electronics – Systems Lab

August 21, 2023August 14, 2023

Building a Word Clock

Way back around 2013, something started getting popular on Instructables, word clocks. They gave the time as a sentence instead of a usual number like most common clocks. I thought these were cool and wanted to build one, I even picked up parts, but never got around to building it.

April 3, 2023April 1, 2023

EspDeck Generation 3: Simplify!

With the latest iteration of EspHome bringing in matrix keypad support, and the parts ready for a third espdeck build, I decided to redesign it yet again to try and optimize things further.

March 6, 2023February 17, 2023

Adding TVOC to the AirGradient

Once I had my baseline AirGradient sensors built and configured, I wanted to add a few more sensors to it. One of the sensors to be added is an SGP30 TVOC sensor (Total Volatile Organic Compounds).

February 17, 2023February 17, 2023

Adding an LPS22 to AirGradient and Building a Custom Sensor in EspHome

I picked up some extra sensors for my AirGradient DIY kits and didn’t realize at the time that they’re not officially supported in EspHome. So with that I went on the journey of adding my own custom sensor code to EspHome to run them.

February 17, 2023February 17, 2023

Making the AirGradient DIY

I’ve been working on getting air quality measurements going in and out of my house, however there are a lot of cloud connected sensors out there. I wanted these to be all local, though I wouldn’t mind adding to the public datasets for air quality. I ended up coming to AirGradient as the option that I decided to use, these use all open hardware and can be flashed with the custom AirGradient firmware, or with EspHome. I went the DIY route as well to save some money (and I’ll be customizing them a bit too).

August 1, 2022March 4, 2023

Using IKEA pm2.5 Air Quality Sensors in Home Assistant

I’ve been doing research on making some custom air quality sensors for inside and outside my house. The laser cutter is a main focus point for these as it would be nice to know how it affects air quality (and in the future, maybe activate an air filter based off the sensors readings). When I found out IKEA makes some simple air quality sensors that can be easily hacked using an ESP device, I decided to try it out.

March 31, 2022February 12, 2023

Novelkeys Novelty Big Switch Macro Pad

After putting together the EspDeck 9 key pad, and talking to the wife of other places we could make things better, the bedroom fan and lights came up. I mentioned that we could use smart switches for them and make a small 2 key control for our night stands, which she was super excited about, and then I showed her the NovelKeys big switches and it was sold, we were going to have some hilarious macro pads to control our bedroom lights.

February 7, 2022February 26, 2023

EspDeck Generation 2

When I started into the EspDeck project, I had enough parts on hand to build two units. I had two sampler packs of switches and two ESP8266 boards to use. So once I had the gen1 unit built, I started working on generation 2 of the EspDeck. Gen2 has a well designed case that holds the board in place, allows easier plugging in of USB, and a cleaner wiring design.

January 29, 2022February 26, 2023

EspDeck: Home Assistant Macro Pad

After seeing some posts with EspHome and Zigbee keypads, I realized I wanted to make one too. I wanted the ability to easily trigger more complex actions in home assistant that I don’t have an easy way to fully automate. I decided to make the EspDeck project to provide construction and technical details on building one of these macro pads. EspDeck provides a 9 key macro pad supporting single, double, and hold click actions on every key and can be integrated with home assistant easily through the ESPHome integration or add-on.

January 10, 2021February 12, 2023

WLED with ESP8266

I found a guide for running WLED on an ESP8266 micro controller to drive individually addressable RGB cables. I thought this would be a fun little project after working with the smart plugs and home assistant automations. Since WLED is another FOSS and cloud-free project, this still fits with my whole fully self hosted smart home ideal. Since no project is fool proof and I have run into small problems when working on the project.