Technology – Aleksin Blogi

Testing Nintendo Classic mini

A couple of weeks ago when I was visiting on a Prisma (shop in Fnland) I noticed that they were selling Nintendo Classic mini gaming consoles. I remember that these were sold in Finland propably couple of years ago but I didn’t bought one back then and later those were sold out and I didn’t had possibility to buy this. Gladly Nintendo had made more those consoles and I had finally possibility to buy one for myself as well. Good thing was that I had just sold my old phone to my friend so I had extra cash to spend for this kind of stuff as well 😛

Previously I have bought SNES Classic Mini as I have written here on my blog finnish version previously on last october so it was even better to get this one as well which inclues original NES games.

Nintendo Classic Mini looks quite much same than the original Nintendo gaming console back in the old days, except this is so much smaller, it has HDMI-port and it uses USB port to get power. Within the package there is one game controller as well. It was quite strange desicion to have only one controller but for my usage it does not matter since I play this only by myself.

There is 30 games installed on the machine, like Super Mario Bros, Mega-Man II and Punch-Out. Whole list of games can be found for example in Wikipedia.

Nintendo Classic Mini is easy to take in use and of course it is easy to use in future as well, controller feels great at least if you like NES controllers in general and installed games have lots of great games. Gladly for me there were important games from my childhood years, but of course lots of games is missing. For example there is no Bucky O’Hare, Black Manta, Boat Duel, Tetris and lots of other hidden treasures but stock games offer lots of fun anyway.

In web it is easy to find tutorials how to install custom firmware which gives a possibility to install other games as well. Gotta write a post here if I have enough patience and time to test it myself.

Great thing in this gaming machine is possibility to save the game whenever you want. Thanks for it I was finally able to beat original Super Mario Bros 😀 Gotta learn those levels on eigth world well and then some day I can play some day whole game without saving 🙂

Changes to multiroom audio setup

Genelec G One is almost similar with 6010a

I have written previously in this blog (in finnish only) that I have multiroom audio setup in my home. In practice it was made with Google Chromecast Audio devices and different kind of active speakers.

Speakers I had in use were Focal XS Book pair in bedroom, Genelec 6010a pair in living room and JBL clockradio and its built-in speakers in kitchen. Mostly this was good setup but its biggest annoyance was volume control. All of them have own volume controls (Genelec speakers were behind Audiolab M-DAC) so it was annoying to set volume levels since sometimes I had to change volumes from speakers and next time multiroom listening volume levels were wrong because the volume control of speakers were different than previously.

I decided that I want to have multiroom setup where all speakers are similar and without any volume controls in speaker itself so I cannot change volume levels on speaker and I have to control whole audio volume levels with software. I browsed the web and tried to find some good ones but finally I thought that I just do this with Genelec speakers. I use only one Genelec per room so it does not create stereo feeling for listening, but on multiroom audio setup it does not matter at all since I am not in optimal listening position anyway and this setup is meant only for background music listening purposes.

Previously I thought that I might not build this with Genelec speakers at first since it might be a little bit too expensive my current budget but after thinking it a little bit more I noticed that it is not that expensive anyway. I had one pair of Genelec 6010a in home anyway so I had need only for one speaker since I had plan to put one speaker per room.

Also if I would have bought another manufacturer speakers it would have cost much more since I would have need for three or more speakers. Also I don’t want that even background music listening is terrible experience so sound quality must be at least good enough and as many might know Genelec speakers are better than just good enough so that was the way to go.

Yesterday after the workday I went to Verkkokauppa.com and bought one Genelec G One speaker, cables and fourth Chromecast Audio. At home I noticed that I forgot to buy another kind of cables so I had to go to Prisma in Malmi to buy another set of cables as well to make multiroom setup work with this speaker setup.

Current setup in living room. Work in progress since I don’t want to let these cables like that.

After I have got correct cables setup was easy to do. From Chromecast Audio 3.5 mm I have a cable which gives two RCA male outputs. Then I have another cable which have 2 x RCA female which is then converted to 1 x RCA male. That 1 x RCA male goes to the speaker so not very complicated setup. I tried to find cable which would have been 1 x RCA male from 3.5 mm but didn’t find so that’s why I have two cables there.

Controlling volume is now much more simpler than previously since all rooms have similar speakers (except on WC where I put my JBL). Of course there is small differences in G One and 6010a (led colour etc.) but none of those changes affect on my multiroom setup and volumes are on same level.

Now I have listened multiple hours with this setup and gotta say that it is much better than my previous one. Volume control is so much easier and there is no possibility to change volumes manually from speaker so it will stay that way in future as well. Also now in every room (except on WC) I have same quality so all have same level of bass and trebles etc.

On Google home if I set volume to 1-2 % it is good for morning and/or night, 10 % is good when I am home alone and want to listen music on enjoyable volume on background and if some friend of mine is visiting 4-6 % is propably optimal volume level on background music so it is still easy to talk and listen music on background.

Shortly said Genelec G One and Genelec 6010a have more than enough volume levels for normal sized (at least in Finland normal sized) apartment which have 60m2 and two rooms + kitchen + WC.

Sometime in future I have to buy Genelec G One or 6010a on WC as well, but currently this setup is good enough 🙂

Homeassistant and Chromecast Audio issue

I use at my home Home Assistant software to manage my home automations. At first everything was working without any issues but on some point morning radio stopped working. Month or two passed until I got enough time and motivation to take a look where the issue is since all the triggers were catched normally and even log told me that morning radio script was run as intended.

With further investigations I found that for some reason software has started to require a package py3-protobuffers

Because that package is installed with pip3 I had to install it first. On Debian this was easily done with command (as a root): apt-get update && apt-get install python3-pip. After that I was able to install the actual package I needed with command pip3 install py3-protobuffers

After those commands I executed scripts which sends audio to Chromecast audio and everything was working flawlessly again. Interesting how this worked without this package previously, but most importantly I figured out where the issue was and was able to fix it. Now my morning radio works again normally.