39:I[87087,["$1","$35","$5","$6","$9","$7","$8","$a"],"default"] 3d:I[27201,["$1"],"IconMark"] 3a:T8d3,

Have you ever left the house and realized you forgot to turn off the AC? Or wished your room was perfectly chilled the exact moment you walked through the door? Thanks to the Internet of Things (IoT), you don't need a brand-new smart appliance to make this happen.

I recently gave my standard air conditioner a massive brain upgrade using a few inexpensive components and some clever automation. Here is how I brought my AC into the IoT ecosystem.

The Tech Stack

Wemos D1 Mini: A tiny, Wi-Fi-enabled development board based on the ESP8266. It acts as the central hub, receiving signals from the internet and executing them locally.
Infrared (IR) LED: Since standard AC units rely on IR signals from a remote control, adding an IR transmitter to the Wemos allows it to mimic the remote's commands.
IFTTT (If This Then That): The software bridge connecting the cloud services.
Google Assistant: The voice interface handling the commands.

How It Works

The setup relies on a seamless chain of communication from my voice to the physical AC unit:

The Voice Command: I say "Turn on AC" or "Turn off AC" to my phone or smart speaker.
The Cloud Bridge: Google Assistant triggers a custom IFTTT applet. IFTTT translates that voice trigger into a web request (webhook).
The Microcontroller: The Wemos D1 Mini, constantly listening via Wi-Fi, receives the webhook signal.
The Execution: The Wemos commands the attached IR LED to blast the exact infrared code required by the air conditioner.

Smart Cooling: Upgrading My AC with a Wemos D1 Mini and Google Assistant

The Result

A completely hands-free, location-independent cooling system. Whether I am laying on the couch or miles away heading home from work, a simple voice command handles the rest. This project is a perfect example of how accessible IoT has become—proving you don't need expensive smart appliances when you can build them yourself!

3b:Tacd,

October 6, 2017, started like any other Friday weekend support shift, but nature had other plans. By morning and early afternoon, sudden convective clouds rolled across Dhaka and the central/southeastern districts of Bangladesh, bringing intense thunderstorms and heavy downpours.

For a telecom network, severe weather means immediate trouble—mains power failures, lightning strikes, and site outages. Within hours, the active alarm dashboard was under immense pressure.

The Challenge: Fighting Noise to Find the Signal

When severe weather hits, a Network Operations Center (NOC) is instantly flooded with thousands of raw alarms. The real hurdle isn't just knowing that sites are down; it’s figuring out where to send field engineers first when resources are stretched thin. Management needed immediate, deep insights to prioritize incident handling, minimize downtime, and keep the network afloat.

As the creator and maintainer of our Integrated Network Management System (INMS), I knew the raw data had to be transformed into actionable intelligence immediately. The INMS is built exactly for this—to track critical Base Transceiver Station (BTS) and transmission alarms and turn chaotic data into structured maintenance tickets.

Turning Data Into Strategy

Working from home with a multi-monitor command center setup, I spent the weekend developing custom charts, trend graphs, and live geospatial distributions to map the impact of the storm in real time. By analyzing site-down durations, regional office clusters, and filtering out temporary power fluctuations (using the system's smart thresholding, like masking mains failures under 3 hours), we were able to:

Visualize Down Time Trends: Pinpoint exactly when and where the storm hit the hardest.
Map Regional Impact: Segment site failures by regional boundaries and on-call engineer rosters.
Optimize Operations: Provide management with a clean, prioritized view of critical nodes so field teams could be dispatched efficiently.

A Long Way to Go

The weekend was a stark reminder of why robust, centralized network management platforms are so vital. It’s one thing to build a system that logs errors; it’s another to design an analytics engine capable of guiding an entire operations team through a crisis.

We successfully optimized the restoration workflow and kept downtime to a minimum—but as network footprints grow and weather becomes more unpredictable, there is always a long way to go to make our infrastructure truly resilient.

3c:Tcb8,

November 19, 2018, was an incredible day. What started as a group of coworkers jamming turned into standing on the Grand Finale stage at Tigers' Den (Banglalink's Headquarters), performing in front of a childhood icon, and taking home the People's Choice Award at the Banglalink Employee Talent Hunt.

Our band, Haunted Talent, was formed with a unique, experimental vision: a poetic fusion that blended heavy psychedelic music with intense spoken-word poetry and powerful vocal melodies. For our signature performance, we presented a Bidrohi Fusion—a daring mix that paired the fiery, rebellious verses of the classic poem with raw, atmospheric musical textures.

Performing for an Icon

The stakes couldn't have been higher. Sitting at the judges' table was none other than Partha Barua of the legendary band Souls. Growing up in Bangladesh, the music of Souls and the golden era of Bangladeshi band music heavily influenced my teenage years and shaped my musical journey. Getting the opportunity to perform right in front of a living inspiration was surreal. For one song, I took up the guitar, and for our core poetic fusion piece, I moved over to the keyboards to layer in those psychedelic soundscapes.

Haunted Talent with Partha Barua - Banglalink Talent Hunt

The Lineup

The incredible synergy of our lineup is what truly brought the fusion to life:

Masud Parvez Bhai: Keeping our rhythms perfectly locked down on drums.
Tanvir Hossain: Main vocalist, driving the performance with an incredibly powerful vocal throw that perfectly matched the gravity of the poetry.
Shazzad Maruf: Crafting the essential guitar textures.
Abdullah Ibne Alam (Me): Handling the keyboards to layer in the psychedelic atmospheric soundscapes, while also switching to guitar for our second song.
Md. Mohidul Islam: Delivering the melodic song parts with precision.
Our Secret Weapon: While most of us hailed from the IT department, we brought in a special guest drummer Masud Parvez Bhai from another department to complete our sound!

Haunted Talent Performance - Banglalink Talent Hunt

Winning the People's Choice

While moving forward into the final round was a massive artistic victory, the real surprise came during the employee voting phase. Our network, colleagues, and connections rallied behind us with staggering enthusiasm. The support crossed departmental lines entirely; in an amazing twist, even the B2B teams voted for our IT-heavy band over their own departmental entries simply because they loved us and our performance.

Haunted Talent Award - Banglalink Talent Hunt

Winning the People's Choice Award wasn't just a trophy for our shelf—it was a testament to the incredible, collaborative community at Banglalink who championed a bold musical experiment and lifted us all the way to the top.

21:["$","$L39",null,{"item":{"id":18,"pid":null,"title":"Smart Cooling: Upgrading My AC with a Wemos D1 Mini and Google Assistant","uri":"smart-cooling-upgrading-my-ac-with-a-wemos-d1-mini-and-google-assistant","author":"Abdullah Ibne Alam","og_images":["images/smart-cooling-upgrading-my-ac-with-a-wemos-d1-mini-and-google-assistant.jpg"],"short":"Have you ever left the house and realized you forgot to turn off the AC? Or wished your room was perfectly chilled the exact moment you walked through the door? Thanks to the Internet of Things (IoT), you don't need a brand-new smart appliance to make this happen.","content":"$3a","created":null,"published":"2018-04-25T00:00:00.000Z","displayonlyyear":0,"hidedate":0,"pinned":0,"ordering":9999,"displayonlist":1,"active":1,"tags":["HomeAutomation","IoT","MQTT","RaspberryPi","SmartHome","WemosD1Mini"]},"prev":{"id":10,"pid":null,"title":"Weekend Storms & System Pressure: How Custom Analytics Kept the Network Alive","uri":"weekend-storms-and-system-pressure-how-custom-analytics-kept-the-network-alive","author":"Abdullah Ibne Alam","og_images":["images/weekend-storms-and-system-pressure.jpg"],"short":"During a severe thunderstorm on October 6, 2017, sudden heavy downpours and lightning across Bangladesh triggered a massive wave of site outages and active alarms. Working from home, I leveraged the Integrated Network Management System (INMS) I developed to convert this chaotic raw data into real-time trend graphs and prioritized analytics. These custom insights provided management with the critical visibility needed to optimize field engineering workflows and minimize overall network downtime.","content":"$3b","created":null,"published":"2017-10-06T10:10:10.000Z","displayonlyyear":0,"hidedate":0,"pinned":0,"ordering":9999,"displayonlist":1,"active":1},"next":{"id":11,"pid":null,"title":"From IT to the Grand Finale Stage: How \"Haunted Talent\" Won Over Banglalink","uri":"from-it-to-the-grand-finale-stage-how-haunted-talent-won-over-banglalink","author":"Abdullah Ibne Alam","og_images":["images/banglalink-talent-hunt-award.jpg"],"short":"During the Banglalink Employee Talent Hunt, I teamed up with colleagues to form the band \"Haunted Talent,\" blending spoken-word poetry with heavy psychedelic rock. Performing on both keyboard and guitar in front of legendary judge Partha Barua, my band and I delivered a powerful Bidrohi Fusion that captivated the audience. Thanks to massive cross-departmental support and employee voting, we successfully took home the prestigious People's Choice Award.","content":"$3c","created":null,"published":"2018-11-19T10:10:10.000Z","displayonlyyear":0,"hidedate":0,"pinned":0,"ordering":9999,"displayonlist":1,"active":1},"startIndex":"$NaN","startMaximized":"undefined","autoStart":true}] 33:[["$","title","0",{"children":"Smart Cooling: Upgrading My AC with a Wemos D1 Mini and Google Assistant - by Abdullah Ibne Alam - Blog"}],["$","meta","1",{"name":"description","content":"Smart Cooling: Upgrading My AC with a Wemos D1 Mini and Google Assistant - Have you ever left the house and realized you forgot to turn off the AC? Or wished your room was perfectly chilled the exact moment you walked through the door? Thanks to the Internet of Things (IoT), you don't need a brand-new smart appliance to make this happen."}],["$","link","2",{"rel":"author","href":"https://abdullahibnealam.com"}],["$","meta","3",{"name":"author","content":"Abdullah Ibne Alam"}],["$","link","4",{"rel":"author","href":"https://repulsivecoder.pro"}],["$","meta","5",{"name":"author","content":"RepulsiveCoder"}],["$","link","6",{"rel":"canonical","href":"https://abdullahibnealam.com/blog/smart-cooling-upgrading-my-ac-with-a-wemos-d1-mini-and-google-assistant"}],["$","meta","7",{"property":"og:title","content":"Smart Cooling: Upgrading My AC with a Wemos D1 Mini and Google Assistant - by Abdullah Ibne Alam - Blog"}],["$","meta","8",{"property":"og:description","content":"Smart Cooling: Upgrading My AC with a Wemos D1 Mini and Google Assistant - Have you ever left the house and realized you forgot to turn off the AC? Or wished your room was perfectly chilled the exact moment you walked through the door? Thanks to the Internet of Things (IoT), you don't need a brand-new smart appliance to make this happen."}],["$","meta","9",{"property":"og:image","content":"https://abdullahibnealam.com/media/blog/images/smart-cooling-upgrading-my-ac-with-a-wemos-d1-mini-and-google-assistant.jpg"}],["$","meta","10",{"property":"og:type","content":"profile"}],["$","meta","11",{"name":"twitter:card","content":"summary_large_image"}],["$","meta","12",{"name":"twitter:title","content":"Smart Cooling: Upgrading My AC with a Wemos D1 Mini and Google Assistant - by Abdullah Ibne Alam - Blog"}],["$","meta","13",{"name":"twitter:description","content":"Smart Cooling: Upgrading My AC with a Wemos D1 Mini and Google Assistant - Have you ever left the house and realized you forgot to turn off the AC? Or wished your room was perfectly chilled the exact moment you walked through the door? Thanks to the Internet of Things (IoT), you don't need a brand-new smart appliance to make this happen."}],["$","meta","14",{"name":"twitter:image","content":"https://abdullahibnealam.com/media/blog/images/smart-cooling-upgrading-my-ac-with-a-wemos-d1-mini-and-google-assistant.jpg"}],["$","link","15",{"rel":"icon","href":"/favicon.ico?favicon.1s9kz1cy8-vtv.ico","sizes":"64x64","type":"image/x-icon"}],["$","link","16",{"rel":"icon","href":"/favicon.ico"}],["$","link","17",{"rel":"icon","href":"/icon.png","type":"image/png"}],["$","link","18",{"rel":"apple-touch-icon","href":"/apple-icon.png"}],["$","$L3d","19",{}]] 38:null