Junkyard

  • 3Dprinting drainage pipe connector

    3Dprinting drainage pipe connector

    #3Dprinting drainage pipe connector What’s #3dprinting printing today? Oh, nothing special, just a simple drainage pipe connector. The plastic pipe connecting the gutter and rainwater container broke some time ago and I attached it with duct tape. It looked gross and I decided to make a pretty female-female connector. #TinkerCAD:…

  • How I killed e-ink display

    How I killed e-ink display

    TL:DR: I don’t know how, but it no longer works. In the previous post, I shared the joy of making #ESP32 #Lilygo T5 2.13′ e-ink display finally work and show some sensor data from #homeassistant. The joy lasted only a week. Yesterday I decided I’d print a nice case for…

  • E-ink display showing temperatures from Home Assistant

    E-ink display showing temperatures from Home Assistant

    I had this #esp32 #lilygo board* laying in the drawer for more than 2 years. I tried several times to make the e-ink display work without success.Today I flashed it again with the latest #esphome firmware, stole some code from the web, tinkered for 2 hrs with #yaml and lambdas…

  • How to make Fire HD tablet talk in Home Assistant

    How to make Fire HD tablet talk in Home Assistant

    If you have Amazon’s #FireHD (or any other #Android) tablet that shows your #homeassistant dashboard, you can make it talk. I created a new automation (triggered by a motion sensor) which greets me when I approach the tablet: I used the ‘Send notification’ action, chose the tablet and inserted ‘TTS‘…

  • Home Assistant and nice statistics graphs

    Home Assistant and nice statistics graphs

    One of the things that bothered me in #homeassistant for more than a year was the following: I couldn’t figure out why some entities/sensors can draw nice longterm statistics graphs like this (with average, max, min values): and some show only bulky history charts (10 days of data) like this:…

  • Detecting movement in Home Assistant using Ikea Vallhorn sensor

    Detecting movement in Home Assistant using Ikea Vallhorn sensor

    I’ve bought some #Ikea #Vallhorn motion sensors for 8€ a piece. (see info here) Pairing to the #Zigbee network in #HomeAssistant and #Zigbee2MQTT was somehow difficult, which is not usual for Zigbee devices (at least according to my limited experiences with them). Nevertheless, I succeeded in pairing them. Unsuccessful attempts…

  • Fixing junk LED light found on the street

    Fixing junk LED light found on the street

    I have a nasty habit of picking up bolts, nuts and other ‘trash’ lying on the ground. A few days ago, I was walking on the road (which also leads to a local waste collection centre) and found a drywall LED spotlight. It looks like it fell from somebody’s trailer.…

  • Simple tablet charge controller using Sonoff’s ZBMini

    Simple tablet charge controller using Sonoff’s ZBMini

    I’m using an Amazon #FireHD tablet stuck to my fridge with several magnets and 3D printed case as a #homeassistant dashboard. I read it’s bad for the tablet’s battery if it’s constantly plugged into a charger. Battery can swallow or worse. So I installed Sonoff’s #ZBMini (Zigbee) smart switch into…

  • Dishwasher saga part 3 (it wasn’t a microswitch!)

    Dishwasher saga part 3 (it wasn’t a microswitch!)

    As I wrote in my previous post I was so happy when I finally discovered what’s wrong with my 20yr old #Bosch #dishwasher. A faulty microswitch. Except that it wasn’t. The joy was over after a day and the symptoms returned: I disassembled the dishwasher for the 23rd time. Added…

  • When did I change the batteries in my sensors?

    When did I change the batteries in my sensors?

    Last month I learned about the integration which helps track battery change status in various devices connected to #homeassistant. Today I finally had some time to install #HACS integration (source) called ‘Battery Notes‘ which was written by Andrew. After the installation and HA restart, it automatically found my #Aqara battery…