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Addressable LEDs with particle photon and BLYNK

Ever since seeing a few addressable LED and PHOTON videos on youtube, I have always wanted to make a fun project for these devices. I was having such a good time I made a maple box to house it and then found the blynk app that allowed me to make it even better. For all of this to work you need to have a general understanding of how to connect your Photon Particle to your account,actually connect to the web through USB or the app , general soldering and particle IDE knowledge. If you would like a more step by step for the initial connection and setup that cannot be found through the links below or online through the learning tools on teh particle website let me know in the comments. Particle Photon documentation https://www.blynk.cc/ There may be other apps out in the app store but this one looked like and seemed like a great option. I did not test on IOS just android but would love to hear back if it is as awesome on IOS as it is on android. I could have gotten all the function
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Podcasts Ranking - Final Days 2017

As in my previous ranking of my current podcasts, they go in order of best to do not make time to listen to that much anymore. Standouts for the year, or best new podcast to the fray. - The business of machining , presented by John Saunders and John Grimsmo  Saunders links- Youtube Instagram Website Grimsmo links- Youtube Instagram Website The podcasts revolves around John and John having weekly conversations to check in with one another about the current going ones in their entrepreneur journeys and then deciding to share it every Friday with people whom would be interested in their discussions about the journey they are on to share and document the process of running and growing a business in the internet age. - Reasonable Doubt , presented by Adam Carolla and Mark Geragos LA issues with some law discussions between two very engaging hosts. It is hard to explain this but it is a very good podcast. Just listen to check it out.
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Smart Things - Motion Sensors, Battery drains way to fast

I have two of these ST motion sensors that I installed in early January as part of my first smart home device controls. One turns on the lights in the entry way upon opening any of the doors and entering. It is great if you have your hands full and is controlled to only operate between 30 minutes before sunset and 30 minutes after sunrise in the "stock" smart things light automation tasks and stays illuminated for 1 minute after motion stops. The second controls the hue bloom under our bed that illuminates the edges, no more stubbed toes or struggling to find your way around and operates on the same schedule as above. It is a great addition and is by far my favorite, Smart device pairing I have done. ( I know there are other options for this functionality that are cheaper and just as useful, search around amazon) It does other functions as well besides the lights, ( hence why I did not pursue the other options mentioned above) It also starts a fan if myself or significa
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Tired of being bugged by bugs...Zap-It!

I usually do not condone killing animals for sport but.... this is the most satisfying noise when you get a mosquito with one of these. Especially when you are at risk of being carried of my a deer/moose fly in central/northern Maine. These Zap-it Rackets are a great addition to camp(ing), they charge through your micro USB charger and have a light for finding that pesky mosquito that sneaked into camp when you are trying to read or hang out in peace.   Happy Hunting ;)
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Smart Things - Hue Bloom No Hue bridge!

HUE bloom control from smart things, with no hue bridge. I recently received a Samsung SmartThings Smart Home Hub & Philips Hue Bloom, Zigbee, Works with Amazon Alexa  and was excited to get started automating lights and changing its colors, from the app and the google home. After a bit of research ( aka googling and reading the ST forums)  all I could find was that I needed the Hue Bridge to connect the ST hub to the Hue Bloom. This did not sit well with me and I though the protocols must be sort of universal to turn on/off, intensity, color. So I got the ST app to at least recognize the device even if it did not know what it was and started to systematically go through the ST ide   to figure out if I could tell the app that it was a smart light with color control. After some trial and error I found a solution that allows me to use the ST automation to control the On/Off, color and intensity from the app. I can also now use the Google home ( setting it as a device in Google Hom
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SmartThings HUB - Thoughts & early observations

I received a SmartThings hub as a gift this past holiday season and have been working on the integrations between different manufacturers and services (Belkin, HUE, Logitech, IFTTT , Google assistant, Home Assistant -> Raspberry pi based automation, Particle photon,....) It was purchased through amazon and look like the image below: All the testing and tinkering has been great, and I have found the SmartThings app to be the best way to interact with all the things ( as it should be, they were early and are continuing to improve). Trying to use IFTTT to control stuff and plugging into other services is great but if SmartThings has the option use it. Simplicity is the key to all of this home automation, working, succeeding, continuing,... ( I enjoy the aspects of figuring it out and making it work, while dealing with a few hiccups, I do not think most people would have been as easy going about it and would have gotten quite frustrated, it is easy to get frustrated. You just e
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Podcasts Ranking - Spring 2016

Check out my rankings, I always arrange within pocket casts my favorite podcasts. Starting at the top left and going right then down line by line.
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