Trying to use a former Zigbee Coordinator as a RepeaterRan into an issue when trying to reuse a Sonoff ZBDongle-E Zigbee dongle as a repeater ("router" in Zigbee terms) and am sharing my findings here. Context This dongle was previously used as the actual1DJun 21 · 2 min readvictorchang.codes
Make Your Ceiling Fans Smart with Home Assistant - Round 2Following up on my post about controlling ceiling fans, let’s address some of the shortcomings, which are: ESPHome 2025.2 removed support for dbuezas’ CC1101 custom component. We need a way forward. IoT controls generally assume you can specificall...3MEJul 31, 2025 · 11 min readvictorchang.codes
Accurate Thermal Control with Basic Space HeatersThere’s a problem with temperature-controlled space heaters — they’re all terrible at temperature control. Hear me out It’s physically impossible for any (self-contained) space heater to maintain a target temperature with any respectable precision. A...Mar 16, 2025 · 6 min readvictorchang.codes
Controlling Ceiling Fans with Home AssistantMy ceiling fans are not smart, but let's try to control them using Home Assistant to make them smart! The key is that they have remote controls, so it should be possible to make something that can act like those remotes. Signal Gathering These are my...1DMay 13, 2024 · 6 min readvictorchang.codes
Reverse Engineering the Emporia Vue Utility ConnectI got the Emporia Vue Utility Connect with the intent of using jrouvier's port to ESPHome, but it turns out my model doesn't communicate the same way as the version jrouvier had. Specifically, upon flDec 10, 2023 · 7 min readvictorchang.codes
