I'm looking to get a couple of remote controlled dimmer sockets for a quite specific use case (heat lamps in a tortoise enclosure), and I'd like to control them directly from a Raspberry Pi. I've found a couple of decent looking fairly generic options - examples from Trust and TKB - and there seem to be several appropriate radio modules, either USB or GPIO.

Detecting and pairing with devices seems (hopefully) straightforward. My sticking point is trying to figure out how standardised the actual messaging is; there seem to be several brands of hub and device that can be used interchangeably, but a few that can't. In my case, of course, the RasPi will be taking the position of the hub and speaking to the devices directly.

I'm having trouble finding reliable info on whether a command like "dim to 70%", or "read output power" will be the same across all devices, whether it will follow some kind of standard but it may be one of several competing formats, or whether it's completely proprietary.

Any insight on how easy it is to programatically talk to these things would be very much appreciated!

This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their week.

If you have any plans, goals, accomplishments, or even failures, whether they be personal or work related, I'd love to hear about them. This is a place for casual discussion about your week, past, present, and future.

A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

So, what (or how) are you doing this week?

Hey everyone,

I noticed accessing Wikipedia today that my old version of the app no longer loaded any pages, so I tried checking with my stock browser and it displayed a warning that Wikipedia is dropping support for anything that can't negotiate TLS 1.2. I haven't seen any articles on it yet online, so just thought I'd holler a mention.

This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their weekend.

If you have any plans, things you want to get done, things you have done, things you haven't done, or even if you just want to talk about how you're doing this weekend, this is a place for casual discussion about those things.

A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

So, what (or how) are you doing this weekend?

I would host a competition that measured strength, speed, agility, endurance, and intelligence. I would measure strength using some strongman and some powerlifting lifts. I would measure speed with 100 meter sprints. I would measure agility with some kind of ropes course, obstacle course, and gymnastics meet. I would measure endurance with a triathalon plus rowing (a quadrathalon?). I would measure intelligence by testing ability to memorize a bit of text in their mother language, teaching them the rules to a made-up game (Calvinball anyone?), and testing them on some trivia game with a format like Jeopardy. What would you measure, and how would you measure it?

"Recently" can be whatever window of time you want it to be.

I figure a lot of us probably have some holiday shopping to do, and this might be a good way of figuring out some good things to get and some bad things to avoid. That said, what you share here doesn't have to be a gift idea, so don't feel limited in that regard. I'm also just interested in hearing what people have recently bought, good or bad.

Today's problem description: https://adventofcode.com/2019/day/8

Join the Tildes private leaderboard! You can do that on this page, by entering join code 730956-de85ce0c.

Please post your solutions in your own top-level comment. Here's a template you can copy-paste into your comment to format it nicely, with the code collapsed by default inside an expandable section with syntax highlighting (you can replace python with any of the "short names" listed in this page of supported languages):

<details>
<summary>Part 1</summary>

```python
Your code here.
```

</details>