Server chronicles - another repair

 The entropy can only increase, so after some time I had the server shut down, when I restarted something went wrong.
I didn't notice any problem until I did walk close to it.
I did see the Red LED blinking, indicating a problem.

HA - HomeSeer - connect UPS via APCUPSD

It is very useful to have the hub (HomeSeer in this case) connected to an UPS.

Small outages will not disrupt the normal working and in case of long blackout will be possible to safely shut down the system.

Plus will be possible to create events to inform about an outtage, like sending an email.
This article uses the plugin APCUPSD that is not free and is based on the apc utilities.

HA - HomeSeer - connecting to an UPS via NUT

It is very useful to have the hub (HomeSeer in this case) connected to an UPS.

Small blackout will not disrupt the normal working and in case of long blackout will be possible to safely shut down the system.

Plus will be possible to create events to inform about an outtage, like sending an email.

My Meshstastic - what for ?

So .. Meshstastic is nice, I'm starting to acquire HW for different nodes and experimenting but is also time to plan what to do with it, on the long term.

There are many possibilities but in the end my goal would like to be :

• set up a private network to stay in contact with family/extended family
• have a way to stay in direct contact for activities like hiking
• have access to some environmental data
• have access to the HA system remotely
• routing

Server chronicles - testing fan proposal

The HP ProLiant DL360p Gen8 has 8 fans to cool down the two CPUs and other hardware.

These fans are high speed PWM controlled and are prone to fail over time.

The only thing to do is to replace the defective fan with a new one, but it would be nice to understand exactly what the problem is and check if the replacement fan is working before to open the server.

Home Assistant - evaluation

Recently I started to experience problems with HomeSeer.
My Homeseer HomeTroller (basically a Raspberry Pi) started to experience constant crashes.

In the end is the mono environment very critical, a plugin with problems, a service below not working properly, and mono crashes.

So I started to search for alternatives to HomeSeer, because spending more money on a platform that anyway is faulted, doesn't make any sense.

Evaluating a device

I love to go to antique mall and flea market and look to find pieces of technology to play with.

In one of my tour I did find in very good conditions an Anviz FacePass Pro 7, a clock-in face recognition device for few $.

Let discover what it is, if is working and how I could use it !

Repairing an electric curtain

Once again, I did find in a flea market for few $$ something that interested me : an electric curtain.

It was still sealed (apparently) and everything supposed to be in it, it was.

But of course ... it was .. it is, broken.

Let see if it can be fixed. If not ... well, is a very good source of interesting components !

My Meshstastic - Wifi Heltec LoRa 32 V3 ESP32

This is the second module I'm playing for my Meshstatisc experiments

Let see in more details this module and what to do with it.

My Meshstastic - LILYGO® TTGO LoRa32 V2.1_1.6 Version

This is the first module I did buy (see my previous article).

Let see in more details this module and what to do with it.

My Meshstastic

I'm always curious and so time ago I found out about Meshstastic browsing around.
For a while I said "meh, OK, cool, no time, no resources, no ...." yeah.

Then I did try for a while a kind of equivalent service based only on smartphone : Bitchat 

I like the idea of both, but of course finding somebody on Bitchat is like to win a lottery ticket .. so everything went back on the back back back burner.

Then one day I decided to try to do something with Meshstastic and here we are 

HA - HomeSeer - Introduction

After long time I decided to start to work again on some Home Automation projects.
Mainly because a specific need, but I'm starting to see possible side projects along the way.

I already have some "pieces" of HA around, my glorious and ancient X10 system, an integration with Amazon Echo for the archaic X10, but it was time to start to play with ZigBee or Z-Wave.

So I had to choose and pick up an hub for them.

Fitbit Wellness Report

One of the reason to pay for Fitbit Premium was the possibility to generate a 30 days Wellness Report.

I did use that every time before to go to a doctor, it is a nice way to report some physical data.
Since last year, Fitbit (or better Google who did buy Fitbit) decided to remove the possibility to have the Wellness Report.

Why ? Who knows.