Some months ago, I started looking for a desktop tripod to support an LED panel to be used as primary light on conference calls. Although there are many options on Amazon, none of them was exactly what I was looking for. My favorite tripod (Peak Design Travel Tripod) can be configured as a Desktop tripod, but its footprint is just to wide to be used on a regular desk....
The people at Seeed Studio have been busy working on a bunch of new devices. From IoT microcontrollers and development boards to Mini PCs running Windows and machine learning devices. They were kind enough to send me their new Wio Terminal to use it in one of my future projects, but since that will take a while, I just wanted to write a quick post about it. This device would be the equivalent of an All-In-One computer, at a microncontroller scale....
iBeacons are Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) devices used in location awareness applications such as welcoming people as they arrive at an event or broadcasting information to compatible devices at a nearby museum exhibit. The term iBeacon is apple’s implementation of the technology and reportedly, is what they use at their stores to send notifications to iPhone users as they enter/leave the store. Another great application of iBeacons is general automation using iOS apps such as Shortcuts and Pushcut....
Security cameras seem to be have gotten pretty popular in the last couple of months. I thought I’d share how I put together one using a Raspberry Pi Zero W and some additional components. The device has the following features: Powered by rechargeable battery. Battery charges via USB. Motion activated video (and photo) recording. IR LED equipped (night vision recording). Media saved locally (Raspberry Pi SD card), no need for Cloud storage or internet connection....
This post describes how to build a HomeKit compatible electronic trip wire to detect motion. As opposed to the more common infrared motion detection, there aren’t many options for detecting movement by interrupting a line of sight between two points. There are some alternatives that use infrared diodes, but those are limited by a maximum distance of just a few inches/feet between the emitter and the receptor. This project attempts to solve that limitation by using a regular laser emitter and a photo transistor as a receptor, so that the maximum distance is only dependent on the laser’s output power and your ability of aiming it to the photo transistor from afar....