Fire HD 8 and Google Play Store

Ok, who didn’t buy something they didn’t really need on Amazon Prime Day?  Just me?  Surely not!  But for just £44.99 I got an Amazon Fire HD 8 (10 Gen) and with a Mastercard promotion a 128GB micro SD card to bump up the storage for £8.45.  One of the first things I tried to do was install an emby client, which proved to be much more difficult than I’d imagined, at least until I discovered how to Install the Google Play Store on it.

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RetroPie

I’d mentioned Retropie briefly in another Raspberry Pi blogs here, but it really is worthy of its very own blog. I’ve always loved playing video games and grew up in the Pong, Atari, Spectrum/Commodore generation, so being able to go back and relive some of those moments has always been a draw. Nothing has ever made it easier than RetroPie on a Raspberry!

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Rocket

This blog was drafted back in April after I’d bought a home rocket kit from Model Rockets. Due to the COVIC-19 pandemic, it had been sat in my office (prepped and ready to launch) until last weekend! In the meantime, SpaceX launched a manned rocket into space which certainly reinvigorated my interest in space, and hopefully a whole new generation of wannabe astronauts.

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Arduino + Wi-Fi

I’ve enjoyed playing around with my Arduino’s (which I’d blogged about here) and was up-to-date with the Youtube series I’d been watching, so started looking for something new to try. Controlling things via Wi-Fi would be useful for lots of things, so I decided to buy a cheap ESP8266 Wi-Fi module and get that working with an Arduino Uno. It turned out to be much easier said than done!

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Supercharged Firestick

This was one of the ‘lost blogs’ I wrote about here, so I’m not quite as motivated the second time! The idea was born from a Youtube video, and it got me thinking I might start using a supercharged Firestick more and my Apple TV 4 less, although only time will tell. It could be a great investment at ∼£40 or a complete waste of money!

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