Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What have you built with ESPHome, ESP8266 or similar hardware

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 157 posts

Re: Ask HN: What have you built with ESPHome, ESP8266 or similar hardware

#141

Post by dusted »

I built the controller for my wood gasification boiler, https://github.com/DusteDdk/boilerController

it sits in series with the regular controls, but allows me to start the fire and leave without needing to come back "after a while" to set the "turn off" temperature, it also fixes the issue of hysteresis where, after the furnace is empty of fuel, it will shut off due to cold air being drawn through, cooling the sensor enough to shut off, only to have the thermal mass of the boiler itself make the temperature rise above the turn-on threshold, which adds tens of power on/off cycles to the motor, on top of being annoying to listen to.

The wireless part is optional, but I use it to draw a temperature curve, so I can see when the right time to refuel is, if needed.

Re: Ask HN: What have you built with ESPHome, ESP8266 or similar hardware

#144

Post by steve_adams_86 »

neodypsis wrote: post #116
steve_adams_86 wrote: post #105

This is sort of on topic, except I haven’t finished. I’ve been working on making a magnetic stirrer with an integrated scale and heating. It isn’t specific to esp or esphome stuff, but I happen to be using an esp32 to power it. I wanted to buy a stirrer and discovered even the most basic equipment is extremely expensive. Once you add heat, let alone heat control that’s accurate with a digital readout, or a scale, pri…

> I know the one I make isn’t going to be as precise or accurate, the build quality won’t be as good, but it’ll be good enough for my purposes. Have you had issues with the ESP32's ADCs?

Not that I know of, but truthfully I’m so bad at this stuff that if it was an issue I might not recognize or identify it as such.

Re: Ask HN: What have you built with ESPHome, ESP8266 or similar hardware

#145

Post by neodypsis »

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #144
neodypsis wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know the one I make isn’t going to be as precise or accurate, the build quality won’t be as good, but it’ll be good enough for my purposes. Have you had issues with the ESP32's ADCs?

Not that I know of, but truthfully I’m so bad at this stuff that if it was an issue I might not recognize or identify it as such.

Reportedly, the ADC's of the ESP32 are unreliable.

Re: Ask HN: What have you built with ESPHome, ESP8266 or similar hardware

#147

Post by robotguy »

stavros wrote: post #74

I've built tons of things. Most usefully, I built presence/motion/light/temperature sensors for my home, along with IR transmitter so I can control my TV/AC. They're about the size of two matchboxes, they cost about $10 each and they're amazing for my home automation: https://gitlab.com/stavros/sensor-board/ I've built cat toys for my blind cat, toy planes, a CNC, a cat feeder, a back-scratching robot, and more stuff…

I would be interested in hearing about what kind of "programming" you considered for the "Home". I have been over-ambitiously thinking about a project like this (been calling it my "Building X" project) using an RPi and small screen in the window. I was planning to basically run a soap opera, where the system would usually run idle loops (like a screensaver[1]) but elements of plot could play occasionally when a presence detector verified someone was around to watch. I was envisioning users being able to subscribe to the type of story they wanted to see; murder mystery, rom-com, scifi, etc. Unfortunately I'm a hardware guy, not a TV producer so I never got anywhere.

The frosted windows and NeoPixels are brilliant!

[1] Johnny Castaway: The story! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVgGfKY91Lg

Re: Ask HN: What have you built with ESPHome, ESP8266 or similar hardware

#149

Post by stavros »

robotguy wrote: post #147
stavros wrote: post #74

I've built tons of things. Most usefully, I built presence/motion/light/temperature sensors for my home, along with IR transmitter so I can control my TV/AC. They're about the size of two matchboxes, they cost about $10 each and they're amazing for my home automation: https://gitlab.com/stavros/sensor-board/ I've built cat toys for my blind cat, toy planes, a CNC, a cat feeder, a back-scratching robot, and more stuff…

I would be interested in hearing about what kind of "programming" you considered for the "Home". I have been over-ambitiously thinking about a project like this (been calling it my "Building X" project) using an RPi and small screen in the window. I was planning to basically run a soap opera, where the system would usually run idle loops (like a screensaver[1]) but elements of plot could play occasionally when a pres…

Oh, it's a simple state machine with the "person" having a probability to go from a room to the next every few seconds. I also compressed the first X minutes of some Disney movie to single pixels for the "TV" colors, and a fireplace video (I think) for the "fireplace" colors.

The source is linked in the video, I'm sure, so you can have a look if you want.

EDIT: It wasn't, a fairly big omission on my part. Here: https://gitlab.com/stavros/home

Post reply on HN