Author: db
Robot vacuums: maps, security
So the vac was let loose in a few rooms on the main floor. It uses a laser-ranging dome augmented with sonar. You can see its estimation of my livingroom and kitchen below. The obstacles are things like couches, tables, stairs, fireplaces, etc. its actually quite accurate, the long thin bit is the hall down…
The internet of things: the enemy is me!
When I was a kid electronics were something you saved your meagre earnings to splurge on at Active Electronics. A breadboard, a z80, that was 2 months sweat. You’d get a little baggie with a pink foam and black chip in it. A couple of Forrest Mims notebooks and you were off. This was technically not pre-Internet,…
API’s: is there anything they can’t do?
So the other day I bought a google home. This provides a standalone device with the google assistant (which also lives on my phones and tablets). I run ‘homeassistant.io‘ which allows me to manage some of the various and sundry things around my house. E.g. turn lights on, whatever. OK, now I’d like to introduce the…
IoT vacuum update: it didn’t kill me in my sleep!
The Xiaomi robot vacuum joined my household last night. It wasn’t too complex to switch the voice pack over to English (it has ~50 Chinese voices, but only 1 English, and you have to be able to read Chinese to find it). Once setup (the app has every permission possible on Android!), dirt patrol began. It…
IOT madness: will it suck?
You know how when you order a gadget from china and it can take forever to reach your house, and you’ve forgotten what madness caused you to order a wifi-enabled hairbrush? Well, sometimes that lottery works out. See below, i’ve just been delivered a shiny new robot vacuum w/ radar and (chinese) voice activation! so…
