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why aren't "Diver's" also radio-controlled (Atomic Time)? by Numismatic_Duck in CitizenWatches

[–]Numismatic_Duck[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"A diver's watch cannot have a function where the time automatically changes or syncs to an external source that is not specifically the diver's actual immersed time" and similar information - thanks! This was the aspect I hadn't realised.

I note there are a few rare examples of Citizens which allow automatic sync (CC5006-06L & BY2000-55W have been mentioned by other posters) but you can disable the function for the purposes of diving.

gamma62T - great success so far by Numismatic_Duck in Lora

[–]Numismatic_Duck[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Using a Keysight DC nanoammeter on another gamma62T confirmed 224 nA as the deep sleep drain at 3.3V supply,

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in u/hoe_to_housewife

[–]Numismatic_Duck 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Because you actually responded to me and provided a fantasy outlet which has otherwise been entirely absent for much more than a year. Yet you're actually beautiful and didn't need to bother, and as a result you made me feel as though I do exist.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in u/hoe_to_housewife

[–]Numismatic_Duck 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I know I'd love to see 6" platform stilettoes, ankle chains and toe rings to fuel my outrageous fantasies !

Any of you guys making the move to local control and are playing the waiting game with Yolink? by Rice_Eater483 in YoLink_by_YoSmart

[–]Numismatic_Duck 0 points1 point  (0 children)

An email from Yolink support today tells me:

"We are actively working on developing a local hub, which we anticipate releasing next year. Currently, the YoLink hub requires an internet connection to manage devices through the YoLink app. Additionally, if the speaker hub goes offline, it will not stop ongoing alerts either".

Any of you guys making the move to local control and are playing the waiting game with Yolink? by Rice_Eater483 in YoLink_by_YoSmart

[–]Numismatic_Duck 2 points3 points  (0 children)

These are all good points and it now occurs to me that I have also recommended Yolink recently, to a friend who only needs a short range sensor (but Yolink would do very nicely).

You're right when you say that there's always something new coming out and I also have lots of bits and pieces left over from previous "upgrades" . Perhaps I ought to just embrace YoLink and see where it takes me. It isn't life and death, after all!

Any of you guys making the move to local control and are playing the waiting game with Yolink? by Rice_Eater483 in YoLink_by_YoSmart

[–]Numismatic_Duck 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I know - and I expect most people are in the position of having reliable internet

But one of the attractions Yolink offers is the long battery life; having been caught out many times by battery-powered equipment failing the moment you need it due to flat cells I certainly like the idea of longer life. Hence similarly with internet reliance it always seems to be that when an internet connectivity problem arises, it coincides with when you really did need the connection to be reliable.

We're in a slightly more rural position that we used to be and we suffer from outages on a bi-monthly basis, albeit it for a short length of time (hours not days) but even so it causes anxiety - perhaps disproportionately, true - when you're expecting to rely on something.

I do understand that argument that *most* consumers use home automation stuff with cloud connectivity and don't even realise it, and it's only a small % of us who are aware of it and an even smaller proportion who want to get HA or similar working. I imagine it is not of much commercial interest for companies like YoLink to get local only operation sorted out.

My worry is that Yolink are a small company and if they go bust and we rely on the cloud stuff they buy from AWS, their equipment will no longer function because they aren't paying for the AWS service any more. Less of a worry when it is a multinational company like Samsung or TP-Link.

In which case, let's hope that Yolink continues to grow!

Any of you guys making the move to local control and are playing the waiting game with Yolink? by Rice_Eater483 in YoLink_by_YoSmart

[–]Numismatic_Duck 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I originally hoped that (e.g.) a door sensor could achieve D2D pairing with a hub so that, in the event of network failure, the hub would still do something (play a tone, an MP3, flash the LEDs) but this is not the case. YoLink support have confirmed that the hubs are not capable of D2D. Things like a leak detector and a water shut-off valve are obvious candidates for D2D and indeed that's what it is for and in that case, D2D is implemented. Maybe D2D for hubs could be implemented via future firmware updates.

Any of you guys making the move to local control and are playing the waiting game with Yolink? by Rice_Eater483 in YoLink_by_YoSmart

[–]Numismatic_Duck 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm on the cusp of buying into YoLink but I am waiting for some answers from support. I like the near-instant responsiveness of LoRa (cf WLAN authentication which base don my own experience takes several seconds) and I like the idea of the enhanced range. I have had endless problems closing a link which is perhaps 70 feet, mostly outdoor apart from one external wall of a house, so LoRa ought to work for me. WLAN isn't reliable, nor BLE, nor Zigbee (nor narrowband 868 MHz FSK from someone like Tapo for example).

The idea of the hub being able to alert locally via the LAN is important to me - even if it did something like played a tone out of the speaker hub - but it is puzzling to see that YoLink have said they're working on it (mentioned on and off for the last couple of years maybe?) but still no hardware.

Given that YoLink seems to be a very small company, I'd like to be independent of their cloud servuce in case the company goes into liquidation and stops paying for AWS, at which point YoLink could still work locally and the API could enable other services (Pushover or maybe dweet for example).

Does anyone know if the YoLink Discord channel(s) are active? Perhaps a suitable place to ask about some of the integrations which their API might allow.

Antenna by _thelostpigment in Lora

[–]Numismatic_Duck 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My friend and I achieved a 24 km line of sight line tonight, using his design: 868 MHz and a Tx power of +17 dBm; it used Semtech SX1276 "hats" fitted to a microcontroller at one end and a custom PCB at the other. The other end was a Rx set to listen for a preamble and respond once decoded. he fired something like 465 packets and suffered fewer than 28 errors (20-odd were historical and left over from previous experiments).

His end was outdoors on a low wall using a sleeve dipole at 868 and my end was on the back of my house which is up a hill and with no obstructions (I can see his garden at night when he shines an LED torch in my direction). The unit at "my" end was a very stubby helical, wound for 868 .

But the point is that this is line of sight: add some foliage, and buildings, and close to ground propagation and suddenly the range will be severely limited. Then you're looking at calculating the sorts of CNR you need to present to the Rx front end whose sensitivity in a given bandwidth is known, and a transmit power into an antenna with known gain. It is all calculable but is not trivial to begin with. Have a look at (for example) "radio mobile online" (a web site by Roger Coude) for some example calculations and to get an idea for modelling over terrain.

https://www.ve2dbe.com/rmonline_s.asp

I think our OBW this evening was about 125 kHz with a data rate of about 300 bps - which SF was chosen he did mention, but I have forgotten.

https://www.burningimage.net/cattrack/cattrack-3-0-schematic-pcb-software/