In my latest wireless charging experiments, I got my hands on a set of wireless charging PCBs and dove into testing different voltage inputs and their efficiency levels. It was interesting to realise that the 5V input managed to provide a decent efficiency of 73%, while 12V input struggled and heated the receiver board excessively. With the perks and limits of this setup explored, I took a whirl at creating a wireless Pi Doom machine. It worked like a charm! However, I quickly noticed the need to split charging and boost board into two different modules - a project to...
In this blog, I was dealing with a conundrum on how to reduce the power consumption of my cool magic mirror that was always on, always drawing power. I considered options such as a PIR (Passive Infra Red) sensor and a doppler radar microwave motion sensor. The latter worked brilliantly except for a few too many false positives. Things got technologically fancy when I introduced a camera for motion detection and face recognition, even recognizing who is in front of the mirror! However, while it was fascinating, it upped the power consumption which was against our original goal. After combining...
In another thrilling adventure with ChatGPT, I endeavored to integrate it with a Raspberry Pi, effectively turning it into my own personal light switch. My custom ChatGPT plugin, sporting just two endpoints, could revolutionize how we handle APIs, as it managed to control five different lights with simplicity and style. With a dash of YAML magic, ChatGPT managed to deduce the entire process, paving the way for future smart home projects. Big or small, the potential applications are endless and might even lead to computers communicating in human language!
In this blog post, I share how you can avoid hassles of SSH and use VSCode for remotely developing on the Raspberry Pi. I walk through how to initially configure the Pi in a headless setup using the Pi imager app. Then, we install the 'Remote Development' extension in VSCode. I illustrate how easy it is to connect to the Pi using our SSH credentials, clone a GitHub project, and install python extensions. Finally, I explore how to run the code and debug it. However, note that the method doesn't support armv6, so you can't use it on Pi Zero....
Just wrapped up the first iOSCon hackathon and had a blast tinkering with my Raspberry Pi, turning it into a full-fledged Bluetooth device in sync with an iPhone app. Used node for setting up and Bleno for creating Bluetooth low energy peripherals. Penned down each step for you to replicate, right from writing strings on my LCD to reading temperatures and getting notified of IR remote button clicks. Ran it on an app store or GitHub test application. Also, explored the Core Bluetooth framework for iOS app creation, for reading and writing data to the Raspberry Pi. Let's keep creating...
In today's blog post, I successfully turned my Raspberry Pi into an iBeacon using a Bluetooth dongle and following an Adafruit tutorial. I had to go under the hood a bit to make sure my dongle was recognized, but after adding some udev rules, it was good to go. Then, with a string of terminal commands, I was able to set it up as an iBeacon broadcasting a specific UUID. Testing it out with a basic iOS app, I was able to detect the signal strength from the beacon! While it wasn't the flashiest project, it was definitely satisfying to...
In this fun tech adventure, I successfully managed to sync my infrared receiver to my Raspberry Pi. This involved correctly wiring up my IR sensor, installing and setting up LIRC, and creating a new lirc config file. I explained each step in detail and shared my major milestones, which included seeing a list of pulses when the remote was pointed at the receiver. Now my Raspberry Pi is fully controlled by my remote.
Ever wondered how to hook up an LCD display with your Raspberry Pi without using up all your GPIO pins? With the right tools, such as the MCP23S17 and wiringPi, you can effortlessly keep your I2C, UART, and SPI functionalities free for other worthwhile endeavors. This blog post truly proves that the GPIO is quite flexible with the I2C or SPI pins and setting up the MCP23S17 is as simple as connecting the pins. And with support for 5v LCD modules, I can assure you that this setup is definitely lit!
In just a bit of time, I managed to successfully get my temperature sensor, the DS18B20, up and running on my new Raspberry Pi. My starter kit even included a ready made circuit board for the sensor, making wiring a no-brainer. After following the setup instructions and inputting a few commands, voilà, my temperature readouts were coming in loud and clear. Ready to tinker around and perhaps even move the connection pin if needed.