “everybody’s opinion is equally valid”. Democracy promotes this ideal, and in turn it is supposed to mean that fairer system should be in place due to the wants of the majority.

Categories Opinion/Social Media/Technology Comments: 0

4 July 2016

Howto: Use Gmail for Personalised Email

You can use Google’s Gmail system to manage your personalized email.  This gives you all the benefits of being able to easily see your email on phone/tablet/computer etc.  Generally, you want the fact that you are using gmail to be invisible to people if you have your own domain however, and this method allows you to do that without setting...

Categories Technology/Web Hosting Comments: 0

14 March 2016

The default problem with Facebook

Facebook has become the default social media platform for the majority of people worldwide.  I’ll start by saying, for me it was a case a couple of years ago that if I wanted to keep in touch (and get back in touch) with many friends and extended family on a regular basis, this was the only real option. However, I...

Categories Opinion/Social Media/Technology Comments: 0

17 February 2016

My Photobooth Project…

I needed a photobooth for my wedding (this was one of my few assigned wedding tasks!). You know, one of those ‘take a few photos of guests, and print them’ sort of thing, like the early film ones . Early on, I built up a list of things I really wanted to achieve with it, as there are many options...

Categories Entertainment/Photography/Projects/Technology Comments: 0

27 January 2016

How I manage and share 1000s of digital photographs

People often ask me for the best way to store their thousands of photos, and I’ve tried a bunch of ways in the past. I take masses of photos (SLRs, Action Cams, Pocket Cams and phones), and running my own commercial (colocated) server has allowed me to use applications such as Gallery, Piwigo and other server apps to store, manage and display...

Categories DIY Projects/Photography/Projects/Technology Comments: 0

10 June 2015

How about some Raspberry Pi

The Raspberry Pi is a low cost, credit-card sized computer that plugs into a computer monitor or TV, and uses a standard keyboard and mouse. It is a capable little device that enables people of all ages to explore computing, and to learn how to program in languages like Scratch and Python. There are lots of different things you can...

Categories DIY Projects/Education/Projects/Technology/Weather Comments: 0

3 March 2015

Tips to create easy Tag Cloud Artwork

You’ve seen them… those pictures made up of lots of words. You can create these pretty easily at Tagxedo, but it is handy to have a few tips as to how to get the best out of it. They make great family presents, and you can use all the words that are personal & meaningful to the person you are...

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3 July 2014

Dashcams… and the $80 Mobius

The proliferation of small sports cameras, ‘dash’ cams and security cameras has meant that Youtube abounds with footage of incidents, near misses, ‘oh %$#@’ moments, and just generally people and drivers doing stupid things. Camera technology has improved markedly in the past couple of years, with prices coming down, quality and resolution improving and the merging of use with model...

Categories CCTV/Opinion/Technology/Vehicles Comments: 0

10 March 2014

You need a Zombie Apocalypse Kit

I must admit I was once a Boy Scout… and tend to like to be prepared for stuff. Sometimes more than I really need to be! Ok, I haven’t yet seen a Zombie (except for my son on Halloween) but there have been a number of Earthquakes in Christchurch New Zealand, and the fact that there are over 50 Volcanoes...

Categories DIY Projects/Opinion/Projects/Technology Comments: 0

19 February 2014

Linked-in Collec…Connecting

Connecting to people on social media has its place, and I have been using a number of social platforms over recent times for rapid viewing of up-to-the-second information and keeping in touch with more people that it would otherwise humanly be possible. Facebook over the past few years has improved their privacy settings (enough that I will actually use it...

Categories Opinion/Social Media/Technology Comments: 0

28 November 2013

Bitcoin…. it’s not magic

Bitcoin has been mentioned in the mainstream media recently as a ‘new form of electronic money’.  It sounds impressive, but the way it works as a system of ‘money’ is actually not that impressive and easy to explain if you take the ‘tech’ side away.  

Categories Technology Comments: 0