39:I[87087,["$1","$35","$5","$6","$9","$7","$8","$a"],"default"] 3d:I[27201,["$1"],"IconMark"] 3a:Tf30,

Keeping tabs on your home backup power just got a lot smarter. If you rely on an Instant Power Supply (IPS) system, knowing the exact health and real-time voltage of your battery bank is crucial. Instead of relying on manual checks or basic, uncommunicative hardware, I built a custom Battery Voltage Monitoring system (v1.0.0) that seamlessly integrates into my home automation setup.

Here is a quick look at how the architecture works and how I brought this data straight to a web interface.

The Tech Stack

Edge Device: Wemos D1 Mini (ESP8266-based development board)
Protocol: MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport)
Central Hub: Raspberry Pi (Serving as both the MQTT broker and the Web Server)
MQTT Broker: Eclipse Mosquitto
Mobile Client: JuiceSSH (Android) for remote terminal management

How It Works: From Battery to Broker

The heart of the hardware side is the Wemos D1 Mini. Thanks to its compact form factor and built-in Wi-Fi, it’s the perfect candidate for IoT telemetry.

Data Collection: The Wemos D1 Mini is connected to the IPS battery via a voltage divider circuit to safely read the battery's analog voltage levels.
Transmission: The board processes this raw analog data, converts it to an actual voltage reading, and bundles it into a lightweight JSON payload (e.g., {"voltage": "13.03"}).
Publishing: Using Wi-Fi, the Wemos acts as an MQTT client, continuously publishing this payload to a specific topic—in this case, targeted under Home/Dining/WD1Mini01/Input.

The Backbone: Raspberry Pi & Mosquitto

On the receiving end sits a Raspberry Pi, acting as the brain of the operation. It runs a Mosquitto MQTT broker, which listens for incoming data packets from the Wemos D1 Mini.

The image shows a live look at the telemetry stream inside the system. By using JuiceSSH on an Android phone to remote into the Raspberry Pi, we can run a simple mosq_sub command to monitor the incoming traffic in real-time.

As you can see from the terminal output, the Wemos regularly pushes clean updates:

Client mosqsub/... received PUBLISH...
{"voltage":"13.12"}
{"voltage":"12.93"}

MQTT Output - DIY Battery Voltage Monitoring v1.0.0: Integrating IPS with Home Automation

The background ping requests (PINGREQ and PINGRESP) show that the connection between the client and the broker stays perfectly alive and stable.

The Next Step: The Web Interface

While raw terminal logs are great for debugging and verifying that the hardware is talking to the broker, the ultimate goal is convenience. The Raspberry Pi also hosts a local web server.

A lightweight script parses these incoming MQTT JSON payloads and serves them onto a clean, user-friendly web interface. Now, instead of opening a terminal, anyone in the house can check the exact charge state of the IPS battery from any browser or smartphone on the home network.

Components - DIY Battery Voltage Monitoring v1.0.0: Integrating IPS with Home Automation

Why This Matters

Building v1.0.0 of this monitor opens up incredible automation possibilities. With this data actively streaming into the home automation environment, the next phase will involve setting up automated alerts—like trigger notifications via Telegram or local smart speakers if the IPS voltage drops below a safe threshold during a power outage.

3b:Tae9,

We have all been there: a coworker, a family member, or a house helper is enjoying their favorite tunes, but the loudness is just a bit too much for the shared space. Recently, my friend brought me a challenge. A helper at their house loved listening to music during her downtime, but the mono Bluetooth speaker was simply too loud. My friend asked if I could add an earphone option to it. Naturally, I took the challenge.

The Volume Fix: Adding a Resistor

Because the speaker’s built-in output is designed to push enough power for a loud external speaker, plugging earphones directly into that signal would be dangerously loud. To fix this, I added a resistor to the circuit. This safely steps down the audio output to a comfortable earphone/headphone level, ensuring a safe and pleasant listening experience.

The Retro Cutoff Trick

If you grew up in the era of cassette players and Walkmans with built-in speakers, you probably remember how plugging in your headphones automatically silenced the main speaker. I wanted to recreate that exact feature. Standard 3.5mm female audio jacks come equipped with a built-in cutoff switch. By utilizing this clever mechanical feature, I wired the jack so that the main speaker automatically switches off the moment the earphones are plugged in.

Tools Used - Retro Magic Meets Modern Mod: Upgrading a Mono Bluetooth Speaker

The Final Assembly

Finding the right spot for the modification was key. Luckily, there was a small amount of empty space at the bottom part of the speaker casing. I carefully drilled a hole, placed the 3.5mm female jack inside, and secured it tightly with a screw. Making it physically secure was vital so that the jack wouldn't get displaced or pushed inside the casing during repeated plug-in and plug-out operations. After some clean soldering, the system was ready to roll.

Retro Magic Meets Modern Mod: Upgrading a Mono Bluetooth Speaker

The Result

The mod works flawlessly! Now, she can enjoy her music in private during her off hours, and the house stays nice and quiet. It is a simple, practical fix that combines modern Bluetooth convenience with old-school audio engineering.

3c:T9d5,

May 4, 2019, was a grueling test of endurance, technical vigilance, and quick decision-making. As a fierce storm raged outside, I was cooped up at home, completely locked into a relentless 12-hour support shift.

When heavy storms hit a telecom network, active alarms spike exponentially. But on this particular day, the stakes were terrifyingly high due to a critical vulnerability in our backend infrastructure. Back during the early years of the platform's journey, we had suffered a series of devastating hardware failures, losing our database replication servers one after another—two in a single year, and another two shortly after. Because of tight budget constraints and administrative delays, those secondary backup servers were never replaced.

We were running the entire operation on a single, standalone database server—one that simply wasn't robust enough to comfortably handle catastrophic traffic spikes on its own.

The Ultimate Balancing Act: Keeping the Server Alive

Without a replication failover, there was absolutely zero room for error. If the primary database crashed under the weight of the incoming storms of alarms, the system would go dark.

For 12 straight hours, my job transformed from standard monitoring into a manual rescue operation. I stayed glued to the screen, providing constant, real-time maintenance:

Continuous Database Tuning: Constantly optimizing queries, managing connection pools, and clearing bottlenecks to prevent the DB from locking up.
Application Server Monitoring: Keeping a hawk-eye on the application layer to ensure it was processing incoming data smoothly without overwhelming the database.
Proactive Resource Management: Taking extra precautions to balance the system load as CPU and memory usage dangerously fluctuated near maximum capacity.

High-Stakes Success

It was an exhausting, high-stress marathon, but by the time the storm finally cleared and the 12 hours were up, the system and database servers were still live, stable, and completely intact. While it was a victory achieved through sheer vigilance and careful manual tuning, it was a stark reminder of the massive operational risks of running a critical network management platform without a safety net during its early scaling phases.

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