nico.ninja A deep dive journey about electronics, computers, radio and so on

  • HC-SR501 PIR Sensor and Home Assistant

    Living in a two-floor apartment has many good things and some bad things. And I assure you, trying to walk between the stairs semi-asleep in total darkness on an early winter morning is one of the worst. Follow me on my journey of automating as many things as I can...


  • Using your Yubikey for SSH

    Yubikey is a great security product. They are also very reliable. My first Yubikey is still working and has been in service for almost ten years. In addition to their capabilities of hardware-based second-factor authentication, they can also be used to sign in servers with SSH. In this post, I...


  • Migrating to Home Assistant

    A few weeks ago, a friend reminded me of the simplicity and capacity of Home Assistant as a home automation framework. While I’m not reticent to changes, most of my home automation goes through Apple HomeKit, and I’m somewhat happy with it. However, HomeKit leans on the basic side. Let’s...


  • AC power meter

    I’ve been investigating those generic WiFi AC power meters for the last few months, like this one. I’m not entirely happy about connecting third-party stuff to my local network. Even though I have a separate VLAN for IoT, it’s weird to install someone else’s hardware with god knows what kind...


  • Apple Home compatible led strip

    It’s been a while since I tinkered with HomeKit, Apple’s framework for controlling smart home devices and appliances. My last project was the air conditioner controller that I posted here. Now, I’m considering improving my office lighting. During the early months of summer, I get plenty of sunlight through the...