AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation Review

November 8, 2024 | Comment

It’s been a while since I have reviewed any hardware but upgrading my AirPods to the latest version gives me the opportunity to rectify that.

There are now four different variants of the AirPods – two for the standard edition and two for the Pros. I have decided to go for the more expensive of the standard editions, the AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation, which is what I am reviewing here.

In (and out) of Use

Everything about these new AirPods is small: the box, the charging case and the headphones themselves. Gone is the old toothbrush design to … Read the rest

Using a Raspberry Pi Camera to create a time-lapsed video (Revisited)

September 25, 2024 | Comment

Last January I wrote about the Raspberry Pi Camera that I had set-up to take hourly pictures of my garden which I then turned in to a time lapse video. You can read about that and see the resulting videos and code here:

Using a Raspberry Pi Camera to create a time-lapsed video

One of the things that I said at the time I wanted to do was to do a video that cover the whole year. Now that 12 months have passed since the first snaps taken I am in a position to do so.

Getting the Pictures

Like … Read the rest

An Open Letter to Google

April 22, 2024 | Comment

Dear Google,

In 2014, around about the same time that you Nest Labs, I bought and had installed a Nest Learning Thermostat to control our central heating and give us remote access. I think that it has been a great success, so much so that I have recently upgraded to the latest version that also allows our hot water to be controlled.

I then had an idea! What if I could see temperatures around the house and use that data to get better control over resources there? So I wrote a simple dashboard which I called The Weather Station. I’ve … Read the rest

Using a Raspberry Pi Camera to create a time-lapsed video

January 31, 2024 | 1 comment

For my birthday last year I was bought a Raspberry Pi Camera Module 3 which I’d wanted for a while. I’d decided that I wanted to create a time-lapse video showing the change in seasons in the back garden. The rest of this article describes what I did and the results.

Setting up

As this didn’t require a huge amount of computing power I paired the camera module with a Raspberry Pi Zero 2W.

That turned out to be the easy bit! Getting it fixed such that there weren’t any reflections from the window took a bit of creativity. What … Read the rest

PiHut’s Maker Advent Calendar 2023 – Day Twelve Project

December 24, 2023 | Comment

And here we have the very last projects from this year’s PiHut’s Maker Advent Calendar – Let it Glow. Today we are making use of the LCD screen that came in box 12 along with the string of RGB lights and the temperature sensor from previous boxes.

As part of the design of the calendar there are two double width boxes for day one and 12 leading you to assume (correctly) that you get double the goodies in these. While you don’t actually get double the contents you do get double the value as these boxes contain higher cost items. … Read the rest

PiHut’s Maker Advent Calendar 2023 – Day Twelve

December 23, 2023 | Comment

The final box of this year’s PiHut’s Maker Advent Calendar – Let it Glow. Today is a big box like the first and similarly, this contains a big item. Have a look at the video to see what’s included and check back tomorrow for the final video going through the projects making use of this very special item!

Day Twelve included the following:

  • 1x 16×2 LCD (with I2C backpack)
  • 4x Male to female jumper wires
… Read the rest

PiHut’s Maker Advent Calendar 2023 – Day Eleven Project

December 22, 2023 | Comment

Today’s projects had strong ZX Spectrum vibes. When I was a youth I used to hammer the spongy keyboard of first the ZX81 and then the ZX Spectrum writing programs in BASIC. The Spectrum keyboard was particularly difficult as it had multiple functions on each key. The 4-way membrane keypad included in box 11 very much reminded me of the Spectrum. Oh, happy days!

As you will see from the video below we are now combining the contents from several boxes to create interesting projects. The last one today, as you will see from the video, doesn’t include any … Read the rest

PiHut’s Maker Advent Calendar 2023 – Day Eleven

December 21, 2023 | Comment

We’ve reached the penultimate day of this year’s PiHut’s Maker Advent Calendar – Let it Glow and today it is another non-light item in the box. Have a look at the video below to see what’s included.

Day Eleven included the following:

  • 1x 4-way membrane keypad
  • 1x 5-way extra-long header strip
  • 5x Male to male jumper wires
… Read the rest

PiHut’s Maker Advent Calendar 2023 – Day Ten Project

December 20, 2023 | Comment

🎵It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas🎶

Back to the land of lighting today with a 15-LED addressable RGB dot strip from box ten. Like the circle LED light from day eight this has multiple LEDs each of which can be accessed individually to change its colour and intensity. This strip light looks and feels very much like the LED lights that you get for your Christmas tree and the projects reflected that today.

Have a look at the video below which runs through most of the projects.

… Read the rest