Why I didn’t want to use Home Assistant for IoT

A post on facebook:

“Hi, my HA (Home Assistant running on Vmware Virtual Machine) looked too big, cca 59 GB according to the Vmware. I have deleted the backups i dont need. The db is 5,9 GB. Now the system monitor show 21 GB total size, but the vmdk is still 59 GB. How do i shrink the disk and/or reclaim the unused space? The “compact disk” in disk settings not working.”

Gigabytes? Dang.

Won’t buy from Wyze…

I drank the kool-aid and bought a couple of power plugs and color changing bulbs. They seemed so nice… 😉

They won’t share any information about using the devices to developers. That’s not great, but I see the author of esp2ino spent a lot of time creating software to do an OTA flash of Tasmota! Now we’re cooking!

Wyze found out and spent considerable time and effort to nerf the project. Sorry guys, if I’m not allowed to do what I like with my purchase I’m not using it. I’m sorry I gave them any money now.

Extending my Wifi with stuff from the junk box

After having issues with Wifi dropping out I did a speed test at the farthest point from my utility access point. The speed was quite low, and the signal dropped in and out regularly.

I had an extra Raspberry Pi 3b+ in the junk box that I just refreshed for a new project. I wondered if it could also be used as an access point.

The answer is definitely yes, and it works well. I chose the routed access point configuration instead of the bridged to give more security and control. A few hours later it was working fine. The speed test results were ten times higher bandwidth than using the marginal wifi from my provider.

All the details can be found in their excellent documentation!