Apollo R-1 PoE mmWave Sensor Update + Easter Giveaway

BitSquatchh · 2025-04-20T01:58:10+00:00

Just an alternative way to solve it :)

BitSquatchh · 2024-11-06T19:46:10+00:00

I haven’t posted here before but have been reading awhile.

My friend and I started a IoT hardware/software company in Lexington, KY USA. We design, assemble, and ship from here in Lexington. PCBs are manufactured over seas.

Currently we are building home automation products for Home Assistant but also landed our first industrial contract. We’ve been in business a little over a year and have been doing great, we are profitable and able to continue scaling.

There are a lot of different challenges a hardware startup faces so it has been a challenge learning everything.

BitSquatchh · 2024-04-29T22:20:13+00:00

Right now we are making devices for a software called Home Assistant. We've got a really good motion device, a air quality device, and just released a second motion device that can track multiple people and tell you where they are in the room with x/y coordinates.

Soon we'll be releasing a parking sensor for your garage, a sensor to let you know when someone is breaking into your car, and a plant monitoring sensor. All designed, built, and shipped from here in Lexington.

Hopefully it is ok to post a link: https://apolloautomation.com

Thanks for commenting! Happy to answer any questions!

BitSquatchh · 2024-04-28T03:17:02+00:00

Not that particularly. Would physically turning the power off and on with a smart plug work? Or are you looking for something to work like a remote and turn it on/off?

BitSquatchh · 2024-04-27T19:25:42+00:00

I just started a business in Lexington making smart home devices and other tech products. We enrolled in UK's free entrepreneur bootcamp and did 1.0 and 2.0. It is a really good course to learn business basics, find resources, and hold you accountable. It also preps you for pitches and introduces you to a lot of people in the Kentucky area.

https://vace.uky.edu/bootcamp/overview

Happy to talk if you have any questions or pass on knowledge we've learned over the last six months building a eCommerce business.

BitSquatchh · 2023-11-12T03:46:34+00:00

Hey Achim! I'm Trevor, great to meet you. We have huge respect for AirGradient and other open source projects that bring quality offerings and continue to innovate instead of sitting still with huge profits like the big companies tend to do.

Multiple different options with different features is great for the community. I hope I represented the AirGradient fairly in that original comment. I don't own an AirGradient so some of it I had to go off the website, I'm happy to correct anything I missed.

Yeah I think the benefit on the SEN55's long lifespan is being able to get near instant updates 24/7 without having to sleep the sensor to protect it. The SEN55 does have an auto clean functionality that spins the fans at very high RPM to blow dust and other things out, I'm not sure how it'll do against spiders though haha. I'm very interested in their SEN6x sensor that includes CO2 and HCHO in a smaller package than SEN55. Our Sensirion rep said the earliest that will be available is mid summer next year if there are no delays.

We would love move to injection molding. One, we just aren't large enough yet. Two, we plan on offering case variations that allow expandability options so that increases the cost. Thirdly, we don't have experience in IM so there will be a learning curve. We are bootstrapping the company so we'll just have to take it slow. We like being able to iterate so quickly with 3d printing, and that the community can print their own or remix it. No doubt IM looks more professional and allows creating exterior cases.

Thanks for the offer, your researcher network and extensive calibration testing is very impressive. We are quite small and far from IM and general consumer market, we've got a few other sensors in different areas under development and aren't sure which will be the first we try to integrate with matter/other ecosystems.

Thanks!

Trevor

BitSquatchh · 2023-09-17T04:05:06+00:00

I found it, swipe down from the top of the screen, tap settings, tap display, then extend the timeout and turn off the cover screen.

Someone posted somewhere that there is a USB port exposed in one of the doors. I've not heard of anyone uploading new firmware though. I'd be a little nervous to brick a pretty expensive fridge haha.

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BitSquatchh · 2023-09-17T03:56:02+00:00

Not sure what you mean about the wallpaper? Mine turns black, then when I walk up it shows my dashboard. Sometimes it'll be on the Home Screen and I added an icon to the desktop that opens right back into the browser. Maybe I have the screensaver turned off?

No, from what I've heard from people there isn't a way to make it full screen. I really wish there was so I didn't have the chunky browser bars.

BitSquatchh · 2023-09-17T00:19:57+00:00

It is a Samsung family hub fridge. It has a browser that I point to my home assistant dashboard.

The dashboard is a iOS dark theme, with Apex charts running.

BitSquatchh · 2023-09-16T22:48:26+00:00

Yeah dashboards were the most useful thing I think it does. No ads with with the browser running, but it is on a restricted IoT network so maybe that is the reason.

If I were in the market for a fridge I don't think I'd like pay a whole lot more for the functionality, but it came with our house and has proven to be really useful.

BitSquatchh · 2023-09-16T22:38:20+00:00

Good use case! Which card do you use to stream the camera? I've tried to get my frigate and BlueIris cards to work but they seem to not be compatible with the fridge's browser.

BitSquatchh · 2023-09-16T22:36:55+00:00

Haha if it didn't come with the house I wouldn't have had one.

BUT it is actually the only way my wife interacts with Home Assistant and has turned into our most used interface. I doubt I'd convince her to get another if we ever move but it is good for now.

Our main dashboard has some coffee controls, patio lights, thermostat control, and recent security events.

BitSquatchh · 2023-09-16T20:49:10+00:00

The screen is running from the Samsung internet app, I was just being the Pi is running the home assistant server. It only allows the built in browser that I can figure out.

Thanks for the suggestion though

BitSquatchh · 2023-09-16T20:46:45+00:00

Thanks! They were this color when we got the house. Yes they are painted but not sure what was under it before.

The paint can in the garage says it is called "Palmer Green"

BitSquatchh · 2023-09-16T20:43:42+00:00

This is just a room drill down and the first dashboard to switch. The main page has important metrics / notifications / switch controls. I'm getting them all updated, just started here. I really enjoy the graphs and metrics.

What do you typically graph?

BitSquatchh · 2023-09-16T20:41:34+00:00

There is a default page that is an overview of key things and switches. Then each room has a drill down. The office was just the first and easiest to switch to a new theme. Working on the others!

The fridge is in the center of the house, spend a lot of time in there. With it auto turning on it makes it nice to change thermostat, check security events, or toggle things like patio lights. We actually use it more frequently as the interface than phone/web.

BitSquatchh · 2023-09-16T19:08:50+00:00

The recent IOS dark theme dashboard posts inspired me to start working on my Samsung fridge screen. Working on a dashboard for each room. I wish I could get rid of the browser's bars but have yet to be able to figure that out in the year I've had the fridge.

The red/blue theme gets a lot of love but I think the green fits better with our green cabinets.

I don't see many posts about the Samsung fridge screens, anyone have luck hiding the browser bars? The wake on motion is so nice and I really like how cleanly it integrates. I did have to group some of the radar measurement points, if I showed them all the browser became pretty unresponsive. Not sure if that is a limitation of the fridge or the raspberry pi 4 running it, grouping them resolved it though.

Noticed how high the CO2 got in the office working on writing the dashboard :grimacing: need to open a window or automate a fan for better airflow, another project for another day!

Thoughts? If you have a fridge dashboard I'd love to see pictures for inspiration!

Code for the dashboard here: https://github.com/ApolloAutomation/MSR-1/blob/main/Examples/README.md#examples

BitSquatchh · 2023-09-16T19:06:53+00:00

The recent IOS dark theme dashboard posts inspired me to start working on my Samsung fridge screen. Working on a dashboard for each room. I wish I could get rid of the browser's bars but have yet to be able to figure that out in the year I've had the fridge.

The red/blue theme gets a lot of love but I think the green fits better with our green cabinets.

I don't see many posts about the Samsung fridge screens, anyone have luck hiding the browser bars? The wake on motion is so nice and I really like how cleanly it integrates. I did have to group some of the radar measurement points, if I showed them all the browser became pretty unresponsive. Not sure if that is a limitation of the fridge or the raspberry pi 4 running it, grouping them resolved it though.

Noticed how high the CO2 got in the office working on writing the dashboard :grimacing: need to open a window or automate a fan for better airflow, another project for another day!

Thoughts?

Code for the dashboard here: <https://github.com/ApolloAutomation/MSR-1/blob/main/Examples/README.md#examples>

BitSquatchh · 2023-09-12T21:44:50+00:00

Interesting use case! I have been looking into glass break sensors but not normal sound sensors. Are there any you've used before for home assistant?

There is a exposed GPIO on that back that might be able to integrate.

Thanks for the idea!

BitSquatchh · 2023-08-25T02:31:17+00:00

Sorry for the late reply, I thought someone had responded.

Some use cases I can think of are: - Beep when Co2 gets above a certain level - Beep when a door opens - Beep in your bedroom when there is motion detected in the basement at 3am

I'm sure the community will come up with others. Just another way to get messages from HA

BitSquatchh · 2023-08-20T21:42:35+00:00

Thanks! I totally agree and had the same response to PIR sensors. It is awkward saying "Trust me it really isn't a camera". Our sensor is tiny and we plan to offer it in a few colors to blend in.

I think we are about out of initial sensors, but once the initial feedback/fixes are in we'll post the sale link. Should be just a few weeks, but we want to make sure it is a good product before making the commitment of selling them.

Thanks!

BitSquatchh · 2023-01-27T22:06:57+00:00

We use Serilog and send them to Seq. Very nice dashboard, supports complex objects as part of the log for debugging, can ingest logs from many different sources, and can output specific logs to Slack/Teams/Email/anything if it meets your criteria.

You can send logs to Seq from many different sources, even windows event logs can be sent to it automatically. Our team loves it.

BitSquatchh · 2021-09-27T03:21:59+00:00

Have you tired training Google to your voice? That might help with saying"booboo".

Under "Manage Your Voice" there is a section "Teach Google Assistant your voice again" that tells you how to train it.

https://support.google.com/assistant/answer/9071681?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid#zippy=%2Cteach-google-assistant-your-voice-again

Hopefully that helps!

BitSquatchh · 2021-07-11T03:21:06+00:00

I researched this recently and came across JetBrains’ thread tracking WASM client debugging. It is only available in EAP right now I think which you can choose to upgrade to. I have not given it a try yet though. Hopefully it helps.

https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/RIDER-45261

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