COVID-19 Daily Stats on a Nextion HMI using ESP8266
While Covid-19 picks a fight with humanity, keeping busy and your mind clear is important for all of us. In addition to getting out on hikes and biking with the family, what better way to pass the time than to built IoT stuff! Since I had a new 7" Nextion HMI screen sitting around just waiting for a project, and had some vacation time, I decided to buffer up my skills and get to work.…
Nextion TFT LCD – Why you need one!
I'll start this by stating that I don't work for iTead, and nor am I getting any sort of I just really like this TFT LCD. I stumbled upon the Nextion (which is a slick easy-to-use TFT LCD with a HMI editor) when they had their first crowdfunding campaign a year or so ago. I ignored it as there was not a lot of documentation, and frankly, I really didn't understand the concept of…
WIoT-2 Weather and Home Automation – Nextion with ESP8266/ESP32
This is a continuation from my first iteration of WIoT weather station. What is WIoT-2? I use it as a cloud-connected (IoT) info center of sorts. It is a culmination of information my wife or I often look for either on our way out of the house, or when we come home. It displays current/forecast weather, temp/humidity from outside the house (this), date, time, our local waste collection schedule, currency rates, the status of our garage…
ESP8266 Window Sensor with OTA and Deep Sleep
I was looking to boost my home security by adding window sensors. Something small and obscure so it would not stand out. I landed on this axGear sensor unit. It is small (70 mm x 20 mm). However, there was only one problem - it comes with proprietary software that I'm not sure I can trust. I also intended to integrate it with the ecosystem of devices I've created which I manage using Blynk. Of…
LulzBot Mini 2: Fan & Lighting Controller
I was so impressed with my Lulzbot Mini 1, that I decided to buy a Mini ; Holding true to my mantra, whenever I get a new toy, I can't leave well enough ; So, I decided to re-create my original Mini 1 custom fan and lighting controller with some tweaks and enhancements for my new Mini ; Two key drivers were to a) reduce fan noise, and b) add lighting with control. How it…
ESP8266 Fancy OTA Form
If you are a user of the ESP8266 OTA web update feature you're likely familiar with the above form when doing updates to your project over the air. Well, I'm going to show you how to spice up the form visual (hint - it's easy!). I just added this to my WIoT-2 Weather Project, which now makes updating a breeze. Background: There are a number of ways to do OTA updates on your ESP8266 (or…
WeatherCloud – IoT
So, my son's been bugging me to get him some of those LED strips for his room. You know the ones that you see on Amazon with the remote controls. I couldn't just go with status quo, so instead with a little grit and some free time I got on the LED cloud bandwagon and built him something a big puffy cloud with lights - what every teen wants right? ;-) What is it? It's…
Basement Disco: NeoPixel Music Sync with MSGEQ7
I didn't have a lot of time in 2019 for projects as much of it was dedicated to finishing the basement. A year ago it was nothing more than concrete, storage and dustballs. Took the job on myself and did everything except hanging drywall and mudding (I hate that part). Best part of doing your own basement is you get to hack in all the bits and pieces necessary for future projects - like LED…
Hot Tub: ESP8266 IoT Temp Monitor and NeoPixel Lighting
Finally got our free hot tub hooked up. Well, not so "free". Hot tubs are never free unless you have all the electrical and other bits already. Anyway, I wanted to add some remote temperature monitoring as well as jazz up the lighting a bit. Given Winters can get pretty cold here in Canada, I wanted to get notified if the temp falls below a threshold as frozen pipes in a hot tub pretty…
WIoT: Weather Station & IoT Notifier
Update: Check out my latest version of this project WIoT-2. This is a project that I have been wanting to do for some time. Since the marrying of IoT with microcontrollers, the world of cloud-connected devices has taken off. I had a hard time naming this thing because its sort of a swiss army knife of IoT. I keep coming up with new ideas as to what to connect to and control. I've done other…