Articles

Hello, something other than microcontrollers this time. I decided to test two 1800W 'suitcase' generators from both ends of the price range. A Honda at around PLN6000 and an AIVOLT at PLN1099. Honda purchased in early 2020. AIVOLT this month. HONDA EU22i: Weight without fuel: 21.1... [Read more]

. Today we continue our adventure with the ESP32-2432S028R board. In the previous installment we ran the display and touchscreen, so today we will use that. We'll see what options and shapes we have available for drawing and then we'll consider what are ways to draw efficiently so... [Read more]

Similar topics have already been discussed on the Forum, but my device is the most mine, so I decided to share a report of its construction with those who either have hearing problems or would like to make a similar device for someone with such a problem. I'm not an acoustician and... [Read more]

. The topic of changing the firmware of IoT devices comes up all the time on the forum, but not everyone knows the purpose of doing such a thing. Here I will present one of the advantages of freeing our device from the cloud, namely the possibility of significantly extending its functionality... [Read more]

The hot weather is coming, so you need to run the air conditioning - all the more so when there is a computer constantly running in the workshop stubbornly heating up the room. The situation gets complicated, however, when you don't have permission to install a full-fledged air conditioner... [Read more]

. Here I will present an interesting RGBCW lamp driver with a communication protocol very similar to the WS2812B diodes. I became interested in the subject at the request of a reader from Germany, who even sent me a "smart" lamp with this very driver so that I could try to decrypt... [Read more]

We've been recently looking for a way to buy brand new Tuya modules, especially CB3S/CB2S (BK7231N) and WB2S (BK7231T). BK7231N is a bit newer and has more advanced support in OpenBeken (deep sleep and WS2812B), so it was our primary focus. Here I will write down our experience. Our... [Read more]

I wanted to present a project that I have spent a total of several weeks of my life on. A GPS tracker that sends data to the cloud via Iridium satellites or the LTE mobile network. The project was battle-tested on an expedition yacht that reached Spitzbergen by sailing through the... [Read more]

. The FOX ENERGY-3 (commercial index WI-MEF-3) offers indispensable support in controlling energy consumption and monitoring electrical network parameters. Due to its characteristics, the WI-MEF-3 is excellent for, among other things, energy control and billing in homes and rental... [Read more]

. Here I will present an ESP32-2432S028R board offering, first of all, a large 2.8" TFT colour LCD display based on the ILI9341 (display) and XPT2046 (resistive touch panel, including stylus) controllers, all for just about PLN50. I'll show here how to operate this display in PlatformIO... [Read more]

Today, we are going to hack a ... water heater. This time, minimal soldering will be involved. Long story short, about two years ago, I got myself a new heat pump water heater . A heat pump heater is about 3x more efficient than an electric one, and everything is nice, except for... [Read more]

. I invite you to the second part of the adventure with the Wemos D1 ESP8266 board and the DHT11 temperature/humidity sensor. In this part I will expand my program to write the results to the Flash memory of the ESP8226, I will use a library with the graceful name EEPROM . Why is... [Read more]

In one of the topics on our forum, not at all about computers, more about automobiles, a question was asked about Soviet hardware. At the time it was about the Agat, which many people thought was a clone of the American Apple II. Unfortunately, when I lived in the Soviet Union, I... [Read more]

Here I will show you how to flash BK7231M chips (or BL2028N) with our open source, Tasmota-style firmware. BK7231M/BL2028N are very similiar to BK7231N, and the only difference in the encryption key stored in efuse. Tuya BK7231N seems to be using always the following key: 510fb093... [Read more]

Convenience and protection from the heat - control your roller shutters and facade blinds! . . Summer is fast approaching, and with it comes intense sunshine and high temperatures. Are you ready for the heat? According to forecasts from the Institute of Meteorology and Water Management,... [Read more]

. The S1TW-FR is a plug-in energy meter with LCD screen and additional probe/temperature sensor. The S1TW-FR stands out from other Tuya products and offers truly extensive functionality, accessible both from the manufacturer's mobile app and directly from the buttons on the device.... [Read more]

. Today we are taking a look inside a fairly new "smart switch" relay, dated 2023-10-05 on the PCB. As standard here, I will show its construction and change its firmware to make it free from the manufacturer's servers. The product itself from this topic resembles the already discussed... [Read more]

. Hello everyone, I present a great emulator for Zx Spectrum family computers (48K, 128K, +2, pentagon, ZX81). This is an emulator that works on boards using the Espressif ESP32 SoC. Currently it can be used with Lilygo's TTGo VGA32 board, Antonio Villena's ESPectrum board and Olimex's... [Read more]

OpenBeken, our Tasmota/Esphome style firmware for new chinese WiFi modules with BK7231T, BK7231N and similiar chipsets, has a new WS2812 LED driver - along with animations system. The driver should also work for similiar LED strips, not just WS2812B, so SM16703, etc, is supported... [Read more]

The iRobot Roomba range of hoovers has a well-documented Roomba Open Interface allowing remote control of the hoover. I will present here the details of this interface and demonstrate an example made by us of integrating the device with an external WiFi module, also allowing connection... [Read more]

Today we take a look inside a rather expensive product, bought for a whole $160 (that's over PLN600). This will be a three-phase energy meter that works with the Tuya ecosystem. We will also consider here the possibility of freeing it from the cloud so that it works 100% locally,... [Read more]

Hello, There seems to be multiple different layouts available of this device. My need was to add a temperature sensor in it to make possible to measure room temperature and use the relay to connect heating on and off. There is S1 and S2 connectors for external switch. I used those... [Read more]

Here I will show you how you can create a custom OpenBeken driver. Custom OpenBeken driver can implement almost any logic you want and runs directly on OBK device. You don't need to setup toolchain for that, builds can be done online. Writing a custom OBK driver does not require much... [Read more]

An acquaintance asked me to assemble "something" that would give him notification when the battery in his very little used car discharges too much. For a quick thought I came up with ESP8266 + ina219 and a piece of code that would take a measurement, send it to the server and put... [Read more]

Here I will show my setup for testing hot air stations - two OpenBeken devices, first used to measure hot air temperature with MAX6675, and second used to measure power - both reporting measurements to my HTTP server, so I can use them for futher processing. Of course, my setup was... [Read more]

This is a teardown GU10 RGBCW Bulb with new VERY tiny LN882HKI module, which I've never seen before. Obviously, this device is also supported by OpenBeken, so you can free it from the cloud and use with Home Assistant. Here are the details... Device can be bought here: Pin connections... [Read more]

I will present here the design of "smart" workshop drawers integrated with a parts database accessible from a computer or phone. These drawers make it easy to search for parts - when a part name is entered, the cells containing it are highlighted in colour. This allows you to quickly... [Read more]

Fixed training for installers at Zamel! We are starting a series of free training sessions at our company headquarters in Pszczyna! During the on-site training sessions, installers will have the opportunity to gain primarily practical knowledge of our products and to exchange information... [Read more]

AVATTO N-WOT10-EU-W is an electrical socket that offers control via WiFi, additionally performing current, voltage and power measurement. Here I will present its interior and try to change its firmware to OpenBeken so that it is cloud free and can connect to Home Assistant. Purchase... [Read more]

Here I will show you how you can simply update Zigbee2MQTT addon in your Home Assistant. Suprisingly enough, there is no automatic update for Zigbee2MQTT, or at least it does not show up for me. That's why the update has to be done manually. I have been recently trying to add a new... [Read more]