If you’ve got an RTL-SDR compatible receiver, you’ve probably used it for picking up signals from all kinds of weird things. Now, [Jaron McDaniel] has built a tool to integrate many such devices into the world of Home Assistant. It’s called RTL-HAOS, and it’s intended to act as a bridge. Whatever you can pick up […]
There are lots of switches that you can use with your smarthome. Some might not be compatible with the wiring in your house, while others are battery powered and need attention on the regular. [Willow Herring] came across some nice self-powered versions that were nonetheless locked to a proprietary hub. Reverse engineering ensued! [Willow] was […]
To those of us who live in the civilized lands where ~230 VAC mains is the norm and we can shove a cool 3.5 kW into an electric kettle without so much as a second thought, the mere idea of trying to boil water with 120 VAC and a tepid 1.5 kW brings back traumatic […]
Biking can be an incredibly rewarding hobby, but what do you do with all of your expensive pieces of metal and composite when you aren’t hitting the trails? They take up space that you could use for more bikes! [Chaz] figured there had to be a better way and discovered the unlikely solution of the […]
It’s easy to build big wooden furniture if you have a massive industrial CNC router, but few of us are so lucky. However, you can still build sizable stuff with a smaller router if you know what you’re doing. [Aribabox] shares some useful tricks and techniques for building large workshop cabinets on smaller machines. The […]
There are a few major companies out there building colorful LED panels you can stick on your wall for aesthetic purposes. Most commercial options are pretty expensive, and come with certain limitations in how they can be controlled. [Smart Solutions For Home] has whipped up a flexible DIY design for decorating your walls with light […]
[Will Dana] is engineering his way to better sleep hygiene. Not satisfied with a simple bedtime reminder notification — such things are easily dismissed, after all — [Will] is offloading self-control onto a robot which will take his phone away at bedtime. Scrolling in bed is allowed up to a prescribed time. At that time, […]
The original Xbox was different from the consoles that had gone before, in that its hardware shared much with a PC of the day. It was found to be hackable, and one of the most successful projects to take advantage of it was a media centre. You know it as Kodi, but its previous name […]
The folks at Low Tech Magazine are here again, this time with a solar powered coffee maker. Lest you think of a large parabolic mirror with a pot at its focus, in this case the device is much more friendly. It’s a table-top appliance that relies upon a 100 W 12 V panel for its […]