Schlagwort: home automation

  • Using Smart Home Tech to Care for Your Pets

    Using Smart Home Tech to Care for Your Pets

    Reading Time: 5 minutes
    Using Smart Home Tech to Care for Your Pets

    Smart home technology has a ton of useful and fascinating use cases for humans, but what about our pets? For most of us, our furry friends are members of the family, and if we can make modifications to our home to help them, we do it.

    The good news here is that there are tons of home automation tools that you can use to make life easier and more fun for your pets, and many of them can be done with just a handful of starting materials and basic knowledge.

    In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the ways smart homes can benefit pets, and explore some projects from the Arduino community.

    Here are just a few of the ways smart home technology can improve your pets’ quality of life:

    • Control the temperature through tools like automatic sensors and heating systems, ensuring the room is perfect for pets even when you’re not around
    • Observe pets when you’re away, allowing you to quickly notice if they’re distressed or in trouble (or making trouble)
    • Keeping your pets fed by automatically filling their bowls at the right times
    • Keeping your pets entertained with robotic toys and activities
    • Prevent theft with monitoring and tracking tools, alongside existing smart home security systems

    Some examples of smart home pet tech

    Now let’s take a look at some projects from the Arduino community geared toward making life easier for pets.

    Remote pet feeder

    Community member Amal Mathew designed this project to make it possible to feed pets using a remote control. It’s pretty simple to get started — all you need is an Arduino Uno board (or similar), a plastic bottle, a servo motor, a TV remote, IR receiver (TS0P1738) and a small piece of cardboard.

    With just a few clicks of the remote, you can instruct the plastic bottle of food to release a certain amount to be enjoyed by your pet — without even leaving the sofa. Check out the full project here.

    Pet entertainment centre

    Vítor Barbosa was inspired by the Alexa and Arduino Smart Home challenge to build the pet entertainment centre along with two friends. As well as feeding pets, it also keeps them entertained with the use of a laser toy — although this is better suited to cats than dogs.

    Every pet owner knows how useful it is to have a toy to keep your pets distracted when you need to focus on something else, and Vitor’s project uses smart home technology to build the perfect automated solution. 

    Pet feeder with 3D printed parts

    Before COVID-19, russo08 was working long, unpredictable hours and often ended up getting home late due to flooding and other disruptions. This made it tricky to feed his dog on time every day.

    To ensure his pet was fed at the right times every day, russo08 decided to build an automated solution. He used an Arduino microcontroller and a handful of other components — including 3D printed parts — to build a custom dog feeder. Because of random power outages in the area, it was essential that the feeder had a solution for power outage recovery and food getting stuck in the dispensing mechanism. 

    Here’s the full list of features on russo08’s feeder:

    • Two feedings per day
    • Accurate timekeeping with real-time clock
    • Manual time change of real-time clock
    • Manual feeding option
    • LED indication of hall sensor and real-time clock failure
    • Overview of feed times, current time, and feeding completions on the main screen
    • Easy to navigate menu
    • Power outage feeding resume (will feed when the power comes back on)
    • Feeding times and completions are safely stored in EEPROM
    • Servo “jiggle” in the event of food getting stuck while dispensing

    Improve your pet’s life with Arduino

    Arduino’s solutions make it easier than ever to build your own smart home projects with relatively few starting materials and without the need to be a seasoned expert. Our community is filled with examples of DIY home automation projects that improved our makers’ lives in all kinds of ways.

    When it comes to pets, Arduino’s technology can be used to build smart solutions like the ones in this article, making it easy to feed, water, protect, and care for our pets even when we aren’t physically present.

    Check out this article where we look at how home automation can make it easier to care for your pets. We’ll also share some examples of projects from the Arduino Community, where many members have developed their own devices to keep their pets safe and happy.

    Find out more about how Arduino works and get started with your own projects by checking out the main website.

    Abstract: Caring for pets is one of the most important — if not THE most important — job you do at home. The good news is that technology can help in this area. Home automation can make it easier to feed, entertain, and care for your furry friends — find out some of the ways Arduino can help you do this.

    Social post: Making sure your pets are fed, watered, and entertained can be a demanding job at times, especially when you’re busy with other things. The good news is that technology can shoulder some of the burden by automating some important pet care tasks.

    Browse all projects
    Boards:Arduino CloudIoT Cloud
    Categories:ArduinoHome Automation

    You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
    You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

    Website: LINK

  • Improve Your Cooking with Home Automation

    Improve Your Cooking with Home Automation

    Reading Time: 4 minutes
    Smart Cooking

    Cooking is something many of us love to do at home. There are few feelings more rewarding and satisfying than throwing together a delicious meal in your own kitchen and sharing it with family or friends.

    However, cooking can be tough. There are lots of things to pay attention to, lots that can go wrong, and lots of preparation and planning to stay on top of. The good news is that home automation has many different solutions to make the cooking process easier, more fun, and more organized.

    In this article, we’ll look at how home automation can improve cooking and share some Arduino project examples.

    How home automation can help with cooking

    • Storage. Things like smart refrigerators and smart pantries can help you keep on top of your ingredients, get alerts when things are running low, and even automatically add items to your next shopping list.
    • Measuring. Tools like timers and thermometers can add a dash of precision to your cooking sessions, helping you stick to recipes, manage time, and create that perfect dish
    • Experimentation. The right solutions can help you experiment with different, new styles of cooking and try things that would otherwise be tricky
    • Safety. There are many home automation tools that can help detect things like gas leaks and alert you to any potentially risky situations in your home kitchen

    Some project examples from Arduino

    IR Thermometer, Stopwatch, Cooking Timer, Inactivity Tracker

    Arduino community member Shahariar developed this pocket-sized IR thermometer using Arduino programming and a handful of other components. As well as the ability to measure temperature, this device also has a stopwatch function, kitchen timer, and an inactivity tracker — making it the perfect home kitchen Swiss army knife.

    It contains:

    • An IR radiation-based temperature sensing device, making it possible to measure the average temperature of the surface it’s currently facing
    • A stopwatch based on the standard sports device, designed to measure elapsed time
    • A kitchen timer which alerts you at pre-set intervals — for example, when your chicken is ready to be removed from the oven — by buzzing an alarm
    • An inactivity tracker which alerts you to move after a certain number of pre-set minutes has passed. This is designed to keep you active and healthy in the kitchen.

    Alexa Powered Arduino Kitchen Assistant

    TheParticleGuy created this Arduino Kitchen Assistant to give you a helping hand around the kitchen. This project shows you recipes, sets timers, displays the temperature of your food, and even leaves notes. It works by connecting to Amazon Alexa, doesn’t need to be plugged in, and can be carried around the kitchen with you.

    You can give the device instructions via Alexa, for example, “Alexa, set a timer for 10 minutes”, and ask questions like, “Alexa, how can I cook a Thai curry?”. You can also ask the device to convert units of measurement, leave notes for later (like reminders to buy ingredients) and ask Alexa for the temperature of your current dish.

    DRS Oil Container

    Arduino community member Mohammad Haizad built this project to solve a problem most of us have struggled with at some point — running out of oil. 

    Oil is one of those kitchen items that we always seem to have a full bottle of until the day it runs out. Then, we’re left with a pile of ingredients and no oil to cook them in! Mohammad decided to solve this problem once and for all by building a DRS Oil Container that automatically orders a new bottle of oil when your current one is running low.

    The DRS Oil Container works by using an ultrasonic sensor to measure the level of the oil in the bottle. It’s connected to the Genuino MKR1000, which initiates a purchase via Amazon as soon as the sensor reading drops below the threshold value.

    Have more fun in the kitchen with Arduino

    A lot of the challenging and frustrating aspects of cooking can be solved with just a sprinkle of home automation. As you can see from the projects we shared, it’s possible to build your own smart home cooking devices with just a few easy-to-find components and a basic understanding of programming.

    Visit our home page to find out more about how Arduino can help make your home smarter and your life easier. 

    Browse all projects
    Boards:Arduino CloudIoT Cloud
    Categories:ArduinoHome Automation

    You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
    You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

    Website: LINK

  • Transform the way you organize your home with Arduino

    Transform the way you organize your home with Arduino

    Reading Time: 4 minutes

    One of the wonderful things about living in the modern world is having full cupboards, pantries, and wardrobes. But this privilege also comes with downsides — managing all the various items we own can be a headache and can lead to confusion and stress.

    The good news is that storage doesn’t have to be a chore. In fact, with the right tech solutions, we can make our storage spaces much smarter, so they actually help us stay more organized and even give us guidance on how to use our space better. Many of these solutions can be built at home with just a few tools.

    In this article, we’ll explore the concept of smart storage, and why it’s so useful, and we’ll share a few examples from the Arduino community from people who have built their own smart storage projects.

    What is smart storage?

    Smart storage is when we use tech to make your cupboards, wardrobes, and pantries more intelligent and useful. The right solutions can give you alerts and updates when certain items are running low, suggest things to use or throw away, and even fill out a shopping list for you.

    Smart storage can help us manage our spaces better, use what we own more efficiently, save money, and get inspired. Now let’s take a look at some examples of smart storage projects from our Arduino community members.

    Smart pantry

    With just a handful of materials, Arduino member Md. Khairul Alam designed this smart pantry to keep track of the items in his kitchen and ensure he never runs out of what he needs.

    The challenge

    Unless you have the pantry of a Michelin Star restaurant, it’s pretty unlikely that you have all the ingredients you need in stock all the time. When you decide to cook a certain recipe, it’s fairly common to find that one or two items are running low in your pantry.

    A quick trip to the grocery store can fix this, but of course, it’s all too easy to forget a certain item, buy the wrong thing instead, or fail to get enough of what you need. Can smart storage save us?

    The smart storage solution

    Khairul decided to fix the problem by building his very own smart pantry, designed to keep track of ingredients and make sure nothing ever runs out. The project works by monitoring every item in the pantry, and if something is running low, it automatically orders a replacement using Amazon DRS.

    This project is a great way to remove human error from the process of keeping our cupboards stocked. The best part is it’s easy to do yourself at home with just a few simple components and tools. Check out the full project and instructions here.

    Smart wardrobe

    An overflowing wardrobe is a good thing — it allows you to mix up your outfits and dress well whatever the occasion. However, packed wardrobes can also be tricky to manage, and it’s easy to lose track of clothes or end up filling space with items we no longer wear.

    Arduino user Tan See Youu decided to fix this problem by building his own smart wardrobe.

    The challenge

    People today own more clothes than ever before. However, you probably won’t wear all of them. Over time, certain outfits tend to get forgotten and fall back into the murky depths of the wardrobe, never to see the light of day again.

    In areas with high humidity and warm climates like Singapore, clothes that are left for a long time in the wardrobe can even become moldy.

    The smart storage solution

    Tan See Youu’s smart wardrobe helps you manage your clothes and keep track of where everything is, displaying this information on a smart screen. The wardrobe can also push this data into the cloud and share it with your phone via a mobile application.

    The app can even provide suggestions on what to wear today based on the events in your calendar and the current weather forecast, and it comes with a dashboard showing which clothes you wear most frequently and which outfits you have neglected.

    If you haven’t worn a certain item in a while, the app can offer suggestions for second-hand platforms or charity organizations so you can send it to a better home if you choose.

    Tan See Youu didn’t invent smart wardrobes — they have existed for a while — but his project shows that it’s possible to build your own with relatively few resources and at a low cost. Learn more about the project here.

    How Arduino makes smart storage easier

    Arduino’s IoT Cloud makes it possible to create your own home automation projects just like the ones we looked at in this article. You can build useful devices with relatively little materials needed to start, making your life easier and your home more efficient.
    Find out more about the IoT Cloud and how the Home Automation initiative can give you many ideas to improve your daily life.

    You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
    You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

    Website: LINK

  • 40+ Ideas For Your Next Home Automation Project with Arduino Cloud

    40+ Ideas For Your Next Home Automation Project with Arduino Cloud

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    Arduino Team — September 2nd, 2022

    Home automation has increasingly become a need in our lives. Without even noticing it we have been adding connected elements to our homes and buildings to make our lives easier and nowadays we are surrounded by electronic devices that monitor our environment, control our lighting systems and appliances, and even give us peace of mind by home security systems. Our expectations go even further as we interact with devices remotely using our mobile handsets or locally with voice activated smart speakers.

    Although the commercial ecosystem of products that we can find is huge, it is also a fact that most of the solutions are still very expensive to solve simple problems. Furthermore, there are still many uncovered solutions that could be easily developed integrating existing elements. And that’s a point where Makers find a bit of frustration, and your frustration becomes an opportunity to dream up creative and ingenious solutions in the quest to make our lives easier. Many of you have told us through a survey that you would commence a Home Automation project as the very first move into the IoT world. That’s the reason why we decided to build a catalogue with a bunch of ideas that can easily and effectively make a difference to your environment.

    A new portal to Arduino home automation projects

    The new Home Automation page can be navigated as a single page to find inspiration, or if you are very into a sub-topic you can navigate the single sections classified into the following categories:

    • Lifestyle
    • Smart home
    • Security
    • Entertainment
    • Gardening & agriculture

    Every concept page contains a description, a bill of materials (BOM) and a list of features.

    Unleash the potential of the Arduino IoT Cloud

    Adding intelligence to our homes is worthless if we don’t have a way to interact with our connected devices.

    With Arduino IoT Cloud, you can choose from a catalogue of dozens of configurable widgets for control and data visualisation to set up beautiful and custom dashboards. You can access these dashboards remotely either from your Arduino IoT Cloud portal or the IoT Cloud Remote app.

    Arduino Cloud provides seamless integration with Amazon’s Alexa, allowing you to control your projects with voice. Setting up voice control takes only a few minutes, and requires no code.

    Your feedback is really important to us

    You can browse the catalogue to get the full list of ideas and categories. 

    Access your dashboards on the go from anywhere at any time, with the ability to interact with your home automation projects using the free IoT Cloud Remote app available on Google Play and App Store or your IoT Cloud portal.
    Any feedback is more than welcome, so please let us know on the forum if we are missing a Home Automation project that you’d like to see included.

    You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
    You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

    Website: LINK

  • Connect your space heater to the Arduino Cloud and control it via Alexa

    Connect your space heater to the Arduino Cloud and control it via Alexa

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Arduino Team — October 13th, 2021

    Being able to design your own custom smart home device is a great way to both have fun experimenting with various hardware/software and to escape the walled IoT device ecosystems that so many users find themselves trapped within. One maker who goes by mrdesha came up with a smart heater solution that utilizes the new Arduino Oplà IoT Kit to provide voice functionality to their room heater. 

    In terms of hardware, mrdesha’s project is quite simple as it just needs a few parts to function. The main component is the MKR IoT Carrier board from the Oplà Kit, along with the MKR WiFi 1010 that fits into it. Because the Oplà has two relays onboard, a pair of buttons on the heater’s remote were connected to the common (COM) and normally closed (NC) terminals, allowing for a single GPIO pin to digitally “press” each button. 

    Over in the Arduino Cloud, three variables were created that control various aspects of the heater, including on/off, set high-power mode, and set low-power mode. These variables are also all compatible with the Alexa integration, meaning that a user can simply tell their smart home speaker to adjust the heater automatically. 

    For more details about the project, you can view mrdesha’s write-up here and a demo of it in the video below.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWfewZqy7WY?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

    You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
    You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

    Website: LINK

  • Self-contained, Arduino Cloud-connected home monitoring module

    Self-contained, Arduino Cloud-connected home monitoring module

    Reading Time: 3 minutes
    Home monitoring gas sensor light temperature Arduino Cloud Nano RP2040 Connect

    Home monitoring is a big part of home automation, but it’s often overshadowed. Our attention tends to get hijacked by cool projects that perform physical actions. Whether it’s turning the lights on, changing their color, running a robot vacuum cleaner, pulling on the blinds or watering the garden. All these actions are very cool and very visible. Which makes it easy to ignore the background tasks that are the backbone of great home automation.

    YouTuber and robotics maker RootSaid has been giving this a lot of thought. He’s put together an excellent tutorial on creating a self contained, real-time home monitoring module. It’s built around the excellent Nano RP2040 Connect, and sends everything to Arduino Cloud.

    Home Monitoring for You, and Your Family

    His objective was to create a compact bundle of sensors to keep an eye on various conditions around the home. This battery powered system can then be positioned anywhere, and monitored from Arduino Cloud. His idea is to install the module in an elderly relative’s home. That way, he can keep an eye on their environment from anywhere.

    Of course, this doesn’t have to be used purely as a care system. That’s a great application for his environment monitoring platform, but it’s just as useful for your own home automation system. Too often, sensors (temperature, for example) are physically connected to other automation devices, like Wi-Fi mains switches. But chances are you want to know the temperature over by your sofa. Not down the back of the TV cabinet.

    RootSaid to the rescue.

    A Compact Home Automation Sensor Module

    Let’s take a look at the sensors bundled into this compact package.

    He’s got an LDR in there to monitor the light levels. This is perfect for bigger home automation projects, as it can trigger lights all around the house. Even outdoor lighting, if you wanted.

    There’s a Bosch BME280 to keep an eye on the environment. This is becoming a popular device among the home automation crowd. It’s small, very low power, cheap, accurate, and gives you temperature, humidity and air pressure data.

    Finally we have a gas sensor, which is a really interesting addition. Especially as part of his original brief for monitoring an elderly relative’s environment. It keeps a check on air quality, but being able to get alerts for gas leaks or rising carbon monoxide levels could be life saving.

    Home monitoring gas sensor Arduino Cloud Nano RP2040 Connect

    Home Monitoring in Arduino Cloud, for Free

    Finally he takes you through the Arduino Cloud set up, including a monitoring dashboard. Which is more good news, since all this is running from a single Nano RP2040 Connect. That means you’re only adding one Thing (with five variables), so the free tier is a practical option. If you want to begin comparing the data the module collects over time, you can then easily bump up to a subscription for longer data retention options.

    Because he’s collecting data through Arduino Cloud, he’s automatically got smartphone access to it, as well. Or, if he wanted to share the data with members of the family or household, it only takes a click.

    Although RootSaid is running his module from a 9V battery, there’s nothing to stop you using other power sources. The Nano RP2040 Connect will accept all kinds of voltage inputs. From USB to 12v PSUs, your power options are wide open here.

    This is a project that no home automation enthusiast should overlook. It’s small, simple and very easy to build. But it’s also the gateway to creating a great home automation system. If you’re only just getting started, this is the project to begin with. It’s the tiny module where all the important data comes from to make your home truly autonomous. RootSaid’s excellent tutorial also makes it easy to see how you can expand on the project in lots of ways.

    Check it out, and make sure you subscribe to his channel.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaiKdGOvqXk?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

    You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
    You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

    Website: LINK

  • Automate your home on the cheap with this Arduino setup

    Automate your home on the cheap with this Arduino setup

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Arduino Team — July 6th, 2021

    All too often, those who are new to Arduino struggle with creating large projects due to a lack of experience and components. This can be frustrating, but Instructables user MAKE_IT WITH_ME decided to tackle this issue by designing a super cheap way to automate home circuitry from just a single Starter Kit. His build uses a single Arduino Uno, although it can easily be swapped with something like a Nano or Mega, along with a stepper motor/driver, servo motor, threaded rod, and an IR receiver + remote combo. 

    The main portion of the home automation setup is the stepper motor assembly, and it is responsible for moving the servo motor back and forth across the bank of switches. Due to the stepper motor not knowing its initial position relative to the device, it must be “homed” or set to its zero position by moving right until the edge hits the limit switch. When a request to turn a switch on or off is received from the IR remote, the Arduino board decodes the instruction and converts the command into the number of steps the stepper motor must take to reach the desired location. After the servo moves and flips the switch on or off, the entire thing returns to where it started from. 

    To read more about the process of how this device was constructed and how it was programmed, you can check out its Instructables write-up here.

    You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
    You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

    Website: LINK

  • Raspberry Pi automatically refills your water bottle

    Raspberry Pi automatically refills your water bottle

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    YouTuber Chris Courses takes hydration seriously, but all those minutes spent filling up water bottles take a toll. 15 hours per year, to be exact. Chris regularly uses three differently sized water bottles and wanted to build something to fill them all to their exact measurements.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3okv0jYZUc?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

    (Polite readers may like to be warned of a couple of bleeped swears and a rude whiteboard drawing a few minutes into this video.)

    Hardware

    • Raspberry Pi
    • Water filter (Chris uses this one, which you would find in a fridge with a built-in water dispenser)
    • Solenoid valve (which only opens when an electrical signal is sent to it)
    • solenoid valve
    • pi in case
    The solenoid valve and Raspberry Pi, which work together to make this project happen

    How does the hardware work?

    The solenoid valve determines when water can and cannot pass through. Mains water comes in through one tube and passes through the water filter, then the solenoid valve releases water via another tube into the bottle.

    Diagram of the water bottle filler setup, hand-drawn by the maker
    See – simples!

    What does the Raspberry Pi do?

    The Raspberry Pi sends a signal to the solenoid valve telling it to open for a specific amount of time — the length of time it takes to fill a particular water bottle — and to close when that time expires. Chris set this up to start running when he clicks a physical button.

    We feel the same way about Raspberry Pi, Chris

    Chris also programmed lights to indicate when the dispenser is turned on. This manual coding proved to be the most time-consuming part of the project.

    But all the wires look so ugly!

    Water dispenser mounted onto side of fridge
    Sleek and discreet

    Chris agreed, so he 3D-printed a beautiful enclosure to house what he dubs the ‘Hydrobot 5000’. It’s a sleek black casing that sits pretty in his kitchen on a wall next to the fridge. It took a fair bit of fridge shuffling and electrical mounting to “sit pretty”, however. This Raspberry Pi-powered creation needed to be connected to a water source, so the tubing had to be snaked from Hydrobot 5000, behind appliances, to the kitchen sink.

    Check out those disco lights! Nice work, Chris. Follow Chris on YouTube for loads more coding and dev videos.

    Website: LINK

  • Deter burglars with a Raspberry Pi chatbot

    Deter burglars with a Raspberry Pi chatbot

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    How to improve upon the standard burglar deterring method of leaving lights switched on? Dennis Mellican turned to Raspberry Pi for a much more effective solution. It actually proved too effective when a neighbour stopped by, but more on that in a bit.

    Here you can see Dennis’s system in action scaring off a trespasser:

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEkT_dnrFyw?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

    Good job, Raspberry Pi chatbots!

    The burglar deterrent started out as Dennis’s regular home automation system. Not content with the current software offerings, and having worked in DevOps, Dennis decided to create his own solution. Enter Raspberry Pi (well, several of them).

    Chatterboxes

    Dennis has multiple Raspberry Pi–powered devices dotted around his home, doing things such as turning on lights, powering up a garden sprinkler, and playing fake dog barks on wireless speakers. All these burglar deterrents work together and are run by a chat bot.

    A simulation of the chatbots responding to Dennis’ commands

    Each Raspberry Pi controls a single automated item in Dennis’s home. All the Raspberry Pis communicate with each other via Slack. Dennis issues commands if he, for example, wants lights to turn on while he is away, but the Raspberry Pis can also talk to each other when a trigger event occurs, such as when a motion sensor is tripped.

    Smart sound

    speaker, chromecast device, cctv camera and the Raspberry Pi connected for the anti burglary chatbot
    Speaker, Google Chromecast, CCTV camera and Raspberry Pi

    Google Chromecast enables ‘dumb’ speakers to be smart. Dennis has such speakers set up inside, close to windows at the front and back of the house, and they play an .mp3 file of a fake dog bark when commanded.

    The security cameras Dennis uses in his home setup are a wireless CCTV variety, and the lights are a mix of TP-Link and Lifx smart bulbs.

    Here’s all the Python code running Dennis’ entire security system.

    Too effective?

    Dennis’s smart system has backfired on him a few times. Once a neighbour visited while he was out and thought Dennis was rudely not answering the door, because she saw the lights go on inside, making it appear like he was home. Awkward.

    The fake dog barking has also startled the postman and a few joggers — Dennis says it adds to the realism.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl1HJ1-WZB0?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

    You’re cute, but you wreck stuff, so get out

    The troupe of Raspberry Pis has also scared away an Australian possum (video above). These critters are notorious for making nests in roof cavities, so Dennis dodged another problematic home invasion there.

    Future upgrades

    Dennis is a maker after our own hearts when explaining where he’d like to go next with his anti-burglary build:

    “I feel like Kevin McCallister from Home Alone, with these home security ‘traps’. I’m still waiting to catch the Wet Bandits for the sequel to this story. So far only stray cats have been caught by the sprinkler. Perhaps the next adventure of the chat bot is to order pizza and have Gangster ‘Johnny’ complete the transaction when the pizza delivery triggers the sensors.”

    Go for it, Dennis!

    Website: LINK

  • Hire Raspberry Pi as a robot sous-chef in your kitchen

    Hire Raspberry Pi as a robot sous-chef in your kitchen

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    Design Engineering student Ben Cobley has created a Raspberry Pi–powered sous-chef that automates the easier pan-cooking tasks so the head chef can focus on culinary creativity.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4utRCyo5C4?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

    Ben named his invention OnionBot, as the idea came to him when looking for an automated way to perfectly soften onions in a pan while he got on with the rest of his dish. I have yet to manage to retrieve onions from the pan before they blacken so… *need*.

    OnionBot robotic sous-chef set up in a kitchen
    The full setup (you won’t need a laptop while you’re cooking, so you’ll have counter space)

    A Raspberry Pi 4 Model B is the brains of the operation, with a Raspberry Pi Touch Display showing the instructions, and a Raspberry Pi Camera Module keeping an eye on the pan.

    OnionBot robotic sous-chef hardware mounted on a board
    Close up of the board-mounted hardware and wiring

    Ben’s affordable solution is much better suited to home cooking than the big, expensive robotic arms used in industry. Using our tiny computer also allowed Ben to create something that fits on a kitchen counter.

    OnionBot robotic sous-chef hardware list

    What can OnionBot do?

    • Tells you on-screen when it is time to advance to the next stage of a recipe
    • Autonomously controls the pan temperature using PID feedback control
    • Detects when the pan is close to boiling over and automatically turns down the heat
    • Reminds you if you haven’t stirred the pan in a while

    How does it work?

    A thermal sensor array suspended above the stove detects the pan temperature, and the Raspberry Pi Camera Module helps track the cooking progress. A servo motor controls the dial on the induction stove.

    Screenshot of the image classifier of OnionBot robotic sous-chef
    Labelling images to train the image classifier

    No machine learning expertise was required to train an image classifier, running on Raspberry Pi, for Ben’s robotic creation; you’ll see in the video that the classifier is a really simple drag-and-drop affair.

    Ben has only taught his sous-chef one pasta dish so far, and we admire his dedication to carbs.

    Screenshot of the image classifier of OnionBot robotic sous-chef
    Training the image classifier to know when you haven’t stirred the pot in a while

    Ben built a control panel for labelling training images in real time and added labels at key recipe milestones while he cooked under the camera’s eye. This process required 500–1000 images per milestone, so Ben made a LOT of pasta while training his robotic sous-chef’s image classifier.

    Diagram of networked drivers and devices in OnionBot robotic sous-chef

    Ben open-sourced this project so you can collaborate to suggest improvements or teach your own robot sous-chef some more dishes. Here’s OnionBot on GitHub.

    He also rates this Auto ML system used in the project as a “great tool for makers.”

    Website: LINK

  • Talk to your Raspberry Pi | HackSpace 36

    Talk to your Raspberry Pi | HackSpace 36

    Reading Time: 4 minutes

    In the latest issue of HackSpace Magazine, out now, @MrPJEvans shows you how to add voice commands to your projects with a Raspberry Pi 4 and a microphone.

    You’ll need:

    It’s amazing how we’ve come from everything being keyboard-based to so much voice control in our lives. Siri, Alexa, and Cortana are everywhere and happy to answer questions, play you music, or help automate your household.

    For the keen maker, these offerings may not be ideal for augmenting their latest project as they are closed systems. The good news is, with a bit of help from Google, you can add voice recognition to your project and have complete control over what happens. You just need a Raspberry Pi 4, a speaker array, and a Google account to get started.

    Set up your microphone

    This clever speaker uses four microphones working together to increase accuracy. A ring of twelve RGB LEDs can be coded to react to events, just like an Amazon Echo

    For a home assistant device, being able to hear you clearly is an essential. Many microphones are either too low-quality for the task, or are unidirectional: they only hear well in one direction. To the rescue comes Seeed’s ReSpeaker, an array of four microphones with some clever digital processing to provide the kind of listening capability normally found on an Amazon Echo device or Google Assistant. It’s also in a convenient HAT form factor, and comes with a ring of twelve RGB LEDs, so you can add visual effects too. Start with a Raspberry Pi OS Lite installation, and follow these instructions to get your ReSpeaker ready for use.

    Install Snowboy

    You’ll see later on that we can add the power of Google’s speech-to-text API by streaming audio over the internet. However, we don’t want to be doing that all the time. Snowboy is an offline ‘hotword’ detector. We can have Snowboy running all the time, and when your choice of word is ‘heard’, we switch to Google’s system for accurate processing. Snowboy can only handle a few words, so we only use it for the ‘trigger’ words. It’s not the friendliest of installations so, to get you up and running, we’ve provided step-by-step instructions.

    There’s also a two-microphone ReSpeaker for the Raspberry Pi Zero

    Create your own hotword

    As we’ve just mentioned, we can have a hotword (or trigger word) to activate full speech recognition so we can stay offline. To do this, Snowboy must be trained to understand the word chosen. The code that describes the word (and specifically your pronunciation of it) is called the model. Luckily, this whole process is handled for you at snowboy.kitt.ai, where you can create a model file in a matter of minutes and download it. Just say your choice of words three times, and you’re done. Transfer the model to your Raspberry Pi 4 and place it in your home directory.

    Let’s go Google

    ReSpeaker can use its multiple mics to detect distance and direction

    After the trigger word is heard, we want Google’s fleet of super-servers to help us transcribe what is being said. To use Google’s speech-to-text API, you will need to create a Google application and give it permissions to use the API. When you create the application, you will be given the opportunity to download ‘credentials’ (a small text file) which will allow your setup to use the Google API. Please note that you will need a billable account for this, although you get one hour of free speech-to-text per month. Full instructions on how to get set up can be found here.

    Install the SDK and transcriber

    To use Google’s API, we need to install the firm’s speech-to-text SDK for Python so we can stream audio and get the results. On the command line, run the following:pip3 install google-cloud-speech
    (If you get an error, run sudo apt install python3-pip then try again).
    Remember that credentials file? We need to tell the SDK where it is:
    export GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS="/home/pi/[FILE_NAME].json"
    (Don’t forget to replace [FILE_NAME] with the actual name of the JSON file.)
    Now download and run this test file. Try saying something and see what happens!

    Putting it all together

    Now we can talk to our Raspberry Pi, it’s time to link the hotword system to the Google transcription service to create our very own virtual assistant. We’ve provided sample code so that you can see these two systems running together. Run it, then say your chosen hotword. Now ask ‘what time is it?’ to get a response. (Don’t forget to connect a speaker to the audio output if you’re not using HDMI.) Now it’s over to you. Try adding code to respond to certain commands such as ‘turn the light on’, or ‘what time is it?’

    Get HackSpace magazine 36 Out Now!

    Each month, HackSpace magazine brings you the best projects, tips, tricks and tutorials from the makersphere. You can get it from the Raspberry Pi Press online store, The Raspberry Pi store in Cambridge, or your local newsagents.

    Each issue is free to download from the HackSpace magazine website.

    Website: LINK

  • Build an IoT device with Ubuntu Appliance and Raspberry Pi

    Build an IoT device with Ubuntu Appliance and Raspberry Pi

    Reading Time: 4 minutes

    The new Ubuntu Appliance portfolio provides free images to help you turn your Raspberry Pi into an IoT device: just install them to your SD card and you have all the software you need to make a media server, get started with home automation, and more. Canonical’s Rhys Davies is here to tell us all about it.

    We are delighted to announce the new Ubuntu Appliance portfolio. Together with NextCloud, AdGuard, Plex, Mosquitto and openHAB, we have created the first in a new class of Ubuntu derivatives. Ubuntu Appliances are software-defined projects that enable users to download everything they need to turn a Raspberry Pi into a device that does one thing – beautifully.

    The Ubuntu Appliance mission is to enable you to build your own secure, self-updating, single-purpose devices. Tell us what you want to see next, or let’s talk about turning your project into the next Ubuntu Appliance in Discourse. For now, we are excited to bring these initial appliances to your attention.

    The initial portfolio of five

    • Plex Media Server allows its users to organise and stream their own collection of movies, TV, music, podcasts and more from one place.
    • Mosquitto is a lightweight open source MQTT message broker, for use on all devices from low power single board computers to full-scale industrial grade servers.
    • OpenHAB is a pluggable architecture that allows users to design rules for automating their home, with time- and event-based triggers, scripts, actions, notifications and voice control.
    • AdGuard Home blocks annoying banners, pop-ups and video ads to make web surfing faster, safer and more comfortable.
    • NextCloud is an on-premise content collaboration platform that allows users to host their own private cloud at home or in the office.

    How it all works

    Head over to the Ubuntu Appliances website, click the appliance you would like, select download, follow the instructions, and away you go. Once you get to this stage, there are links to tutorials and documentation written by the upstream project themselves, so you can get next steps from the horse’s mouth. If you run into any bother let us know with a new topic and we’ll get on it.

    But why bother?

    The problem we are trying to solve is to do with the fragmentation in IoT. We want to give publishers and developers a platform to get their software in the hands of their users and into their devices. We work with them to securely bundle the OS, their applications and configurations into a single download that is available for anyone to turn a Raspberry Pi into a dedicated device. You can go to the portfolio and download as many of the appliances as you like and start using them today.

    How to add your project to the Ubuntu Appliance portfolio

    All of this gives a stage and a secure, production-grade base to projects. There are no restrictions on who can make an Ubuntu Appliance; all you need is an application that runs on a Raspberry Pi or another certified board, and to let us know what you’ve got so we can help you over the line. If you need more information, head to our community page where you’ll find the rules and the exact steps to become featured as an Ubuntu Appliance.

    Try them out!

    All that’s left to say is to try them out. All five of the initial appliances work on Raspberry Pi, so if you have one, you can get started. And if you don’t have one – maybe your Raspberry Pi is still in the post – then you can also ‘try before you Pi’: install the appliance in a virtual machine and see what you think.

    The list of appliances is already growing. This launch marks the first five appliances, but we are already working with developers on the next wave and are looking for more. Start with these ones and go to our discourse to tell us what you think.

    Thanks for having me, Raspberry Pi <3

    Website: LINK

  • MagPi 70: Home automation with Raspberry Pi

    MagPi 70: Home automation with Raspberry Pi

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    Hey folks, Rob here! It’s the last Thursday of the month, and that means it’s time for a brand-new The MagPi. Issue 70 is all about home automation using your favourite microcomputer, the Raspberry Pi.

    Cover of The MagPi 70 — Raspberry Pi home automation and tech upcycling

    Home automation in this month’s The MagPi!

    Raspberry Pi home automation

    We think home automation is an excellent use of the Raspberry Pi, hiding it around your house and letting it power your lights and doorbells and…fish tanks? We show you how to do all of that, and give you some excellent tips on how to add even more automation to your home in our ten-page cover feature.

    Upcycle your life

    Our other big feature this issue covers upcycling, the hot trend of taking old electronics and making them better than new with some custom code and a tactically placed Raspberry Pi. For this feature, we had a chat with Martin Mander, upcycler extraordinaire, to find out his top tips for hacking your old hardware.

    Article on upcycling in The MagPi 70 — Raspberry Pi home automation and tech upcycling

    Upcycling is a lot of fun

    But wait, there’s more!

    If for some reason you want even more content, you’re in luck! We have some fun tutorials for you to try, like creating a theremin and turning a Babbage into an IoT nanny cam. We also continue our quest to make a video game in C++. Our project showcase is headlined by the Teslonda on page 28, a Honda/Tesla car hybrid that is just wonderful.

    Diddyborg V2 review in The MagPi 70 — Raspberry Pi home automation and tech upcycling

    We review PiBorg’s latest robot

    All this comes with our definitive reviews and the community section where we celebrate you, our amazing community! You’re all good beans

    Teslonda article in The MagPi 70 — Raspberry Pi home automation and tech upcycling

    An amazing, and practical, Raspberry Pi project

    Get The MagPi 70

    Issue 70 is available today from WHSmith, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, and Asda. If you live in the US, head over to your local Barnes & Noble or Micro Center in the next few days for a print copy. You can also get the new issue online from our store, or digitally via our Android and iOS apps. And don’t forget, there’s always the free PDF as well.

    New subscription offer!

    Want to support the Raspberry Pi Foundation and the magazine? We’ve launched a new way to subscribe to the print version of The MagPi: you can now take out a monthly £4 subscription to the magazine, effectively creating a rolling pre-order system that saves you money on each issue.

    The MagPi subscription offer — Raspberry Pi home automation and tech upcycling

    You can also take out a twelve-month print subscription and get a Pi Zero W plus case and adapter cables absolutely free! This offer does not currently have an end date.

    That’s it for today! See you next month.

    Animated GIF: a door slides open and Captain Picard emerges hesitantly

    Website: LINK

  • Gladys Project: a Raspberry Pi home assistant

    Gladys Project: a Raspberry Pi home assistant

    Reading Time: 4 minutes

    If, like me, you’re a pretty poor time-keeper with the uncanny ability to never get up when your alarm goes off and yet still somehow make it to work just in time — a little dishevelled, brushing your teeth in the office bathroom — then you too need Gladys.

    Raspberry Pi home assistant

    Over the last year, we’ve seen off-the-shelf home assistants make their way onto the Raspberry Pi. With the likes of Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Siri, it’s becoming ever easier to tell the air around you to “Turn off the bathroom light” or “Resume my audiobook”, and it happens without you lifting a finger. It’s quite wonderful. And alongside these big names are several home-brew variants, such as Jarvis and Jasper, which were developed to run on a Pi in order to perform home automation tasks.

    So do we need another such service? Sure! And here’s why…

    A Romantic Mode with your Home Assistant Gladys !

    A simple romantic mode in Gladys ! See https://gladysproject.com for more informations about the project 🙂 Devices used : – A 5$ Xiaomi Switch Button – A Raspberry Pi 3 with Gladys on it – Connected lights ( Works with Philips Hue, Milight lamp, etc..

    Gladys Project

    According to the Gladys creators’ website, Gladys Project is ‘an open-source program which runs on your Raspberry Pi. It communicates with all your devices and checks your calendar to help you in your everyday life’.

    Gladys does the basic day-to-day life maintenance tasks that I need handled in order to exist without my mum there to remind me to wake up in time for work. And, as you can see from the video above, it also plays some mean George Michael.

    A screenshot of a mobile phone showing the Gladys app - Gladys Project home assistant

    Gladys can help run your day from start to finish, taking into consideration road conditions and travel time to ensure you’re never late, regardless of external influences. It takes you 30 minutes to get ready and another 30 minutes to drive to work for 9.00? OK, but today there’s a queue on the motorway, and now your drive time is looking to be closer to an hour. Thankfully, Gladys has woken you up a half hour earlier, so you’re still on time. Isn’t that nice of her? And while you’re showering and mourning those precious stolen minutes of sleep, she’s opening the blinds and brewing coffee for you. Thanks, mum!

    A screenshot of the Gladys hub on the Raspberry Pi - Gladys Project home assistant

    Set the parameters of your home(s) using the dedicated hub.

    Detecting your return home at the end of the day, Gladys runs your pre-set evening routine. Then, once you place your phone on an NFC tag to indicate bedtime, she turns off the lights and, if your nighttime preferences dictate it, starts the whale music playlist, sending you into a deep, stressless slumber.

    A screenshot of Etcher showing the install process of the Gladys image - Gladys Project home assistant

    Gladys comes as a pre-built Raspbian image, ready to be cloned to an SD card.

    Gladys is free to download from the Gladys Project website and is compatible with smart devices such as Philips Hue lightbulbs, WeMo Insight Switches, and the ever tricky to control without the official app Sonos speakers!

    Automate and chill

    Which tasks and devices in your home do you control with a home assistant? Do you love sensor-controlled lighting which helps you save on electricity? How about working your way through an audiobook as you do your housework, requesting a pause every time you turn on the vacuum cleaner?

    Share your experiences with us in the comments below, and if you’ve built a home assistant for Raspberry Pi, or use an existing setup to run your household, share that too.

    And, as ever, if you want to keep up to date with Raspberry Pi projects from across the globe, be sure to follow us on social media, sign up to our weekly newsletter, the Raspberry Pi Weekly, and check out The MagPi, the official magazine of the Raspberry Pi community, available in stores or as a free PDF download.

    Website: LINK