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Over the last few years my interest in Low Power, Tiny Computers like, PI, Pi Zero W, Uno R3 and most of the ESP2688 and ESP32 Family.

I like the Adafruit Feather ESP2688 it’s tiny, has WiFi and battery charging built-in.

I widely use these in the house to do stuff. Lately I built an
Adafruit Feather ESP2688 AWS IoT Temperature Monitor. Yes this is over kill
but was fun and I don’t care. Most of my self-built Home Automation has MQTT / AWS IoT links.

Lately I wanted to see these MTQQ Messages. Yes I can used my laptop but this is not very impressive!

In came E-PAPER! It’s a extremely low power display.
The people over at Waveshare are answered my wish” With the ESP2688 Driver Board…

The board has WiFi. No Battery Option but I can work with this.
They work with Waveshare e-Paper. So I got a broad and a 1.54″ BW e-Paper display.

PRO TIP: Ignore the Waveshare code example. It’s a full application and requiters knowledge of HTTP and Web severs. It’s Ok to test the display but after 3 days I could not for the life of me figure out how it worked. Look at the example that come with GxEPD2_Example/GxEPD2_Example.inO Took me an hour to understand

Two points. I HATE using code libraries other people wrote.

if code was written against a lib say version 1.2.1 version 1.2.2 may not work.

My Temperature Monitor used Adafruit_MQTT_Library, arduinoWebSockets, aws-mqtt-websockets, aws-sdk-arduino-esp8266 ANDpubsubclient

But It won’t work!

I’d seen many project on the web for “Home Security” but none really had that thing.
Thi guide is more of a reminder for me, however please ask any questions.

Parts

Raspberry Pi Zero W Camera Pack – Includes Pi Zero W

Part 1 – Download The OS

Select the OS. I use RASPBIAN STRETCH
Download
You will end up with a ZIP it should take a minute.

Run

cd ~/Downloads/
> ~/Downloads$ unzip 2018-11-13-raspbian-stretch.img*


• The file you downloaded

Part 2 – The OS on SD Card

You now have two files 2018-11-13-raspbian-stretch.img and 2018-11-13-raspbian-stretch.img.zip You can ignore the ZIP file we don’t need it.
Now you have to put the Raspbian OS on to the SD Card.
We are going to use DD

cd ~/Downloads/
> ~/Downloads$ dd bs=4M if=2018-11-13-raspbian-stretch.img of=/dev/mmcblk0 conv=fsync


• /dev/mmcblk0 is the name of your SD Card Device.

See INSTALLING OPERATING SYSTEM IMAGES ON LINUX

Once you has the OS on the SD Card you’ve still got a little bit more to do.

• Connect to WiFi
• Start SSH Server
• Setup authorized_keys (OPTIONAL)
• RSYNC Backup (OPTIONAL)

Part 3 – Auto starting SSH Server [SSHD]

This is very simple. It should only take a few seconds.
Using a client PC/Laptop. Mount the SD Card. On The SD Card will be a boot partition.


cd /media/<USERNAME>/boot
> sudo touch ssh

All the above has done is create a file SSH on the boot partition on the SD Card. We you now start the Pi Zero SSH Server will auto start.

Part 4 – Connect to WiFi

This is a little more complex. Again we have alter a few file on the SD Card.
We are going to manually edit wpa_supplicant.conf so when it starts it has all the info it needs to connect to WiFi.

Using a client PC/Laptop. Mount the SD Card. On The SD Card will be a partition partition.

cd /media/<USERNAME>/partition
> wpa_passphrase <SSID> <PSK>
> wpa_passphrase BTHub6-3CGF xxxxxxxxxxxx >> etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

The resulting file should be…

country=GB
ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1
network={
	ssid="BTHub6-3CGF"
	#psk="xxxxxxxxxxxx"
	psk=XXX-PSK-XXX
}

Now put the SD Card in the Pi Zero at attach power.

Part 5 – Python3, PIP3, AWS IoT (MQTT)

Part 5a – Default Python

Their are a few ways to set Python3 as default. The best




The Age old fight of the best OS, has been settled (mostly as Samsung don’t have a clue)

So have new Galaxy Tab A (2016). The f-ing keyboard won’t show. On inputs the icon changes but no keyboard is displayed, so can’t input stuff!

This is not a Keyboard Input issue, nothing is shown to allow input. Not the “writing” input.

So contact Samsung, first via online chat. The “engineer” can’t understand that as I’m disabled pressing multiple buttons is quite difficult.
so try the “phone” get a man that called me “Mr Daniel” and wanted to setup an account with my name, address and phone number BEFORE he could help.

Ok so until now i thought ASP was the bad, I was wrong.

As part on my PiZero & Z-Wave Cam project I’ve been forced to use

Python3

proxy = xmlrpc.client.ServerProxy('http://pi-zero-b:8000')

Creates an XML Client to

PI-ZERO-B

port

8000

Now how the hell do I get it to ‘handle’ errors!

One such error is

PI-ZERO-B

being inaccessible. This could be due to reboot or network failure.

i’ve tried

try:
proxy = xmlrpc.client.ServerProxy('http://pi-zero-b:8000')
proxy.sequence()
except xmlrpc.client.ProtocolError as err:
pass


This is a gimmick, nothing more.

I unboxed the device and joked with my mother how long before I got burned.
Answer: 2nd Use!

The space between the coffee output and craft is too small. Result…

The nozzle output on the Coffee make has a spring so you have to lift before you can put in the craft. The craft when even half full is extremely heavy.

The whole product is flash to distract from the fact it’s pointless.

After four uses, it’s stopped working!
I ask Alexa or use the iOS app to make coffee, It grinds the beans and that’s it. Nothing no message, error or lights.

You open the box, find the quick start (The only documentation included)

This is wrong the iOS App is called Smarter 3.0

Smarter 3.0

By Daniel McMorrow

Photographed in Wood Green, North London

So In my 16 odd years as an IT Geek, I’ve networked VoIP Phones, CT & X-Ray machines, Door security and an endless sea of computed.
This coffee machine is by far the most bizarre! It uses ‘BlinkUp’ basically it flashes code via your phone screen to the coffee maker. Most small items use Bluetooth or NFC at a push.

So after an hour faffing about with the app and BlinkUp. I got it connected.
Then…

If you follow this helpful suggestion you end up with a coffee machine name “Home”, this is not an issue until you link with Alexa and find out the name is what you ask Alexa.
Saying “Alexa Home on” is stupid! and not intuitive.

As a disabled (young) man Home Automation open up a world. I can ‘ask’ lights to come on, have wireless monitoring to alert family if there is a problem.

I’m a geek so find Home Automation a simple task. I’ve used Smartthings,Philips Hue, Z-Wave, Amazon (Echo/Dot/Show) have even built my own based on ESP2886 WiFi.

I have had the misfortune of using Energenie/MI Home. And it’s really, really bad.

I brought Two “Smart Plugs” as part of a Pi kit. One of the plugs went bang! This is usually enough to make me return it.
I had no planned use for them so mark it as a learning experience.

Energenie do a light switch that’s ‘smart’ as I can’t Automate the bathroom, the type of bulb. Automating the switch is the next logical step.
I purchased a “kit” from Amazon.

It came, setup was relatively easy. Put the code from the back of the hub into MiHome website.

I decided to use the plug I have to Automate a Radiator Fan
I setup two timers for the fan. 8am and 5pm. When the heating comes on. Yet the plug only responds a few time. Their is no “log” or status in the iOS app.
I turned the fan off a few minutes ago via the iOS App, now won’t come back on! I can’t log in to the MiHome website as it can’t find my account!

I don’t have time to waste fixing system the don’t work.

Update

Just spent 5 minute trying to turn off the plug via the iOS app. Gave up turned off the socket.