u/nickymoo

Time lapse from 9pm-7am. At around 6am the key moves.

Afternoon, all.

For a few months been tinkering with a 64×64 RGB weather display and it has gradually acquired a life of its own.

The display runs on a Pimoroni Interstate 75 W and shows temperature, humidity, daily min/max temp and pressure trend, along with animated weather. Rain gradually fills the bottom of the display like a puddle and drains away afterwards, while snow accumulates more slowly.

I've just uploaded a html version of this to the repo (browser-emulator.html) so you can test what it looks like without buying hardware.

It was originally mirroring what an old 433mhz sensor put out, but backed by a database, but it's turned into a bit of a fruit machine.

Then I started adding completely unnecessary things like animated birds, ducks with a trail of ducklings, fish when the water gets deep enough, falling leaves (wind direction), shooting stars and the occasional UFO. Every half hour (after sunset) a UFO arrives and abducts the main temperature reading before returning it. Obviously.

My own version gets its local sensor data from a Raspberry Pi 3 running InfluxDB and a small Python weather server. It uses 433 MHz temperature/humidity and lightning sensors plus a BMP280 for pressure, with Open-Meteo providing forecast information.

I realised that wasn't particularly useful to anyone wanting to build one without recreating my entire home weather setup, so I've now made a standalone version. It runs entirely on the Interstate 75 W (which has a Raspberry Pi Pico RP2350 built in) and fetches temperature, humidity, pressure, rain/snow and forecast data directly from Open-Meteo over Wi-Fi. No Raspberry Pi server, weather sensors or API key required.

As my own version was all coded to work from my own network and influx database hosted on a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B with an SDR sniffing my weather and lightning sensors, I asked ChatGPT to optimise it all and create a version that anyone can use.

I tested the standalone build on the actual matrix today and, somewhat surprisingly after all the code I've piled into it and ChatGPT has optimised it to work just from Open-Metero, it works.

Code: https://github.com/nickymoomeh/Interstate75WeatherMatrix

Hardware is an Interstate 75 W, a 64×64 HUB75 matrix and a suitable power supply. Enter your Wi-Fi details and location, copy the files across and off it goes.

The original sensor-backed version is still running at home because apparently knowing the weather isn't enough unless a tiny pixel UFO occasionally steals the temperature.

64x64 matrix display: https://thepihut.com/products/rgb-full-colour-led-matrix-panel-2-5mm-pitch-64x64-pixels
Interstate 75/RP2350 controller: https://thepihut.com/products/interstate-75-w-rp2350-rgb-led-matrix-driver
Power supply (as the display/Interstate 75 suck a lot of power): https://thepihut.com/products/raspberry-pi-27w-usb-c-power-supply

If you've got any questions, let me know, but I think everything you need is on the repo. You just need to add your lat/lon to the config.py and your wifi details to secrets.py and copy them over.

Also, for this public repo, ChatGPT is so much better at optimising my original code that evolved over time from something quite basic to having woodland creatures, textured water, birds and UFO's that it's now running at 8fps quite happily now, and anyone can use it without a 433mhz lightning sensor, without a BM280 pressure sensor connected via GPIO, without a 433mhz humidity and temperature sensor and without a locally running influx db. So it works purely on Open-Meteo based on the lat/lon you enter. Thanks Chaz Jippity for not making the palette update 128 times every five minutes like it was before because I didn't notice and just thought it was going a bit slow because of the wind and rain.

The lightning data comes from open-meteo on this stand-alone one, my home version has a red warning that triggers when a lightning strike is detected from the 433mhz lightning sensor, but open-meteo lacks that, but you might still see a red bottom left & right corner when lightning is forecast on open-meteo but lack the immediate notification that there is lightning.

The official Raspberry Pi M.2 HAT+ Compact arrived a couple of days ago for my Raspberry Pi 5 4gb from The Pi Hut.

There aren't any useful pictures of the fitting online so I thought I'd put this here for those interested, or those who might search for it the future.

The kit came with three spacers, six shorter screws and three longer screws with no description of why or which to use in the online assembly instructions.

Tip: If you're fitting this in the official RPi5 case you can save yourself taking it all apart after you think you've done it all and put the LONG screws through the BOTTOM of the case. So from below it's long screws > through case bottom > through bottom of Raspberry Pi > into spacers.

Otherwise you'll end up finding the long screws fit but then the top screws can't go in far enough so you swap for six short screws (three top and three bottom) then when you're all done you'll find the RPi no longer fits in the case then you'll realise you have to take the screws out and then put the long screws through the bottom of the case which secures the Pi to the bottom case.

The fan connection is a bit fiddly to put in when the hat is secured as they're quite flush but I just used a little screwdriver to push both sides of the connector in until it seated properly.

I powered RPi 5 on and it was running at 47c so did some heavy work (watch -n 2 'vcgencmd measure_temp; vcgencmd get_throttled' in one window, and stress-ng --cpu 4 --timeout 5m --metrics-brief in another shell) to kick the fan on and it's all working normally and it sat at 69c after a couple of minutes with the fan running.

The top lid (the one that goes above the fan) is a bit tighter than it used to be, but still fits and I can't work out why it's tighter but it still clips in okay but takes a bit more force than usual to remove.

Now I'm just waiting for my Samsung SSD PM991a 256gb to arrive which I understand is the same model Raspberry Pi use for their branded 256gb SSD at the moment so hopefully that'll work.

Also, the SSD screw in the HAT+ Compact was in very, very tight out of the box so I've loosened this a bit in preparation for the arrival of the drive.

Managed to burn through 3.1gb of data on a quick speed test earlier on on 5G with Smarty.

I go on holiday a few times a year and always wanted to take Sky Q with me. I’ve got a close relative who is elderly, disabled and has dementia so while we go out every day, she does like to watch Sky Q and finds learning other TV systems difficult.

The various streaming alternatives just aren't as nice or good as Sky Q. I had considered buying a Sky Stream subscription but I understand I can't have Sky Q and Sky Stream at the same address and people aren't all that impressed with Sky Stream, plus I understand Sky get upset if you take it away. The Now TV interface just makes me sad. So I take Sky Q with me.

Back in the day there was a 'slingbox' service but that was shut down a long time ago so I decided to make my own Raspberry Pi based system. I have a Sky Q mini box in a spare room (excuse the dust) so I use that as my broadcasting box.

Home setup
Internet connection (wireless is fine)
Raspberry Pi (I'm using a Pi 5 1gb) £43.20
Official Raspberry Pi 5 case including built in fan (£9.99)
Grove infra-red emitter (£4.20)
HDMI (HDCP 'compatible') USB 2.0 capture card (£12.59)
Sky Q mini box in spare room
You'll also need a Grove 4-pin Female Jumper to Grove 4-pin Conversion Cable (one for home, one for holiday) but a 5-pack is £3.40
Cheap smart plug to power cycle the Sky Q mini box in case it gets upset (I use a zigbee plug as I've got lots of Zigbee devices to control via Alexa)

Holiday setup
Internet connection (3.5mb/sec should do it but lower is fine)
Raspberry Pi (you could use another Pi 5 1gb, but I bought a Pi400 4gb model as I wanted a keyboard for easy debugging and the Pi400 made it easier) but it's £76.80 and a good investment. A Pi 4 (£33.60) would do
Grove infra-red receiver £3.80
Your Sky Q mini remote control!

How it works
I wrote a service that sits on Pi5 at home and listens for an incoming connection (I use the free Tailscale service as it's nice and secure). THe Pi5 is headless so doesn't plug into the telly or anything, and the TV doesn't have to be on at home.
The Pi400 comes with me on holiday and it plugs into the TV. It doesn't have a fancy GUI or anything. It boots up to a service I wrote.

When you press the Sky button on holiday the infra-red receiver screens it to see if it's a valid code (and not a volume button or anything for the holiday telly) and then transmits it over the t'interwebs via Tailscale back home to my Pi5 which then transmits the Sky button code to the Sky Q mini box in the spare room. It then starts the stream on the default 3mb/sec video + 128kb/sec AAC audio and transmits the video to Pi400 on holiday. The Pi5 is encoding 720p50hz using FFmpeg.

There is a 3-4 second delay and this increases to about six seconds after a nine hour long uninterrupted stream. If you press the Sky button on your Sky Q remote on holiday then the stream restarts.

Pi400 has a hardware decoder and sits at around 40c or less while decoding the stream.

It took a while teaching the infra-red receiver the codes from the Sky Q remote and I ended up capturing them one at a time, saving them in a file then using the same file for the transmitter at home. It screens out things like duplicate button presses within 300ms.

I also created a 'command mode' where I could manually switch the stream quality using the Sky Q remote. If I press the ? button three times followed by 1 it restarts the stream at 2mb/sec, ???2 starts at 3mb/sec, ???3 starts at 4.5mb/sec. ???+power button turns off the stream and leaves the Sky Q box on at home. Hitting Sky always restarts the stream so if you don't want to do that then pressing the Home button avoids that. Restarting the stream takes about 5-6 seconds so isn't a problem anyway.

The place I usually stay has 13mb/sec internet so the default settings are fine and reliable. I did experiment with super low latency connections (???4-???6) but haven't really used them.

Pi400 originally used FFmpeg to decode but it didn't use the Pi400's hardware decoder but the command-line driven VLC for Linux keeps the audio in sync with the video even after hours of use.

The Pi 5 sits at about 60-64c when encoding (the official Pi5 case has a fan built in). The Pi400 is super cool as it has a heat spreader so the CPU sits around 40c when working.

Issues
The only issues I have is that navigating the menus is a bit wonky with a three second lag, so I wanted to create a button display so an up arrow appeared on the screen immediately when it was pressed so you get instant feedback but I couldn't get that to work, then I tried to get a gentle 'boop' sound when a button was pressed but it didn't like that either. So now I just get Pi400 to flash the red num-lock & caps lock lights on the keyboard when a valid code is received to transmit home.

I could build a dynamic video selection process but given the internet connection at home (1gb/sec) and on holiday (13mb/sec) is stable, I've not needed it. I could always restart at a lower quality stream if I wanted.

I did start a Sky Holiday iPad project but have decided I just want to watch my telly on the telly.

720p?
The TV on holiday is only about 32" and I'd rather have a stable and reliable 720p50hz video than possibly a more patchy 1080p video. I guess I could do 4k if I wanted but the Sky Q mini box only does 1080p anyway. I've had several long 'soak tests' before using it for real for a few weeks while away and you get used to the 720p video even on a much larger telly. The alternative is Now TV or various web apps so being able to use Sky Q at home while away is ideal, even if there is a lag of a few seconds when navigating menus but you get used to it.

HDCP
All programming I pay for works while I'm away. Live TV, recordings, Sky Store purchases and all sorts, but you need a suitable HDCP 'compatible' capture card. Some of them don't pass along a valid HDCP code so Sky Q would fail on protected content.

Virtual remote
The best remote control for Sky Q is the Sky Q remote so I bring it with me.

But I coded a web based remote control in case I forgot the remote or it broke or something, it also gives stream status data. Screenshots attached. Please excuse the dust. The downstairs staff left a long time ago and I'm really busy. Promise.

Just about finished a Raspberry Pi project I've been tinkering with over the last few weeks.

The aim was to watch my home Sky Q Mini box while away on holiday, so I ended up building a DIY "Slingbox" using two Pis.

Home
Pi 5 1gb + HDMI (and HDCP err 'compliant') capture card
H.264 encoding with ffmpeg
Grove IR blaster to control the Sky Q Mini remotely (GPIO)

Holiday cottage
Pi 400 decoding the stream (nice to have a keyboard in case of issues...)
Grove IR receiver so I can use the original Sky remote as if the box was in the same room (via GPIO)

The two Pis are connected over Tailscale, so pressing a button on the Sky remote at the cottage sends the IR command over t'interwebs back to the Pi 5 at home, which blasts it to the Sky box at home.

I also added health monitoring with Pushover notifications, nightly backups of all my Pis, and a few recovery options if anything hangs while I'm away (mostly a zigbee smart plug that I can tell Alexa to turn off and on again as a power cycle)

It's currently on its second long soak test. CPU usage is around 25–30% on the Pi5 1gb encoder, about 5% on the Pi400 decoder thanks to hardware decoding, and everything has been stable apart from a slow increase in latency over several hours (pressing the Sky button restarts the stream, so that's my workaround for now).

It's been a fun project, and it's surprisingly satisfying to have built something that behaves like a commercial place shifting device using a couple of Raspberry Pis. It's a shame that Slingbox shut down years ago but I just needed such a service again and an inexpensive Pi5 1gb and a Pi400 (I could have bought another Pi5 1gb, but I just wanted a keyboard with me while I was away and having a Pi400 just seemed like a good idea as I just bought the starter kit from The Pi Hut.

I have set up the encoding at 720p50hz, 3mb/sec H264 (128kb/sec audio AAC). It defaults to 3mb/sec but I set up a 'control' mode by pressing the '?' button on the Sky remote three times followed by 1 changes to 2mb/sec, ???2 to 3mb/sec (default) and ???3 to 4.5mb/sec as the place I'm staying has about 13mb/sec wireless internet. I also set up ???[power button] to stop the stream and ???4-6 for extreme low latency but didn't end up using it. There is a 3-4 second lag between button presses just due to buffering. The audio stays in sync with the video for hours (I tried up to 8 hours).

I did try ffmpeg as the decoder originally on Pi400 but it wasn't using hardware decoding and would get behind terribly so after a quick experiment with VLC as the decoder I never moved off of VLC.

I also captured all the remote codes I need via the IR receiver and set it to screen out any others (so I'm not sending the volume buttons or stuff for the TV where we're staying). I've tried it via my iPhone's wifi hotspot and it seems to work out when on a variable connection. I'm not streaming 4k 60hz or anything, but given that the UK uses 50hz and the Sky Q box outputs 1080p I thought 720p would be okay and it looks fine even on a bigger telly at home for the tests.

The only things I couldn't get to work are some kind of audio boop when I press a remote control button (if you're navigating through menus or typing channel numbers in you have to understand that there's 3-4 seconds of lag so no instant feedback) - I also tried to get an icon pop up on screen when a button was pressed to show the button pressed as a number or arrow but wouldn't work. Then I had an idea about using subtitles in VLC for it but I couldn't get 'live' subtitles to work at all. So I ended up flashing the red Caps lock/Num lock lights on the Pi400 keyboard when a valid remote code was received as a workaround.

Oh, and I made a dashboard that I can open on my iPhone (via tailscale) where I can select stream and see stream data and it also ended up developing into a stand-alone web page based remote control so the dashboard lives on the Pi400 and then sends the IR commands to Pi5 at home when I press any buttons.

Now reports the full charge at around 3.9v. It’s gone from a 10,000mah power bank to an 8,000mah power bank.

Edit: 5000mah models also have same 80% issue. https://github.com/meshtastic/firmware/issues/10848

When I leave positive feedback for my postie, does this actually go anywhere or is it just swallowed up by the survey and goes nowhere?

Before I log a bug report, has anyone else got a C6L? When connected via WiFi the C6L lasts about five minutes then will just reboot.

Turned TCP/wifi off and it’s been up for 50 minutes now.

Running the latest 2.7.15 beta, had a full erase and install when it arrived in the post earlier on today. Set as Client_Base if that helps.

Have been going through bug reports and there are some for WiFi enabled nodes but they’re instant boot loops rather than working okay for five minutes then rebooting.

No device is connected via WiFi at the time, the act of the C6L being connected to the WiFi network seems to do it even if my Mac and meshtastic and closed and off.

Screenshot shows plenty of heap space available, and you can just see the bottom line of uptime 4m on the tiny display before it rebooted a minute later.

Apart from getting rid of Alexa+ is there any way that we can make it just use the routines?

For years we say “I’m going out” or “we’re going out” and it’ll arm the various security cameras (see screenshot 2) but now it just wishes us well which is not really what it needs to do.

Just noticed that the Alexa integration with blink lets you announce separately for person or motion. Previously it was just any old motion.

Is this new?

Following on from this: https://www.reddit.com/r/drivingUK/comments/1qylnwf/submerged_pothole_spotting/

After denying liability, the local council offered me £31.50 for my replacement exploded tyre after hitting the failed pothole repair (even though they were inspecting the submerged failed repair two hours before I drove through it according to the local facebook group) - I issued county court proceedings and the council settled for the full value of the exploded replacement tyre plus my court fees!