This month, I received the M5Stack FIRE development kit with a PLC base kit from Banggood to review (see Fig. 1). After using it, I can affirm that the M5Stack takes an alternative approach to ESP32 prototyping, because the resulting projects are almost simultaneously finished products. This is possible because the board is housed in a stylish and robust hosing with graphics display, buttons, microSD card slot, USB-C port and speakers. I tested the M5Stack FIRE development kit, and the board includes also a MPU6050, MAG63110 (MPU9250 on the new versions), BSE3729 and a PSRAM to extend the ESP3...

A good friend of mine has an old printer and he was always thinking of buying some adapter to make it Wi-Fi compatible. He actually bought one, but it was not compatible! I told him to buy a Raspberry Pi W Zero and build a CUPS Print Server, but he did not have time to do that, so I planned as XMas gift! I hope he is not going to read this before he gets his present. :) - If you received this as a gift, your instructions are here.

A big challenge was to make it plug & play. I did not want to have his Wi-Fi credentials, and he should not use a terminal over SSH to configure it. I looked for som...

This time a quick tutorial to control your WiPy 3.0 / 2.0 or an ESP32 using Blynk.

Blynk is the most popular mobile app for the IOT. Works with anything: ESP8266, Arduino, Raspberry Pi, SparkFun and others.

I found a library to connect MicroPython to Blynk but it is only compatible with the WiPy 1.0. Thus, I modified it and made it compatible with the WiPy 3.0 / 2.0 and with the ESP32 running MicroPython. If you do not have any idea about MicroPython, I recommend you to read this tutorial.

This is what I will try to accomplish in this tutorial:

1. Install MicroPython (if you are using an ESP3...

I was looking at my last articles about MicroPython and my new articles about Jupyter and Docker, and I thought if it is possible to make a mix between Jupyter and the ESP boards. I use usually Visual Studio Code to program the ESP but for analytics I use Jupyter. I looked if it was possible to connect the Jupyter kernel to the ESP using the serial port and: Yes!, it is possible. This can be a great tool to teach kids to access data from connected sensors and analyze it using a browser with Jupyter.

This is what I will try to accomplish in this tutorial:

1. Install MicroPython
2. Install the Jupyte...

Out with the old, in with the new! Happy 2019!

It's been a two years now since I started this blog. It's a hard job to maintain it up-to-date but I still have fun writing and coding for this purpose! I hope the next year will be better than this one! :)

This post includes a new video for happy new year! The video combines some of the MicroPython code, that I've published this year. I'll be uploading the repo to GitHub in the next days. But, in the meantime enjoy the video, and check the MicroPython projects here!

Portainer is a management UI which allows you to easily manage your different Docker environments.

This is what I will try to accomplish in this tutorial. You will be able to:

• Run Portainer for Docker management on Windows, Linux and on a Cloud platform
• Start container with a predefined admin password, in case you are on a public network

Linux/Mac OSX

If you are running Docker on Ubuntu or Mac OSX, you can start using Portainer as a Docker Container typing the following:

docker volume create portainer_data
docker run -d -p 9000:9000 --name portainer --restart always -v /var/run/docker.sock:...

Quoting the official MicroPython's website:

MicroPython is a lean and efficient implementation of the Python 3 programming language that includes a small subset of the Python standard library and is optimised to run on microcontrollers and in constrained environments.

Besides C++ and C, I use MicroPython to program microcontrollers, especially the ESP32/ESP8266 types. These two microcontrollers are compatible with MicroPython and it is easy to integrate sensors and actors programming using this language. I wrote a tutorial about installing MicroPython on the ESPs, as well a lot of articles a...

LeMaRiva|tech wishes you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! To celebrate I made a video using the Xmas-lights from last year, but this time I connected the ESP32 to a Jupyter kernel to control the lights. A new Jupyter-ESP32 tutorial is coming soon. In the meantime, you can track Santa and spend time with your family!

	Code: https://github.com/lemariva/Xmas-lights

Hi there! the guys at InkDrop need some stars on GitHub! Follow the project and stayed tune! What? You don't know about InkDrop.tech?! Ok, no problem: Here you got a description!

	Repository: https://github.com/inkdrop-network/inkdrop-app

InkDrop

InkDrop is an open, easy-to-use and uncensorable social network. It is an open source project and can be considered the blockchain community’s answer to the major, privacy invading platforms we depend on today.

Today’s social networks are centrally controlled & moderated and they don’t pass back the proceeds to the creators. They rely on ...

Today, I am opening a new section on my blog, and this time it is about analytics. As you may know, I've been working in research on IIoT and analytics for the last years, but up to now my blog has only shown my hobbyist projects. I want to change the focus of my website a little bit and add something about data analytics, machine learning, Docker technology etc. Everything that I will be publishing in this section is not new. There are many tutorials and great YouTube videos that explain these topics too, but I am going to focus on building an end-to-end data science project using some of the...

On August I was contacted by Ben from Seeed Studio to review the Fusion service. I received a coupon, which could be used only to order PCB.

To define the Fusion service, I take this text from its website:

Seeed Fusion Service offers one-stop prototyping services for PCB manufacture,PCB assembly and other electronic and mechanical customized services such as CNC Milling, 3D printing and PCB layout services.

I didn't have at that time a design but I had something in mind that uses communication technology. I was experimenting using LoRa technology and I thought, I could managed to design a b...

This part 2 of the tutorial will allow you to get data from the smart power outlets and send it to the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) throught the Google IoT Core and using an ESP32 programmed with Zerynth (Python). This data is not usually available to the user (directly, you need to use the power outlet application), and it is sent to the company servers.

If you want to check, if your power outlets are compatible for this tutorial, they should have the port 6668 opened. To check that:

>>> nmap <<ip-address>> -p 6668
[...]
Host is up (0.13s latency).

PORT     STATE SERVICE
6668/tcp open  irc

Today there is a wide range of offer for home automation devices. A lot of sensors, actors etc. can be connected to the cloud and be controlled using Google Home, Amazon Alexa, your smartphone, etc. There are a lot of companies offering low cost devices, e.g. Sonoff, Tuya, Teckin etc. Most of these solutions are based on ESP32 or ESP8266, and all of them send data to cloud solutions usually deployed on Amazon services, and the data is only accessible using the Android/iOS applications. They can be also controlled using voice commands over Google Home or Amazon Alexa devices.

Nice, but... my a...

LoRa (Long Range) is a patented digital wireless data communication technology. It was developed by Cycleo of Grenoble in France and then acquired by Semtech in 2012. Semtech defines the Lora Technology "as the DNA of IoT, which connects sensors to the Cloud and enables real-time communication of data and analytics that can be utilized to enhance efficiency and productivity".

To sum up, LoRa is a wireless data communication technology that enables very-long-range transmissions (more than 10 km in rural areas) with low power consumption. It uses license-free sub-gigahertz radio frequency bands ...

This is my first review on a product that I bought. I hope you enjoy it! Advices and tips are welcome. Please leave me them in the comment section.

Update: I changed the title of the article from "#Reviews: RasPad - an open source tablet for Raspberry Pi" to "#Reviews: RasPad - a tablet for open-source platforms like Raspberry Pi". The table is a close-source solution for open-source platforms like Raspberry Pi, Beaglebone, etc. (thanks Zykino for your advice!)

Introduction

At the beginning of March I supported the Kickstarter campaign called RasPad. I pledged for the Super Early Bird - RasPad...