Category: hardware

Adapter for gang-flashing CB2S modules

A few weeks ago I needed to stock on smart power outlets for my lab. I ordered known WiFi-controlled outlets that have been known by me to contain esp8266, so that I could flash them with esphome. To my surprise, instead of a very well-known esp8266 module. They had some weird CB2S module from Tuya.

Well, shit happens. Seems that I’ve missed yet another round of cheap IoT modules. These have Beken BK7231N modules inside. And are somewhat supported by OpenSource software stack. So our options are: replace the module with an esp8266 one, like what this guy did or deal with it.

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Making ezShare WiFi SD work seamlessly with OpenWRT, docker and other black magic

Basically an SD card with WiFi. At one time there were even Transcend cards with OpenWRT on them, but they ran out quickly and I didn’t manage to get my hands on any of them. They were replaced by cards with an obscure chip from some weird lzeal. I managed to find a little to no documentation on them, except for a wild guess that there must be no embedded linux involved.

This stuff has very weird specifications. For instance, it doesn’t work in client mode – only in access point mode. There is no webdav and only a crappy web interface. In this post I decided to sum up the ways to make this thing at least more or less usable using common tools.

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Flashing Philips E14 Smart LED Bulbs with esphome

One day I needed to add an automated light near the stairs. Motion sensor was already in place, I only needed some bulbs I could turn on and off remotely and I was not feeling like doing any DIY that time. So I picked a few ZigBee bulbs with Е14 socket. What could possibly go wrong here?

The Chinese guy sent me WiFi bulbs instead of ZigBee. Xiaomi Philips. Those are hooked to Xiaomi cloud via Mi Home. For the most adventurous, token can be extracted from the Xiaomi Cloud to drive the bulbs directly from Home Assistant. That was precisely what I’ve done. However those bulbs didn’t work very stable. They were slow to turn on and off, lost WiFi connectivity occasionally and froze every few weeks.

Things weren’t much better with Xiaomi Cloud connected, save for the huge data roundtrip to China and back every time you need to turn on a freaking lamp. The problems weren’t too critical for me to fix the issue and they worked for over a year. However a few days ago when those didn’t turn on at night I understood my patience is finally over and it’s time to fix the issue for good.

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Optimizing ESP8266/ESPHOME for battery power (and making an ice bath thermometer as well)

It’s been a long while I wanted to check for how long can an esp8266 with esphome last on a battery supply. Yet I didn’t have a reason to get it done. Time to fix that and add yet another battery optimization manual for ESP8266 to the internets.

And what’s the big reason? The story is simple. I decided to try ‘cold water immersion’ practice and make it a habbit.Yep, not the cold showers, but true hardcore ‘CWI’. I started back in summer when it was hot as hell and went all the way through to November. The weather gradually lowered the water temperature for me from ‘ah, cool and nice’ to ‘Awh shit this is cold!11’. Ideally that would become a habit.

However in November I had to pause that for a few weeks. And that meant the only thing: I had to start over again. And since the weather isn’t helping me any more, I’d have to take care and gradually decrease the temperature myself.

The first idea was to just order a dumb water thermometer. But why order when you have all the parts in stock and can just build one? And with cool features!

Hard as a rock, dumb as a brick (c)
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nRF24L01+: Fixing the “magic finger” problem

This time I was spending the holidays as usual away from the city, further improving my smarthome. This time I was installing a bunch of devices with nRF24L01+ radios. When I was running out of spare nRF24L01+ modules, I noticed that I was left with a bunch of weird modules that kind of work, but really crappy. They feature huge packet losses, but whenever you touch the PCB antenna, it goes away. I decided to look into the problem and document my findings.

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Getting rid of telemarketing, Pt. 1

Frequent calls from telemarketers, spam and espionage – these are the main reasons I try to use the loyalty cards and other stuff, and if I have to – tend to have a long chat about how much I do NOT want to receive any calls/messages or ‘super special deals’. However, it doesn’t stop many telephone spammers. I have to admit, I understand how miserable wok in such a call center might be, when nine out of ten people you call tend to explode and shout on you. However, there’s always a chance the call would be so inconvenient, that it will make you go nuts.

Anyways, I decided to deal with those folks using some of my dark tech magic. If successful, the plan would not only ward off any spam, but also give me an everlasting supply of pure fun. I made an IVR for all the incoming calls and put it on a dedicated number I now began to willingly share. If you want to learn the details of setting up your very own Asterisk/FreePBX server that will handle GSM calls for you with some advanced features, this post has all the details.

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