Google Home Minis (1st Gen) bricked

As of this month, I have two out of my fleet of three *Google Home Mini (Gen 1)*s out of commission. Neither will boot; one slows a lonely green LED when the reset button is hit, the other nothing at all (and pulls massive power from USB while it boots).

There is a [truly MASSIVE thread](https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Speakers-and-Displays/HOME-mini-UNRESPONSIVE-thread-quot-Google-home-mini-4-dots-stuck-problem/m-p/558790/page/209876543210) about this over on the Google Nest forum. The *TL;DR* is this: if you contact Google about this issue, they will stall and give you the runaround. Eventually if you persist, they will get you to confirm the purchase date of the device(s), at which point they will either send you a new device or close the conversation with __"[it is|they are] out of warranty"__. The speculation on the forums is that Google are remote-bricking these devices as they reach their warranty period. This truly saddens me but given the well-documented Google anti-enthusiasm for long-term product support, it makes perfect sense. These devices acheived their aim of massive market penetration and have become almost-indispensable around my house, with the excellent Spotify and Chromecast integrations being used multiple times per day. The very low purchase price (indeed *$free* in one case) made it a no-brainer to dot (hah!) them around the place. The only working *Home Mini* left is a little newer. How much longer will it survive? I can't imagine there is any way to block it from receiving that remote kill-code from the mothership without completely nerfing its internet access, so it's just a ticking time bomb now. There's also a highly visible lack of supply for the obvious replacement, the *Nest Mini (Gen 2)*. I suspect Google is letting these evaporate without replacement, so they can introduce a *Gen 3* model, considerably more expensive, for all the people who they've locked into the Google Nest/Home ecosystem and who now, funnily enough, need to replace a fleet of devices. Damn. Draw your own conclusions about how Google's tracking with _"Don't Be Evil"_ at this point, as tonnes of still-useful electronics make their way into landfill.

The bizarre world of cheap iPhone accessories

Recently I purchased a couple of extremely-cheap Lightning-to-3.5mm headphone socket adaptors on eBay, primarily so I can use a pair of quality over-ear headphones rather than the in-ear Apple buds which I find uncomfortable.

These adaptors come in at under AUD$5 including shipping, putting them at one-third the cost of the genuine Apple accessory. They arrived within 2 days and I was all set to put them to work and feel superior at my money-saving (smug-and-play?), except ... they didn't work.

The adaptor would chirpily announce "Power on!" in my headphones, but then there was no further indication that the iPhone had "seen" them at all. And this was the case for both adaptors I'd purchased.

I was all set to fire off an angry complaint to the eBay seller and get a refund, when I noticed something ... odd ... on the listing:

Why would these Lightning accessories "include Bluetooth support"? Just for fun, I turned on my iPhone's Bluetooth (which I usually leave turned off for battery-saving and anti-h@X0r reasons)...

"Connected!" says the chirpy voice.

OH

MY

GOD

So it turns out that these cheap cables are cheap because they don't bother getting certified as "Made for iPhone" by Apple. A "compliant" Lightning device must have some kind of ID in its handshake with the phone, which the phone checks for legitimacy.

So instead, the very clever, very sneaky makers of these cables just use the DC power provided on Lightning pins 1 and 5 to drive a Bluetooth audio interface chip, which doesn't have the same "Made for iPhone" hurdles. The phone doesn't even realise there's a device hanging off there, so there's no way it can check if it's compliant!

Full marks for ingenuity, but I think I'm going to go to an Apple Store and get the real deal. Audio over Bluetooth is quality-compromised, plus this solution uses much more power and I prefer to leave my Bluetooth OFF for the aforementioned reasons. Still - I won't need to return them to the eBay seller - they *do* work and I'll keep them around for backup purposes.

Automating heating vents with openHAB, esp8266 and LEGO - Part 1; rationale

It's winter here in Melbourne, and it's a cold one. Combined with the fact that everyone is spending a lot more time at home than before, it's time to start optimising for comfort and efficiency...

I've shared my house's floorplan before on this blog, but this time here it is overlaid with the "schema" of the gas central-heating system, which sends hot air through underfloor ducts into the house through eight vents (or "registers" if you prefer) - shown as red squares:

Now some houses *might* have "zones" implemented, where certain areas of the house are on a physically separated section of ducting and can be addressed and controlled individually. This house is not one of those. I've shown the two *notional* zones we'd probably *like* to have in orange (living spaces) and green (sleeping areas). If you're wondering, we've been advised that for technical reasons related to our heating unit (aka furnace) and available space under the house, a zoned system is not practicable. In any case, it would probably be a bit coarse-grained anyway, as these days I'm working pretty-much 5-days-a-week at home, from the study - the room at the bottom-left of the floorplan.

As such, I would like to be able to control the specific vent in my study, opening and closing it as needed so that it's warm to work in, particularly in the mornings, but also not wasting warm air that is better off being routed to elsewhere in the house in the evenings and on weekends. Also, if the temperature in the study is warm enough, I'd like the vent to shut itself off. It sounds like the height of laziness, but it happens that this vent is located underneath a large couch, so it's actually a major pain to adjust it by hand.

Off-the-shelf "smart vent" solutions have been available for a number of years, from Flair and Keen but they are Not Cheap, don't have any openHAB binding support, don't have stock available and/or don't ship to me in Australia. So it's a roll-your-own situation...