smart home News - Page 27 of 31 - CNX Software

December 16, 2020December 17, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 26 Comments

ODROID-N2+ based “Home Assistant Blue” announced as official hardware for Home Assistant

Home Assistant has announced “Home Assistant Blue” hardware with an enclosure designed by Hahn Werke housing Hardkernel ODROID-N2+ SBC, and software supported by BayLibre who helped upstreaming the code. The goal is to make Home Assistant Blue a fully open-source platform with long-life support. The device was officially announced during the Home Assistant Conference 2020 held a couple of days ago. Home Assistant Blue home automation gateway uses the 4GB DDR4 version of the Amlogic S922X SBC, ships with a 128GB eMMC flash module, and offers Gigabit Ethernet and four USB 3.0 ports. As I understand it, the gateway will run the latest Home Assistant Core 2020.12 that was announced at the conference with a new feature called Blueprints defined as “pre-created automation with user-settable options”, as well as new neural voices for Nabu Casa Cloud TTS (Text-to-Speech), the ability to temporarily disable devices, and more. The release was initially […]

December 15, 2020December 15, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Yeelight Smart LED Bulb M2 (Multicolor) Supports Google Home Seamless Setup

At the beginning of the year, I reviewed Yeelight Smart LED Bulb 1S with both the Yeelink Android app and Google Home app. The light bulb was one of the first to implement support for Google Home Local SDK which makes controlling the light bulb much faster but requires a Google Home compatible hardware platform such as Google Home Mini smart speaker. Using the light with Google Home app still required a Xiaomi account and go through some hoops, and that’s why Yeelight has now launched the Smart LED Bulb M2 (Multicolor) with support Google Home Seamless Setup. The Yeelight app is not needed anymore, and setup is easier with Google Home. All you need is a Google Assistant-enabled device like a Google Nest Mini or Google Nest Hub. Yeelight Smart LED Bulb M2 specifications: Bulb Interface – E26/E27 bulb Wattage – 8W Brightness – Up to 1000 lumens (equivalent […]

November 19, 2020November 26, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 17 Comments

Black Friday 2020 International Deals and Coupons

Singles Day 2020 is now behind us, but just like every year, international Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals and coupons are coming, and even already launched over one week before the actual events. And CNX Software will link to promotions from Chinese online websites that offer such deals with Aliexpress, Banggood, GearBest, GeekBuying, and others. Aliexpress Black Friday Fest will start on November 23, 12:00 AM PT, and last till November 27, 11:59 PM PT with up to 70% discounts. But you can also browse the website to find discounts, and add products to your cart before ordering during the event. There will also be $20 and $40 coupons for orders over $40 and $100 respectively, but conditions are unclear at this time. Banggood’s Crazy Friday event takes place during an even longer period between November 2nd and December 6th. There are special sitewide coupons for PayPal payments with […]

November 19, 2020November 25, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments

Shelly Motion sensor to feature Silicon Labs WiFi chip with Bluetooth-like power consumption

[Update: The information from Shelly about a new “Cortana M3” processor is incorrect, we’ve been contacted by Silicon Labs, and there’s no Cortana M3 microcontroller from the company, Shelly is just using one of the company’s Cortex-M3 based WiFi solutions (SoC or module). The article remains unchanged] WiFi is one of the most convenient ways to connect IoT devices as it’s omnipresent, low-cost, and the range is ideal for the typical smart home. That’s all good until you start to power the device with a tiny battery, as WiFi consumes much more power than Zigbee, Z-Wave, or Bluetooth. Over five years ago, Rockchip RKi6000 WiFi SoC promised Bluetooth 4.0 LE power consumption numbers allowing coin-cell powered WiFi devices, and there were some demos the following year, but I’ve yet to see a consumer device based on the solution. This brings me to the main topic of this post: Shelly Motion, […]

November 13, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

OPTIGA Trust-M evaluation kit for Raspberry Pi targets Connected Home over IP standard

Optiga Trust-M evaluation-kit-Raspberry-Pi-Connected Home over IP standard

Last December, we reported that Amazon, Apple, Google, and the Zigbee Alliance had partnered to create Project Connected Home over IP (CHIP) working group with the goal of developing a royalty-free, secure Smart Home standard to increase compatibility among products over WiFi, Ethernet, Bluetooth LE, Cellular, 802.15.4 and others community protocol. Infineon has now unveiled OPTIGA Trust-M evaluation kit for Raspberry Pi designed to experiment with Connect Home over IP standard and comprised of Infineon Shield2Go HAT/adapter board, and OPTIGA Trust-M Security Shield2Go board equipped with Infineon OPTIGA Trust-M “Common Criteria Certified EAL6+” security controller. The Shield2Go adapter just re-routes the 40-pin Raspberry Pi header I/Os to sockets compatible with Infineon boards and a prototyping area. So the most important part is OPTIGA Trust-M Shield2Go which supports the following: X.509 certificates Device authentication Cryptographic support ECC NIST curves up to P-521, Brainpool r1 curve up to 512 RSA up to […]

October 27, 2020October 27, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Oplà IoT Kit is Arduino’s first open programmable IoT platform

Arduino is well-known for its maker boards and shields that are sometimes sold as part of kits to experiment with electronics. Arduino Oplà IoT kit is a little different as it looks more like an actual consumer product once assembled. Powered by an Arduino MKR WiFi 1010 board, it is designed to make getting started with IoT easy for beginners, while still allowing more advanced users to customize and hack their smart home applications. Arduino Oplà IoT Kit is comprised of several hardware components: MKR IoT carrier with a 1.2-inch OLED color display, onboard environmental sensors (temperature, humidity, pressure, light, and proximity), IMU sensor, Grove connectors, two 24V relays, and five capacitive touch buttons. Arduino MKR WiFi 1010 board powered by Microchip SAMD21 Cortex-M0+ MCU and equipped with a 2.4 GHz WiFi 4 and Bluetooth 4.2 module based on ESP32 chip. Sensors – PIR motion sensor and moisture sensor A […]

October 12, 2020March 19, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Hi3861 based HiSpark WiFi IoT development board supports LiteOS and HarmonyOS

HiHope HiSpark WiFi IoT development board features Hisilicon Hi3861 microcontroller with 2.4 GHz 802.11b/g/n WiFi 4 and supports Huawei LiteOS as well as HarmonyOS. Equipped with 2MB flash and 384KB SRAM, the board targets smart home applications, and ships with a baseboard to help with development. HiSpark board specifications: MCU – Hisilicon Hi3861 32-bit microcontroller @ up to 160 MHz with 352 KB SRAM and 288 KB ROM, 2 MB flash memory, and WiFI 4 connectivity; QFN-32 5x5mm package WiFi 802.11b/g/n standard up to 72 Mbps @ HT20 2.4 GHz frequency band (ch1-ch14). Station (STA) and access point (AP) modes with up to 6 clients for the latter WiFi mesh with up to 256 nodes Security – WPA, WPA2 personal, and WPS 2.0 PCB antenna USB – 1x USB Type-C port for power and programming via CH340 chip Expansion – 2x headers with up to 2x SPI, 2x I2C, 3x […]

October 5, 2020October 8, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

UL-Certified TP-Link Kasa Smart Plug with Dual Outlet Sells for $19.99 (Promo)

WiFi smart sockets to control home appliances have been around for a few years, and one of my favorite companies is Sonoff as they offer a variety of affordable smart plugs pre-loaded with eWelink firmware and compatible with open-source firmware like Tasmota and ESPurna. The company is also attentive to safety. communicate issues with customers, and recently wrote a post entitled “Safety is our responsibility” where they detail all steps taken to make sure their mains connected device sare safe to use. Sadly that does not include safety certifications like UL/ETL, or TUV which may have implications for your home insurance depending on where you live, and for peace of mind, it’s always good to have a third verify your design for safety. Which brings me to the main point of this point, as a UL-certified dual-outlet smart socket, namely TP-Link Kasa Smart Plug, is currently on sale for $19.99 […]