Category: Hardware

  • On the openness of #IoT or lack thereof

    Me, to the developers of a very nice Bluetooth Smart sensor: I’m considering writing some code that can read the data from your SensorBugs. I don’t want to use your mobile apps or go through your cloud, as the code is supposed to run in close proximity to the sensors on a box I have […]

  • We need open-source firmware

    Kapersky reports that hackers in the “Equation Group” (see Ars Technica coverage) infiltrated the firmware of most major hard drive manufacturers:  rewrote the hard-drive firmware of infected computers … on 12 drive categories from manufacturers including Western Digital, Maxtor, Samsung, IBM, Micron, Toshiba, and Seagate. The malicious firmware created a secret storage vault that survived […]

  • There’s room for lots of Raspberry Pi alternatives

    My Pool Timer is working fine in the back yard. It’s really cool to drive it from a web browser, and track when it’s running graphically. The Raspberry Pi is working fine. But, the Raspberry Pi is really not the answer for this kind of project. In fact, I’m not entirely sure what project the […]

  • My Raspberry Pi Pool Timer Project — Bill of Materials

    (Previously I discussed the the why of this project, the parts I selected to build with, setting up the Raspberry Pi itself, the electronic assembly, the mechanical assembly in the backyard, and the Rasptimer software I wrote for it.) Here’s the project bill of materials, not counting things like that I replaced or improved “while […]

  • My Raspberry Pi Pool Timer — Software: Rasptimer

    (Previously I discussed the the why of this project, the parts I selected to build with, setting up the Raspberry Pi itself, the electronic assembly, and the mechanical assembly in the backyard. Now we need real software to run.) So far, I’ve switched the pumps on and off with the way of least resistance: piStatus.pl. […]