They work well but the battery management in the first version of the firmware isn't great and they regularly lose network pairing information for me when the battery runs out so I upgraded to the latest firmware (which is documented as fixing this issue).
One of the often requested features on these buttons has been the ability to set an action on a double press (as well as the original single press and long press gestures). The later firmware versions have added this feature.
Unfortunately to implement a double press requires delaying the reaction to a single press. Lights that would previously change instantly now take about half a second to do so which is visibly slow and irritating when you know that it used to be faster and doesn't have to be this way.
Trying to get IKEA to fix this is likely to be impossible and they don't provide any kind of email-based support that would allow complex technical issues to be communicated. Even if they could be persuaded that there was a need to make a change it could take months or years before they implemented it.
I don't want to wait that long before I can upgrade all of my push buttons to get better battery management, so I've decompiled the latest firmware and determined what to change to be able to disable the double press feature and remove the 400ms delay on single presses:
Full details on the firmware modifications and accessing the flash.
]]>That worked ok but I wanted more integration with the light switch and since my living room lights could already be remotely switched by a different system I have consolidated both of them into a single light controller. There aren't any existing solutions for this that can handle multiple lights and multiple switches (you can have one relay/switch, or multiple relays plus multiple switches but Zigbee doesn't guarantee good integration in that scenario).
Using an ESP32-C6 I've made my own solution, the "Candle Dribbler" that satisfies my obscure requirements for how remotely controllable light switches should behave:
]]>Being under the worktop without any rear ventilation uses 25-30% more electricity too because the heat has nowhere to go. The fridge also becomes a freezer in the summer because the trapped heat at the back affects the internal thermostat resulting a feedback loop until my carrots are sitting in a frozen pool of ice.
Before I can get a new fridge and freezer they need to fit under the worktop. There are two popular widths for these appliances (55cm and 60cm) and both of the existing ones are 55cm wide in a space designed for that size only. In order to get the models that I want to fit I need to find an extra 5cm of space because the new fridge is only available in 60cm wide.
The cabinets to either side are made of wood so I took one of them out and made it 5cm narrower:
The cabinet doors are now too wide for the cabinet so one of them needs to be made smaller:
There's now an extra 5cm of space so I can fit a 60cm and 55cm appliance under the worktop.
The instructions for the new fridge and freezer come with warnings of damaging the compressor if there's no ventilation at the back. Some of the heat can escape over the top (to the front of the worktop) but not enough to stop an excessive build-up of heat in the summer.
I cut a long narrow ventilation hole in the back of the worktop and laser cut a cover for it out of plastic:
There's now enough ventilation for the heat to escape at the back. Be careful doing this with old appliances because my freezer immediately developed a condensation problem now that the excess heat was no longer warming the outer surfaces.
With all the worktop and cabinet alterations complete, I can now install the new fridge and freezer:
]]>The price is still £1 but that now only gets you 180g instead of 400g of soap - an increase of 222% with more outer packaging per bar.
]]>The NTFS boot sector (at the start of the partition) contains references to the sector size of the disk. This is unnecessary information on more modern filesystems but NTFS is 28 years old. Changing the following little-endian values allows Windows to use the filesystem without needing to recreate it (instructions assume a 4K cluster size):
Offset | Size | Name | Modification |
---|---|---|---|
0x0B | 2 bytes | Bytes per sector | 0x0200 (512) → 0x1000 (4096) |
0x0D | 1 byte | Sectors per cluster | 0x08 (8 * 512 = 4096) → 0x01 (1 * 4096 = 4096) |
0x1C | 4 bytes | Hidden sectors | The number of sectors preceding the partition |
0x28 | 4 bytes | Total sectors | The partition size in sectors |
I bought these speakers before purchasing a standing desk because my existing speakers were attached by a fixed length cable. The cable had to be a certain length because the volume controls used capacitive touch all the way back to the amplifier/subwoofer.
These speakers have a separate controller console attached using a cable with a DE-15 connector so it can be extended with any VGA extension cable.
I turn the power on/off remotely with a keyboard shortcut but the speakers always turn on in standby mode. Having reverse engineered the protocol between the console and amplifier I could bypass this but the console itself would still not turn on. If it's not turned on then the volume control knob won't do anything.
By decompiling the firmware on the microcontroller inside the console I was able to find and modify a parameter that would make it turn on automatically when powered on. I also found a hidden feature to disable the automatic standby that happens after 2 hours and the procedure for enabling this (hold the "level" button for 5 seconds until the level change light goes out).
Full details on the interface, protocol and firmware access.
]]>I put some other alarms up in 2015 and moved these ones into bedrooms but they were in need of replacing.
There are new minimum standards for fire alarms in Scotland that come into effect on 2021-02-01 that require interlinked smoke alarms in the main living area and hallways/landings as well as a heat alarm in the kitchen.
None of the other alarms are interlinked so I've replaced all of them with mains powered interlinked alarms. There's even a control panel to make the entire house start beeping or identify which alarm is detecting fire when it's not obvious:
I'll automatically get an email if a fire is detected.
]]>I've walked along the Yarra River, around Albert Park Lake, through the Botanic Gardens and been up to the Eureka Skydeck.
I visited Melbourne Zoo and went on a tour of the Great Ocean Road.
I went to all three days of PAX Australia at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.
I attended a performance of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child at the Princess Theatre.
I took several photos and a few videos.
]]>They're still advertising it as Bigger Pack Better Value
but now it costs 5% more to get the same amount of paper.
Having recently had the boiler replaced (with a higher maximum hot water output) I investigated what I could do to reduce the time taken to get hot water out of the tap and discovered that the 22mm pipes leading out of the cupboard went further than expected.
A 22mm pipe holds more than twice as much water as 15mm pipe so this results in a lot of unnecessary water in the pipes between the boiler and the taps. While this has little impact on the shower (mostly fed by newer 15mm pipe), it doubles the time taken for hot water to reach the tap in the sink because almost the entire run was in the old 22mm pipe (7 metres of it).
Even at a fast flow rate of 6 litres per minute that's an unnecessary additional 13 seconds for the hot water leaving the boiler to come out of the tap in the shower room and an extra 8 seconds for the kitchen sink at 10 litres per minute.
All of the 22mm pipes have now been replaced with 15mm pipes and the hot water now reaches the tap faster:
]]>
I purchased them from VR Optician (previously VR-Lens.eu
) and would strongly recommend them for anyone using VR who wears glasses. They fit on top of the Vive display and are easily removable.
I visited both the City Botanic Gardens and the Brisbane Botanic Gardens as well as the Museum of Brisbane and the Queensland Museum.
I went to Shorncliffe Pier and walked most of the way to Brighton along the coast. The suburb of Shorncliffe itself was almost deserted.
I walked the skywalk at Tamborine Mountain and along "Gallery Walk".
I spent a day at Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary, taking lots of photos of Rainbow Lorikeets and walking around the Kangaroo enclosure.
I went to Redcliffe for a day trip to Moreton Bay with Brisbane Whale Watching. There were a number of whales around and I managed to get photos of them breaching.
On the last day I took a tour to the Sunshine Coast Hinterland & Noosa.
I took a few hundred photos and some videos. It was definitely worth the effort and space in my hand luggage to take my 100-400mm lens with me to get photos at the wildlife sanctuary and of the whales.
]]>They haven't reduced the size of a wash (it's still 35ml) but the initial price for 38 washes is £8.00 whereas 40 washes only costs £7.00. At over £6 per litre this is significantly more expensive than the usual special offer prices of £3.33 to £3.57 per litre.
]]>