One project that I’ve always been interested in implementing is a soil sensor because I frequently forget to water my plants and then compensate by flooding the pot (my poor plants). While there are a ton of soil sensors out there, I decided to implement my own with a twist of adding bluetooth functionality to it so as to have a low power node to collect data about soil conditions periodically. ...

Today I want to introduce the most useless IoT thing that I’ve made so far. It is a table lamp that I’ve retrofitted with a WeMos Mini Pro. Tldr; took me way too much effort to control the lamp wirelessly. Who needs a wireless table lamp anyway? How this lamp is used This table lamp is literally the most useless thing in existence: **It is on my table. **1. Take out my phone. 2. Find the MQTT app. 3. Press the light level icon. 4. Select light level. It is not on my table. 1. Why isn’t it on my table? 2. Why do I want to adjust the brightness of something far away without going over to it? Compared to the original lamp WITHOUT the IoT portion stapled in: ...

The STM32 is a great device but you know what makes it better? The Internet! However, STM32 chips do not natively come with WiFi capabilities, relying on other modules to prove connectivity options. Tldr; add zippy WiFi capabilities to any project with any IC. All you need is transmitting and receiving a byte via SPI, and reading + writing to GPIO pins. benlhy/STM32_WiFiNINAA STM32 project utilizing the ported WiFiNINA library - benlhy/STM32_WiFiNINAGit·Hubbenlhy ...

Tldr; I liked the feel of the keys on the old Apple USB Keyboard and I replaced it with the Logitech MX Keys and I’m quite happy with it. I recommend it if you are looking for a replacement for the 2017 Apple USB Keyboard. Working from home these past few weeks has highlighted the weaknesses that I had in my current setup, and in particular my keyboard. I was using a Logitech K375s. It is Bluetooth/Unifying receiver enabled, and it can switch between three different devices seemlessly. However, I found the keys a little too mushy and there was more travel than I liked. I was quite interested in the ability to switch between different devices, and tried out my friend’s Logitech k480 keyboard. It was the only keyboard then to offer the switching capability. However, I didn’t like the high rounded keys, nor their response either. Then there was the consideration of the cost: $39.95! It was a high price (at the time) for a keyboard that had this switching feature that I wanted, so instead I bought the K375s when it came out because it was cheaper. ...

I felt it was a little unfair to compare React and Vue because I had only just learned React though a course whereas for Vue, it was something that learned a few years ago and didn’t have any real understanding of what Vue could offer. So I decided to take this opportunity to learn Vue in greater detail and do a comparison between the two frameworks. Welcome to Bus App V3. ...

See the app: https://bustime.neocities.org/ I previously documented by attempt to build a better bus arrival app here: https://westsideelectronics.com/building-a-real-time-web-app/. However there were significant limitations: “…limitation of this method is the upper limit on how many reads you can send to Firestore… This is not scalable. In the case of my earlier bus stop app, there were some weaknesses: The main script has to live somewhere because it needed to be called once every minute. It relies on Google Firebase, while a great service, however, I didn’t need all the scale or flexibility it offers. The web app isn’t built to be responsive. You cannot set the bus stop from the client. Additional information about the bus type and the fullness of the bus was not included. Old vs New ...

This is my first attempt in building a real-time web app that helps to display bus arrival times at a bus stop so that I can catch buses without waiting. Tldr; I built an app that displays the buses in order of arrival with the time that it will take for each bus to arrive. Check it out at timetable.neocities.org. Buses in order of arrival At my bus stop I want to know which buses are arriving soon because there are a few specific bus services that stop at a more convenient location. However, if they take too long to arrive, then I’ll resort to walking. ...

Frontend Masters is a website that offers video courses for front end engineering. Their courses specialize in development and technologies for the frontend, like webpages, HTML, JavaScript, React, and many others. Tldr; expensive, but worth it. [Updated 2021] They have also opened up a few free courses that I found very helpful! Just create an account with Frontend Masters and check it out under the Free Courses tab. These are full courses in addition to the Bootcamp. ...

TLDR; I made a website that allows you to return search results of teas that are tailored to a specific mix of your preferences. Check it out at React-Teave. Tea. Can’t live without it, but you can definitely live without bad tea. Some teas taste like they are made out of twigs, which I can assure you, is not a very pleasant taste at all. Nobody: Me: Hey! Why don’t I share with you what I think about the tea I’m drinking? ...

This is a Chord diagram made in D3 displaying the relationship between 10 most common ingredients for all the recipes on Food.com. Common Incredient Pairings Play with the chord here: https://benlhy.github.io/common-food-pairings/ “Ben,” my mom said, “you always buy the same things.” My mom was referring to my latest purchase from the supermarket. “You know we haven’t finished the celery from the last time right?” She held up a bag. “And what am I going to do with all these onions?” ...