A server like the small Raspberry Pi usually sits in a remote location and has screen or input devices connected to it. To be able to control it remotely SSH is the de-facto standard on Linux. Here is how to set it up to control your smart home server from Read more…
A magic mirror is a stunning piece of furniture and tech but running it constantly draws a lot of power. I am switching mine on and off based on a motion sensor using Home Assistant. Here is how to do that. The Magic Mirror I have described how I built Read more…
A MagicMirror is a mirror with a screen behind it “magically” showing information on the mirror. Here is how I built an elegant and powerful MagicMirror with an oak frame. The screen The “Magic” mirror works by using a semi transparent mirror with a screen behind it. If the screen Read more…
I am currently building a smart mirror and want to use a small Raspberry Pi Zero W for that. Unfortunately MagicMirror² does not support it out of the box. Here is how I got it to run anyways. The magic mirror For those who do not know what a magic Read more…
Prometheus works great for collecting server stats on a Raspberry Pi but was missing some information on a Raspberry Pi in docker stats and the cadvisor used more CPU than the containers it was monitoring. Here is how fixed those issues. Cleaning up & fixing the downloaded dashboards When I Read more…
To analyze errors or just to watch what is happening: your smart home gets so much better with some proper monitoring. Prometheus + Grafana is one of THE solutions for monitoring pretty much anything. Getting it to run on a Raspberry Pi does not need much time but still can Read more…
Open source software like Zigbee2MQTT and Home Assistant are a great alternative to (more or less) closed systems like Philips Hue. It can be tricky to get started though. Here is a quick start guide allowing you to use all the advantages like full offline control and the possibility to Read more…
How can you print two colors with a single extruder? I need some with customizable plant labels and faced this issue. In the end the color change was astonishingly easy with Prusa slicer. Here is how to print such stylish plant labels. Some plants need labeling I was looking for Read more…
The digital, paperless future is coming closer and closer. When I was looking to go digital I ran into one major problem: automatic upload to Nextcloud. The automatic upload from your scanner makes digital copies of your documents available everywhere – but only to you! It turns out that his Read more…
A smart home server is the heart of your setup. It needs to be running well to power everything else. Monitoring Raspberry Pis, my favorite low power server, is easy to set up and helps you to detect errors early on. This is how you can easily set up monitoring Read more…