You can get the Raspberry Pi Pico on Amazon for just under $4 plus shipping costs. The much older ESP32 you get in various forms for just under $10. You see, you get the ESP32 for a little more money with additional sensors or a display to display sensor data (or even the IP address of the microcontroller) or a camera. On the Raspberry Pi Pico, there are quite new chip RP2040 installed which was … [Read more...]

Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) is a widely used technique for power delivery. ESP32 has dedicated hardware for PWM. Pulse-width modulation (PWM) of a signal or power source is a technique in which the duty cycle of a periodic signal (a sinusoidal or a square signal, for example) is modified. The duty cycle of a periodic signal is the relative width of its positive part relative to the period. … [Read more...]

In this article, we will discuss the electrical wiring required to set up a DIY IoT smart control system to control 8 3W spotlights, one ceiling fan and one Indian jhar bati (chandelier lamp). We have a total 8 number of connections where 8 out of 8 are dimmable and we are using the traditional piano/rocker switches. We have discussed about interfacing the piano/rocker switches with ESP32. We … [Read more...]

After reading our guide on How to Interface a Piano/Rocker Switch (SPST) With ESP32 Arduino, one reader has asked whether it is possible to keep all his ESP32 with relays and indicators at one room and connect the switches, sensors of the whole house via cables. That is possible to deploy but various hardware components will be required. Also, coding may need some change. I believe that so huge … [Read more...]

We are talking about the regular white colour rocker switches which are commonly used across the globe. They came into the market in the 70s replacing the tumbler switches made up of Bakelite and China clay. They are SPST switches ( read our old article Type of switches to know more). They have different names such as piano switch, rocker switch, decorator rocker switch etc. As because before … [Read more...]

Both Tasmota and ESPHome are nice "platforms" for building a smart home. We have already discussed the getting started part with Tasmota and ESP32. Depending on the use-case, ESPHome may be a better choice. In this article, we will discuss the practical things about ESPHome and Tasmota taking it granted that you are using an ESP32 development board.   Why ESP32 over … [Read more...]

Tasmota is an Open-Source firmware for ESP devices developed by Theo Arends (from the Netherlands). He is also the webmaster of a technology blog with nice tutorials. Tasmota is not written in "Arduino language", however, you will not need to code with Tasmota. It is mostly about uploading the code, hardly changing 1-2 lines for a custom configuration. Your hard work will give you a … [Read more...]

Before the lockdown, I was building a basic smart doorbell with ESP32 and IBM Watson IoT. The function is easy and practical. We are adding a circuit with ESP32 to an existing battery-operated doorbell. When a person will press the doorbell, you will receive a push notification on your mobile phone. (Long back) I created a video of the basic prototype and uploaded it to YouTube and completely … [Read more...]