this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2023
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Asklemmy

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Edit: so it turns out that every hobby can be expensive if you do it long enough.

Also I love how you talk about your hobby as some addicts.

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[โ€“] csolisr@sns.azkware.net 1 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Believe it or not, self-hosting! I went from renting a VPS for $40 a month, to purchasing an entire $150 machine at home, plus $50 or so in additional storage, plus a $20 a month VPS solely to bypass NAT restrictions... plus a few hundred dollars more when I first started, because I cheaped out on components and managed to brick not one, but two Intel BIOSes trying to update them.

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[โ€“] Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 year ago

Mine is pretty basic but is built on the shoulders of giants. Also that $20 was from pre-pandemic / pre-chip shortage prices. I'm guessing it's more like $35 now, or maybe high $20s from ali express.

I use Home Assistant for home automation. It has a now official addon called ESPHome for easily configuring esp devices and adding them to Home Assistant.

  • I bought some cheap dev boards off amazon and thankfully they worked
    • an esp8266 microcontroller with IC2 headers and a microusb port already onboard
    • a bmp280 that measures temp, humidity, and barometric pressure
    • a lux sensor with a plastic dome over the top
  • I soldered them together on a prototyping board

All the components were supported by esphome, so I just needed to write the device config and then flash the devboard via esphome (in a web browser) over the built in usb.

I 3d printed a housing for it, but you can also buy boxes. It needs airflow but also needs to stay dry. You can use a spray sealant to help avoid corrosion from ambient humidity. I skipped that step because I want to see how quickly it becomes problematic... and I should probably check on that.

[โ€“] lom@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

That moment when your hobbies are most of the comments. Running, biking, camping, computers and photography (haven't spent any money on this yet so we good) :/

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