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Scargill's Tech Blog
Personal blog · tech.scargill.nethardwareproductivity
Scargill's Tech Blog is a personal blog at tech.scargill.net about hardware and productivity. Since 2016, 6 different Hacker News readers have linked it 8 times. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-27, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (8) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this blog for DIY IoT and home automation projects built on Raspberry Pi, ESP8266 and MQTT, along with notes on SoC boards, LED lighting and small gadgets.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 8 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Scargill's Tech Blog
What Hacker News says?
Don't even need to make it yourself, Itead sells the Sonoff for $4.85 + S&H. It's an ESP8266 connected to a relay, with integrated AC-DC power supply and a properly designed, physically isolated PCB. Two caveats are that it doesn't directly have a USB plug. The serial header is exposed and you can reprogram the device with your own firmware to make it report whatever you like, but you do need a USB-Serial cable and…
Comment linking /itead-slampher-and-sonoff/
on “More awful IoT stuff”There's some really useful stuff going on there - nice write-up. Anyone getting into this field should take a look at Peter Scargill's Tech Blog - he has published details and code for a home control system centered around a Pi using MQTT with a range of modules (mostly ESP8266). The most interesting recent stuff is on control, monitoring and dashboard design for phone and Web apps - his work on the dials and gauges…
Comment linking /
on “Raspberry Pi 3 based home automation with Node.js and React Native”I'm glad I found this and of course I'm familiar with Big Clive (I watch his stuff regularly), EEVBlog and others mentioned here.I've had mixed success with low-cost LED lighting and often discuss that and related subjects on my own blog at https://tech.scargill.net as well as reading what others have to say. I get a lot of feedback on that subject. I note comment below about Poundland. Related to that (I guess) is…
Comment linking /
on “Teardown of a $1.25 LED Lightbulb”Battery lasted for almost 4 days when I left just RPi Zero W, idling, connected to Wifi, without X11 running. Battery I am using is this: https://tech.scargill.net/ravpower-the-ultimate-pi-ups/ It indeed helpfully maintains stable power output when being plugged and unplugged from mains itself. But only on one of the output ports. Also this is not always true when there's active power consumer on the second port. Ot…
Comment linking /ravpower-the-ultimate-pi-ups/
on “Linux-based 4G phones with Google Assistant sold for $7 in Indonesia”It's originally intended as a commercial product to make smart home type stuff and the hobby interest is a bit of a lucky accident. It's still pretty new by industry standards so it's just starting to appear in products, mostly very cheap wifi-enabled plugs and stuff. Itead makes a pretty sweet wifi-enabled switch for about $6.00 shipped that is hackable to put your own tailor made firmware on. Pete Scargill has a g…
Comment linking /itead-slampher-and-sonoff/
on “First Impressions of a $9 CHIP Computer”There's useful insight into some of the SoC-based boards on Pete Scargill's IoT site chronicalling his gadget and MQTT-based work; it's well worth a browse... http://tech.scargill.net/
Comment linking /
on “64-bit Orange Pi – A Quad Core Computer for $20”Google results are gamed so much, that often personal blogs that don’t do SEO, but offer interesting content, appear beyond page 5 of Google search results, but are still relevant. Similar issues appear in many situations where search is used on third party results, but even on first-party results the first page is often gamed. I’ve been thinking about it, and ideally one would make a search engine that only indexes…
Comment linking /home-control-2016/
on “Ways to paginate in Postgres (2016)”Many people have already done this, such as the people who emulate DEC VTs with arduinos and suchlike for starters. * https://github.com/mkschreder/avr-vt100 * https://hackaday.io/project/13273-diy-vt100-a-miniature-hard... * https://hackaday.com/2010/02/24/oscilloscope-doubles-as-a-se... * https://tech.scargill.net/vt100-terminal-for-hc2016/
Comment linking /vt100-terminal-for-hc2016/
on “Ask HN: What do you love/hate about terminals? Would you change them?”