Blog

#ConnectedChristmas2020

#ConnectedChristmas2020 is an art project whose goal is to help people celebrating Christmas connect to each other with the help of IoT technology.

This initiative is free to use and the server will be operated till 15th, January 2021.

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Backup your config files to Google Drive – from a Home Assistant running in Docker

HASS.io users have been enjoying an easy to use add-on that can save their configurations to Google Drive but users running Home Assistant in Docker can face some challenges when trying to do that. Let’s see what are the tricks!

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Customizing the Home Assistant UI with Themes

The Home Assistant UI is fully customizable and you can build a stunning interface to your home. At the same time because of how the web-based UI is built there are some things that can be tricky first. Let’s see the basics!

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RFID Gate Control with MQTT connectivity to Home Automation HUBs – 2nd part: HUB side SW and Final Product

In the previous blog post I described the device that can be installed at the gate to enable remote operation of the lock and an RFID reader feature.

In this post I am talking about the HUB side software (NodeRED and Home Assistant) and show the final PCB.

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RFID Gate Control with MQTT connectivity to Home Automation HUBs

This project started as I was looking for a cheap device that can:

  • Operate directly from 230V
  • Control devices via relays (for example welcome lights or gate opener coils)
  • Read RFID Tags
  • Connect to a Home Automation HUB in a wireless way
  • Accept numerous digital inputs (for example doorbell button)
  • Operate over MQTT

As a result of not finding any suitable device I decided to design my own one.

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Laser communication between ESP8266 devices

Using ESP8266 / Wemos devices to send data over a laser beam

Using an ESP8266 device enables to you communicate via a variety of interfaces: WiFi, Serial, SPI, etc.. Why would you want to use a laser beam to communicate between devices? Well yes, this is a pointless project but we can learn a lot!

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A proper guide to the MQ9 Sensor

Many tutorials can be found for the Flying-Fish MQ9 sensor boards however the information found online is a bit fishy. Apparently many of those tutorials are copied from each other and I believe some parts of the explanation is missing. The goal of this post is to provide an explanation of how to get a (close to) real gas concentrate measurement. This tutorial can be used with any device that accepts MQ9 sensor boards like arduino, esp8266, esp32 etc..

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Create your own signed TLS Certificate

In Home Automation systems you will use TLS Certificates for multiple purposes.

  • Accessing the web interface of your setup over the internet
  • Securing the communication between your connected devices inside your setup

The goal of this exercise is to learn how to create your own TLS Certification. If you are not quite familiar with TLS certificates please read this first – https://programozdazotthonod.hu/security/

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