Archive
Top Tech Stories of the Week – August 5th, 2018
- Defense Department bans geolocation features on tech devices due to security risk – ABC News | Link
- Anki’s Vector is a robot companion that fits in the palm of your hand | VentureBeat | Link
- Magic Leap details what its mixed reality OS will look like – TechCrunch | Link
- PUBG developer admits PUBG is broken with ‘Fix PUBG’ campaign – The Verge | Link
- Samsung Galaxy Home smart speaker announced – Business Insider | Link
- Samsung Galaxy Watch Unveiled: Here’s Everything You Need To Know | Link
- Sony unveils translucent PS4 Pro 500 Million Limited Edition to celebrate sales – CNET | Link
- New Zealand to Ban Single-Use Plastic Bags – Time | Link
Mini-Project: Power Samsung SmartThings Motion Sensor From Wall Power
If you’re a heavy smart home user, you might find that you change batteries regularly for your motion sensors and remote devices. Sometimes changing it too often which costs a lot of money and it’s a lot to deal with. It uses the CR2477 battery which is hard to come by and if you find one, it’s expensive for what it provides. So I decided connect the Samsung SmartThings Motion Sensor (F-IRM-US-2) to the household electricity. Just FYI this motion sensor is located at the dressing room to turn on the lights when there’s motion in the room, and then turns the light off when there’s no motion.
So the RC2477 battery provides 3V power to the sensor, so I started looking for a 3V wall power socket and I found this. You can get any wall power socket as long as it provides 3V of DC current for your device. I’m not worried about the current as they’ll always provide more than what I need. In fact, in the future I’m planning to use that same socket for second motion sensor using a 3-Way connector.
Now I need a low-profile way to connect the wires to the motion sensor and I know exactly where I can get it. I got this flat wire from SuperBrightLEDs. I also need two connectors, one to connect the wire to the wall socket, and a pigtail connector to connect the wire to the motion sensor at the other end. For the wall socket connector make sure you get the correct size of the barrel bullet, 5.5×2.1mm in my case.
I’ve ended up gluing the motion sensor to the pigtail connector using a hot glue gun. I’ve decided not to solder just in case I needed to go back using the battery in the future. Just make sure you’re using the right polarity (+ve, -ve) when connecting the wires.
This project was completed six months ago, and since then I’ve been using the motion sensor that way with zero problems.

This is where my motion sensor is located

Flat wires barely visible

Wires glued to the motion sensor

Pigtail Connector
Top Tech Stories of the Week – July 22nd, 2018
- Valve Banned Over 90,000 Steam Accounts Last Week | Link
- Alphabet stock soars to record highs as Google earnings smash expectations – MarketWatch | Link
- Google Brings Smart Reply To Hangouts, Smart Compose, Grammar Checking To G Suite | Link
- Uber has completed 10 billion trips around the world | Link
- Twitter clamps down on developer access to APIs | ZDNet | Link
- Philips Hue introduce New Outdoor Lightstrips and More – Homekit News and Reviews | Link
- EA to launch its unlimited PC game subscription service next week – BGR | Link
Top Tech Stories of the Week – July 15th, 2018
- Open offices are as bad as they seem—they reduce face-to-face time by 70% | Ars Technica | Link
- UK spaceport proposed for Sutherland site – BBC News | Link
- Prime Day: Amazon website crashes shortly after deals go live | Link
- Amazon workers strike in Germany, joining action in Spain and Poland – Reuters | Link
- Microsoft to end support for Skype ‘classic’ following new desktop release – CNET | Link
- Netflix stock slammed after earnings, as subscriber growth and revenue fall short – MarketWatch | Link
- 12 New Moons Found Orbiting Jupiter – National Geographic | Link
- Walmart and Microsoft team up to fight Amazon – CNN Money | Link
- Google’s job hunting service comes to UK – BBC News | Link
- Marwan Fawaz Steps Down as CEO of Google-Owned Nest – Digital Trends | Link
- Google’s first private trans-Atlantic subsea cable will connect the U.S. and France in 2020 – 9to5Google | Link
- Google to appeal after EC fines it €4.34bn over Android competition breach – as it happened | Business | The Guardian | Link
- VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger is happy to be independent of Dell – Business Insider | Link
- Project ‘Fuchsia’: Google Is Quietly Working on a Successor to Android – Bloomberg | Link
- Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Twitter launch the Data Transfer Project – VentureBeat | Link
- Wanted: Inspiring name for Europe’s 2020 Mars rover – BBC News | Link
Top Tech Stories of the Week – July 8th, 2018
- Virgin Galactic plans to open a commercial spaceport in Italy | Link
- NASA’s Kepler Telescope to Send Last Images in August – Fortune | Link
- Microsoft Surface Go: A Cheap 10-Inch Tablet to Beat the iPad | Link
- World’s Largest Mobile Phone Factory Set to Open in India – Bloomberg | Link
- Facebook faces UK fine over Cambridge Analytica scandal – CNET | Link
- Hacker Selling Pentagon’s Killer Drone Manual on Dark Web for $150, Cheap | Link
- Kuwait, China ink several agreements, MoUs to boost ties in various fields – Kuwait Times | Kuwait Times | Link
- Dolby Vision HDR streaming will soon arrive on Xbox One | TechRadar | Link
- The last Blockbuster standing in America – CNN | Link
Top Tech Stories of the Week – July 1st, 2018
- Google Pixel Watch rumors: Everything we’ve heard so far – Business Insider | Link
- NASA needs to upgrade its ‘planetary protection’ efforts, experts say – The Washington Post | Link
- Facebook close to buying Bloomsbury AI to combat fake news – Business Insider | Link
- Netflix Tests New Price Levels for Ultra HD Viewing Over Four Screens – Fortune | Link
- Sony Pictures accidentally upload entire movie to Youtube instead of trailer – The Independent | Link
Top Tech Stories of the Week – June 24th, 2018
- A Virginia Restaurant Asked Sarah Huckabee Sanders to Leave and Now Its Yelp Page is Destroyed | Link
- Chinese holiday island to unlock Facebook, Twitter and YouTube for foreign visitors – South China Morning Post | Link
- EU tariffs force Harley-Davidson to move some production out of US – as it happened – Business – The Guardian | Link
- Amazon Launches Support for Arabic Language Books on Kindle – Business Wire | Link
- WPA3 Wi-Fi security standard is officially rolling out to replace the 14-year-old WPA2 – Android Central | Link
- Facebook scraps Aquila internet delivery drones – CNBC | Link
- Google is retiring the AdWords & DoubleClick brands in a major rebranding aimed at simplification – Search Engine Land | Link
- Copyright Lawsuit Dropped Against Fortnite Creators, Ending Legal Battle – Bloomberg | Link
- Instagram Lite: Tiny version of app quietly launches on Google Play – The Independent | Link
- Sony Mobile rumored to exit Middle Eastern, African, and Turkish markets | Link
- Amazon shakes healthcare business with pharmacy deal – Financial Times | Link
- Amazon Will Let Entrepreneurs Start Their Own Delivery Business and Earn Up to $300,000 a Year | Link
- Sources: Google Is Planning A Game Platform That Could Take On Xbox And PlayStation | Link
2018 Samsung TVs Unveiled in NY Event
In yesterday’s Samsung 2018 First Look Event, new lineup of 2018 TVs were unveiled and I’m very exited of some its features including Ambient Mode, Bixy and SmartThings integration – though I would prefer Google Assistant, and One Invisible Connection which feeds the TV with A/V and power but this time it’s even thinner.
Unfortunately their TVs don’t support Dolby Vision.

Ambient Mode is one of the features coming with 2018 TVs from Samsung
More info at Techradar.com
