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Showing posts from August, 2016

Using ESPEasy with Home Assistant via MQTT

Preface: I've just started playing around with Home Assistant on a Raspberry Pi and exploring the world of MQTT to control devices on the network. Learning curve is a bit steep but worth the effort as MQTT is very fast. The hardware and software tools I'm using are as follows: 2 x Sonoff relay units 2 x NodeMCU Boards ESPEasy firmware (must be version 121 or above as that contains the MQTT 'retain' flag option. Home Assistant software on Raspberry Pi2 MQTT Test Software: PC: MQTT.fx Android: MQTT Dashboard

My views on using Trakt with Kodi

I've been a long time user of Kodi (+10yrs) and recently started exploring Trakt weighing up the pro's and cons as I look after a few Kodi Pi's for friends. I have an Intel NUC in my lounge and a Pi in another room but as I use a Synology NAS to serve up my library, I already had synced watched states. I must say, the learning curve for Trakt is pretty steep. I was a TV Technician by trade so I pick things up pretty quickly but I didn't find the Trakt website all that intuitive. Here is what I've found to be the pros and cons over the last eight weeks or so.