Fun Stuff

[toggledbits]

In the background of other work, I've been putting together a build system for the OpenWrt version that Ezlo is using on the Plus. Job done. I can build pretty much any package, which may come in handy some day.

As a test of that, I thought, why not build nodejs... and you know where that leads, right?

It took some doing. There are a lot of dependencies, and the errors you get when the dependencies aren't met correctly can be cryptic and took quite a bit of research and experimentation to resolve... weeks, in fact, over a couple of hours here, a couple there.

But it's done and I now have Reactor running on an Ezlo Plus.

I'm not sure what the long term utility of this might be. Since the new Ezlo philosophy is to upgrade your system automatically on reboots, and so far the upgrades have wiped substantial parts of the file system in my experience, this could be a non-starter as a platform — you wouldn't want your automations to get blown off the machine every time Ezlo upgrades firmware (because you don't know when that's going to be, and Murphy says it will be while you are on vacation with no remote access). But, if there is some place it can be tucked away safely, or if, as probably should be demanded by the user community, updates become elective and user-driven, it actually makes a nice Pi-ish platform to run on.

On to the next skunkworks project...

[Crille]

@toggledbits That's so cool! I admire your genius
Excited to see where this leads in the future.

[toggledbits]

A recent update of firmware shows that the base installation is, in fact, wiped out. There is a location where the storage is undisturbed, however, so I'll experiment with an integrated solution in that location and see what happens.

Other asides, just for my own fun, I made controller classes for OctoPrint to track and report that status and operating stats of my 3D printers, and a CoinGecko integration to fetch and report prices for crypto (so I can use rules to trigger notifications). If anyone is interested in either of these, please PM me.

Oh, and the ZWave built-in integration is breathing life, but still has much work to be done.

[Crille]

@toggledbits Would you mind share that storage location. I need a place to store my startup script and config that enables my Ezlo as an AP for my network.

[toggledbits]

@crille The volume is /home, but if your scripts are relying on stuff in /etc or anywhere else under the root filesystem to get going, you're going to face the same issue: all of it is on the overlay that gets wiped when the new underlying squashfs is applied.

[Crille]

@toggledbits I was afraid my /etc/init.d script would be wiped out but at least I can store them in /home safely then and just copy and re-enable. Thanks for the heads up.

[LibraSun]

Too cool for school, sir! I've been in lurk mode lately due to life interrupting, but didn't want this genius move to go unnoticed.

Next stop: Cause Ezlo firmware to be deleted from Ezlo boxes, leaving only the good stuff. Watching old Forum tells me they are still moving in many odd directions half a step at a time. Yawn. Should my Vera die, I will almost certainly jump to Hubitat + Reactor.