August 2018 - The Budget Smart Home

Home Automation: Priority Locks

Daniel MasonAug 25, 2018November 9, 20200

As a home automation set up grows in size and complexity, there are certain issues that manifest themselves. The problem of lighting has been discussed on this blog in various places; not only because it

Design Thinking: How to critically assess a solution in relation to the problem

Daniel MasonAug 13, 2018December 13, 20200

There exists a problem. We need a specific geometric shape to fulfill a given set of requirements. Let's apply some design thinking principles to find a suitable solution.

How to flash ESP-01 (this is NOT a programmer board!)

Daniel MasonAug 10, 2018January 15, 20210

I had a hard time flashing the basic Blink program to the ESP-01 due to a misleadingly described programmer board I had purchased online.

ESPHomeYaml – A new way to manage your ESP devices under Home Assistant

Daniel MasonAug 6, 2018November 10, 20200

ESPHomeYAML is a Python tool that uses YAML file to generate microcontroller firmware binaries.