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Internet of Desks: How I Connected My Standing Desk to the Internet
- ramesh31 2y agoThe Uplift desk has an ethernet controller port on the motor. Now I wanna try this.
- bonyt 2y agoIs that actually an ethernet port, or is it just an RJ45 for something like I2C, UART or some other protocol? It's also got a little port for a Bluetooth controller, which came with my desk. I bet it's possible to reverse engineer whatever protocol that is using over bluetooth/BLE.
- jauer 2y agoThis. It's not Ethernet. This article has some dissection of the data going over those ports: https://hackaday.io/project/4173-uplift-desk-wifi-link https://hackaday.io/project/4173-uplift-desk-wifi-link
- JonChesterfield 2y agoGostand does as well. Hmm. Would they have bothered encrypting data going across that wire? Seems unlikely. Would using actual ethernet have been cheaper than DIY? Really might be. Interesting thought, I do want to toggle the desk height from emacs and probably from cron
- kn100 2y agoboy do I have just the thing for you (disclaimer: I have nothing to do with, nor have I tried this): https://www.tindie.com/products/tjhorner/upsy-desky/ https://www.tindie.com/products/tjhorner/upsy-desky/ if your standing desk has that ethernet like connection scheme, something like this might just work out of the box!
- JonChesterfield 2y agoSome details at https://upsy-desky.tjhorner.dev/docs/reference/compatibility/ https://upsy-desky.tjhorner.dev/docs/reference/compatibility... including a sketch of what to do to add a model to it. The rabbit hole beckons
- signalnine 2y agoI have this and it works great. I wrote a script for it that checks my google calendar to make sure I'm not in a meeting (nothing worse than your desk suddenly moving positions when you're in the middle of talking to folks) and then moves my desk to a standing position for a configured amount of time every day. https://github.com/signalnine/upsy-desky-autostand https://github.com/signalnine/upsy-desky-autostand
- dylanowen 2y agoI bought one of these https://www.upliftdesk.com/bluetooth-adapter-for-uplift-desk/ https://www.upliftdesk.com/bluetooth-adapter-for-uplift-desk... but the app UX was not my favorite. Fortunately someone decoded all the BT commands so I made https://github.com/dylanowen/uplift-cli https://github.com/dylanowen/uplift-cli and connected that to a schedule and cmd+enter. It's great to just type stand to stand
- 7839284023 2y agoYou could DIY this with: https://community.home-assistant.io/t/desky-standing-desk-esphome-works-with-desky-uplift-jiecang-assmann-others/383790/18 https://community.home-assistant.io/t/desky-standing-desk-es...
- benreesman 2y agoHaha I don’t want to take anything away from a dope hack: quite the contrary this is mad hackerish and I love it. But it’s a hallmark of the times that I was immediately like, I bet someone is looking at how hard it would be to break into this. All the great old-school IoT stuff (webcams of the coffee pot, all that stuff) was such a more fun time. We could have nice things back then.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- netbioserror 2y agoWarning, inane tangential commentary: I love the author's "But why?" article. However, I have a worry: So many "But why?" questions in the software world apply to IoT projects, and IoT is playing a central role in the rise of global dystopian surveillance and data-brokering. Sometimes it feels like we're getting too much practice at making this stuff. As though we should be answering "But why?" for more minimal or freedom-promoting projects, like unconnected solar-powered desktops or very dumb sensors and timers for decidedly not-smart homes. I dunno. Just a thought.
- kn100 2y agoYou make a good point - but let's be careful to not confuse personal hackery with random internet connected shit you buy from the internet. In my ideal world, every IoT product would directly and clearly document it's hardware, along with allowing the user to replace the firmware with whatever they wanted, so users like me can opt out of the cloud driven solution. The nice thing about a hack like this is you, the creator, have full control over exactly what is exposed or how. There's no cloud, no external control, no unwanted firmware updates, nothing. If everybody was willing and capable to engage with their hardware at this sort of a level, there wouldn't be this crisis of insanely insecure hardware being sold to uncaring consumers, imo!
- netbioserror 2y agoMy comment is maybe too-indirectly implying that these skills end up getting applied in careers where surveillance is added on top of these sorts of connected processes. The hobby can be as benign as we like, but paychecks change what people are willing to tolerate...
- bombcar 2y agoOne thing I've learned when dealing with cheap PoE CTV cameras, is that there really are only a very few IoT chipsets for various things, everyone seems to be using the same ones (except for a subset of boutique ones reusing off-the-shelf more complicated ARM processors or Raspberry Pis or whatever). I'd love to see that more standardized and things like OpenWRT for all sorts of IoT junk, giving back control. Opinionated things like Valetudo https://valetudo.cloud https://valetudo.cloud
- ApeTheRick 2y agoGET requests should be idempotent - browsers will call them without explicitly asking to, if bookmarked etc. Reminds me of the old story here https://twitter.com/rombulow/status/990684453734203392 https://twitter.com/rombulow/status/990684453734203392 Maybe consider changing setting the height to a POST request
- Filligree 2y ago> This, kids, is why GET requests should be idempotent. I'm not sure I understand. What is this referring to?
- ApeTheRick 2y agoI think the twitter link is messed up, I have to scroll up to see the whole thread. Edit: Fixed the link now.
- tjoff 2y agoTwitter threads are always messed up if you don't have an account. You can't follow the thread at all.
- bombcar 2y agohttps://threadreaderapp.com/thread/990684453734203392.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/990684453734203392.html Had a GET request that would open or close the garage door. Safari learned he liked that page, and would hit it every time he opened a new tab on any device.
- Filligree 2y agoAh, I see... POST requests should be idempotent, ideally. PUT requests certainly must be; it's their defining characteristic. GET requests, though, just shouldn't have side-effects at all. (A /toggle URL isn't idempotent. If it were /open and /close it would be, but still shouldn't be GET.)
- robin_reala 2y agoIf you’ve got an IKEA Bekant sit/stand desk and are interested in this sort of thing then Megadesk[1] and Megadesk Companion[2] will allow it to connect to Home Assistant for automation (and also adds memory states). (This post emphatically not endorsed by my employer.) [1] https://github.com/gcormier/megadesk https://github.com/gcormier/megadesk [2] https://github.com/gcormier/megadesk_companion https://github.com/gcormier/megadesk_companion
- saagarjha 2y agoIt’s a good post I would think more highly of your employer if they endorsed it (Also fwiw if you email ‘dang sometimes he will change your username)
- m463 2y agoI have an ikea idasen sit/stand desk, which turns out to have bluetooth. There are a bunch of projects on github, but I used: https://github.com/newAM/idasen https://github.com/newAM/idasen You can install it with just "pip install idasen"
- mdrzn 2y agoWhoa had no idea there were solutions to add memory to the Bekant, thank you for sharing!
- walthamstow 2y agoAnd here's me thinking I was clever for converting my crank-driven standing desk to an electric one by using a power drill and a 12mm hex bit
- kayodelycaon 2y agoDid you disassemble the drill and strap it somewhere or is it just sitting next to your desk? :D
- walthamstow 2y agoThe latter! At some point I got bored of having to retrieve it every time I had a DIY job to do, so I bought a really cheap one and left it in my home office
- SEXMCNIGGA20336 2y ago[flagged]
- metadat 2y agoWhat is the board with a kajillion holes in it behind the esp32 called? https://kn100.me/posts/desksniffer/pbfront.webp https://kn100.me/posts/desksniffer/pbfront.webp It looks like it could come in handy for many esp32 projects. p.s. In case the author comes across this comment - Absolutely superb write-up, your writing style reveals your curious and positive attitude, it's totally inspiring! I wish I could easily subscribe to future publications, like the emails I get from Ken Shirriff of https://righto.com https://righto.com. Also, your C++ is clear and easy to read, good job. Cheers. Edit: @Klathmon, thanks for the info, that was very fast :)
- jrmg 2y agoAlso called 'protoboard'.
- Klathmon 2y agoI've heard them called "Solderable Breadboards", and they're fantastic for working with MCUs and "through-hole" style components
- IshKebab 2y agoPerf board.
- drjasonharrison 2y agoif you search for "prototype board for esp32" or "breadboard for esp32" you can find the same board the author used. You can also find ones with strips for each esp32 pin, instead of just a via and pad. And you can find solderless versions where the connections push in vertically (typically white with five holes connected perpendicular to the "valley" that a DIP chip would insert). And you can find "breakout boards" with sockets for the esp32 and pin headers and screw terminals for each pin.
- tnvmadhav 2y agoLove it. Imagining the scenarios of exposing this to public internet without security walls.
- xg15 2y agoNext week on HN: "How I got knocked out by Googlebot. No, I don't mean DDoSed, it literally gave me an uppercut."
- Scene_Cast2 2y agoIf anyone wants the functionality without the hardware tinkering - there's a nice MITM controller up on tindie. I use it, it works.
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- BobbyTables2 2y agotip for the author: I2C supports multi-master designs. In practice, it is similar to how a firearm allows one to shoot at themselves in the foot. Electrically it seems like a low speed bus should be the ultimate in reliability. Sadly, I2C peripherals are implemented with high speed digital logic and sometimes no filtering (or present but not enabled)! They might react on nanosecond glitches of the I2C clock line or very high frequency noise that is hard to see. It boggles my mind that I2C is implemented so horribly but continues to be used… for decades. And don’t get me started on the hung bus problem…
- xg15 2y agoI have no experience with I2C whatsoever, but it sounds like the HTTP/HTML of the electronics world: Full of quirks and design failures, but it's what everyone knows and understands, so it won't ever die...
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