Computing Life

Indoor air can be much more polluted than the outdoor air. There are some "smart air purifier" like Dyson Air Purifier on the market, but they are usually very pricey, and lack APIs for customization. That's why I used a Raspberry Pi to build a smart air monitoring system ...

This post was published on zhihu (in Chinese).

The motivation is, it's getting cold in Seattle. And the condo we live reached an extent that we cannot bear any more. In addition to buying more (and more) heaters, I also began to think about where the energy went, because ...

After I released the IFTTT delay API, there was some interesting discussion going on in the comments. At the same time, I also found the delay API is still too simple. It still couldn't pass any information other than the event name. And this caused troubles in the applications ...

也发在知乎。

一个月前介绍了当前的智能家居生活，最近一个月又有了一些新的探索和心得。

首先是一些新的设备加入进来了，现在能控制的东西更多了。

• 温控器。因为家里的暖气比较老，是市电直接接上电暖气，不能直接用Echobee/Nest之类智能温控器。网上有一些自己装继电器和变压器，把强电变成弱电控制的改造方法，但问了一圈电工都不愿意接这个活，这搞得我也不敢动手了。。后来发现有一个加拿大公司做了这种强电直接控制电暖气的智能温控，买来以后发现又便宜又好用。于是现在可以直接用手机/IFTTT控制家里每个房间的温度了。它还有温度和湿度的传感器，还可以和除湿机加湿器配合起来用。
• 智能门锁。我用的是August。其实就是一个可以用手机遥控开关门的小东西，可以和IFTTT/Echo/Siri接起来。很贴心的一个功能是自动开门。当它发现你离开家200米以外又回来，并且蓝牙连上了它鉴权通过以后，它就会自动开门。实际生活中感觉这个功能很好用，尤其是推着自行车，手上拿着包裹，嘴里还叼着信的时候，不用把所有东西都放下来拿钥匙开门实在幸福感爆棚。注意有个坑是它的Android App很难连上，自动开门也不太work。iPhone就无比顺滑。Amazon上带HomeKit的版本评价比不带HomeKit的版本评价也更高。
• iBeacon。这个东西偏geek一点(如下图)。它本质上是个蓝牙小广播站，不停地向外广播我在这里我在这里，我的发射信号强度是这么强。所以iphone就可以知道大概离它有多远 ...

Ifttt is the de facto hub for smart home now. Nearly everything can be connected to it and personally I have ~20 connected devices (hue, WeMo, echo, lock, thermostat, ...) and tens of recipes. But one thing ifttt still cannot do is adding delay to the recipes. Say, I have a ...