Local government IT by day // acreage electrician by evening
Notes from a 106-year-old timber home on Queensland acreage, where the switchboard, the solar system and a pile of ESP32s all report to the same home automation setup — most of the time on purpose.
I've spent a working life on the sort of infrastructure that isn't supposed to be interesting — mainframes, Token Ring, Novell at scale, and now the quieter version of that at a small regional council. The electrical licence came first, though, and it never really left.
This site is what happens when that background lands on a smallholding: a home automation setup that's grown past "smart speaker turns on a light," a solar and battery system getting tuned season by season, and a rotating cast of ESP32 boards that mostly do what they're told. The project log is the running commentary — including the bits that didn't work the first time.
Smart Home Sparkie