Category Archives: IoT

Den Überblick behalten

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Raspberries sind bei mir mittlerweile in Mengen im Einsatz. Sie steuern (Heizungen – mit openHAB) und messen (innen mit openHAB, aussen auf meinen Wetterstationen).

Und mittlerweile hosten sie auch die eine oder andere Webseite. Vor einiger Zeit habe ich mit Grafana ein kleines Dashboard aufgebaut. Hat überhaupt nicht weh getan.

So können wir leicht feststellen, ob eine Wohnung schon warm genug ist für die Besucher oder ggfs. auch Fehler im Heizsystem feststellen. Wirklich ein kleiner Aufwand (wenn man mal meine Lernkurve nicht berechnet). Und wirklich: in Zwingenberg ist es im Mittel 3-5°C wärmer als in Gersfeld!

Kudos to Raspberry Pi

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A couple of years ago I have started to experiment with the Raspi. Well, what can you expect from a computer that costs less than 50€? I thought. But as time went by, I started to use them more and more. Now I have had 4 of them (V3) in production for quite some time, mostly to control radiators and other smart home components through openHAB, an open source control center software for smart homes.

Today I was checking on one of them and while logging in, it’s welcome message filled me with joy:

Last login: Thu Oct 22 07:38:33 2020 from 88.152.4.38
Mi 9. Dez 13:02:39 CET 2020 @ xxxxxxx
Uptime: 13:02:39 up 634 days, 23:17, 1 user, load average: 0,00, 0,00, 0,00

For almost 2 years the little guy was up and running, doing his work. Enduring internet outages and what not. I had not expected such a great performance. I hardly dare to upgrade him to the new OS version. Not for that I don’t trust the update process (I have upgraded most of them already to Buster), but because I want him to continue present me so pleasant stats!

PS: Kudos also to the folks from openHAB. While I find some functions quite cumbersome (not a JAVA friend here) I’m really happy with the RESTFul API that they provide. It has allowed me to develop some very helpful functions for automation on top of openHAB.

Keep on truckin’

A Ninja is Dead

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I’ve been one of these folks who bought a Ninja Block pretty early after they appeared. This was in the time before I knew much about Arduinos and Raspberry Pi’s. My block turned out to be fun to play with: I could read humidity and temperature and stream my webcam. Through its nice little REST interface I had a chance to link all this into my small web universe.

Anyway, I liked it so much that I wanted to buy another one for another location, again with all the sensors you need. Turned out that everything is sold out, and the Ninja folks say that they are planning the next big thing – the Ninja Sphere. And even small things like a temp sensors continue to be sold out 🙁

I don’t know when the announcement for the Sphere started, but by now it feels like a year or two. Nothing has happened since then, at least nothing that I can see. No release dates, just a link to a weird release plan in one of their blog posts.

Too bad. I really liked to type in the ninja URL.