BeatificaBytes

The Joys of Computing

Category: Tips

  • Cannot pair Aqara or other Zigbee devices with Homey Pro?

    Pairing Aqara device (Zibgee) with Homey can sometimes be frustrating. And it’s actually the same with other Hubs… Here is my trick : keep the device awake by pressing shortly on the button every 5 sec.

    Click to Read More

    Usually, to pair an Aqara device (Zigbee) with your hub, you need to press the reset button until it starts flashing (usually 5 or 8 seconds depending on the model). However, often, nothing happens, and your hub will report that the pairing failed, even though you were close to the hub and made sure there were no Bluetooth devices communicating in the nearby area.

    In such cases, after the reset (explained above), press and release immediately the reset button once every 5 seconds. This will keep the device awake and maximize the chance of a successful pairing.

    Notice: Aqara devices are built by Lumi United Technology. Lumi is also producing the devices of Xiaomi. So, this trick is valid for most of them (and most ZigBee devices on battery)

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  • Use Gmail antispam with an OVH Mail Pro mailbox

    This is probably a dirty trick, but it works. All my emails are passed through a gmail intermediary mailbox, where Spams are deleted and remaining emails are forwared to my OVH mailbox.

    Click to Read More

    As partially explained here, I used to have a mailbox “MyUser@MyDomain” in a MX Plan of OVH to store all my emails and an email address “MyAddress@MyDomain” which was a redirection to a gmail mailbox “MyUser@gmail.com” (People are sending me emails only on “MyAddress@MyDomain”).

    All emails passed to “MyUser@gmail.com” are filtered (antispam), forwarded into my mailbox “MyUser@MyDomain” and archived at gmail (so a “backup” is kept there).

    My Outlook used to be configured with IMAP to fetch emails from “MyUser@MyDomain” and SMTP to sent emails “From: MyAddress@MyDomain”

    Unfortunately, mailboxes of MX Plan at OVH are limited to 5GB. So, I decided to migrate my mailbox “MyUser@MyDomain” to a “Mail Pro” account at OVH.

    First, while doing so, very important, I had to define the domain as “non-authoritative”  in the “Mail Pro” account !!! Otherwise, the “Redirections” defined in the MX Plan won’t work anymore.

    Next, I configured my new Mail Pro account in Outlook (NB.: this account, migrated from the MX Plan, still has the same name: “MyUser@MyDomain”). Unfortunately, once this Mail Pro account configured in Outlook, I couldn’t sent email “From: MyAddress@MyDomain” anymore. The reason is that “Mail Pro” does not know “MyAddress@MyDomain” which is defined in the MX Plan. Sending emails via the account “MyUser@MyDomain” but “From: MyAddress@MyDomain” is therefore considered as Spoofing by Mail Pro (NB.: it’s not the case within a MX Plan).

    If you don’t care about the gmail antispam filtering anymore, then you can simply:

    • Delete the Redirection “MyAddress@MyDomain” from the MX Plan.
    • Wait for 30 sec, to be sure the delete is executed.
    • Create an Alias “MyAddress@MyDomain” in your Mail Pro (it will fail if the delete is not yet executed. If this occurs, retry)

    To, instead, keep the mechanism above in place:

    • Create a new mailbox in the MX Plan, with simply 50MB, going to be used only to send emails via SMTP: “MyMail@MyDomain”
    • Configure Outlook:
      • To use “MyAddress@MyDomain” as “From”
      • IMAP with the account of Mail Pro (“MyUser@MyDomain”)
      • SMTP with the account of MX Plan (“MyMail@MyDomain”)

    It results into this schema:

    Disclaimer: an SME from the community OVH reports that not only OVH is sometimes blocking outgoing emails without notifications (as those are considered as Spams, but also Gmail is rejecting many incoming emails with unclear explanation for most standard users. As a consequence, some/many (?) emails could be “silently lost” with the mechanism above….

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  • Insta360 Studio crashes immediately when exporting

    After upgrading to the version 4.9.1, from Insta360 Studio started to crash immediately after pressing the export button. A downgrade to 4.8.4 didn’t solve the issue. But using “CPU” instead of “Auto” as “Image Processing Acceleration” did the trick !

    Click to Read More

    I was expecting an issue with the Codecs and so I did first untick all the options enabled by default in related tab of the User Preference

    But that didn’t help. So I tried next to set “CPU” instead of “Auto” for “Image Processing Acceleration” in the Hardware Acceleration tab. And it solved the problem.

    I didn’t find any information on that flag on Insta360 forum…

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  • How to identify a USB device

    You found a USB device (a dongle or whatever) but have no idea what it is ? USBDeview is the tool to help you in identifying that device.

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    Here is what you must do to get information on your device:

    1. Download and store USBDeview on your PC
    2. In the same folder, store this file with an unofficial list of USB devices
    3. Run USBDeview and in the “View” menu, “Choose Columns”
    4. Sort the Columns to have: Device Name, Description, Device Type, Drive Letter, Serial Number, Registry Time 1 and 2, VendorID, ProductID, InstanceID
    5. Plug your USB device into your PC
    6. Look for the latest updated USB device in USBDeview (sorting on the column “Registry Time”). This is your device to be identified (you see several lines with the same timestamp, VendorID and ProductID)

    You can also get extra information on this web site, searching for the VendorID and ProductID. You can also use there software, temple, to find the name of the vendor if it was unknown for USBDeview: Run Temple and filter on the VendorID or ProductID to highlight the device (DO NOT TYPE ENTER, as it close temple). Ex.: for the ProductID 1701 here above, with an unknow vendor, Temple tell us that it is “Lester Electrical”:

    Does “Lester Electrical” ring a bell for you ? Then you found what’s this dongle.

    In many cases unfortunately, you can’t do any link between the vendor of the hardware (in the usb device) and what this device is actually used for. Here above, I finally figured out that this was the wireless dongle to connect one of my mini keyboard Rii mini i8 imported from China by RiiTek. But there was really no link between both…

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  • Nvidia : how to force detection of a Missing Display ?

    It happens regularly that my PC does not detect all of my 3 displays when starting. There are several options to fix this: reboot the PC, use Ctrl+WinKey+Shift+B, unplug and replug the cable of the missing display, or force Nvidia to detect that missing display.

    Click to Read More

    For the last option:

    1. Run the NVIDIA Control Panel
    2. Select “Set up multiple displays”
    3. Click “My display is not show”
    4. Turn off and on again your display
    5. Click “Rigorous Display Detection”

     

    In many cases, the only option working fine is however to unplug and replug the cable of the missing display :/

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  • Setting distinct email user account and email address in Outlook

    Initially, with Outlook 2021, I couldn’t set my email account to use an email address “From” as I used to do it. All emails were sent from “MyUser@MyDomain on behalf of MyAddress@MyDomain”. To sent the mail from “MyAddress@MyDomain”, I had to configure my account via the email “Manage Profile” menu.

    Click to Read More

    I want to send my emails with “MyAddess@MyDomain” as a From, without specifying explicitly this address as “Reply To” (Because I want the recipients to see “MyAddress@MyDomain” as origin of my emails).

    But the account to login into my mailbox, at my domain provider, is “MyUser@MyDomain”.

    The reason is that I have configured “MyAddress@MyDomain” to be a forward to “MyUser@gmail.com”. And I have configured an autoforward of “MyUser@gmail.com” to “MyUser@MyDomain”. Doing so, I benefit of the gmail anti-spam and I have a copy in gmail of all my emails (just in case of DRP at my provider).

    So, a mail sent to me (MyAddress@MyDomain) is actually passed to Google (MyUser@gmail.com) before being forwarded into my mailbox (MyUser@MyDomain) as illustrated here under.

    The issue is that it’s not possible to configure Outlook 2021 to send email from “MyAddress” while connecting to the mailbox “MyUser” with its new configuration wizard.

    This new configuration wizard can be accessed via File > Account Settings > New :

    Even if you tick the option “Advanced options”, you will not be able to configure distinct “email address” and “email account”, as in previous versions of Outlook. You will be able to change a edit the “Account Name” and few other options, but the best that you can do is sent an email from  your “email account” on behalf of your “email address”  (I.e.: from MyUser@MyDomain on behalf of MyAddress@MyDomain)

     

    The solution is to use instead : File > Manage Profiles > Email Accounts > New

    And then, configure your account as you used to do it in the past, with distinct “email address” and “user name” :

    Et voilà

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  • Play Meta/Oculus VR Games with a HTC Vive VR headset

    My daughter wanted to play “Vader Immortal” which is only available on Meta Quest for Oculus, while I have a HTC Vive Pro 2.

    Installing “Revive” and starting the game from “VivePort” did the trick.

    Click to Read More

    If you have an HTC Vive, you should have “VivePort” and “SteamVR” installed already. The issue is that VR Games for Oculus (Rift) are compatible with SteamVR, but not available in Steam for Vive. But as explained on the web, there are tricks…

     

    Download and install the “Oculus Rift Software” (using your old Oculus account, a Meta account or your Facebook account), but SKIP the hardware setup part !

     

    Next, download and install the latest stable release of “Revive“. Once installed, close its Dashboard.

     

    Then, open “Oculus” to install a free Game, for testing purpose.

    Go to Settings > Library Locations > Edit, to pick the folder where you want to store your games:

    Reminder: Just in case you want to use the same location as your games for Steam, this one can be found via Steam’s menu View > Settings > Downloads > Steam Library Folders

     

    Go next into the Oculus Store > Top Free, and pick, for example, “Répulbique VR” to install it.

     

    Once installed, you will obviously not be able to run it from the Oculus Dashboard, as you don’t have any compatible hardware. Instead, run “Steam VR”:

    And keeping both “SteamVR” and “Oculus” opened,  rerun “Revive”

    In the Dashboard of “Revive”, you should see your Oculus games.

    Click once onto one to run it. If it starts but closes suddenly soon after (wait a minute to be sure that it’s definitively closed, as most games  “popup” again later) , run also “VivePort”:

    Just as a summary, you should now have SteamVR, Oculus, Revive and VivePort opened : 

     

    In VivePort, you should see your new Oculus Games

    If you do not see them, close SteamVR, Oculus, Revive and VivePort (via the SysTray menu !!) and restart them: SteamVR, Oculus, Revive and VivePort. Also double check that your heaset and two remotes are turned on.

    Start the games from there. At least for me, they just runs fine. Only when run from Revive, they “auto-close” themselves without any notification.

    [PS: check the list of compatible games vader]

    Et voilà,

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  • JBL Link 20 and 300 having crunchy, crackling, static pop noise

    Since I am using a mesh network (based on TP-Link Deco M9 plus) I started to have more and more crackling noise on both my JBL Link 20 and 300, even if located very close to the repeaters. The only solution is to reset the JBL.

    Click to Read More

    It’s a very common issue, due to the “Wifi stability”, not only experienced with the TP-Link Deco M9 Plus (quich are actually quite good for their purpose) and even not only with the JBL (Read these posts).

    I have read a lot of posts on this issue and none could help. it has been useless to update the firmware, to open the devices and apply the tricks and tips found on the web, …

    The only trick, which work immediatly, is to reset the JBL and reconfigure it in Google Home. Next, it works like a charm.. for quite some time (months in my case)… but at the end, the crackling noise come back and you have to reset again.

    To reset the JBL Link 300, hold both the “Bluetooth” and the “Volume up” buttons for up to 20 seconds (until you see the “Mute” button becoming orange) as ilustrated on the video here after. Next wait until you the JBL has rebooted and open Google Home to reconfigure it.

    To reset the JBL Link 20, hold the “Mute” button for up to 10 sec until the Wifi led switch off. Next hold both the “Mute” and “Power” buttons for about 20 seconds (until it restarts) as ilustrated on the video here after. Next wait until you the JBL has rebooted and open Google Home to reconfigure it.

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  • How to change the color of a Fibaro Wall Plug using Z-Wave PC Controller

    I have been searching for an easy way to change the color of my Fibaro Wall Plugs without coding/scripting/configuring anything… The solution is to use the “Z-Wave PC Controller” from Sigma on a Windows PC!

    Click to Read More

    I have the Fibaro FGWPef-102, documented here. As per that documentation, to set the color of the plug when it’s ON or OFF, one has to send the color code to respectively the parameter 41 or 42 (a parameter of size 1 byte):

    Here is how to do it with Z-Wave PC Controller (version 5 here under). Run the application on your PC, once the controller is plugged into it (I am using a Sigma ACC-UZB3). Click on the gear icon to select the port of your controller and click “OK”.

    Now:

    1. Select a node representing one of your Fibaro Wall Plugs in the top left frame and press Enter (or click the “Node Info” button) to fetch the available commands
    2. Select the Command Class “CONFIGURATION” in the bottom left frame 
    3. Select the Command “CONFIGURATION_SET” to set a new value
    4. Set the Parameter Number to 41 or 42 as documented above. Set the Size to 1 and the Configuration Value to the desired color. Ex.: 08 for Cyan.
    5. Click on Send

    To be sure it works, look the color of your Wall Plugs 😀 

    Or, you can now

    1. Select the Command “CONFIGURATION_GET” to read the value
    2. Put 41 or 42 as Parameter Number
    3. Open the Log file to see the output which will be returned by the Command
    4. Click on Send. You should see in the log a Configuration report with the value set previously. Here “08” (Cyan)

     

    “Z-wave PC Controller” is available inside the free “Simplicity Studio” of SiLabs, as explained here. You only have to subscribe to get it ! (As an alternative, if you have already an SiLabs account, click here to download it directly). The user manual is available here.

    Et voilà.

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  • How to identify the Philips Hue sensors in OpenHab ?

    When looking at the Things within OpenHab, each “Hue Motion Sensor” device appears as multiple things: the “Motion sensor xyz” itself but also a “Hue ambient light sensor i” and a “Hue temperature sensor i”. “Motion sensor xyz” is the name you gave to the device via the Philips Hue App and “i” is a sequential id which can’t be easily linked to the related “Motion sensor” device… The App Hue Essentials can help you !

    Click to Read More

    On the screenshot bellow, one can see that I have renamed the Motion Sensors into “Motion sensor Door” and “Motion sensors Entry”, within the Philips Hue App. NB.: Only the Motion sensors appears in the Philips Hue App. One doesn’t see the Temperature and Ambient Light sensors…

    In OpenHab, we see all the sensors, but the Ambient Light and Temperature sensors are not named accordingly to the related Motion sensors. Instead, the are named “Hue ambient light sensor i” and a “Hue temperature sensor i” and one has no idea which one is part of the “Motion sensor Door” or “Motion sensor Entry”:

     

    The App Hue Essentials is not free but is really great (opposite to Philips Hue, you can for example control devices from multiples Bridges without switching from one to the other all the time). It’s the first App I found, made for end users (and not for developers), which give access to the internal sensors of a selected device. I.e.: the other Apps list all the sensors but does not tell which sensors belongs to which device.

    One way to identify which sensor belongs to which device is to go to the Devices (1) within the App Hue Essentials, select the device (2).

    Next , select, the menu Details (1 then 2):

    In these details, you see the Identifier of the device. Here, the identifier is 13. 

    Back into OpenHab, you can now filter the list of Things on ‘:13’ and find the device. 

    That was quite useless as the name of the device is the same in OpenHab and Philips Hue… but you can see that, obviously, the “Unique ID” displayed in Hue Essentials (00:17:88:01:06:44:42:35) is not the full id displayed (0107:ecb5fa857069)..

    One can do the same to find the id of the other sensors of this device: instead of the menu “Details”, select now the menu “Temperature” or “Light Level”. One can see immediatly the name of the related sensor (Here under “Hue light sensor 1”). One can also take the menu “Detail” (1) to take note of the identifier (here under “14”) to filter for it in OpenHab’s Things list.

    The best is however to rename these sensors according to their device (The “Hue light sensor 1” could be renamed “Hue light sensor Door”), remove all of them (especially the “Motion Sensors” which were properly named otherwise,  the other sensors won’t be re-detected) and rescan for Hue’s Things in OpenHab.

    Et voilà.

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Tags

Acer iDea 510 AirPlay Android Backup DD-WRT DNS DS209+ DS713+ DS1815+ FlexRaid Galaxy Galaxy S2 Galaxy S7 Google Assistant Google Home HTPC Kies MCE MySQL Nabi 2 Nvidia TV Shield One Plus One OpenHab Outlook Philips Hue Plex RAID Raspberry PI Remote Desktop Root Access Samsung Scripts Synology Team Build Visual Studio VMWare Wi-Fi Windows Windows 8 Windows 8.1 Windows 10 Windows Server 2012 XBMC Xpenology ZigBee

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