Wow, nearly a year since I blogged anything. That’s crazy - I must do better. However, for now at least, I’m back!

Today I’m going to give my first impressions of Mailpile, which is a slightly different take on the problem of handling/storing/interacting with email.

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(This is part 4 of my home automation blog series. See the automation category for the whole set) So, we have control of the HestiaPi Classic from OpenHAB, now it’s time to add some sensors and automate the control of the heating. OK, OK, it’s been a really long break from posting. What can I say, life kinda smacked me with a bunch of family issues. That’s all settled down now, and with winter coming on fast, it’s time to sort out the last mile of my open source heating system - responding to temperature sensors.

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(This is part 3 of my home automation blog series. See the automation category for the whole set) So far, we’ve got HestiaPi Classic speaking MQTT but nothing is really listening to it, or talking back. Time to fix that! Meet OpenHAB I’m not going to pull punches here, OpenHAB is a bit of a beast. It’s hugely flexible, but as with most systems, that flexibility comes at the cost of bit of a learning curve.

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(This is part 2 of my home automation blog series. See the automation category for the whole set) So, in part 1 I laid out the aims of the first part of this project - read that if you’re confused. In this part, I’ll detail how to get HestiaPi Classic and MQTT to play nicely together… Installing MQTT MQTT is just a standard - not a programming language in it’s own right.

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(This is part 1 of my home automation blog series. See the automation category for the whole set) Okay, okay, I said I’d blog more frequently and now it’s been over a year. Yikes, sorry, and other generic excuses. However, I do have a more exciting line of blog articles coming up! You see, I’ve been getting into home automation… I’ve been looking into open source approaches to home automation, and to some of the tooling that can be used to handle parts of the house infrastructure.

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I love to cook. This is not a secret - it’s pretty much impossible not to hear me talk about food at some point during any time spent with me. It’s probably my main hobby (at least, I do it almost every day, which means gaming is the only competitor on a frequency basis). But, despite having a blog, a website and social media, I do not post recipes.

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I’m overweight. There’s no getting away from this fact, I have the data to prove it. The problem here is not (mainly) one of excercise. I have a standing desk. I like walking. I have a small child. These (especially the last) make for a fairly active lifestyle - I have no shortage of opportunites to get my heart rate up. Nor do I eat (very) unhealthily - we cook every night, so there’s not an abundance of bad food in the house.

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