Did you know that your Carbon Monoxide and Natural household gas detector has expiration date? No? Me either. So please check the date on your unit, otherwise one night it start beeping waking up you and your family ! And will be wondering around the house and looking for crickets line me one night….

But Eventually I have found the culprit and because it expired I decided to take it to bits. Check my video, I hope you will find it interesting:

Here are some photos from the inside of the unit:

As you can see board is quite populated and conformally coated. Lets see what components are used inside and check their specs:

Gas Sensor	SB-95-11 FIS 1203-68	http://www.fisinc.co.jp/en/common/pdf/SB9512E_P.pdf
Main Micro controller	PIC 16F883	http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/DeviceDoc/40001291H.pdf
Piezo horn driver	R&E International RE46C108	http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/DeviceDoc/22165A.pdf
HJ 1339	5V voltage regulator	?

Could not resist temptation to check what inside Amazon Echo Show 5. To see what makes it chooch 🙂

Check detailed video of the disassembly:

Check these high resolution images of the Amazon Echo Show 5

Is not your ordinary micro:bit clone

I was happy to snag an alpha version of Adafruit CLUE, straight from the hot baking sheet. When Adafruit Industries release limited batch of their new development board. I was really stoked to get this one as I really like BBC micro:bit and Adafruit’s new baby seems like 100% upgrade in everything !

So lets take a look at what we got here. This nice unboxing video will tells about packaging and components. Please check high resolution photos of Adafruit CLUE as well.

Here are hardware specs with the links to the websites with detailed information and spec sheets.

Wireless CPU:	Nordic nRF52840 Bluetooth LE processor 64 MHz Cortex M4 processor 1 MB of Flash, 256KB RAM, https://infocenter.nordicsemi.com/pdf/nRF52840_OPS_v0.5.1.pdf
Display	1.3″ 240×240 Color IPS TFT display
Accelerometer/Gyro	LSM6DS33
Magnetometer	LIS3MDL
Proximity, Light, RGB and Gesture Sensor	APDS9960 from Avago Technologies: Has integrated IR LED and driver, along with four directional photodiodes that sense reflected IR energy from the LED. It’s proximity detection feature allows it to measure the distance an object is from the front of the sensor (up to a few centimeters) with 8 bit resolution
Microphone	PDM MEMS SiSonic SPK0415HM4H-B https://media.digikey.com/pdf/Data%20Sheets/Knowles%20Acoustics%20PDFs/SPK0415HM4H-B.pdf
Humidity Sensor	Sensirion SHT30-D https://media.digikey.com/pdf/Data%20Sheets/Sensirion%20PDFs/HT_DS_SHT3x_ARP_V3.pdf
Barometric Pressure	BMP280
Status LED	RGB NeoPixel indicator LED
Storage	2 MB internal flash storage for datalogging, images, fonts or CircuitPython code
Sound	Buzzer/speaker for playing tones and beeps
White LED	Two bright white LEDs in front for illumination / color sensing
Connectivity	Qwiic / STEMMA QT connector
Power	Power it from any 3-6V battery source (internal regulator and protection diodes)
Software	Programmable with Arduino IDE or CircuitPython

High resolution images of Adafruit CLUE:

Conclusion:

I like this board very much. I think we can create some very cool utilizing vast array of sensors, Bluetooth and Display.

This is brief post to show how Mean Well LRS 350 2 looks inside.

Technical specs are here:
https://www.meanwell.com/Upload/PDF/LRS-350/LRS-350-SPEC.PDF

Prices and availability are here:
https://amzn.to/30ikjO2

Many wonders can be spotted in Dollarstore, one of the is Sylvania Motion Sensor LED Light

Yet another Motion LED light incorporating PIR sensor technology. This time from decent brand Sylvania

Check my latest video about tear down of Sylvania Motion Sensor LED Light I purchased in Dollarama for just 4 dollars

As I promised here are high resolution photos of the Motion Sensor

Components:

Main Controller
PIR Sensor

Here a bunch of high resolution photos of Incipio Smart Wall switch featured my youtube video:

This Homesense based device featuring all-in-one solution from Phytre called WACIO-GP. It contains 2 major chips from Realtek: https://www.phytrex.com/file//20160105100958-u-i2-60.pdf and specifically oriented on HomeKit infrastructure from Apple.

Phytre module: WiFi Controller	RTL8188ER
Phytre module: Router Network Processor	RTL8196C	http://mobilemodding.info/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/RTL8196.pdf
Role unknown	Phytre PH4817-424	Spec cannot be found
PIR Sensor with integrated circuit	AM312	http://www.image.micros.com.pl/_dane_techniczne_auto/cz%20am312.pdf

Lets take a look what is WYZE Sense and take it apart to see what inside

Many of you already know WYZE Camera. But If you don’t know much about it please read here – http://mobilemodding.info/wyze-cam-v2/

WYZE Sense is just logical extension of the monitoring function of the camera and allow user to use remote self powered sensor to work with WYZE solution.
Important remark: WYZE Camera is not SECURITY CAMERA it is MONITORING CAMERA. It just does not have enough security features to be security camera out of the box.
And based on this remark, all sensors will be as limited in term of security as well.

But lets take a look on what is the WYZE sense. I have made two videos. One about unboxing and setup and second is about teardown and analysis.

List of components:

TI CC1310 SimpleLink™ Ultra-Low-PowerSub-1GHz WirelessMCU	http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/cc1310.pdf
WCH CH554T 8-bit enhanced USB microcontroller	https://github.com/Blinkinlabs/ch554_sdcc/tree/master/documentation

Detailed Photos

Got upgraded version of memory for my camera – Sandisk Extreme Pro 64Gb microSD card. Lets check how it performs.

One day I was shooting Fashion show and noticed when I use full speed burst mode my 6D will choke up like in 30 shots. That was not cool as I was missing some key action shots. Canon 6D is not the fasted kid on the block ! This made it even more annoying. So I decided to splurge for fasted SD card and decided to get Sandisk Extreme Pro 64Gb microSD. Micro SD format is handy as I would be able to use it for any of my phones and action cameras !

But before running some benchmarks, lets see official specs:

• Capacity: 64GB
• Read Speed: up to 170MB/s ( yeah we will check that )
• Write Speed: up to 90MB/s ( yeah we will check that )
• Form Factor: microSDXC
• Speed Standards:
• UHS Speed Class 3 (U3)
• Class 10
• V30
• A2
• SD Adapter: Yes

Here are my standard benchmarks:

We need to run Sandisk Extreme 32Gb MicroSD Benchmark to see how it performs and make conclusion if it is enough to handle UHD 4K 60fps recordings speeds.

This SD card came as part of the bundle with GoPro Hero 7 Balack from Costco. Here is video about it

Judging by the fact that it is part of the bundle and GoPro Hero 7 Black is capable of 4k60 I assumed that it should be capable of handling video stream. But better to check it now be sorry about crappy footage later.

I executed several standard performance test. Screenshots are attached. Official specs are really hard to find. Sandisk website is very convoluted and full of marketing wankery but not solid specs. Lets see what I was able to collect:

Sandisk Extreme 32 GB:
Capacity: 32GB
Form Factor: microSDXC
Speed Standards:
– UHS Speed Class 3 (U3)
– Class 10
– V30
– A1 ( What does it really means ? )
SD Adapter: Yes

Benchmark results:

What inside this little gimbal asking you?

This time we dissembled Hohem XG1. To see what it consist of and what hardware components are inside. Also it was very important to understand quality of construction and manufacturing.

Teardown and earlier unboxing videos

Here is the technical specification of the gimbal

• 3-Axis Pan / Tilt / Zoom Gimbal with 320 Degree Pan
• Universal 1/4″ thread in the bottom
• Plug and Play
• Compatible with Action Cameras GoPro HERO5, HERO4, Session, YI CAM, YI 4K, AEE, SJCam and cameras of a similar size.
• The maximum payload is 170g.
• App + Bluetooth Wireless Remote Control: 3 Axis Angle Parameter, 4 Direction Joystick, 3 Mode Change, Axis Follow Speed Change, Axis Angle Changed by 0.1°, Battery Level.
• 1.5 hours of battery life
• 12-Month Warranty service only for the item sold by Hohem. It’s important to calibrate the unit before use. ( Curious if you purchased this on Amazon or elsewhere, what then ? )
• Bluetooth: 4.0
• Built-in 900mAh lithium-ion battery.
• Working time: 1.5h
• Pitching Angle: 320°
• Rolling Angle: 320°
• Panning Angle: 320°
• Weight 233 g

Electronic components used in the Hohem XG1

High res photos of the electronics