tl;dr Many listings on Amazon, AliExpress, eBay and in other places incorrectly state that the CCS811 is a Carbon Monoxide (CO) sensor. It is not. It reports eTVOC (equivalent Total Volatile Organic Compounds) and eCO2 (equivalent Carbon Dioxide). The CCS811 is not capable of measuring Carbon Monoxide and any listing…

So… I made a small mistake recently. I left sensor that I’d built for reporting my gas grill’s temperature sitting out, unprotected, by the grill. The board was a “butterball”, a high temperature sensor with a small OLED display for reporting temperatures and a BME280 for environmental monitoring (I’ve been…

The simplest Arduino program looks like this: void setup() { } void loop() { } This does nothing beyond build and run. The setup() function is used for one time, well, setup. This is where you initialize a sensor or connect to Wifi or set the speed of your serial…

Apple’s HomePod is a smart speaker that’s powered by Siri. Audio can be pushed to it via AirPlay, but really, it’s designed to be vocally commanded. “Siri, play the last album I purchased on iTunes.” “Siri, play my ‘Yoga in Nothing But Socks’ playlist.” The HomePod sounds good too. Consumer…

The legend of Faust claims that he struck a bargain with the devil, trading his soul for limitless knowledge and pleasure. But did you know that the legend is wrong? Faust was just an iPhone owner seeking security updates for last year’s version of iOS. *** There’s a rhythm to…

The wire that brings electricity to your home does not dictate when you can turn your lights on. It does not decide whether you may use a washing machine or microwave. It does not determine which appliance manufacturers’ products you can use. Imagine the world if it did: You only…

Researchers have found a fundamental flaw in the security mechanisms of WiFi. The KRACK vulnerability — nuts and bolts described here — allows malicious actors to access a WiFi network without the password or key, observe what connected devices are doing, modify the traffic amongst them, and tamper with the…

If you haven’t been busy this week choking on smoke and running from forest fires in the western US, recovering from flooding in Texas, preparing for one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes ever in Florida and the Caribbean, or simply fighting the good fight, you might have heard about the…