Checking remotely if a display is working

By martinm, in DIY and Internet of Things, june 16,2017.

We sometimes have customers who ask us whether we have some ideas on how to check that a display supposed to show videos is actually on and works correctly. It so happens that yes, we have a few ideas :-)

A connected smoke detector

By mvuilleu, in Measures and DIY, april 28,2017.

The usual method to detect smoke consists in measuring the reflection of a light beam on the smoke particles suspended in the air. Although we don't explicitly have a smoke detector in our product catalogue, we recently started offering a product which can be used for this: the Yocto-RangeFinder. Indeed, this sensor uses exactly the same principle for its main feature (distance measurement) and can therefore easily be used as USB smoke detector, or even as a networked smoke detector.

Automating a coffee machine with a Yocto-Proximity

By seb, in DIY and Internet of Things, january 27,2017.

Five years ago, we modified our Jura coffee machine, which we nicknamed Josephine, to control it remotely via a web page. The idea was amusing but in fact this feature wasn't really useful as we still had to get up to place a cup in front of the coffee machine. But today, thanks to the Yocto-Proximity, we can do something more useful: We are going to brew a coffee as soon as a cup in placed on the machine.

A new animated Advent window

By mvuilleu, in DIY, december 23,2016.

If you have been following this blog for a while, you might remember our 2014 Advent window, for which we created an animated landscape in shadow play. This year, we created a new animated Advent window, but based on a different principle: a drawing with UV on a phosphorescent surface, with the help of an embryonic robotic plotter.

Yocto-Color, Neopixel and ping-pong balls

By martinm, in Internet of Things and DIY, december 09,2016.

This week, we present a small and quite simple DIY project based on the fact that white ping-pong balls make excellent light diffusers. We built a kind of multicolor chandelier, that you can drive through the Internet and which is PoE powered.