Comments on: Alarm clock automated blinds

By: Fabian

Fabian — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 19:37:02 +0000

http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/harlan/projects/blinds/

By: Y8

Y8 — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 09:44:49 +0000

So others outside can watch you laying in bed? No thanks. I’d rather be jarred out of bed by the news on the AM dial. The news, in and of itself, is enough to scare the crap out of you and jolt you awake.

By: rothgar

rothgar — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:42:41 +0000

A friend of mine had this back in college. But his was a cell phone set to vibrate on a alarm with the blinds rope tied to the phone. When the alarm goes off the cell phone vibrates and falls off the shelf it was on, thus opening the blinds.

Actually for him it was closing the blinds but it’s the same idea. :)

By: mark

mark — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 21:18:14 +0000

Im waiting for them to release a wireless one, that turns the kettle on and makes the toast aswell:D

By: fartface

fartface — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 19:39:49 +0000

Neat idea, problem is up here in the arctic circle, Northern Ohio, Opening the blinds when I get up = nothing.. It’s pitch black until 8:30am, so there is no hope of daylight at 6:00am when most employed people get up in the morning. (2nd shift typically rise noonish if you work factory)

Neat idea for summer mornings, I’d rather it slowly turn up the lights in the room over a 1 hour period.

By: mike

mike — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 19:16:48 +0000

By: noxestyle

noxestyle — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:20:19 +0000

This would be better if it raised the bed and tossed you out of it, put you on a moving walkway to the shower, dressed you as you stepped out of the shower…

By: Alan

Alan — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:15:49 +0000

Great project idea! Do I smell a Walmart hit? :)
I could see the creator making a version 2 since there is lots of possibilities here. It could including a serial interface for the device by incorporating the microcontroller and a small battery in the blind. This would allow communication to many of these devices for room mood control etc.

By: hoffy

hoffy — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 17:03:37 +0000

Has anyone figured out a good way to raise/lower the blinds (as opposed to just tilting)? I’ve been watching to set something up with X10 or a remote or something, but haven’t found anything that seems to work well.

By: Scelza

Scelza — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:58:40 +0000

This is great, it motivates me to do this myself. I’m what you call “not a morning person”. The sun has a way of getting me up that doesn’t piss me off.

I could see this turning into a commercial venture. The next step would be to make this wireless. Picture an infomercial, “But wait, if you buy now, we’ll also send you the wireless activated coffee pot…”

Congrats on this, very cool, very useful, very simple.

By: Andres

Andres — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:24:02 +0000

then have it also turn on a flood light outside your window.

By: Elepski

Elepski — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 12:26:57 +0000

Great stuff.. useless to me tho.. I getup before sunrise

By: J4y

J4y — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 09:07:29 +0000

I am a fan of physical computing projects like this.
I like the idea because I hate the sound of my alarm clock.

By: Please

Please — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 08:02:54 +0000

Please hack and delete my blog hendriadi.info and hendriadi.wordpress.com

please i need the blog down now.. cause i forgot the password and someone use it..

its also challange for any hacker can you defeat wordpress..?

By: hex4def6

hex4def6 — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 06:50:51 +0000

Seriously though, it brings up just how cheap & useful these small micros really are. I’ve controlled servos with 556s and other discrete logic before, and its a real pain, especially if you want to start doing other sorts of control (in this case it was a remote-control car chassis, with the steering servo attached to logic that picked up the field of a 75khz wire on the floor and followed it… complete PID system. bleh). The amount of crap you can remove by using these cheapo micros is incredible. Also makes changes software related, not hardware, which is way harder to change generally.