Getting air quality with ESP8266 and Amazon Alexa

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/WvbpKBgGWjM/0.jpg

If last week I've managed to get the temperature and humidity with ESP8266 and Alexa, now it's time to integrate the air quality sensor GP2Y1010AU0F from Sharp.
The GP2Y1010AU0F it is a compact optical dust sensor that has an infrared emitting diode and a phototransistor that are diagonally arranged. It detects in fact the reflected light of the present dust in the air. It is effective to detect very fine particle like cigarette smoke and it can distinguish from the house smoke from the house dust.
GP2Y1010AU0F sensor. It has 6 pins and the electronic inside is split in two parts, the IRED emitting part and...

Getting temperature from ESP8266 over MQTT with Amazon Alexa

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/QQ5jtqvm_HQ/0.jpg

With the help of the Iotcentral.eu platform now I can get room temperature or outside temperature with just an ESP8266 and a temperature sensor like DHT22 or DS18B20 or BMP280.
The Alexa is questioning the iotcentral.eu server that will ask my local broker that will publish a message the the ESP8266 to ask the temperature for my room. The values for temperature and humidity will travel the other way around to Alexa, that is so nice and is letting me know about them.
On Iotcentral.eu you will find also a demoapp ( source code on git) for a plug, but you can...

On the Linux Kernel Enforcement Statement

I'm late with covering this here, but work overload is having its toll on my ability to blog.

On October 16th, key Linux Kernel developers have released and anounced the Linux Kernel Community Enforcement Statemnt.

In its actual text, those key kernel developers cover

compliance with the reciprocal sharing obligations of GPLv2 is critical and mandatory

acknowledgement to the right to enforce

expression of interest to ensure that enforcement actions are conducted in a manner beneficial to the larger community

a method to provide reinstatement of rights after ceasing a license violation (see below)

that legal action is a last resort

that after resolving any non-compliance, the formerly incompliant user is...

SFLC sues SFC over trademark infringement

As the Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) has publicly disclosed on their website, it appears that Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) has filed for a trademark infringement lawsuit against SFC.

SFLC has launched SFC in 2006, and SFLC has helped and endorsed SFC in the past.

This lawsuit is hard to believe. What has this community come to, if its various members - who used all to be respected equally - start filing law suits against each other?

It's of course not known what kind of negotiations might have happened out-of-court before an actual lawsuit has been filed. Nevertheless, one would have hoped that people are able to talk to...

Obtaining the local IP address of an unbound UDP socket

Sometimes one is finding an interesting problem and is surprised that there is not a multitude of blog post, stackoverflow answers or the like about it.

A (I think) not so uncommon problem when working with datagram sockets is that you may want to know the local IP address that the OS/kernel chooses when sending a packet to a given destination.

In an unbound UDP socket, you basically send and receive packets with any number of peers from a single socket. When sending a packet to destination Y, you simply pass the destination address/port into the sendto() socket function, and the OS/kernel will figure out which of its local...

Invited keynote + TTCN-3 talk at netdevconf 2.2 in Seoul

It was a big surprise that I've recently been invited to give a keynote on netfilter history at netdevconf 2.2.

First of all, I wouldn't have expected netfilter to be that relevant next to all the other [core] networking topics at netdevconf. Secondly, I've not been doing any work on netfilter for about a decade now, so my memory is a bit rusty by now ;)

Speaking of Rusty: Timing wise there is apparently a nice coincidence that I'll be able to meet up with him in Berlin later this month, i.e. hopefully we can spend some time reminiscing about old times and see what kind of...

Ten years Openmoko Neo1973 release anniversary dinner

As I noted earlier this year, 2017 marks the tenth anniversary of shipping the first Openmoko phone, the Neo1973.

On this occasion, a number of the key people managed to gather for an anniversary dinner in Taipei. Thanks for everyone who could make it, it was very good to see them together again. Sadly, by far not everyone could attend. You have been missed!

The award for the most crazy attendee of the meeting goes out to my friend Milosch, who has actually flown from his home in the UK to Taiwan, only to meet up with old friends and attend the anniversary dinner.

You can some pictures in...

On Vacation

In case you're wondering about the lack of activity not only on this blog but also in git repositories, mailing lists and the like: I've been on vacation since September 13. It's my usual "one month in Taiwan" routine, during which I spend some time in Taipei, but also take several long motorbike tours around mostly rural Taiwan.

You can find the occasional snapshot in my twitter feed, such as the, pictures, here and there.

MQTT Broker on ESP8266

Running an MQTT broker to serve all devices for a house ( 20pcs) it requires at least a Raspberry Pi or an equivalent SOC.
SD card fails from time to time and requires some Linux skills to make it work and the final price is over USD 70. (Good power supply, case, HDMI cable, keyboard )
But how about running an MQTT broker on this USD 3.99 ESP8266 board ? It is possible ? Yes, it is ! Go to http://iotcentral.eu and with few clicks you will be able to flash your ESP8266 ( 4Mb) with the binary. 
No need to compile code,...

When all you have is a hammer…….

Last weekend I attended a retro-computing fair at the Centre of Computing History in Cambridge.  This was my first visit to this popuar museum and I was impressed by the range of exhibits that they had on show.

35 years ago – Cambridge was buzzing with computer activity – and it was home to at least two of the prominent home computer companies in the early 1980s – Acorn and Sinclair.  Machines of this era were on prominent display throughout the museum.

I got my first computer around this same time – a ZX81 which I built up from a kit –...