Albert

This blog has a new home.

This project turns a cheap Digispark ATtiny85 USB dongle and a KY-040 rotary encoder into a dedicated hardware volume knob.

VMBOX packages web applications and runtime dependencies into a self-contained VirtualBox VM.

This is version 2 of my multi-screen Raspberry Pi infotainment project.

A compact "lab-in-a-box" that turns a $30 GL-MT300N-V2 pocket router into a remote hardware bring-up station.

Ambient Light + Air Quality + More — a reliable, low-cost sensor network for home, lab, and in-vehicle prototypes, built around CAN with OTA updates and multi-node management.

If you run Domoticz and have an Amazon Echo, this is one of the simplest ways to get voice control while keeping device commands on your local network — no cloud subscriptions, no Alexa skills, no Philips account.

Bring Minecraft-style adventures home — no internet needed.

Build your own in-car entertainment system — individual touch displays for each passenger, streaming multimedia over a local network with no internet required.

While the internet is flooded with hello-world examples and simulations demonstrating the connection and message exchange between AWS-IoT Devices and AWS-IoT-Core using various programming languages like Python, C, C++, and Java, some of us beginners, stu…

Turn a ~$30 GL-MT300N-V2 pocket router into a standalone DLNA media server — no internet required.

How to interface rugged metal pushbuttons with LED rings to a headless Raspberry Pi — using the built-in triggerhappy daemon to invoke scripts on button press and provide LED feedback, with no display or keyboard needed.

Bridge your mobile SMS with XMPP instant messaging so you can read and send text messages from anywhere over the internet.

How to flash a ~$30 GL.iNet MT300N-V2 pocket router with a custom OpenWrt image that includes the AWS IoT Device SDK and an aws-iot-pubsub-demo application — turning it into an AWS IoT Edge device that can feed local sensor data to the cloud.

A ready-to-use bootable SD card image for BeagleBone Black/Green with a fully preemptible Linux kernel (PREEMPT_RT) — includes a gpio-test program that mirrors an input signal to a GPIO output pin for measuring scheduler latency with an oscilloscope.

Six simple steps to get an AWS IoT Device SDK demo running on a Raspberry Pi 4 — using a lightweight custom Linux image built with Buildroot (just under 25 MB).

A one-script installer that turns a Raspberry Pi + CC2531 USB adapter into a vendor-neutral Zigbee home automation gateway running Domoticz — supporting 800+ Zigbee devices from any manufacturer.

A lightweight Buildroot-based media player image (<65 MB) for Raspberry Pi that autoplays video, audio, or images in a loop — booting in under 20 seconds.

How to power a Raspberry Pi 3/4 over an Ethernet cable (up to 100 m) using passive PoE — with off-the-shelf parts costing under ~$2.

Step-by-step guide to replace the stock Qualcomm firmware on an A5-V11 pocket router (~$5) with OpenWrt, giving you a fully hackable Linux device.

A DIY Wi-Fi-controlled 5 V switcher for USB LED fairy lights, built around an ESP-12F module running Tasmota firmware.

A custom OpenWrt firmware (autom8box) that packs router + Domoticz server + MQTT broker into an all-in-one home automation gateway running on a ~$20 off-the-shelf GL-MT300N-V2 pocket router.

How to use a bare ESP-12F module as a standalone IoT/MQTT node — powered directly from a USB charger with just a handful of passive components, no base board required.

How to convert a Wemos D1 Mini into a pogo-pin programming dock for flashing Tasmota (or any firmware) onto bare ESP-12F modules — no breadboard wiring needed.

How to remote-access a Raspberry Pi over the internet using an XMPP-based chat-bot — no port forwarding or dynamic DNS required.