Darkoshi

This year I bought a set of Twinkly lights for the Christmas tree. Each bulb can be programmed to any color, and the app has bunches of pre-programmed effects to choose from, or you can create your own. I haven't even put any ornaments on the tree yet, and it's already so beautiful!!!

I also installed the latest version of the Foobar2000 music player on my laptop, with the projectM visualizer component, which "reimplements the esteemed Winamp Milkdrop by Geiss". I then connected the laptop via HDMI cable to the big TV, to play the visualizations on the TV. I turned on the whatchamacallit box, to play the TV sound through the external speakers.

It is awesomely beautiful.

Some of the Twinkly effects in the app have a music icon to let the Christmas tree lights flash in rhythm to music/sound picked up by the phone's microphone. But that's only working for me so far in preview mode... I'm very new to this.

Let me see if I can take a video and if Youtube will let me post it in spite of the music in the background.
...
Here we go:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWDImT75xwg

New "Twinkly" brand lights on Christmas tree (without yet having been "mapped" in the app), and foobar2000 music player with projectM visualizer on computer and TV.
The background music on this video is "Violet Shrine" by Dan O'Connor (DanoSongs.com) (I removed the actual music that was being played by foobar2000 due to copyright).

For a while we were having fireworks and lightning AND fireflies aka lightning bugs at the same time.
I told Qiao if we get lucky, we'll get an earthquake too.

Now it is pouring down rain and someone has still been managing to set off a few fireworks (the noise at least).

I thought I had switched out most light bulbs in my house to LED bulbs by now.
But I just counted them and was surprised by how many CFLs I still have.
I wonder if I should replace them with LED bulbs even though they're still working fine?

And I wonder if I do replace them, should I take the CFLs to a recycling drop-off, or ask if anyone around here wants them? Doing the latter might just shift the higher energy consumption from me to someone else. Or are there people still using incandescents who might appreciate "upgrading" to CFLs for free?

I may even still have a few incandescents in use myself, in 2 ceiling light fixtures where the glass shade covers the bulbs, so one can't easily tell. Too much of a bother to check, and they are in the hallway and washer-dryer nook where I don't usually leave the lights on for a long time anyway. But I really ought to get out the step-stool and check them sometime.

Prior episode.

I've now taken this LED light strand outside to put up on the porch for the holidays. It has bulbs of 5 alternating colors (red, blue, green, yellow, pink/purple).

When I plugged it in outside, there were several bulbs in the strand not lighting up. I think these same bulbs weren't working inside anymore either, but I didn't check it carefully before so am not certain.

4 of the non-working bulbs were at the far end. I pulled out the first of them (the one next to the working bulbs). The other 3 that were out came back on. Hrmmm?

The strand had 2 spare bulbs. I plugged one if them into the empty socket, and it worked.

In the middle of the strand were 2 more non-working bulbs next to each other. I pulled one of them out. The other one came back on. Hrmmm. I put the 2nd spare bulb in the now-empty socket, and it works. I am now out of spare bulbs.

Near the beginning of the strand are 2 more non-working bulbs. These are the 2 mentioned in the prior episode, which would sometimes flicker on and off. I pulled one out. Again, the other one came on. I pulled the 2nd one out... the whole strand goes out. Apparently that happens whenever 2 bulbs are out. You can have one out but not two.

I put the first bad bulb into the 2nd one's socket, and the 2nd one in the 1st's socket. The strand comes on again, except for those 2 bulbs. I try pulling the next light on either side of those 2 out. Each time, those 2 remain out, as well as the pulled-out one now being out.

Curiously, all 3 "bad" bulbs I pulled out are pink ones. I saw the last one flicker on and off the last time I put it back in, so I think they're not completely bad. But they may have a bad connection inside, as previously suggested by randomdreams.

I do a web search, but find no page discussing a weird LED light strand problem like this, where one bad bulb makes another one (or another 3) not turn on.

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Earlier I did find something useful, though. I'm putting up 2 different strands on the porch, and they would fit best if there was an extension cord of about 6 feet put between them. I tried a normal indoor extension cord, but its plug is polarized and therefore doesn't fit into the end of a light strand.

I searched online for a 2-prong extension cord *without* a polarized plug, but didn't find any.
But I found these tutorials on how to make your own, from an old strand of lights. I have some of those actually, which I'd been planning to recycle. But now they can still be of use to me!

The first of these videos seems much simpler than what's described in the 2nd, but I think they are basically doing the same thing.


Video title: How To Make a Christmas Light Extension Cord (HowToLou.com)
Posted by: HowToLou
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOw8TgRVJ70
Date posted: Nov 23, 2012



Video title: How to convert Christmas Light strings in to FREE extension cords for Light O Rama
Posted by: Leechburg Lights
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrQMTEVb3JU
Date posted: Dec 29, 2012

I've set up one of my Wyze cams outside on the porch. Its power cable connects to the porch's lamp fixture. The lamp fixture has 2 candelabra-sized bulb sockets. I screwed a candelabra-to-regular-size socket adapter in one of the sockets, and into that a socket-to-outlet adapter. Into that, I plugged the Wyze cam's power adapter, which converts the 110V AC power to the 5V USB used by the camera.

With this setup, the lamp's power has to be kept turned on so that the camera can work 24/7. I'd like to have a bulb in the lamp's 2nd socket, but don't want the bulb on during the daytime.

I could use a daylight-sensor adapter along with a regular bulb. If the light were to be on all night, it should be a yellow bug-light to reduce the number of flying insects attracted to the porch area.

There are bug lights with candelabra bases. But when one adds a light sensor adapter to it, which also requires a socket adapter, they might not all fit into the lamp fixture. And daylight sensors haven't worked well for me in the past, especially under a porch roof which limits the amount of light that gets to the sensor.

I don't really want to keep the porch light on all night anyway. There's enough light from the nearby street lamp for most purposes.

So I instead tried out a remote-controlled color-changing light bulb. I can set it to an orange-yellow color, and can turn it on and off with the included remote. But I found that the remote control has to be fairly close to the bulb to work, and it doesn't work through the house wall.

If there's someone on the porch whose face you want to see more clearly before opening the door, having to step outside with the remote to turn on the light isn't practical.

Then I started thinking about smart bulbs controlled by wi-fi. Wyze now has smart bulbs, so I bought one of them to try out. These bulbs can be adjusted between warm & daylight whites but not to other colors. Therefore I wouldn't put it on the porch and leave it turned on all night, as that would attract insects. But it should suffice for intermittent on/off porch use.

To control the bulb, one can use the Wyze app on one's smartphone. That should work through the house wall just like the Wyze cam does. But I'd prefer a simpler and quicker way to turn the bulb on & off.

Qiao had bought an Echo Dot a long time ago, but for whatever reason never set it up. Lately, I've been curious to try it out. If I were to keep the echo dot near my front door, I should be able to turn the bulb on and off with voice commands without needing to touch my phone or have the phone nearby.

Setting up the Echo Dot requires using the Alexa app. I'm not sure I want to install Alexa on my phone, because of all the permissions it requires. Maybe I could disable some of the permissions that bother me, before it gets a chance to download all my contact info and texts to the Amazon servers somewhere, but I'm not sure.

I wouldn't mind installing Alexa on the iPad as I don't have much personal info on it, but the iPad is v9, and Alexa requires v11.

So now I'm looking if there's a way to set it up without having Alexa on my phone... Per this page, it may be possible: Can I set up and use an Echo without having a Smart phone?

I got to wondering if this approach would still work when the internet is down but my wi-fi is still up. My voice would activate the Echo Dot... would the Echo send a command message directly to the bulb? Or would it send a message over the internet to the Wyze servers or to some IFTTT server, which would then control the bulb? I'm not sure yet. (For that matter, does the Echo need to send my voice command to a server somewhere, to decode it and determine what command I am giving? I think it does. Otherwise Amazon's servers wouldn't have recordings of your voice commands, but from what I've read, they do. That would explain this report where all of a home's smart devices stopped working during an internet outage.)

All this because of that cam on the porch, and I'm not even sure I like it out there. It's too easy for someone to steal or vandalize. Pointing down from the soffit, it's field of view isn't even very good. I'd really like to install a few more cameras outside in other locations, but those aren't as well protected and don't have as easy access to a power supply, so would require more work.

But still, it is some fun trying these things out.

Wyze keeps coming out with neat new things. They're working on an outdoor camera that will be battery-powered. That will make things like this a lot easier, maybe.

..

Update, 2019/12/09:
Yesterday I also mounted a Wyze motion sensor above the front door. That lets me get a notification on my phone (if desired), or a video clip to be saved to the cloud when motion is detected in that area. The cams themselves have motion detection based on analyzing the video stream, but that gets triggered too often to be very useful (from branches moving in the wind, cars driving by, etc.). The motion sensor is triggered by body heat, so should be more discerning.

I had already mounted a contact sensor on the front door a week or so ago, which also lets you trigger events.

So last night I realized I could set up an IFTTT (if-this-then-that) trigger so that when motion is detected, to turn on the light bulb for a few minutes. I could also include conditions to only do it when it is after sunset, or only when the door is currently closed.

Then I realized I could mount another contact sensor on the inside wall by the door, with another trigger set up for it, and thereby have the sensor be a pseudo-light-switch (to be able to turn the light on without first opening the door), controlled by me manually moving one half of the sensor away from the other half.

But only as long as the internet and wi-fi are up and working.

Update, 2019/12/12:
I have discovered that the Wyze app lets you set up simple rules/triggers, so having an ifttt.com account isn't even necessary. The rules can be like "when motion is detected and it is between 8pm and 6am, turn on the light" or "if the light has been on for 5 minutes, turn it off", and so on.

I've installed the LED light tubes in the garage. Doing so was much easier for me this time. In part, because the tubes are plastic so I wasn't worried about glass breaking from me applying too much pressure on them. But mostly because I now know that I have to push the bottom of the tombstones outwards to make more space width-wise, while pushing the tubes up into them. As well of course, making sure the pins are lined up right with the slots.

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The cumin soda turned out to be a disappointment. I don't like it. The flavor isn't cumin + other spices; it is only cumin, which is a lot more off-putting to me than I expected. This soda is also thick, more syrupy than normal, and SALTY. Now maybe I could appreciate a salty soda if it were some other flavor, like salty lime. But thick salty cumin soda turns out to be not my thing.

The lemongrass basil seed drink on the other hand, was good. It was sweeter than I'd like, but when I drank it I'd been working in the yard, getting hot and sweaty, so I didn't mind the sugar. The flavor reminded me of something pleasant from the past, but I couldn't remember what. The basil seeds make a fun swishy feeling in the mouth; hard to describe and different than chia seed drinks.

I'm retrofitting the remaining 4 fluorescent tube lamp fixtures in my garage to use LED tubes. I've already removed the ballasts.

I'm debating whether to wire them for single-ended tubes or double-ended tubes.

Safety Test Shows Double-Ended EasiRetrofit LED Tube Safer Than Single Ended Tube For Maintenance - according to this page, double-ended tube fixtures are safer, because if someone accidentally puts a regular fluorescent tube into a single-ended fixture, it will cause a short. The short could burn out the tube, or if it's a 277V fixture, possibly even make the tube explode.

The Perfect Tube: What are the Differences Between Single-Ended LED Linear Light Tube and Double-Ended LED Linear Light Tube? - according to this page, double-ended tube fixtures were originally more dangerous, because someone putting up a tube, holding it on both ends, could potentially get shocked. Since then, double-ended tubes have features to prevent that.

Based on the above, I'm still not sure which are really better or safer.

The tombstone sockets on my fixtures are not shunted, so they are ok for either kind of tube. They are however, discolored, as are the fixtures themselves (from white to shades of gray), apparently from the heat generated by the old tubes and/or ballasts. So I might end up replacing the sockets anyway, to be on the safe side.

For the 2 fixtures that I already retrofitted in 2014, I used single-ended tubes. It would be best to have all the garage lamp fixtures be consistent, so I should probably use single-ended ones in the other fixtures too.

But I'd hate to do that and a couple years down the line find out that single-ended ones are obsolete, and aren't made anymore. Or vice versa.

Or it may be that tubes in general will become obsolete, as new fixtures will tend to have the LEDs built-in rather than as separate bulbs.

Lowes seems to only have the kind of LED tubes that require a ballast to still be present. I expect those to become obsolete eventually, as LEDs don't inherently require ballasts. But if everyone installs these kind of LED tubes, maybe they'll eventually end up replacing the ballasts too.

Home Depot has some of those kind and some of the ones that work without ballasts. Their product pages don't say if the LED tubes are single or double-ended. I suspect the latter.

But other stores have more choices, so I won't be buying from Home Depot anyway.

Another thing to decide is whether to get glass tubes or shatterproof plastic ones. If I knew the plastic wouldn't discolor over time, that would seem the better choice. I think the LED tubes I have already are plastic.

And then, frosted versus clear. The existing LED tubes I have are clear.

Here are some that say Dual-End & Single-End Powered, Works with/Without Ballast. I wonder how they can work as either dual or single ended, with the same tube. I guess they must have something inside to detect which pins have voltage across them?

At Q's house in the morning. Quiet, placid, murky water in the ~2/3s drained lake. Sparkles of sunlight glinting from the water surface where bubbles of air, from critters down below, surface and pop.

Before xmas last year, I put up a new multi-colored xmas light strand at Qiao's house. It's the simple kind; it doesn't flash or blink or change colors. A few weeks ago, I noticed that 2 of the bulbs, fairly close to the end... the 9th and 10th ones from the plug, to be exact... were out. Every now and then, I see those same 2 bulbs turn back on for a while, or flicker in unison as if they are on a different circuit than all the other bulbs. The other 98 bulbs on the strand stay on steady. The strand itself is motionless the whole time. What could cause just 2 of the bulbs to flicker like that?