Google Home

wpsuperadmin HomeAutomation, openhab Leave a Comment

This post was from a November draft. At last it has arrived – the Google Home! I have been anxiously awaiting this since I pre-ordered it in mid-October. In my opinion, Google Home is the missing piece to anyone’s home automation setup. Primarily it’s the voice control which has been the hardest to implement. In the past I have tried with a Kinect to control my smart outlets. This was before the openHAB days. While OpenHAB does have voice built-in, you have to write your own rules. Creating rules that handle natural speech is a bit tough. With Google Home you can leverage Google AI for that. Google Home at launch is a bit limited but it supports just enough …

IKEA Motion Lamp Hack Update

wpsuperadmin hack, HomeAutomation, jeenode, leds, openhab 2 Comments

Back at it again, I decided to add a few more features before I deem this project complete and ready to be put into service. In case your are wondering, this is based on my previous work on the IKEA Motion LED Lamp Hack. This time around I just wanted to make a few hardware changes that will let me have full control of the light. IKEA Motion Lamp Resistor Modification Instead of just reading the trigger voltage I decided to also inject my own signal. This way I can control if/when the lamp is on. The easiest place to intercept the signal is to move the resistor rather than cutting a trace. I rotated the resistor 90 degrees and …

USB HUB + WiFi Teardown

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One day I come across an interesting product from Adafruit that I couldn’t resist getting. It will make a nice addition to the Raspberry Pi Zero. It’s a 3 port USB hub with inbuilt WiFi which takes the fourth port. Inspired by insideGadgets, here are some photos and part numbers. USB WiFi Hub Wish it was a bit more compact. I have a USB to OTG adapter in the USB plug. USB WiFi Hub Inside USB WiFi Hub PCB Top Main Components USB HUB – Terminus FE 1.1s 3.3V Regulator – AMS1117 WiFi – Realtek RTL8188ETV USB Wifi Hub IC USB Wifi Hub WiFI USB WiFi Hub PCB Bottom Interesting thing to note is the fourth USB port footprint, this PCB …

IKEA Motion Lamp Hack

wpsuperadmin hack, HomeAutomation, jeenode, leds, openhab 4 Comments

Last year while visiting a friend for the Portland Mini Maker Fair I became the owner of an IKEA STÖTTA, a battery powered, motion activated, LED lamp. I knew it was ripe for hacking. After arriving home, it sat on my desk waiting to be disassembled to reveal its secrets. I figured the only way to get it off my desk was to get around to tearing it apart and seeing what I could do with it. Over the weekend I spent more time trying to decide which direction to take since there are plenty of features I could add. At least I can get something going now and add to it later. Who ever said a project had to …

Mooltipass

wpsuperadmin indiegogo, products Leave a Comment

A year and a half ago I helped support the Mooltipass on Indiegogo. I originally heard about it on Hackaday.com, but what really captured my attention other than it being an offline password manager, is that it was going to be designed by the the community. Anyone could volunteer time to help with the project. Unfortunately I was unable to do so with the many other things I had going on. But at least I could support the project by backing it. The Mooltipass is a USB encrypted (AES256) credential storage device that acts like an HID keyboard. It can be used with or without the Chrome app and the extension. The extension allows it to detect which site you …

Living Room Node Upgrade

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For over a year now the living room node and La Crosse Gateway has been sitting atop a plastic bin next to my patio slider in a mess of wires.  This is when you know you have too many projects lying around the house.  So this summer I decided to design a PCB with a nodeMCU that will replace both projects and mount atop of a power brick. I went with the nodeMCU since there is power nearby, ease of connecting directly to the MQTT broker, and I can broadcast more often without the power limitations of a battery. This project frees up two RFM12B boards so that they can be used for the other window and the front door. Living room …

PCB Battery Clip

wpsuperadmin 3D Printer, HomeAutomation Leave a Comment

Just a small update to the battery powered nodes. Until now I had used a piece of tape to hold the PCB to the battery pack. It was always a pain when changing the batteries or accidentally hitting the node and watching it fall apart. I also wanted to try my hand at Fusion 360, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity. Fusion 360 sketch of PCB battery holder clip I still have a lot to learn in using Fusion 360 but I got the job done, um sort of. I had issues extruding the width less than I had initially and I didn’t want to start over. So canceling the print worked good enough at the size I wanted. …

C.H.I.P. by Next Thing Co

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After a year of waiting it has arrived: the $9 computer from Next Thing Co. When it launched on Kickstarter, there was no reason to skip backing this one to at least see what it was all about. Now that it has arrived I am quite happy that I did. For such a large project it would hardly be worth calling it late. My reward was due May 2016 and I received it June 2016. Very good compared to most crowd sourcing campaigns. I selected the C.H.I.P. plus battery reward, but before it shipped you could add accessories. I added the VGA adapter and an extra C.H.I.P. That way I can use it on my desk attached to my monitor …

nodeLED

wpsuperadmin leds, openhab Leave a Comment

As a hacker, I know all too well how much workbench space is vital. Alongside my three monitors, I have an extended desk that houses my soldering irons, compartment shelving, and countless projects, among other tools and devices. One constant that seems to get in my way is an old desk lamp. That’s where this project came to light, ha! I decided to design my own lamp using an analog RGBW LED strip. This board I designed will give you the tools to design your own WiFi controlled light source. The boards’ controller is run by the NodeMCU which is connected to an N-Channel MOSFET for each color of the RGBW LED strip. Trimpot for brightness and two user buttons …