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All this smart stuff is great while you have an internet connection. If that dies, your home is very, very dumb. You're left having to kill your smart bulbs by turning them off at the wall. None of your automations work. Your significant other will curse as all the clever things that were...
I've become a bit of a home automation addict. It started with an Amazon Dot and things like "Alexa. Tell us a joke" but the novelty soon wears off. Then you get a socket that you can control. Then in the blink of an eye you have over 50 devices including heating, bulbs, sockets...
Ambient lighting systems for TVs seem to be cropping up a lot in discussions I see online. Lots of people are opting for the cheap single colour strips you can buy for £20 to £30. Some are buying TVs with ambient lighting systems built in. Some are using things like Phillips Hue to create...
If you want to start playing with your Hive Home system, you're going to need a starting point. It's not a difficult thing to do but you need to be a bit methodical about it. What I'd recommend first is getting postman. This is a nice little app you can install so that you can send test...
I started subscribing to MagPi a few months ago - a birthday prezzie from my other half. This month, there was an article about hacking Ikea lights. I've got quite a few Ikea bulbs round the house as they're cheap as chips compared to others - especially the GU10 bulbs. One thing the app...
Mobile dashboard view (Just the top half) Top of dashboard on my smart watch Dashboard on Kindle Fire tablet Above you can see a screenshots from my mobile, along with a photos of the dashboard on my tablet and smart watch. if you look at the tablet, the values in the left column...
Introduction When you scan this page, it looks daunting. It really isn't. It shouldn't take more than an hour to go from a bare Pi to a full motion detecting security camera, including installing the OS on the Pi. A bit of patience and follow it methodically. What you're going to...
...is Raspberry Pi(s). At the moment I have 3 projects: A Pi 2b which is running as a smart mirror. The idea is that you run a small LCD screen behind an observation (1 way) mirror. The Pi, with LAMP, boots up and runs Chromium in kiosk mode. The home page is white content on a black...
What we're trying to do, with UX, is find ways of getting users to do what we want them to do. That sounds a bit sinister but it actually isn't. It's something they're going to do anyway; we're just trying to make sure that they do it on our site rather than a competitor's. This is a totally...
Demo of in-car Alexa. You definitely need the sound on for this! 3rd Dot added to the collection today. This one is for the car and I'm surprised just how easy this is. I'm running the Amazon Dot from the cigarette lighter socket which is always on with my car, although it does cut out for...