Right, I’m mostly knee-jerking from what happened with the PicoKey project. Had been active with it and the dev pulls a 180 and rips out every way to configure it except the paid tool.

The configuration tool (pico-commissioner) was also open source but the dev nuked the repo for it. A search for forks has turned up zilch.

Refs:

• https://github.com/polhenarejos/pico-fido/issues/244
• https://github.com/polhenarejos/pico-fido/issues/220
• https://github.com/polhenarejos/pico-fido/issues/216

I would love to get my hands on some HaLow gear but it’s either unobtanium or crazy expensive compared to LoRa.

There’s some Heltec (I think?) chips I saw recently but I haven’t dug too far into libraries or driver support.

Yeah, I haven’t messed with Meshcore yet but I have been playing with Reticulum and the RNodes. I think it’s the same guy behind both, if I’m not mistaken (Edit: I am mistaken, though the dev seems to work on both).

I guess I’m just coming at it from the “firmware is free, app is paid/subscription” angle. Like, I could see the basic Meshtastic firmware remaining free but the one with the fancy UI (for things like the T-Deck) being paid and the app going paid/subscription.

I would hope the target audience for the project would discourage that kind of thing, but like you said, “these days” are what they are.

The “Cuatro Leches” is like the jackasses on The Price is Right who, seeing you’ve bid $500, bids $501.

They should be. I have never seen them anywhere in my neck of the woods, but I did find a vape juice that’s “Tres Leches” flavored. It’s pretty amazing.

Wow thanks! That’s actually super helpful. Gonna save this and probably throw it in a text document for later reference. I was 100% trying to do an all-in-one-go single project like you described because “that’s what i wanted it to look like”. The result was predictably frustrating and just awful.

I’ve watched a few tutorials but a lot of it went over my head or talked in terms I wasn’t familiar with yet or started in the middle of an existing project. Will definitely try breaking things down into smaller, simpler primitives. I’ve not done CAD work before so this is all brand new to me, so things like the actual workflow are things I need to learn (and you’ve described very well).

These are project cases for a Pi Zero clone, so FreeCAD would probably be the most logical choice. Though someone else commented a plugin for Blender that adds a CAD-like workflow to it.

Well, Kosst Amojan is one of the True Prophets (deep reference from “DS9: Millennium”).

My earbuds are the over-the-ear style, but I am now thinking about adding a chain to one of them and it would sort of look like this.

Well, switching the mouse navigation mode got me further and less frustrating than before, so progress I suppose! The default “CAD” navigation was hell to use with my trackball since the DPI button is right below the wheel and wheel + button to free rotate the model was just awkward on so many levels. OpenCascade seems to be the sweet spot.

I’ll stick with it. Was just hoping there was something more for dummies like me lol.

The humidity and enclosed space.

In environments where there is a high level of humidity, odor molecules can remain in the air for longer and spread out less. Combine that with the closed space and they linger a lot longer.

I remember the individual was frustrated because without the app, you couldn’t modify anything on the device…which seems very bad.

Sadly, that’s how this one is but the defaults are sane enough that you could get by without it. I didn’t buy it for the features that need the cloud service, so if those are unavailable, that was fine for my use case. The consolation is that configuring it can all be done with just the app over Bluetooth.

I’m hoping someone reverse engineers the Bluetooth protocol. I did a HCI dump while it was connecting and streaming data, but I can’t make the slightest bit of sense of it.

Literally that one, but I have the Gen 2 version.

Smartphone is not necessarily required, but if you want to change any of the settings (AC charge rate, maximum discharge depth, etc), you’ll need to use the app. You can use the app to connect to it via bluetooth directly. That said, it’s possible to use it without any app at all with the default settings and it works fine.

The app tries to steer you toward making an Anker account and connecting the unit to wifi (some features like WeatherGuard, time of use charging, etc require that) but you can use it without an account and connect locally via bluetooth. That’s how I do it, so no issues with a cloud connection as it’s not even using it. Though I did complain to support about how the app treats that use case as a second-class citizen. (When you open the app, it always lands you on the signup/login page and you have to click “Skip” in tiny text at the bottom to use the app locally via BT). The app also nags you that Google Play Services is required but it works fine without it.

I do use the app for remote monitoring and once to set the max discharge depth from 1% to 15% but otherwise it works fine standalone. The only thing making me slightly consider setting up the cloud connection is the HomeAssistant integration; there’s a module to tie it into HA, but it uses the cloud API rather than connecting over bluetooth :(

Locally, there’s nothing (not even scammers). I got 4x200 watt panels from Amazon and am using those with an Anker Solix C1000.

For the expansion in the spring, I’m probably going to order more of the same PV panels. For the combo inverter/charger, I’m looking at the ones from SungoldPower currently as well as a few others. Battery is still in the research phase, but the inverter can auto switch between solar and utility without the battery.

The wiring I can handle but will probably have an electrician do the wiring from my main breaker to the subpanel that’s fed from the solar inverter (grid tie is too caught up in expensive red tape to bother with here).

Not really an event, but I installed a small trial solar setup (800W with 1 kWh battery) this past autumn that I am quite pleased with (despite the utter lack of sun since November).

In the spring, I’m planning to expand that to something like a ~7 KW solar array, 10 KW inverter/charger, and hopefully around 16 kWh of battery.

Screw you, AEP and my rate nearly doubling year over year

“I used to be an adventurer like you, but then I took an arrow to the side”

I just review things technically. Like, if I buy a PC or piece of hardware, I like to include in the review if it works in Linux and provide details I wish would have been available in the listing.

e.g. I just bought a USB wifi adapter for a project. I noted that it worked in Linux, what kernel version and architecture, what chipset it has, and its reported capabilities. Here’s a truncated review I wrote (the rest of it is just the rest of the iw phy output.

I just stumbled across this. Probably available from other vendors, but for reference: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F1MWPF7G/134-3819393-6559008

Looks like it’s got everything you’re looking for and is pretty much a turn-key solution.

Paused SNW after finishing season 2 and just started reading Q-in-Law by Peter David. I’m not very far into it yet but it’s got Lwaxana and Q so I’m guessing it’s going to be “unstoppable force versus immovable object unstoppable force”.

If I couldn’t pull out because some little Urkel car did that, I’d be pissed. Pissed enough to call a buddy to help me pick it up and move it onto the sidewalk. 😅