As we plug along with our Catalina changes, I thought I might write a quick post talking about some other stuff I'm enjoying right now. Because, hey, why not.
Coffee Related
Software Development and Coffee go together like Chocolate and My Mouth. And so, a lot of it is consumed around these parts.
I would never claim to be an expert in these things, but I've really been enjoying the Decent Espresso DE1PRO espresso machine. It doesn't just give me a way to brew espresso—many machines can do that—but it gives me the information I need to get better at it, and the capability to make the kind of adjustments needed to do so consistently.
It's a pretty remarkable machine. Basically, it's a very "complete" hardware platform (pumps, heaters, valves, pressure monitors, flow meters, etc) that's driven entirely by software. It comes with a tablet that runs the machine's "UI". And you can tap a button to brew an espresso.
But you can also see the exact pressure/flow/temperature curves happening in real-time as the brew happens. And, even more importantly, you can extensively change the behavior of the machine—adding pauses, changes in pressure, temperature, flow, etc—very easily.
You can emulate lever-style brewing. You can do "Slayer" style shots. You can do simple E61-style shots. The possibilities are endless.
And all of this happens in a machine that's much smaller than any other full capability espresso machine I've ever seen.
And that's not even going into the super helpful and friendly owner forums.
I've spent at least eight months with mine, which I preordered years before it shipped, and it's really made a huge difference. Highly recommended, and surprisingly available at Amazon, but also at the Decent Espresso site. There are less expensive models at the Decent site as well: the PRO has longer duty cycle pumps.
Power Related
A few years ago, I purchase a Sense Energy Monitor to see what I could learn about power consumption in our house beyond just "the bill every month".
Sense is a local company that uses machine learning and smart algorithms to identify individual loads by sensing waveform shapes and patterns in your main electrical feed. So it can identify, over time, a lot of the devices that are using power, how much power they're using out of your entire power use, etc. Which, as a problem, is super difficult...and they've done a very good job.
Sense can identify quite a few things, given time, including electric car charging, refrigerator compressors, AC units, sump pumps, resistance heaters, washing machines, dryers, etc. And it's getting better at these things all the time.
But, of course, they know they can't figure out everything on their own. It's easy for us to plug something in, knowing what it is, and wonder "hey, Sense, why can't you tell me that's an iPhone charger", when that tiny 5W load is deep in the noise of the signal.
So what they've done, on top of their "line" sensing, is integrate with "smart plugs" from TP-Link and Belkin. You can identify what's connected to those plugs, and the Sense will find them and integrate that information into its own energy picture. Plus, the additional information helps to train the algorithms needed to detect things automatically.
It's cool stuff. If you go in not expecting miracles ("Waah! It didn't detect my Roomba!"), and you're interested in this kind of thing, it's pretty great.
Plug Related
Speaking of smart plugs, boy there are a lot of bad products out there.
There seems to be a reference platform that a lot of Chinese-sourced products are using, with a 2.4GHz radio, some basic firmware, and an app framework, and a lot of products lightly customize that and ship.
Belkin
I don't know if that's the case with Belkin, but their products, while somewhat appealing, fall down hard in a pretty basic case: if there's any sort of power failure, the plug doesn't remember its state, and comes up off.
Given the plug can remember many other things, including its WiFi SSID and password, you'd think it could remember the state the plug was in, but, no.
That behavior along makes it unacceptable.
Not Recommended - no link for you, Belkin.
TP-Link
TP-Link has two products in its Kasa line that do power monitoring: the single socket HS110 and the 6-outlet HS300 power strip.
Both work fine, although the HS110 mostly covers up the 2nd outlet in a wall outlet, and that makes things inconvenient. The HS300 is a better product with a better design. All six outlets are separately controllable and each measures power as well. As a bonus, there are three 5V USB charger ports.
Both properly maintain the status of plugs across a power outage.
I've used both of these successfully in conjunction with the Sense. Standalone, the software is meh-to-OK for most things. It's fine.
There's support for Alexa and Google Home but not HomeKit (the Homebridge plugin only seems to support the HS100).
Highly Recommended for Sense users (especially the HS300); Recommended with caveats for standalone users.
Currant
The Currant smart plug is so much better than any of the other choices in most ways, it's kind of remarkable.
Unlike most other smart plugs, the Currant has two sockets, accessible from the side. It works in either horizontal or vertical orientations, with either side up (the plug can be swapped), and it's got a position sensor inside, so its app can unambiguously tell you which plug is left/right/top/bottom.
The plug itself is attractive and well built. The software is great, and if it's built on the same platform as the others, they've gone well beyond everyone else in terms of customizing their solution.
Plugs are quickly added to your network and the app. New plugs are found almost instantaneously, and announced on the home screen.
Plugs can be named easily, associated with icons and rooms, and the power measurements involved constantly update and are accurate.
Their software automatically recognizes usage patterns and suggests schedules that can be implemented to save energy.
You can even tell them what your power supplier is, and they'll automatically look up current energy costs and integrate that into the display.
There's support, again, for Alexa and Google Home but not HomeKit, and there's no Homebridge plugin. A future version looks to be coming that's a regular wall outlet with the same capabilities.
Finally, as of right now, there isn't (sniff) any support for the plugs in the Sense system.
All that said, these come Highly Recommended for standalone users...and I'd even recommend them for Sense users who don't need these particular loads integrated into the app. They're still measured, of course...they're just not broken out unless recognized normally via Sense's load sensing algorithms.
Here's hoping the Sense folks add support.
The WiFi versions of these plugs were initially expensive at $59.99. However, as of this posting, they're half price at $29.99. Available at Amazon.
