New Child Lock Feature

The new prototype will have a new feature: a child lock. This will allow you to disable the physical button on your PC. This might come in handy if you have kids or cats.

I got some validation from the Home Assistant Community Day in Cologne (Germany) I organized. About 50 smart-home nerds gathered together to talk Home Assistant. It was a fun day!

Coincidentally, I talked to a dad who just gave his teenage boy a gaming PC. Gaming time is only allowed for an hour on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The PokyPow with Home Assistant would be a perfect fit for this use case!

I was pumped to check how the child lock would work in ESPHome. I could not wait for the new prototype board to arrive and had to test it in software with a breadboard and wires. Here is a short YouTube video showing you how this might look:

Contract for a New Prototype

Initially, I had a friend helping me with the new design, but due to bad timing and external issues, we had to dissovle the partnership. There were no hard feelings, just unfortunate circumstances that cost some time.

So I had to look for someone else to do this design work. Now I have a contract with Soldered to build the next prototype. Work started on the 30th of June and will now take a couple of weeks. So, I will soon get the board and can test the software. I’ll give you another update then.

If all goes well, I can use that board to do the price calculations and set a final campaign goal! There’s still a lot of work to do, but we’re making progress!

Joining the Soldered Electronics Incubator

The PokyPow project has joined the Soldered Electronics Incubator . This means I will have a strong partner for manufacturing all PokyPows in the future. And, since they are already building the prototype, we can optimize parts for their manufacturing process.

That is all for now.

Have a great day!
Andrej