I’ve had an itch for years to get a whole home audio setup working, but I’ve always wanted to avoid the large cloud in the room thats normally there around these systems. I’m finally feeling to start working things out piece by piece to try and build a system intuitive to use and just works™.
Continue reading “Home Audio Plan”Playing Music on a Tag Reader
The tag reader, and it’s relative the NFCDeck have piezo buzzers in them. These can be used to play monotone music via PWM signal from an ESP. As an addition to this, there’s a simple music file format from the early years of cellphones that’s also supported by this system. Combine these together and we have an interesting little music box.
Continue reading “Playing Music on a Tag Reader”ESP32 Bluetooth Proxy and BLE Tracking
I recently started using ESP32s for my projects, mostly out of necessity for the flash sizes and GPIO capabilities, but they do bring in another interesting feature I haven’t made use of yet, Bluetooth capabilities. Each ESP32 can be used by home assistant as a Bluetooth proxy and BLE tracker. It should be a simple addition to the ESPHome yaml too!
Continue reading “ESP32 Bluetooth Proxy and BLE Tracking”Max7219 display in esphome
I saw a really cool blanking panel for a server rack recently that used a bunch of LED displays to show information powered by an ESP and home assistant. I thought the displays were pretty cool and decided to get some and try them out. I may also have some ulterior motives with a project I’ve started working on as well.
Continue reading “Max7219 display in esphome”NfcDeck Backlit Key Notification
Since I just finished my new EspDeck model that has backlit keys. I always intended on using these for notifying me of some state in my house so I can take action on it, ideally using the EspDeck itself. This is the first use case I had for the features so I’ll be implementing it so we can start making use of my fancy new NFC Deck to it’s fullest.
Continue reading “NfcDeck Backlit Key Notification”EspDeck w NFC: The NFCDeck
The time has come for a new iteration of the EspDeck. This time it’ll include a few new features, and a new form factor. The new version will include all the features of the Tag Reader, original EspDeck, and a rotary encoder.
Continue reading “EspDeck w NFC: The NFCDeck”Blinking Zooz Light Switch
I installed some new z-wave light switches recently and when working on one of them, I encountered a very peculiar problem, the light would turn on for one second, then flash off and back on again, repeating this constantly. I was unsure what was going on since I thought I had wired the switch correctly.
The switch box had 3 wires, 2 going up and out one side, and a third going up and out the other. This was in a closet with 2 lights in it, so I figured the two were for the lights and the third was for the incoming power. I was quite wrong. The two were for the incoming power (incoming power and the rest of that breaker) and the third was for the two overhead lights.
With it wired up correctly this time, the switch turned on and off correctly, no flashing on and off. I hadn’t seen a smart switch do this before, but now I know it was from receiving the line and the load.
Making LED Acrylic Signs
Now that I have a CO2 laser available, it opens up some new things that I can do, like cutting and engraving clear acrylic. Adding some side lighting to that and we can make a pretty sweet sign. I also plan on making a few more of these for gifts, so this first one is my experiment piece to try out all the techniques needed.
Continue reading “Making LED Acrylic Signs”NFC Tag Readers in Home Assistant
This is the first step in my home audio setup. I need an easy way to select music to play from my collection, and having EspDeck buttons for each choice would end up being a bit too clumsy. I plan on making some tag readers and a small collection of NFC tags for the various bands, playlist, etc available.
Continue reading “NFC Tag Readers in Home Assistant”IR Remote with WLED
I do small experiments from time to time to try out features or functionality before building them into a project (or project design even). In this case I wanted to try out the IR functionality in WLED for a project that may not have WiFi for access to the full fledged WLED feature set.
Continue reading “IR Remote with WLED”