
Welcome to the 100th edition of the VoltJots newsletter, linking you to the very best electronics and IoT news, products, and projects.
Hope you enjoy! Until next week,
VoltJots
Create a smart home control panel using two ESP32 boards that communicate via ESP-NOW: one with a 7-inch touchscreen UI and another managing relays plus a temperature/humidity sensor. It updates weather and UV data from online APIs and stores all user preferences in flash.

Source: Autodesk Instructables
This project pairs a mmWave radar sensor with an AI camera that wakes on motion, snaps photos with night vision, and sends them via chat along with distance, speed, and battery stats. You can also control it remotely or activate a privacy mode to stop all photo captures.
Frequency and period are reciprocals, but converting between Hz, kHz, µs and ms is easy to get wrong when working across different time scales. This calculator handles the conversion directly and also gives angular frequency. Useful when checking oscillator timings, PWM signals, microcontroller clocks or calculating values for inductive and capacitive reactance.

Source: OctaCalc (free online electronics calculators)
The ESP32-CAM’s built-in camera and Wi-Fi let you capture images and upload them automatically to Discord, creating a low-cost way to share photos remotely.
This ESP32-powered lamp uses real astronomy data to display the Moon’s current phase on a round CrowPanel screen, blending accurate lunar simulation with adjustable ambient lighting.
This project uses an ESP32-S3 paired with a LoRa module and GPS receiver to send long-range location data while conserving battery by sleeping between transmissions. The receiver ESP32 hosts a web server that plots live GPS info on Google Maps, showing route and satellite stats.
This comprehensive guide explains how Bipolar Junction Transistors switch current by shifting between cut-off, where no collector current flows, and saturation, where current flows freely. Driving the base HIGH saturates the transistor to switch ON, while LOW input cuts it off to switch OFF.
This project turns the ESP32 into a Wi-Fi web server that hosts an editor for an 8×8 WS2812B matrix, letting you create, save, and instantly show colourful pixel art stored in the device’s memory.

Source: Random Nerd Tutorials
ESP32’s two cores split wireless and app tasks, but most code only runs on Core 1, leaving Core 0 idle. Activating both cores lets you run sensor reads, Bluetooth streaming, and network operations simultaneously without blocking, improving performance if you manage task timing and assignment properly.
The Orange Pi Zero 3W combines an octa-core processor, AI NPU, and Wi-Fi 6 with flexible storage and expansion options. After flashing your chosen OS, you can connect cameras, 4K displays, and use the 40-pin GPIO header to program outputs using simple utilities or C/C++ functions.

Source: Play with circuit
Add vibration, sound, and motion detection to your ESP32 setup using these four simple sensors that plug right into Home Assistant. They cover everything from tapping desks to detecting footsteps, with options for quiet or noisy spaces and basic PIR motion sensing.
This project uses BleuIO and Pico I/O Bridge firmware to give an RP2040 or RP2350 board Bluetooth Low Energy capability. It scans HibouAir sensors, hosts USB connections, and displays live sensor data through a simple web dashboard on your computer.
This simple project walks you through how to connect an IR proximity sensor module to an Arduino Uno, letting you sense when an object is close by using the sensor’s digital output pin.
This guide shows how to create a compact power bank by wiring four 18650 cells together, using a USB C charging PCB, and relocating its status LEDs into a custom 3D-printed enclosure.

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