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Showing posts with label ESP8266. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ESP8266. Show all posts

Monday, December 7, 2020

Turning a doorbell switch into a home security camera...and still retain its original function


Today there is an off-the-shelf solution for practically every average-Joe-grade idea one may have. There is always the chance that when one thinks of something that could have a practical purpose and cover a specific need, that there is already a product in the market that will do that function.
Even though home automation may still be in its infancy, today we see a market practically flooded of solutions that one way or another aim to respond in terms of comfort, or to help improve the home experience, or even to enhance the safety and security of its occupants.

Sunday, December 29, 2019

Ghost switching can be a bitch if your switch is your main circuit breaker






On my way to eat my own dog food, I learned the hard way that ghost switching is kind of the default problem most people will stumble upon when setting up their MQTT switch for the first time.This is not a big deal when you are configuring a single light switch or some other not so critical appliance. But when your switch is in series with your main circuit breaker, ghost switching suddenly gains a whole different level of importance.

Sunday, December 22, 2019

ZMAi-90 (or SMTONOFF WDS688) DIN rail meter/switch - more details on GPIOs and configuration

As an update to the previous post where I have shared the details on how to "Tasmotize" this device, I am adding more detail on what is the physical assignement of GPIO pins from the ESP8266, to other components in this device.

Given the pins from the ESP8266 microcontroller that are exposed in its breakout board (which in turn is SMD soldered to the main PCB):

Friday, November 22, 2019

Attempting to reverse engineer a home automation oriented smart-meter - Part 1

In my quest to make my house smarter, but still looking forward to keep having control over it, I have been doing some additions which I plan to further document here, in the short term.

In the meantime I thought it would be more relevant to share my findings in regard to a device a bit more "exhotic" than the Sonoff boxes we are all used to. This device is a sort of a miniature smartmeter that fits in a DIN rail next to the circuit breakers.



Just like the Sonoff modules, it also pairs with your WLAN, and connects to a cloud service. Instead of the eWeLink cloud to which Sonoff devices connect to, in this case it connects to another relatively popular cloud service called Tuya.