Miscellany – Benjamin Chadwick

Instructions and an OpenHAB2 rules file for setting up a Philips Hue Smart Dimmer Switch to work with non-Hue devices. It’s the secret instruction manual you never knew you didn’t have!

25 Jan. 2019 UPDATE: These instructions do not seem to work with release 2.5.0-M1 of OpenHAB. I believe a regression has been introduced to the dimmer event channel. Remote activity appears in the logs, but the channel event shows no activity, unlike version 2.4.0. I can’t find any documentation that any relevant component has been intentionally changed. So, for the time being, just stick with 2.4.0 if you use these instructions.

If you want to ignore some potentially useful, but also potentially tedious observations, and just get to the HOWTO component, then skip to “Prerequisites” down below.

Last night I cooked some jalapeños and some other organic hot peppers in my dinner. I’m in a CSA that ships vegetables direct from a Pennsylvania farm, and the peppers that come from there are about a billion times hotter than anything I’ve bought at the supermarket. In fact, they’re so spicy that most of my fellow CSA members don’t even take them home. They just leave them in the swap box. A few months ago my girlfriend spent four hours dipping her hands in various substances– isopropyl alcohol, milk, Pepto-Bismol, whiskey, mayonnaise, etc. to try to stop the stinging from one of these little bastards. Capsaicin doesn’t come off easily. It’s really a wonder that we eat these things…

Continue Reading “How to put in your contact lenses while suffering from hot pepper burn”

Category: Miscellany

Using a Philips Hue Dimmer Switch on Non-Hue Devices through OpenHAB2 (updated 25 Jan. 2019)

How to put in your contact lenses while suffering from hot pepper burn