Tomas McGuinness
@tomasmcguinness.bsky.social
Software developer with an interest in DIY, smart home tech and home heating. I make videos on YouTube https://youtube.com/@tomasmcguinness and blog at tomasmcguinness.com
@profanity.accountant I don’t swear.
November 30, 2025 at 8:21 AM
@profanity.accountant I don’t swear.
Going to try another small micro controller. These are ATtiny85.
November 29, 2025 at 8:07 PM
Going to try another small micro controller. These are ATtiny85.
I can get a count of the fabrics, but I'll be damned if I can iterate across them 🤬
November 28, 2025 at 6:47 AM
I can get a count of the fabrics, but I'll be damned if I can iterate across them 🤬
What's that, Tom? It's just a ReactJS being served from a webserver running on amESP32-S3 :)
November 27, 2025 at 7:34 PM
What's that, Tom? It's just a ReactJS being served from a webserver running on amESP32-S3 :)
Reposted by Tomas McGuinness
Hey all, do I have any UK based concept artists following me (or who knows anyone) who would be up for a long term 22 month contract working on Dragonwilds at Jagex? Remote with a very occasional day in office in Cambridge. Development experience and fantasy genre work is a must. Mid level role.
November 27, 2025 at 12:43 PM
Hey all, do I have any UK based concept artists following me (or who knows anyone) who would be up for a long term 22 month contract working on Dragonwilds at Jagex? Remote with a very occasional day in office in Cambridge. Development experience and fantasy genre work is a must. Mid level role.
Building a new heating monitor using Matter and ESP32
In this post, I starte building Heating Monitor to record the readings coming from my radiator temperature sensors
In this post, I starte building Heating Monitor to record the readings coming from my radiator temperature sensors
Building a new heating monitor using Matter and ESP32
In this post, I starte building Heating Monitor to record the readings coming from my radiator temperature sensors
tomasmcguinness.com
November 27, 2025 at 4:33 PM
Building a new heating monitor using Matter and ESP32
In this post, I starte building Heating Monitor to record the readings coming from my radiator temperature sensors
In this post, I starte building Heating Monitor to record the readings coming from my radiator temperature sensors
Had a little idea for my light switches. I have some places where we have a 1-gang switch, but I want to turn that into a 2-gang or 3-gang switch for lamps etc. I wondered about repurposing the twin-and-earth to the switch with a 5V supply and adding a simple digital "pulse" from the switches.
November 26, 2025 at 4:18 PM
Had a little idea for my light switches. I have some places where we have a 1-gang switch, but I want to turn that into a 2-gang or 3-gang switch for lamps etc. I wondered about repurposing the twin-and-earth to the switch with a 5V supply and adding a simple digital "pulse" from the switches.
@jamesmunns.com Hi James. I see you’re a Rust developer. I’ve started picking up the language. Not very far along :)
November 25, 2025 at 7:09 AM
@jamesmunns.com Hi James. I see you’re a Rust developer. I’ve started picking up the language. Not very far along :)
Reposted by Tomas McGuinness
Welly, my employer didn't even check if I managed to finish the almost impossible goal they set me before they let me go.
Anybody looking for a software developer with experience in among others Rust/C#/React/Svelte.
I've done a lot of embedded Rust for private projects as well
Anybody looking for a software developer with experience in among others Rust/C#/React/Svelte.
I've done a lot of embedded Rust for private projects as well
November 24, 2025 at 3:21 PM
Welly, my employer didn't even check if I managed to finish the almost impossible goal they set me before they let me go.
Anybody looking for a software developer with experience in among others Rust/C#/React/Svelte.
I've done a lot of embedded Rust for private projects as well
Anybody looking for a software developer with experience in among others Rust/C#/React/Svelte.
I've done a lot of embedded Rust for private projects as well
Next project is on the drawing board!
November 23, 2025 at 12:40 PM
Next project is on the drawing board!
I'm pleased with how this board is shaping up. Next move for me is making the JST connectors and button surface mounted. I'm considering adding a coin battery, but wondering if that's getting cocky with my code performance :)
November 22, 2025 at 7:56 PM
I'm pleased with how this board is shaping up. Next move for me is making the JST connectors and button surface mounted. I'm considering adding a coin battery, but wondering if that's getting cocky with my code performance :)
I'm getting tired of WSL. Each time I update Windows 11, something just seems to stop working. Right now, I can't flash an ESP32. Worked fine a few weeks ago.
November 22, 2025 at 7:24 AM
I'm getting tired of WSL. Each time I update Windows 11, something just seems to stop working. Right now, I can't flash an ESP32. Worked fine a few weeks ago.
@octopus.energy Hi! Does your GraphQL API support subscriptions over web-sockets? I'm trying to subscribe to the "plannedDispatches" property, but want to check I'm not wasting my time (i.e. there is no server-side support)
November 21, 2025 at 5:14 PM
@octopus.energy Hi! Does your GraphQL API support subscriptions over web-sockets? I'm trying to subscribe to the "plannedDispatches" property, but want to check I'm not wasting my time (i.e. there is no server-side support)
In this post, I show how I reduced the power demand of my Matter Dual Temperature sensor down to 40uA
Lowering power consumption of my Matter Dual Temp Sensor custom board
I recently had an opportunity to solder up some of my custom PCBs. It wasn't a roaring success as I made a bit of a boo-boo with the LDO. Regardless, I managed to flash some code onto my board and got it all running! Aside from the need to fix my PCB design, I needed to seriously lower the power consumption of my board.
tomasmcguinness.com
November 21, 2025 at 11:07 AM
In this post, I show how I reduced the power demand of my Matter Dual Temperature sensor down to 40uA
My little PCB is sipping at power. This excludes the LDO, which will add about 6µA. I still think it's drawing too much power as it should be asleep.
November 20, 2025 at 7:15 PM
My little PCB is sipping at power. This excludes the LDO, which will add about 6µA. I still think it's drawing too much power as it should be asleep.
Next iteration of my PCB is ready for printing. I've introduced traces onto the back of this board, which is new for me.
November 19, 2025 at 7:12 AM
Next iteration of my PCB is ready for printing. I've introduced traces onto the back of this board, which is new for me.
Trying to begin my journey into Rust. The basic command to install rustup won't even work on my Ubuntu 24.04 WSL installation. Curl is broken!
#rust
#rust
November 19, 2025 at 7:11 AM
Trying to begin my journey into Rust. The basic command to install rustup won't even work on my Ubuntu 24.04 WSL installation. Curl is broken!
#rust
#rust
Reposted by Tomas McGuinness
posted by a friend who is Professor of Molecular Biophysics. PM me if you have any ideas and want to be put in touch.
November 17, 2025 at 8:03 PM
posted by a friend who is Professor of Molecular Biophysics. PM me if you have any ideas and want to be put in touch.
SMD components are insane. This is about 2 or 3mm long. Need the macro lens on my phone to see the polarity marking!
November 17, 2025 at 7:54 PM
SMD components are insane. This is about 2 or 3mm long. Need the macro lens on my phone to see the polarity marking!
Deployed! Amazingly, it worked. I wasn’t sure about the two resistors as I soldered them by hand. The readings look good, so I’ll take that as a win!
November 17, 2025 at 6:39 PM
Deployed! Amazingly, it worked. I wasn’t sure about the two resistors as I soldered them by hand. The readings look good, so I’ll take that as a win!
It works! I got my custom firmware flashing onto my custom PCB. In this post, I run through the issues I faced getting my Dual Temperature Sensor code up and running on my custom PCB.
Flashing my nRF54L15 custom board
Not deterred by the huge flaw in my custom PCB, I continued trying to evaluate my board. I connected it to my J-Link programmer, just like I did with the DevKit boards. Due to my dodgy PCB, I couldn't use the J-Link's 5V supply directly. Instead, I passed it through an LDO and fed that to the VDD "output" on my PCB.
tomasmcguinness.com
November 17, 2025 at 1:01 PM
It works! I got my custom firmware flashing onto my custom PCB. In this post, I run through the issues I faced getting my Dual Temperature Sensor code up and running on my custom PCB.
People often ask me why I DIY. It’s because of things like this: this flat piece of timber has my freestanding bath tap attached to its it’s not even fixed to the joist. The tap is now leaning at an angle.
November 16, 2025 at 12:01 PM
People often ask me why I DIY. It’s because of things like this: this flat piece of timber has my freestanding bath tap attached to its it’s not even fixed to the joist. The tap is now leaning at an angle.
First go soldering a module to my new PCB. Not a bad attempt. I’m certainly getting better!
November 15, 2025 at 8:19 PM
First go soldering a module to my new PCB. Not a bad attempt. I’m certainly getting better!
In this post, I look at the massive mistake I made in my PCB design. I got the LDO the wrong way around.
LDO the wrong way around!
Disaster! I finally got around to putting some components on the latest version of my Dual Temperature PCB. Unfortunately, I found a huge mistake! The Module I started assembling the board with the MinewSemi nRF54L15 module. I made a better first pass with this than I did with the DevKit. Plenty of flux!
tomasmcguinness.com
November 14, 2025 at 5:38 PM
In this post, I look at the massive mistake I made in my PCB design. I got the LDO the wrong way around.
In this post, I add Power Forecasts to my Matter Heat Pump simulator. This demonstrates how a heat pump might communicate its expected power consumption to a Device Energy Manager.
Adding Power Forecasts to my Matter Heat Pump
In this post, I created a basic Heat Pump implementation using Matter-JS. Building on this, I wanted to add support for power forecasting and schedules. This would then allow me to show how energy management might work for heat pumps. This would be similar to what I did for my Tiny Matter Dishwasher. My plan was to allow the user to specify some basic schedules, demonstrating different transitions and set points.
tomasmcguinness.com
November 14, 2025 at 2:22 PM
In this post, I add Power Forecasts to my Matter Heat Pump simulator. This demonstrates how a heat pump might communicate its expected power consumption to a Device Energy Manager.