Getting the Sainsmart 2in1 Motor Controller Running

The Sainsmart 2in1 is a Mega2560-based motor controller with on-board pluggable motor drivers. As usual the documentation is slim to none and it didn’t really work out of the box as far as I could tell.

Headless Streaming Video with the Raspberry Pi Zero W and Raspberry Pi Camera

Hardware and Introduction

I’ve done lots of things with USB cameras on a Raspberry Pi. My 3d Printer has one permanently connected to it running Octoprint…

How to update the Beaglebone Black Firmware

For some reason everything I found on the web and even the Beaglebone Org documentation was crazy out of date so…

Controlling Lights : Software

The ISY994 controller I’m using has really not-good user interface software.

The Motion Detectors

In addition to temperature sensors in the walls, the house is stubbed for motion detectors in walls for two reasons.

Controlling Lights : Google Home

Voice Control !

I really wanted to control my lights with voice commands, ala Amazon Echo. However, I have a relative who works in the Google Hub group and reviews of the Google Home were interesting so I decided to give it a try first.

The Room Controller : Software

The Photon Software is straightforward.

During setup it tries to figure out a few things. Which board rev — if there is a thermistor on A0 it’s a new V2 board. Which thermistors are connected — disconnected ports will read high due to the pullups…

Automation: Scripting

Now that the hardware is all hooked up, it’s time to automate. The big three:

House: The Beginning

This voyage starts in 1996 when I build a house and decide to make it smart. This is way before the days of IoT and compatible smart home devices and even before the days of cheap and reliable wireless communication.

Controlling Lights : Hardware

The first step in Home Automation for most folks is controlling lights. It’s simple and useful. When I go…