Aaron Parecki

Working on a little display that will sit in a picture frame and show my next upcoming flight!

Powered by a raspberry pi which parses the flights from the microformats on my website, and shows either the next upcoming trip, or if I'm currently away, shows the details of the flight home.

This e-paper display is really nice looking too!

Portland, Oregon, USA

3 likes 2 replies

Sun, Aug 25, 2019 9:46pm -07:00 #homeautomation #microformats #epaper #rpi #raspberrypi #travel
Having one of those moments where I feel like I need to tear up my entire office and living room and reorganize things and get rid of clutter, but that is not a project I should start at 5pm on a Sunday

Portland, Oregon, USA

19 likes 8 replies 1 mention

Sun, Aug 25, 2019 4:50pm -07:00
I made more progress on the cat feeder tonight! ⁣
⁣I attached the motor to the back, and the shaft now goes thru and connects to the original (modified) plastic shaft from the dispenser.
⁣
⁣The lid has an ultrasonic distance sensor pointing down at the food to be able to tell how much is left in the chute.
⁣
⁣There's a button on top to be able to manually dispense a dose.
⁣
⁣Lastly, I added a terminal block to connect the wires from the scale for easier mounting to the processor later.
⁣
⁣Next up, I need to start connecting all the components to the circuitry! The load cell amplifier, stepper motor driver, and finally the esp32 controller. Then it'll be time to write some software!
⁣
#homeautomation #esp32 #arduino #catfeeder #hackyourcat #cathacks

Portland, Oregon

34 likes 1 repost 5 replies

Fri, Aug 23, 2019 7:59pm -07:00 #homeautomation #esp32 #arduino #catfeeder #hackyourcat #cathacks
at City Of Portland Bureau of Development Sevices

Portland, Oregon • Fri, August 23, 2019 7:58am

45.509594 -122.681293

Got here early to submit the first of many permit applications

Portland, OR, United States

30 Coins

Fri, Aug 23, 2019 7:58am -07:00
at Los Gorditos

Portland, Oregon • Thu, August 22, 2019 1:27pm

45.524331 -122.680688

Time for a burrito mmm

Portland, OR, United States

1 like 21 Coins

Thu, Aug 22, 2019 1:27pm -07:00
Adding a couple new sensors tonight. Attempting a sound level sensor (should report roughly how noisy it is inside), and a color temperature sensor, which I'm hoping can tell me how cloudy it is outside and how much sun is coming in the window.

Portland, Oregon

1 like 1 reply

Wed, Aug 21, 2019 8:13pm -07:00 #homeautomation
the home automation experiments continue tonight...

now attempting to disable the on-board bluetooth of the raspberry pi and replace it with a USB dongle to see if that improves things

Portland, Oregon

4 replies

Wed, Aug 21, 2019 6:38pm -07:00 #homeautomation
oops didn't realize putting the air conditioner and TV in the "living room" group would mean saying "Alexa, turn on the living room" turns both on!

Portland, Oregon

Wed, Aug 21, 2019 9:36am -07:00 #homeautomation
So far out of all the home automation devices I've connected to this Raspberry Pi, the most reliable ones have been 433mhz transmitters and ESP32s on wifi. I've been getting spotty performance of Bluetooth and Z-wave devices. Could be that the Pi isn't powerful enough, or could be because simpler is just better.

Portland, Oregon, USA

1 like 6 replies

Tue, Aug 20, 2019 10:45pm -07:00 #homeautomation
I just installed this neat motor which can drive the chain on my blinds! Now I'm brainstorming various rules to cause the blinds to open and close. So far:

• Close the blinds once the sun is high enough to start shining into the room
• Open the blinds when the sun goes down in the evening
• Close the blinds when the TV turns on
• Close the blinds when I get in bed

Portland, Oregon, USA

2 likes 1 reply

Tue, Aug 20, 2019 8:14pm -07:00 #homeautomation
at First Unitarian Church

Portland, Oregon • Tue, August 20, 2019 10:06am

45.518147 -122.685546

They found my pack of dongles!

Portland, OR, United States

8 Coins

Tue, Aug 20, 2019 10:06am -07:00
Working with people in both Europe and Australia basically means there are zero hours where you don't get emails and slack messages. It's always someone's work day 24 hours around the clock.

Portland, Oregon, USA

5 likes 2 replies

Mon, Aug 19, 2019 9:27pm -07:00
Signs you might be traveling too much:

You start measuring streaks not by the number of nights away from home, but by the number of nights you spend *at* home.

Creston, California

9 likes 4 replies

Mon, Aug 19, 2019 6:00pm -07:00 #travel
Something about Apple's decision to do "OAuth-but-not-quite" rubbed me the wrong way, but this is a great example of how it breaks down very concretely.

https://twitter.com/atomicbird/status/1163478833326108673

Santa Ana, California, USA

18 likes 9 reposts 6 replies

Mon, Aug 19, 2019 2:29pm -07:00 #apple #oauth #openid #oidc
Over the past few weekends I've been overhauling my home automation systems. At the core, as I decide what to buy and how to configure it, there are three primary principles:

• Manual override: Everything automated has to still have the ability to be controlled manually
• Keep it at home: No "cloud" services unless absolutely necessary (e.g. push notifications to a phone)
• Open: Avoid vendor lock-in, use open source and open protocols where possible

So far, I've removed my Dropcam (acquired by Google/Nest), removed SmartThings (acquired by Samsung), and replaced everything with the best alternatives I can find, and making a few sensors myself as well.

It's been a fun experience for sure! Not something I would recommend as an "out of the box" solution, but I've learned a lot, and have a lot more ideas still! I'm planning on doing a full writeup once I get a few more things hooked up.

Irvine, California

10 likes 1 repost 3 replies

Sun, Aug 18, 2019 9:53pm -07:00 #homeautomation #iot
at Irvine Marriott

Irvine, California • Sun, August 18, 2019 8:38pm

33.678321 -117.849741

Irvine, CA, United States

13 Coins

Sun, Aug 18, 2019 8:38pm -07:00
I need to start keeping track of the tail numbers of the planes I've flown in because I'm really curious how many times I've flown in the same plane.

4 likes 1 repost

Sun, Aug 18, 2019 8:01pm -07:00 #travel
Made some good progress on building my automatic cat feeder today!
⁣
⁣Tore apart a kitchen scale to extract the load sensor and platform. Built a stand out of some MDF board. Attached the scale to the base, mounted the dispenser to the back.
⁣
⁣Tomorrow I get the motor and can mount that to the back as well as wire up all the circuitry!
⁣
⁣In the end, this will be able to drop food into the bowl only if the bowl isn't already full. It'll also track how much is left in the dispenser, as well as hopefully be able to tell when she actually eats by measuring the weight of the bowl!
⁣
⁣#homeautomation #internetofthings #automaticcatfeeder #smartfeeder #diy #arduino

Portland, Oregon

indiewebcat.com

38 likes 2 reposts 6 replies

Fri, Aug 16, 2019 10:23pm -07:00 #homeautomation #internetofthings #automaticcatfeeder #smartfeeder #diy #arduino
at Eureka!

Redlands, California • Thu, August 15, 2019 4:22pm

34.061051 -117.186211

Redlands, CA, United States

30 Coins

Thu, Aug 15, 2019 4:22pm -07:00
at ESRI

Redlands, California • Thu, August 15, 2019 9:35am

34.056571 -117.195647

Hello again, it's been a while

Redlands, CA, United States

45 Coins

Thu, Aug 15, 2019 9:35am -07:00

older