<p>Turn on and off your old electric heater with code. You can save money and lower CO2 with
a bit of Javascript.</p>
<hr>
<h1>Easy automation with Sonoff and Javascript</h1>
<h2>Sonoff</h2>
<p><a href="https://amzn.to/39a54eI">Sonoff</a> is a company that builds smart and cheap components (5$ - 40$), compatible with IFTTT softwares. Some competitors of Sonoff are first <a href="https://amzn.to/38YKjm4">Shelly</a>, but also <a href="https://amzn.to/3nnwva2">Horsky</a>, Kankun.... But in terms of Javascript, I only found something similar with <a href="https://www.npmjs.com/package/homebridge-smartplug">Kankun</a>, but was published 3 years ago. So don't count on it.</p>
<p>This blogpost will present <a href="https://github.com/skydiver/ewelink-api">Skydiver's ewelink npm module</a> that worked great immediately.</p>
<p>Because I work on the heater, I bought the <a href="https://amzn.to/3bcx97P">TH-16</a> version : with a 16 Amperes capacity  with temperature sensor for 15$. Be careful to use the <a href="https://amzn.to/38ihMc2">Sonoff TH Sensor-AM2301</a>, other sensors are not working as well.</p>
<p><img src="./images/sonoff.png" alt="Sonoff basic"></p>
<h2>eWeLink, IFTTT, Alexa...</h2>
<p>Now it's dirty. Though your mileage may vary,  it's not working the right way for me. No way to put Alexa or similar at home.</p>
<p>The ewelink app (android or iOS) is needed and allows the Internet to find your device. You create an account on eWeLink, and they will register your device. Then you have a few options to set the switch on and off. But there are a lot of limitations. Either it's controlled by a min/max temperature, either by time triggers. Given a time, it will force <code>on</code> or <code>off</code>. It's not bad but not enough, with a poor UX.</p>
<p>My android phone and iPad have both eWeLink installed.</p>
<p><img src="images/sonoff-both-temperatures.jpeg" alt="Both Sonoff tempratures differs"></p>
<p>Well, you understand why I don't want to lean on the app .... Hopefully the results I get from the code are more consistent.</p>
<p>IFTTT means IF This Then That. It's not an open protocol, but more a private Saas tool much like Zapier. There is an <a href="https://platform.ifttt.com/docs/api_reference">Http API</a> that allows us to control the devices. It's quite hard to follow, especially on how to access the device with your rights.</p>
<h2>The code and the setup</h2>
<p>The goal is to power on Lili's room, based on some constraints. If temperature is below 18 AND if
it's the right moment of the right day, then turn it on. If not turn it off.</p>
<p>I just installed ewelink-api and dotenv packages, the latter to avoid hard coded passwords. There is some <em>closed</em> code about how to parse the ewelink responses.</p>
<pre><code class="language-javascript">require('dotenv').config()
const ewelink = require('ewelink-api')

const devices = {
    lili: process.env.LILI
}

const connection = new ewelink({
    email: process.env.EMAIL,
    password: process.env.PASSWORD,
    region: process.env.REGION // eu, us ....
})

let intervalId;
connection.getDevices().then(()=> intervalId = setInterval(work, 15*60*1000))

async function work() {
    try {
        const {temperature, power} = await liliStatus()

        if (temperature &#x3C; 18 &#x26;&#x26; !power &#x26;&#x26; timeAndDayToPowerOn()) {
            console.log({temperature, power},"Powering lili on");
            await connection.setDevicePowerState(devices.lili, 'on')
        }else{
            if(power){
                console.log({temperature, power},"Powering lili off");
                await connection.setDevicePowerState(devices.lili, 'off')
            }else{
                console.log({temperature, power},"Nothing to do");
            }
        }
    } catch (e) {
        console.error(e)
    }
}

</code></pre>
<p>That's almost all the logic needed. More details are on <a href="https://gist.github.com/nicolas-zozol/1f06ec0822c32b5e4ce30ffaba09947a">this gist</a>, that will probably improve this code.</p>
<h2>So far so good.</h2>
<p>The device is far from the wi-fi box, but it's still working.</p>
<p><img src="./images/run-logs.png" alt="up and running"></p>
<p>Next step are to deploy this on <a href="https://www.clever-cloud.com/en/">Clever Cloud</a> or similar. Maybe remove the loop from the setInterval function and run a <a href="https://cloud.google.com/functions">GCP Function</a> (aka lambda) with a <a href="https://cloud.google.com/scheduler">cron</a>.</p>
<p>Fun fact: if you keep <code>setInterval</code> in your cloud Function, you may thousands of dollars in stacked running lambdas.</p>
<p>The instructions are not stored on the device itself. It waits for external inputs to trigger <code>on /off</code>. I should save money, but the problem is that heat will depend on weather and now also on
clouds.</p>


Easy automation with Sonoff and Javascript

<p>GMail was a revolution in 2004. Is Google too big now ?</p>
<hr>
<h1>Leaving Gmail</h1>
<h2>Why ?</h2>
<p>Thousands of blog post have their opinion, here is mine.</p>
<p>Giving your data to Google was acceptable some time ago. It's not anymore. First because Google has changed, being so big. Second, and mostly important,
because if you think Google is still acceptable, it may not be tomorrow. Be prepared.</p>
<p>Today and tomorrow, an email address will represent your identity. Own it.</p>
<h2>Registrar</h2>
<p>First is to choose a registrar for your domain, like the excellent [http://www.gandi.net].
Choose a domain name, such as <code>yourname.co.uk</code> if it's available and if you are britain.
If you are linked to the city and have 45€/y, choosing <code>yourname.paris</code> is a sexy option. But <code>yourname.me</code> is the most regular way and quite cheaper.</p>
<p>Then create a Fastmail (or ProtonMail or whatever that is not hotmail) account. The first real problem is that you must change the DNS settings
, so that when a mail arrive to <code>yourname.me</code>, your registrar can send it back to fastmail.</p>
<p>You can't buy directly a domain with Fastmail. But if you are no more agree with Fastmail, it will extremely simple to move and keep the same identity.</p>
<p>I'm an advanced user, so I preferred to use the advanced option and use MX records for Fastmail, keeping other records for me, especially for the associated website.</p>
<p><img src="./images/dns-fastmail.png" alt="DNS Record in Fastmail"></p>
<p>DNS records are very hard to understand, but fortunately, the MX records that handle email redirection are not the worst.
The main problem is that you must wait hours before knowing if the dns record is good or not. And <code>hours</code> is not precise enough.</p>
<p>The other problem is that I had to create email box on Gandi, then the MX would redirect to Fastmail. And emails are limited to two. It's not Gandi's Job.</p>
<p>So the standard way is better. Let say to Gandi that the serveur name is not on Gandi's IP but Fastmail IP.</p>
<p><img src="./images/dns-servers.png" alt="DNS Servers in Gandi"></p>
<h2>Import emails</h2>
<p>Then you must import all of your mail from Gmail. The main difficulty is to turn off Gmail security after these messages:</p>
<p>https://www.fastmail.com/help/account/gmailimport.html</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Critical security alert : A suspicious app was blocked from accessing your account</p>
</blockquote>
<p>You must <strong>temporarily</strong> accept <a href="https://myaccount.google.com/lesssecureapps">Less secured Apps</a> in your Google account</p>
<p>And don't forget to put security back after import. You should still keep your Google account safe.</p>
<h2>Ooops</h2>
<p>It looks like Gmail and Fastmail have not the same relationship with the <strong>read</strong> word. I had more than 4000 supposed
unread messages. It's very easy to deal with that, but needs a bit of courage. Just archive them.</p>
<p><img src="./images/archive.png" alt=""></p>
