IoT on Nico Maas

[openBF511] Reverse Engineering a Omron BF511 scale

Thu, 21 May 2026 05:59:39 +0000

I actually own a Omron BF511 human scale, a nice bit of japaense kit. Its a bit old and certainly does not want to interact with the world expect for its LCD display. I wanted to change that and integrate the scale into my health apps/do not keep on tracking stats via paper and pencil. For that reason I did a small deep dive on how to best access its data and send it back via LoRaWAN. All infos can be found on this little Github Repo: https://github.com/nmaas87/openBF511

RT-Thread IoT-Contest 2023 with NXP i.MX RT1060 - CCSDS-TM-FSM

Sat, 03 Jun 2023 22:35:14 +0000

I just released my latest project, a CCSDS reassembler running on an NXP i.MX RT1060 in RT-Thread OS. You can find it on Github: https://github.com/nmaas87/CCSDS-TM-FSM

RT-Thread IoT-Contest 2023 with NXP i.MX RT1060 - Getting started

Tue, 30 May 2023 18:44:24 +0000

The folks over at RT-Thread decided to make a IOT-Contest using hardware from different vendors and their RT-Thread OS. I was luckily enough to get chosen for a networking project with the NXP i.MX RT1060 EVKB, so I decided to document my journey first getting started with RT-Thread. Here we go! 🙂

Getting started

First of all, its important to know that there are two version of the MIMXRT1060 - the EVK and the EVKB. The EVK seems to be an older version which also includes a Camera sensor module, the EVKB version the recent one. RT-Threads example on Github is for the EVK version, which means things like User LED blinking does not work out of the box, but we will take care of this later.

balenaOS on the Advantech AIR-020X

Fri, 10 Mar 2023 17:20:44 +0000

Last week I posted the review of the Advantech AIR-020X with which I used to create the labSentinel 2 system.

I remarked that the hardware was great, however the software support and update capability of the system was severly lagging behind for an “industrial floor, always on” type of machine. Luckily, thats exactly what balena has been created for.

Even better, their environment already support Nvidia Jetson devices - also Nvidia Jetson Xavier NX modules. With the AIR-020X being a really nice carrierboard (and housing) for this module, I went to work.

Advantech AIR-020X Review

Sun, 05 Mar 2023 12:33:21 +0000

Normally, I am not getting review units. This is due to the fact that I am only hosting this small weblog, along some conference talks - and most companies would probably be better off to send their units along someone with a reach of Linus Tech Tips, or similar.

On the other hand - when I get the possibility to do a review, it can be a bit worrisome for the companies as well, as I am a very honest person. I have been working in tech for some time now and had the honor to build stuff which went to space - and came back to tell the tale. I know what I want in a unit - and what could be a problem.

An active GNSS antenna for the CAM-M8Q breakout

Fri, 14 Oct 2022 14:00:00 +0000

I have been using multiple CAM-M8Q breakouts by Watterott and really am loving these units. They are small, reasonable priced and have the advantage of an integrated chip antenna. However, this also their small shortcoming: While the antenna is good enough for most outdoor jobs, you can run into sensitivity issues when deploying it indoors - if not setup next to a window. Luckily, the module has two additional u.fl connectors for RFin and RFout, meaning you can use an external antenna.

labSentinel 2

Mon, 19 Sep 2022 09:35:01 +0000

About nearly a year ago, I wrote the labSentinel project for my Nvidia Jetson AI Specialist certification. The basic idea of the project is to be able to supervise old Lab Equipment which does not poses any kind of log output or interface other than a graphical user interface, running on an Windows 3.11 / 95 / NT - maybe even XP system.

I solved this issue by using a video grabber attached to a Jetson Nano and “out-of-band” grabbing the screen output of the experiment computer. I then learned good and bad system states via Nvidias Inference tools and finally got the system to report via MQTT as soon as something did go wrong.

gpsTime

Mon, 05 Jul 2021 20:05:33 +0000

I think there is nothing more pleasing than having extremely precise measurements at your fingertips. Like time. While in the past it was quite problematic to measure time accurately (not talking about sundials, but… why not? ;)) - mankind has created one precise time source as the byproduct (read: “waste”) for usage in accurate navigation: GNSS and their different kinds like GPS, Glonass, Galileo, BaiDou and others.

Taping into this time source and providing it to your local computer network via NTP has been done by countless people and is an extreme rewarding task. Is it necessary? Maybe not. Is it really cool? Yes. And now it is even easier as you don’t need to configure it yourself, but can use the balenaHub and the preconfigured gpsTime project.

[PiAndMore] ESP32 - WLAN-SoC für das Internet of Things II

Sat, 03 Nov 2018 10:25:07 +0000

Here is my presentation to the ESP32 @ PiAndMore 11 (University Trier, 03.11.2018)

esp32_PiAndMore11.pdf (1,81 MB, PDF)

Videorecording of the talk can be found here

[Talk] resin(io|os) and Fin Presentation

Wed, 27 Jun 2018 07:08:18 +0000

Here is my presentation about resin.io, resinOS, balena and Fin @ the internal DLR “Erfahrungsaustausch Workshop - Software-Entwicklung V: Embedded Systems” (Bremen, 16.05.2018)

resin_DLR_EAW_SE_V.pdf (6,07 MB, PDF)

[PiAndMore] hologram Presentation

Sun, 25 Feb 2018 17:22:07 +0000

Here is my presentation about hologram @ PiAndMore 10 1/2 (University Stuttgart, 24.02.2018)

hologram_PiAndMore1012.pdf (2,82 MB, PDF)

Videorecording of the talk can be found here

[Talk] resin(io|os) Presentation

Thu, 22 Feb 2018 16:26:05 +0000

Here is my presentation about resin.io, resinOS and balena @ Docker & Kubernetes Meetup Feb 2018 (Heidelberg, 20.02.2018)

resin_DKM2018.pdf (2,57 MB, PDF)

Videorecording of the talk can be found here

Running resin balena on Raspberry Pi 3

Sun, 15 Oct 2017 14:07:43 +0000

Just two days ago, resin.io announced balena their new, moby based container engine. Basically, it is a Docker-dropin-replacement for IoT Devices: It is compatible with Docker and Docker Hub, gains a lot of stabilty with atomic pulls, more conservative flash memory use - as well as smaller updates due to true container delta pulls. Also, it comes bundled as single file, is smaller in size and as easy to use as Docker. So - a very good bundle.

[Talk] Allesnetz 11 Podcast: Docker Container für IoT mit Resin.io

Sat, 30 Sep 2017 08:00:53 +0000

For my German readers: I took part in Leonid Lezner’s Allesnetz Podcast 11 - about Resin.io and Docker - together with Resin.ios very own Jonas Hermsmeier - you can check out the podcast here.

[resinOS] Build resinOS from scratch

Wed, 28 Jun 2017 13:52:04 +0000

As the time of writing, resinOS is available for Download at Version 2.0.6+rev3.dev for Raspberry Pi 3. This build, however, is nearly 2 weeks old and in the meantime, something great happend: Docker has finally updated to Version 17.03.1 - upgraded from the old ~10 (ten-ish) version - which was not that cool (and without Swarm ;)). So, it is a good idea to get to know how to build your own resinOS in case you really want to live on the bleeding edge ;).

[PiAndMore] Sigfox Presentation

Sat, 24 Jun 2017 15:20:48 +0000

Here is my presentation to Sigfox @ PiAndMore 10 (University Trier, 24.06.2017)

Sigfox_PiAndMore10.pdf (1,7 MB, PDF)

This presentation was not sponsored or supported by Sigfox, however, Wisol gave me Evaluation Boards to test the Sigfox network, thanks a lot!

Videorecording of the talk can be found here

[PiAndMore] resinOS Presentation

Sat, 14 Jan 2017 12:45:54 +0000

Here is my presentation to resinOS @ PiAndMore 9 1/2 (Hochschule Niederrhein / Krefeld, 14.01.2017)

resinOS_PiAndMore9_1_2.pdf (0,6 MB, PDF)

Videorecording of the talk can be found here

[PiAndMore] resin.io Presentation

Sun, 12 Jun 2016 15:11:46 +0000

Here is my presentation to resin.io @ PiAndMore 9 (Trier, 11.06.2016)

resinio_PiAndMore9.pdf (1,03 MB, PDF)

Videorecording of the talk can be found here

[PiAndMore] platformIO Presentation

Sat, 11 Jun 2016 15:00:52 +0000

Here is my presentation to platformIO @ PiAndMore 9 (Trier, 11.06.2016)

platformIO_PiAndMore9.pdf (830 KB, PDF)

Videorecording of the talk can be found here

[PiAndMore] Raspberry Pi Appliances

Sat, 20 Jun 2015 13:25:20 +0000

Here is the presentation to my Appliances Talk @ PiAndMore 7 (Trier, 20.07.2015)

RPiAppliances_PiAndMore7.pdf (0,6 MB, PDF)

[PiAndMore] ESP8266

Sat, 20 Jun 2015 11:25:59 +0000

Here is the presentation to my ESP8266 Talk @ PiAndMore 7 (Trier, 20.07.2015)

ESP8266_PiAndMore7.pdf (2,8 MB, PDF)

Thanks a lot to Espressif Systems for their tremendous support!

[Win7+] Arduino 1.6.4+ Portable Installation

Sat, 20 Jun 2015 11:25:17 +0000

In the last months, a lot of new updates arrived from the Arduino front. The latest installment of the Arduino IDE is now 1.6.4 and got some really nice additions, i.e. an Board Manager to install board definitions from the net via one click, the Library Manager, line numbers and much more. However, given the nature of the Board Manager, it always installed the files somewhere on the Computer, i.e. the AppData folder - which not really made the Arduino IDE portable. However, with 1.6.3, this was fixed.