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ESP8266 LightBox lights up in rhythm with your music

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David-mccann made a fancy LightBox powered by an ESP8266 module and controlled via a smartphone app. It uses your phone’s or tablet’s built-in microphone to analyze the surrounding music and generates beautiful light patterns matching with the music. All you need to do is to start the app, place the phone near your music system and the LightBox will visualize the sound in real-time. It can also be used a colorful ambient light.

ESP8266 music controlled lightbox

ESP8266 music controlled lightbox

Plug in your LightBox. It should turn blue and you should be able to see a WiFi network called “lightbox” on your phone or tablet. If the box turns red when you first plug it in, you need to reset your ESP8266 module’s EEPROM. Do this by connecting pin 4 of the module to GND for a second. The box should restart and now turn blue.

Connect to the “lightbox” WiFi network with your phone or tablet. Start the LightBox app. The app automatically connects to the LightBox.

In the settings menu, you can configure the LightBox to connect to your own WiFi network instead of creating its own. This way you don’t need to switch to another WiFi network when you want to use your box.

Use the Color Picker to illuminate your room in a color that suits your mood, or use the Audio Analyzer to turn music into beautiful patterns of colors.

Don’t hesitate to ask in the comments section if you have any questions.

Have fun!

The post ESP8266 LightBox lights up in rhythm with your music appeared first on Embedded Lab.


Weather forecast cloud

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There are already so many weather station projects based on Raspberry Pi. This Instructable describes a weather forecast project based on Raspberry Pi zero with a unique cloud-shaped display that connects to the Yahoo Weather API to retrieve weather info and changes the color of the cloud in accordance with the forecast for the next day. The cloud display uses Neopixels strips for changing colors.

Weather cloud changes color with weather patterns

Weather cloud changes color with weather patterns

 

The post Weather forecast cloud appeared first on Embedded Lab.

Raspberry Pi Zero Tweeting GIF camera

ZeroBot: A FPV robot controlled by RPi Zero

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Max Kern introduces ZeroBot, a Raspberry Pi Zero W based FPV robot that can be controlled over a WiFi access point (no router is required). With an integrated camera module, it provides you a live video feed with minimal latency. It can be controlled using any computer or smartphone via a web browser. The body parts and the wheels are made with a regular 3D printer.

Some of the key features are:
– Compact CAD design with 3D printed components
– Analog control via a joystick (and multitouch)
– Simple battery solution using only a standard power bank
– Low latency streaming (~0.3s)
– Easy and cheap to build using widely available components

RPi Zero W controlled FPV robot

RPi Zero W controlled FPV robot

For more details, visit Max’s project page on Hackday.io.

The post ZeroBot: A FPV robot controlled by RPi Zero appeared first on Embedded Lab.

Another ESP8266 internet clock using LED matrix panels

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Internet has made it easy for computers to synchronize their clocks to an accurate clock value generated by a remote server. We discussed earlier how to make ESP8266-based internet clocks that utilizes National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) NTS service to retrieve accurate time information and display it on a 4-digit seven segment LED display and on a TFT display. This article from Ayzenberg describes a similar ESP8266-based internet clock that displays time on a large 16×72 LED matrix panel. It also features APIs for displaying messages or setting the display brightness.

ESP8266 internet clock with LED matrix panel

ESP8266 internet clock with LED matrix panel

The post Another ESP8266 internet clock using LED matrix panels appeared first on Embedded Lab.

DIY telescope controller based on Arduino Due

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GoTo telescopes are very desirable among stargazers because of their ease to use. They are powered with microprocessors and bunch of motors to allow automatic access and tracking of sky objects with a handheld remote or a smartphone app. rDUINOScope is an Open Source, Arduino Due based Telescope Control System (GOTO) that uses database with THE BEST ~250 stellar objects ( Messier and Hidden Treasures Catalogues) and 200 stars, calculates their position on the sky and points the telescope. With a TFT touchscreen display, it is a standalone controller. It also supports Bluetooth and LX200 protocol to connect and be controlled by smart devices!

Arduino Due powered GoTo controller

Arduino Due powered GoTo controller

The best part of rDUINOScope is that it is an OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE and HARDWARE! Few custom telescope makers have announced that they are adding or about to add it to their product line. In addition, few months ago a new HW shield board was born as a spin-off project to spare you the hassle of building your own rDUINOScope!

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ESP8266/ESP32 electronic sticky note using e-paper display

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E-paper displays are new innovative commercial displays that resembles ink on paper, requires ultra-low power, and can retain the image displayed even in the absence of power. Frank Buss‘ entry to 2017 Hackaday Prize contest is a solar-powered e-Paper display driven by ESP32/ESP8266 and a sticky magnet on back that can be used as a sticky note on a fridge to display important information over WiFi.

Electronic sticky note using ESP8266 and ePaper

Solar-powered electronic sticky note using ESP8266 and ePaper

Frank writes,

The amazing thing about ePapers is that the image lasts without power forever (I tested it for months), and the contrast is very good. The idea is to build a small device with ePaper and solar cells, and then you can write or draw on the it with your smartphone, or even remotely from anywhere over the internet to show a message. The case will have magnets on the back to stick it on a fridge or other metal objects. It will use an ESP32, which polls a server once per hour to get a new image to display.

This is the electronic version of sticky notes. But the ability to update it over the internet opens up many novel applications. For example install it on the fridge of your grandma, who might not be very proficient in using modern internet connected devices. Then you can send her birthday wishes, or remind her of schedules. And the buttons could be used as a feedback channel, like confirming a date. Or when installed at a public place, it can act as a bulletin board. Or it can be used for a modern form of internet connected graffiti or other art projects. The possibilities are infinite.

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Test output of ESP32 ePaper display

Find details of his project here.

The post ESP8266/ESP32 electronic sticky note using e-paper display appeared first on Embedded Lab.

Arduino Flappy Bird game

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Dejan Nedelkovski from How To Mechatronics explains in this tutorial how to replicate the Flappy Bird game using an Arduino board and a TFT touchscreen.

Here’s the working principle of game: we have 50 pixels wide pillars which move from right to left and every next pillar has a different random height. In order to make them moving, logically, after each iteration we need to clear the screen and redraw the graphic with the pillars at their new position. However, we cannot do that because of the low refresh rate of the screen, which would cause flickering of the graphics. In order to activate all of its pixels the screen needs a bit more time so therefore we will have to improvise and redraw just those things that are moving.

Flappy bird game using Arduino

Flappy bird game using Arduino

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IoT enabled background radiation monitoring device

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DIY Geiger counter projects are very popular among hobbyists. Geiger counters are used to detect beta particles and gamma rays radioactive emissions.They all use a Geiger-Muller (GM) tube, which is a glass tube filled with an inert gas such as helium, neon, or argon at low pressure, to which a high voltage is applied. The tube becomes conductive of electricity when it is impacted by a high-energy particle or photon. We have seen radiation monitor builds before based on 555 Timer IC and ESP8266Brett Oliver‘s IoT enabled Radiation Monitor is Arduino-based and WiFi-enabled using ESP8266 and it continuously monitor the surrounding radiation and log the data to Radmon, ThingSpeak and Sparkfun.

Features

  • 24/7 logging of background radiation to Radmon, Thingspeak and Sparkfun
  • Dual processors Arduino 328 for Geiger Counter and ESP8266 (Arduino core) for WIFI logging
  • LCD Display for setup and Radiation monitoring
  • IR remote control of setup functions and 7 segment display brightness
  • OLED display of logging and WIFI connection
  • Dual 8 digit 7 segment displays to show current CPM, Dose, Ave Dose and PK CPM
  • PIR activated of 7 segment displays to keep running costs down
  • Modular design minimal soldering required
  • Secondary LED display of detected radiation
  • Local temperature and Humidity logged
  • Rain sensor logged to ThingSpeak using an add on rain sensor can be used for alarm sensing instead if required
Radiation monitoring system using Arduino and ESP8266

Radiation monitoring system using Arduino and ESP8266

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ESP8266 Space Invaders

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Tobozo Tagada incorporated the uArcade Space Invaders game (Arduino playform) to ESP8266 with a nice buckle box enclosure. It uses a WeMOS D1 Mini Pro board for ESP8266 and a SH1103 based 1.3inch OLED screen for display. The original uArcade code can be found here.

ESP8266 Space Invaders

ESP8266 Space Invaders

The post ESP8266 Space Invaders appeared first on Embedded Lab.

ESP8266 Twitter Client

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Andrei Mehiläinen shared his ESP8266-based Twitter Client project that is built using a 256×64 OLED (SSD1322 based) display. It connects directly to Twitter, so no third-party proxy services are used.

Twitter client

Twitter client

The device connects to user stream and displays all the incoming tweets for that user. This basically means the same tweets the user would see on her Twitter main page. Additionally, a track paramter can be set to include tweets containing specified keywords.

The tweet currently shown on the display can be retweeted, liked and shared by sending link to it in direct message. This way user can easily access shared tweet on some other device.

Application uses Twitter REST and Streaming APIs and implements OAuth 1.0a authorization as described here.

Unicode is supported. Glyphs for all characters found in Arial Unicode MS font are embedded in the binary. The glyphs are regular and bold variants with the sizes of 10 and 13. The font size is automatically selected based on the length of the tweet. Additionally, word wrapping and keyword (hashtag) highlighting are performed for tweet text.

The post ESP8266 Twitter Client appeared first on Embedded Lab.

Arduino timer for garden sprinklers

Arduino cellphone signal booster

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Tecwyn Twmffat built an Arduino-based Cell Phone 4G Signal Booster.

Arduino cellphone signal booster

Arduino cellphone signal booster

Living on an island in the middle of nowhere, mobile/cell phone reception can be rather intermittent and it seems that there is currently no reliable open source gadget that could help me solve this problem on my kind of budget.

I do have the option of using ‘cable phone’ but being of a general ‘Pirate’ disposition I thought it would be a better idea to do all my phone calls, emails and data transactions by cell phone and save a whole bunch of dollars by not having to pay for land based line rental and broadband etc. Doing everything through my phone is a lot cheaper and still plenty quick enough to watch films and videos without any buffering.

I actually tried buying an off the shelf repeater but it completely jammed my phone up and I started to get worried that it was going to damage it, so instead I opened it up to see how it worked – maybe I could repair it? Unfortunately none of the components could be identified and furthermore, it looked like it had been severely ‘messed about with’ at the factory. The soldering looked very poor and a large piece of metal swarf fell out of the opened case :(

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ESP32 based IoT 4WD robot platform

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Stefan designed an IoT enabled, compact and modular, 4-wheel drive robot platform powered by ESP32. It is controllable over WiFi and BLE.

Wifi/BLE enabled 4WD robot platform

Wifi/BLE enabled 4WD robot platform

As controller board an ESP32 Thing board is used this can be programmed by the Arduino IDE and allows even OTA updates. It isn’t the cheapest but offers a compact size and includes a LiPo charging capability (Which I managed to blow off by attaching the LiPo in reverse polarity L). As sensors the robot contain a BN0 055 absolute orientation sensor, a rotation encoder for both sides, four proximity sensors in the bottom (line follower, gap detection) and an APDS-9930 proximity sensor in the front to “see” obstacles. Of course a beeper and 2 head light LED’s are not missed either.

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IoT enabled thermostat with a touchscreen interface


Relays and Triacs controller to support homebrewing

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Andy Brown is fond of beers and he loves homebrewing. To automate the temperature control required for fermentation and conditioning process, he designed a process-controller based on Arduino processor that allows precise switching of three relays to control the heaters, fridge and fans that are the parts of the temperature controlling mechanism in his brew fridge. The controller also features a triac for phase-angle dimming that is helpful for proportional heater or fan control. The device connects to a host PC via USB.

Find details here.

Arduino Process Controller

Arduino Process Controller

The post Relays and Triacs controller to support homebrewing appeared first on Embedded Lab.

DIY Ultrasound imaging

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This DIY Ultrasound Imaging development kit is kelu124‘s entry to Hackaday 2017 prize and is equipped for imaging, based on two ad-hoc ultrasound boards, a Raspberry, a custom ADC, and a motherboard.

DIY ultrasound imaging system development kit

DIY ultrasound imaging system development kit

This HSDK has for objective to:

– consolidate existing hardware research;
– simplify and lower the cost of the kit;
– permits benchmarking of ultrasound systems;
– introduce a simple API to control hardware;
– have a server which provides both raw ultrasound and data standard DICOM files;
– have a kit that can be used for pedagogical and academic purposes – not to mention people who want to understand ultrasound!

The post DIY Ultrasound imaging appeared first on Embedded Lab.

Arduino-driven display console for car

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RyanM415 built an Teensy 3.6 powered car display using an on-board diagnostics (OBD-II) adapter from Freematics and a 7″ TFT LCD from Adafruit. The display has two pages: one shows off when the car is in drive and the other for when it is in reverse gear. During driving mode, it displays the RPM, MPH, engine load percentage, battery voltage, cabin temperature, and engine coolant temperature. And in reverse mode, the Arduino IDE compatible Teensy 3.6 reads an animated bitmap image of the car and displays it along with the readings from the backup sensors.

Car OBD data display console

Car OBD data display console

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Bluetooth enabled Arduino Garbage Monitor

ESP8266 smart lamp

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In her new Instructables, BECKY STERN illustrates how to add a voice control feature  to an vintage lamp using ESP8266 and Amazon Echo/Alexa.

Voice-controlled smart lamp

Voice-controlled smart lamp

To control the AC portion of the circuit, I’m using a Power Relay FeatherWing– just interrupt the hot lamp wire and plug the stripped ends into the Normally Open and Common screw terminals. Remember, if you don’t know AC, find someone who does to supervise. My lamp had a switch along the cord, so I just removed it and used the wire that the switch had been controlling.

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