Phatty's Tech Talk

Why don't we use Python more? Python is a great language.  It is a scripted language derived from C like the C++ we use in our Arduino IDE, but it is much more flexible and much easier to read . Python is strongly typed, and allows for complex classes and Object oriented programming. Python uses a very straight forward human readable syntax , and has tons of shortcuts and built in libraries for nearly anything you can imagine. Its only real downside as far as I am concerned is using whitespace to delimit blocks just like YAML, but if your editor is configured correctly to change tabs to spaces, it is not a problem. Did I mention that it is easy to read ? Python is also one of the building blocks of Home Assistant, all of the components and lots of the core code is written in python, so if you learn it, you can contribute back to the community. Finally python is available for our favorite items like ESP8266 based Sonoff devices, NodeMCU and D1 mini's and even Node-Red func...

This post really needs a video, and that is in the works but I really want to compare lighting systems. I have a lot of "smart" lights: Hue (three bedrooms, and my office) Lifx (the 9 Can lights in the kitchen, and 3 minis in my entry way) Merkury (all the outside lights) Yeelight (the living room and another bedroom) Ikea (bathrooms) (not in this review) And some smart switches that make dumb lights smart. So how do you compare all these lights? The first criteria is cost: Per bulb cost, infrastructure costs, and use costs (it's not awesome to have your lights burning 40 watts all the time). The second criteria is functionality: Do they do colors, if they do are they brilliant, if they are white, do they handle a range, are the bright enough, et cetera. Maintenance: It's cool to have smart lights but if it takes you 35 tries to tell Alexa to turn on the light, or if you have to sign into a server in china to turn it on or off it may not be worth ha...

If you are like me, you got everything you asked for, and a bunch of stuff you did not even realize you could have asked for, and some cash!!! You also, realized way to late to ask, that there were a few things you should have asked for but did not. So if you are going on a Boxing Day buying frenzy like  I did, here are a few things to think about. First, anything from my gifts for geeks list would still be great! This shirt from amazon is almost as cool as the one I got, but the sentiment is the same: My first order was the one that everyone was too scared to get because they were afraid to get it wrong: This digital soldering station with all the tips, and a heat gun for desoldering and melting shrink tubing will be getting a review shortly, and set me back less than $60. I also picked up the 3rd hand from my gifts for geeks post again, because even though I spelled it out, people felt that was a little too personal of a decision. next, can you ever have enough S...

This was an exciting adventure. I got these switches for $10 from someone who failed to make them work at their own house. They are JMH CD303 Tuya switches.  You can get them on Alibaba here:  https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/2018-US-Smart-Switch-WiFi-Tuya_60764782124.html?spm=a2700.details.maylikever.8.287e3376iYLvTg  Initially I was just going to use the https://github.com/clach04/python-tuya method to integrate these into HA with local support. but then I got looking at that chip and it looked like an ESP8266, so I did a little digging. I was able to flash the Tuya TYWE3S module with Tasmota. Travis from digiblurDIY updated the Tasmota wiki with all the relevant information: I soldered up my TYWE3S just like he did here: The switches work perfectly with following settings: They need to be set to switchmode# 3 in order to maintain the state.  Switchmodes 0-2 acted like switchmode 7 usually does. With some tiny tweaks to the h...

It's that last week before Christmas, if you are like me, you are just about to start your holiday buying. Most of these are easy to get before Christmas if you have prime shipping and all are under $30 Using these links helps me out by improving my Amazon Affiliate status. Start with a killer shirt. This one rocks in hot my favorite hot pink: https://amzn.to/2SaVQp7 If your geek just got started into soldering, this $30 iron holder, with a third hand, flux, sponge and cleaning ball is the bomb: https://amzn.to/2EARHaw If they have most of that stuff already, one can always use another hand and for $15 this is a great pair of them:  https://amzn.to/2S30aGD If they already have all of that, you can't have enough soldering matts This one is a great design with spots for everything you need, holding those tiny screws safely for only $9:  https://amzn.to/2S3c6bn this is a similar one from a different vendor  https://amzn.to/2S7iBKo It is important to ...

Little did I know that when I tried this the first time on Ubuntu I would be taking the easy way...having since tried it on a few more distributions and Operating systems it has been less trivial. That being said, one has to use at least 3 different instructions in order to get it done so I am going to try to get it all in one place.  Most of this should work for any debian based distribution that uses systemctl . For example these instructions do not work on a mac that uses launchctl or Alpine Linux that uses OpenRC . First Get docker-ce Full instructions for setting up docker-ce are here:  https://docs.docker.com/install/linux/docker-ce/ubuntu/ but hopefully These will be sufficient for you like they were for me. Get rid of any current docker installation: $ sudo apt-get remove docker docker-engine docker.io Set up the docker repository: Make sure apt is up to date $ sudo apt-get update Make sure apt works over SSL $ sudo apt-get install \     apt-tr...

Several weeks ago I switched to docker on a mac mini under ubuntu server.  I saw in the forums some people wanting to do it on OSX and I was about to write this article so I agreed to do it on OSX instead of Alpine Linux. It did not go as planned. I ran into significant issues, but today I sat down to get it working. Then I found out that someone had already updated the documentation here:  https://www.home-assistant.io/docs/installation/docker/ so that should be the source of truth. Hopefully this will be a little more straight forward since there is no intermingling with other operating systems and some assumptions in the documentation are called out expressly. First download docker here  https://store.docker.com/editions/community/docker-ce-desktop-mac you will have to create an account in order to do so. Once installed, fire up docker for the first time (from the applications directory, or launcher). follow the instructions in the wizard and log in with you...

I love NodeMCU chips! I love that everything is already there: wifi, enough onboard memory to actually do stuff, easily programable with Arduino ide once you have a driver (driver downloads here: https://www.silabs.com/products/development-tools/software/usb-to-uart-bridge-vcp-drivers ), and my favorite part, you can power them with anything from 3.3-12 volts so lots of power supplies work for them. I especially love the 12E or the 1.0 it is a little narrower, fits on a breadboard, super convenient! So far the only downside is that the output is only 3.3 volts (but that is true of all of the esp8266 boards), and the pins can be a little confusing ... D4 is GPIO2 which is pulled high at boot, and will cause boot failure if something is pulling it low at boot ... just lots of stuff to remember  HMMM that feels like another article in the making, for now here's the gist: What did I do to get it up and going? Verify prerequisites Install Arduino IDE Install Git In...

This post is about my hass.io installation that I have named phoebe and a little bit about what I am learning about. So what is hass.io?   A few years ago a home automation tool called Home Assistant appeared on the scene (December 14 2014) and started a home automation revolution.  It is an open source, full featured project that allows one to control and manage a number of smart devices for your home. I installed my first attempt about 6 months ago and didn't love it.  It took a lot for me to understand what it was doing and this YAML thing was horrible...so I let it stagnate for a while.  About 3 weeks ago I stumbled on one of Rob's videos (check out one below) where he was singing its praises so I thought I would try again. and this time I found Hass.io, which I am going to call a Home Assistant plugin that makes working with HA much better. I burned an image on to an SD card, threw it into my Raspberry Pi 3+ and I was off.  What a difference....

I love my Amazon Alexa collection! We have one in each bedroom, one in the kitchen, in the theater room, an echo show in my office, and one in heidi's office, a mobile echo dot, and all 3 of my TVs have Fire TV devices with Alexa built in (2 sticks and a fire TV cube).  But I am not just an Amazon Fanboy. I have 3 Google Mini's,  a Google AIY voice kit (that one is my favorite, you should check it out), and have had a couple of Google Home Max speakers, and my daily driver phone is a Pixel 3 with Google Assistant.  I have an iPad, and an iMac, and have used Siri with all of those.  So why with so many devices have I settled on Alexa for the PHAT House? First in case someone from Amazon reads this, what are my frustrations with Alexa? The Echo show is great for video calls, but so is my phone. I don't think it was a good purchase for me, except that I might build a skill for it. Now the new Show Mode Dock  for Fire tablets, I can get behind that!!! The F...

I will continue to update this post as more resources become available. The slides can be found here: Internet safety slides http://smartsocial.com   great website to get you started. information about neurotransmitters (oxytocin is not listed here :-( ) from this great article:  https://www.compoundchem.com/2015/07/30/neurotransmitters/ Katey Mcpherson is a former educator who speaks all over the country about internet dangers and addiction Her facebook page is awesome  https://www.facebook.com/kateyfromtheblock/ search for her videos on google  https://www.google.com/search?q=katey+mcpherson&tbm=vid More updates coming check back again soon.