Enes Essays – My subjective perception of the cosmos.

Home Assistant Helium Integration: Hotspot Rewards and more

The Home Assistant Helium Integration is an open-source project that enables the monitoring of the Helium ecosystem within Home Assistant. About a month ago, I released the first version of the integration. It already included a few sensors at the first release, such as the price sensor, a few simple Helium statistics, and the content of a Helium wallet. The sensors are cool, but nothing special. These features are already well covered by other solutions.

However, for the past three weeks, I have been working on incorporating the revenues from the hotspots into the integration. I managed to do this astonishingly well, and now this functionality has been released along with other functionalities.

Home Assistant Helium Integration

As a home automation enthusiast, I am always on the lookout for new ways to improve my smart home experience. With my involvement in Helium and its applications in IOT, I decided to create a new Helium integration for Home Assistant to help users like myself gain better insights into their Helium ecosystem and stay updated on crucial metrics.

My open-source project focuses on offering a comprehensive solution for real-time monitoring of HNT, IOT, and MOBILE prices, as well as tracking wallet and hotspot statistics. The integration is designed to be user-friendly and accessible to everyone, making it easy for Home Assistant users to keep an eye on their Helium investments and performance, and respond to market changes more effectively.

To get started, visit the GitHub repository and follow the detailed instructions provided. I am excited to see how this integration can help you make the most of your Helium investments and elevate your Home Assistant setup.

Helium Network’s Migration to the Solana Ecosystem: Exploring Staking Economics and Governance

The Helium Network recently migrated to the Solana Ecosystem, a strategic move aimed at building a “network of networks.” This network already encompasses LoRaWAN (also known as “IoT”) and CBRS (also known as “MOBILE”), with plans to incorporate more networks in the future. However, this migration has resulted in some changes, one of the most significant being the governance structure.

Before the migration, Helium Vote was utilized for decision-making, with users required to “burn” Data Credits to participate. After the migration, Solana Governance Realms are employed – an existing infrastructure used in numerous other projects. This shift presents an opportunity for Helium stakeholders to learn about staking, the economics of staking, and to engage in the decision-making process.

In this blog post, we will delve into the Helium Network’s staking system and the economics of staking. Furthermore, I will provide a Stakers Analysis, examining the data and offering insights into how staking influences the network’s economics and governance.

Arduino Weather Station with LoRaWAN Part 1: Hardware

In my previous post and youtube video, I gave a brief introduction to LoRaWAN and also showed a circuit in which a small weather station is connected. The circuit can be operated at any location, even without an internet connection.

For this circuit, I have also built a suitable housing and written the software to operate the whole thing in a power-saving mode with batteries and LoRaWAN.

This is what the impressive result looks like

This is part one of a three-part series. In part 1, we dive into the fascinating world of hardware and circuits to create a working prototype. Part 2 is about getting the weather station software up and running and seeing the first data in the Helium Console. In part 3, we will develop a housing for the whole thing and display the data in a smart home dashboard.

Helium Mining and IoT Applications: Experiences and opportunities

This post is about the Helium Network, a decentralized, blockchain-based solution for the Internet of Things (IoT) that relies on LoRaWAN technology. The Helium Network enables IoT devices to connect to each other in a cost-effective and energy-efficient manner, while offering incentives in the form of cryptocurrency, called Helium Network Tokens (HNT), for those who participate in the network as miners. I will share my experiences with Helium mining and deploying IoT devices on the network, discuss business models and use cases for different players, and compare to other LoRaWAN networks such as The Things Network (TTN). If you’re interested in IoT, cryptocurrencies, or decentralized technologies, this is the place for you!

Smart Home Dashboard with Home Assistant, MQTT, Certbot and Nginx Proxy

Home automation, monitoring and control requires a user interface that is easy to use. There are numerous commercial solutions for this.

If you have high requirements for data security and privacy, a self-hosted smart home solution is the way to go. I tried a few open-source solutions and ended up happy with “Home Assistant”. In this post I want to explain how to get a minimal instance of Home Assistant, MQTT, Certbot and Nginx Proxy up and running with Docker Compose.

Balcony Power Plant in Schwetzingen

Until a few months ago, I was happy with my previous electricity provider. A short time later, however, came the nasty surprise. My monthly fee went up from 42€ to 66€. This meant that the previous contract was no longer attractive.

I want to generate my energy with the power of the sun in the future

I’ve been interested in having my own solar panels on the balcony for a while. I have so much unused space. Due to the energy crisis, bureaucratic hurdles in Germany for balcony power plants were removed. The stars were right and I took this opportunity to become a little more self-sufficient.

Give good tidings to the patient, who, when disaster strikes them, say, “Indeed we belong to Allah, and indeed to Him we will return.”
Baqara, 156

Today my grandmother Gülhanım Ördek passed away. May Allah have mercy with her.

Confucius said: “He who preserves the old and at the same time is able to gain new knowledge and new experiences can be a teacher and an example for the people”.
Confucius

LoRaWAN Antenna Holder for Balcony Rail

I recently bought a LoRaWAN antenna that I mounted in my balcony for testing. The antenna works very well, although my balcony is just a few meters above the ground.

Before: Antenna is attached temporarily on my plant shelf

The antenna was temporarily attached to my wooden shelf. I wanted to build a proper mount and set about modeling.

The result of this work can be found on Thingiverse.