Category Archives: Home Automation

“Emergency” watering while we’re out of town

Posted on July 27, 2018 by Jim

Lauren is considerably more comfortable when we turn the water off when we’re out of town – especially longer trips like our upcoming week at Kirkwood.  Watering – including the very nice impatiens by the  garage – via the normal … Continue reading →

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Resurrecting Pogo HA server (and replacing a BGA chip!)

Posted on April 24, 2017 by Jim

I got a watchdog email shortly before we left for the April Adventure weekend (email: 4/20 6:45P) about datafile and camera pic being older than the 1260 sec threshold.  I couldn’t get it running the morning before we left, so … Continue reading →

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Security camera

Posted on July 17, 2015 by Jim

This is a sort of an append-only history of details of the camera project.  After I get all the software and server hardware running, I should make a nice concise writeup of the whole thing.  Someday. I’ve about given up … Continue reading →

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Home page speedup

Posted on March 27, 2013 by Jim

This has been annoying me for years, and is finally very much improved. My home page would parse through the several megabytes of ascii sensor data to find the last typically 5 days’ data and generate the 5 graphs – … Continue reading →

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Rain gauge repair

Posted on March 11, 2013 by Jim

The rain gauge hardware out on the garage roof feeding info to my home automation system is pretty old.  It’s been in service I dunno – six years?, and on a shelf waiting to be installed for maybe 10 years … Continue reading →

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Optical interface to water meter

Posted on September 10, 2012 by Jim

I’ve wanted to be able to monitor household water flow for a long time.  A primary driver is to be able to spot unexpected use while we’re away, probably involving lots of water going where it shouldn’t – like from … Continue reading →

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Notes on DSL problem

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Jim

My DSL internet connectivity via SBC/Yahoo/AT&T has been pretty good.  I’ve finally got some intelligence in the script that pings my ISP so it can power cycle the modem and router when it detects loss of connection, and I think … Continue reading →

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Rebuilding my Pogoplug house monitor server

Posted on October 4, 2011 by Jim

Ya know, you’d think there would never be a situation when anybody would accidentally enter the following 2 commands in order: # cd / # rm -rf * That’s what I thought, too, until I just did it today.  Below … Continue reading →

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Sump pump current sensor

Posted on August 9, 2011 by Jim

This sensor has been part of the home automation system for several years.  It’s mounted to the wall, and the main AC sump pump is plugged into it.  It senses current to the pump, converting it to a logic level … Continue reading →

Posted in Home Automation | 5 Comments

UPS battery monitor started!

Posted on July 20, 2011 by Jim

My UPS is a big old sine wave clunker retired from work many years ago.  It works fine, but the only “management” info it provides is a dry contact closure when it’s on battery – not very useful to know … Continue reading →

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