[Tod’s] daughter has a habit of forgetting to take a house key along with her, so he was looking for a way to make accessing the house easier in a pinch. He had tried wireless garage door keypads in the past, but their performance was so-so at best. After scouring the market for commercial solutions and checking out the work of other hackers, he decided that he needed to craft a custom solution of his own.

He started shopping around for wireless-enabled microcontrollers and settled on a Roving Networks RN-XV module, which is designed as a drop-in replacement for an XBee. Paired with a 5v to 3.3v power adapter, the RN-XV is nearly all he needed to interface his iPhone with his garage door opener.

The microcontroller has enough GPIO pins to control the garage door, while also monitoring the door’s status using a simple magnet/reed switch combo. A web server in [Tod’s] house takes input from any phone connected to his wireless LAN and relays the open/close commands to the opener. The opener in turn returns status messages to him via the web interface.

We really like the system’s simple design, and as long as [Tod] has turned WPS off at home, he really shouldn’t have to worry too much about unauthorized entry.

The crew at the Netherlands-based Bitlair hackerspace love their music, and have set up a digital jukebox for their workshop using mpd and fookebox. One problem that you run into with a bunch of different people working in one place is that everyone has their own distinct taste in music. The rhythmic “wub wub wub” of Dubstep might be great for some while leaving others trying to solder while simultaneously covering their ears. To ensure that everyone can exercise a musical veto (a la Empire Records) now and again, they built a Skipbutton which allows members to change what’s playing.

The button allows users to skip to the next song in the queue. as well as to control the volume of the space’s sound system. It uses an Arduino pro mini to run the show, sending signals to the mpd daemon using a 433 MHz transmitter. Bitlair is pretty large and they often spend time outdoors, so they had to ensure that the Skipbutton worked wherever they did. To do this, they built a Yagi-Uda antenna at the receiving end to ensure that the button functions no matter where it’s being triggered from.

Check out their wiki if you’re interested in making a similar system for your home or hackerspace – all of the code and schematics are available for the taking.

[Julian] wanted a way to remotely control various appliances and lights around his house without spending an arm and a leg on home automation. He also desired the ability to easily switch what items he was controlling without a ton of hassle. Since he couldn’t find anything reasonably priced to do what he desired, he built his own SMS-triggered remote control system.

He designed his system to be used like an extension cord, hence the portable junction box enclosure. This enables him to regulate up to four different items at a time, with the ability to swap out components or relocate his controller at will.

The power strip is controlled by an Arduino which receives commands from his PC via an Xbee module. Any text messages sent to his Gmail account are retrieved by his computer and then transmitted to the Arduino. The Arduino in turn triggers relays as designated by [Julain’s] text messages, utilizing H-bridges to provide the required current.

Check out his schematics and code if you’re interested in implementing something similar in your home.

This bluetooth headset hack, although simple, may provide some hacking inspiration. Turning a Bluetooth headset into a wireless input for one’s stereo is definitely something that makes one think “why didn’t I think of that?” It’s also good if you’ve got a tight hacking budget as there’s not a lot of stuff to buy.

In addition to a possibly broken headset, a 3.5mm stereo plug and some wires are needed for this. Throw in some tools that every good hacker should have around like a soldering iron and glue gun and you’re ready to get started. [Dex] does a good job of describing the process, from disassembling the headset to wiring the stereo plug to it. When making the conversion, one must remember to bridge the left and right output channels, as most headsets only output a mono signal.

There’s not a whole lot else required to do this hack.  Could be a good beginner project. For another Bluetooth-based hack using scrounged equipment, check out this Cellphone controlled retro-radio hack.

There’s something calming about looking up into the night sky and seeing an array of shining stars off in the distance. [Marou] is a big fan of stargazing, but sometimes conditions are not optimal, so he decided to bring the stars inside.

His idea was to build a ceiling lamp that didn’t bask the room with light, but rather one that reproduced the peaceful twinkle of the night sky. He covered a wooden table with dark fabric and drilled a ton of tiny holes into the surface. He fitted the holes in the table with two big bundles of optical fibers since one bundle couldn’t quite cover the entire thing.

To light the cables, he built a pair of 4-LED illuminators, which contain red, blue, green, and white LEDs. Each light source is controlled via an Arduino which takes its direction from [Marou’s] infrared remote.

While the idea isn’t new, the implementation is pretty cool. At first we were expecting a small lamp, but anchoring an entire table to the ceiling as a light panel is definitely something we hadn’t seen before.

If you want to build something similar in your own living room, [Marou’s] Arduino code is free for the taking.

[SeBsZ] does a lot of work in home automation, using Xbee modules, LEDs, and other home lighting systems. Naturally, people look to him for help with different electronics projects, but one thing he has been asked time and time again is if he can make a simple mood lighting solution that can be easily installed.

He has always been interested in playing around with RGB LEDs, but he wasn’t looking to reinvent the wheel with this project. Instead he based his work off the Ikea Dioder product, an off-the-shelf set of adjustable LED strips. As we’ve seen before, the control module for these LEDs leaves a bit to be desired, so he removed the Dioder’s onboard PIC and wired up a controller of his own. His “Universal IO Board” uses an Atmega88 for control and has all the pins required to attach an Xbee wireless module. With everything wired up, he now has full wireless control of the Dioder light strips, without a ton of fuss.

Although he’s selling a few different hardware kits, the schematics for his IO board are freely available on his site, should you want to make your own. The only thing that we didn’t see was the code for the Atmega, but we’re guessing he has that posted somewhere as well.

[Jean] was shopping around for a vintage stereo receiver, and happened upon a broken, but repairable Marantz 4240. After getting things back to working order, he thought it would be great if he could use his iPhone to remotely control the unit (PDF Writeup, Schematics and Code).

He scrounged around for parts, and after locating a PIC and a handful of parts from old copiers and printers, he got down to business. He etched some custom boards to house electronic bits, then strapped motors to the volume and source selection knobs. He also rigged up the push button power switch on the receiver, using a small servo and a bit of string.

Now, he can control everything using his iPhone, which communicates with the stereo over WiFi. While the power, volume knob, and input selector can be triggered remotely, he still has the ability to tweak any of these items manually if desired.

We think that this is a great way to add modern amenities to vintage electronics, without ruining the aesthetics of the components. Don’t take our word for it though, check out the video demonstrations [Jean] but together after the jump.

Most people can agree that picking weeds is not a whole lot of fun. [Dave] was not a big fan of sitting out in the heat toiling over his lawn, so he did the only rational thing and built a robot to do it for him.

Nuntius, the Garden Avenger, is a remote controlled robot that [Dave] can use to pick weeds from the comfort of his couch. The robot is controlled by a Propeller microcontroller, taking its commands wirelessly via a pair of XBee modules. Nuntius’ controller is pretty intuitive, consisting of a 5-axis arm complete with a gripper that [Dave] can articulate in any number of directions. His motions cause the robot’s arm to move in sync, and driving Nuntius is as easy as holding down a button and moving the controls in the desired direction.

[Dave] can monitor what Nuntius is doing via a wireless camera he has installed on the robot’s arm, allowing him to sit back and relax indoors while the robot handles the hard work.

Keep reading to see a short video demo of Nuntius in action.

[via Make]

[Jay Collett] likes listening to Internet radio stations and decided to build his own standalone hardware that lets him listen without being at his computer. But he wasn’t starting from square one on this project. [Jay] built on the epic instruction set that [Mighty Ohm] published when he first built his own WiFi radio.

Both of these radios used the same method of getting onto the internet; a hacked router. We kind of like this because it means you should be able to use the radio as a bridge for wired Ethernet devices. But we digress. [Jay] departs from the instructions by using an Arduino and its IDE to interface an LCD screen with a different line/column orientation than the original, and to implement a different control scheme. This makes the project a bit more approachable if you prefer not to roll your own electronics.

Take a look at the video after the break. The router takes quite a while to boot, but once it does it seems that the controls are both intuitive and responsive.

Once the Google ADK was announced, the team over at [ElectFreaks] jumped right in and started experimenting to see what they could do with the new Arduino/Android interface. While the ADK was great for allowing the two devices to interact over a USB connection, they felt that the system would be far better if it allowed for wireless communications instead.

They added a Bluetooth Bee to their Arduino setup and got busy writing an Android application that uses the handset’s built in Bluetooth module to communicate using the ADK. The application configures your phone to act as either a client or server when pairing. This does not affect data flow, as communications are bi-directional, it merely decides which device is placed in discoverable mode.

As you can see in the second part of their post, once the phone and Arduino are connected, it is quite easy to send serial data back and forth between the two devices.

As of right now, their Bluetooth API is in Beta, so things might still be a bit rough around the edges. They do encourage anyone to download and modify the code, which is freely available on their site.

[Thanh] has spent some time flying quad-copters measuring 12” motor to motor, but wanted to build something smaller so that he could fly indoors. Instead of building just one, he actually constructed five different quad-copters, with motor to motor arm spans ranging from 10” to just 3”.

In his forum post, he highlights the construction process of his 10” copter, covering each step in great detail. While he breaks down his component lists into two categories based on motor to motor span, the one common item is the TI MSP430-based controller board. In particular, he used the eZ430-RF2500 development kit, which has the added benefit of a built-in 2.4 GHz wireless radio. His quad-copter uses a Wii Motion Plus gyro board to help keep it aloft, as well a handful of other components which should be pretty familiar to most of our readers.

It’s great to see the construction broken down in such detail, we imagine it will be a great resource for anyone else looking to build their own quad-copter.

Stick around to see a quick video demonstration of his mini quad-copter in action.

[Thanks, Panikos]

[Fred] got a La Crosse wireless weather station as a gift and thought the LCD display was great, but he was dismayed that there was no means of extracting the temperature data for use on a computer. He thought that the modular design of the system would make it great for use in his home automation project if he could only get his hands on the data.

He tore into the base station and started looking around for easy places to get at the data he was looking for. He thought about tapping into the bus that controls the LCD in hopes of finding an easy to decode signal, but the weather station used a proprietary chip with an integrated LCD controller, making it all but impossible. Instead, he started sniffing the data coming across the wireless link, and while he didn’t quite yet know what he was seeing, it was a start.

He sniffed the signals using Audacity, and eventually found that the base station received 40-bit data bursts from each sensor. He dug further, and with the help of some data he found online, he was able to decode the data packets. The last hurdle he ran into was figuring out how the system’s CRC encoding worked. It took a bit of work but he eventually got it, and can now record data packets knowing that the data has come over the air intact.

So far, it looks like his temperature monitoring system is working quite well, though he has several improvements planned for the near future. If you have a similar unit and are interested in extending its capabilities, [Fred] has posted plenty of code on his site.

Hackaday forum member [Emeryth] recently posted his newest creation, the Wifon 2.0, which is an update to a project we featured last year. The second iteration of the device looks to make several improvements on the already solid concept.

Ditching the simple 16×4 LCD, version 2 sports a full color 320×240 touch panel LCD. A faster STM32 micro controller replaces the Atmega88 he used the first time around, allowing him to create a much more advanced user interface. The micro runs the ChibiOS/RT real time operating system, which enables multitasking, making the entire project a lot easier. Like the first version, an original Fonera performs all of the pen testing, though this time around he has ditched the vanilla DD-WRT distro for Jasager, which is purpose-built for running the Karma attack.

The project is coming along nicely, and [Emeryth] says he has a few simple apps running on the device already. He has found that running several applications on the device simultaneously is testing the practical limits of the Foneras capabilities, though he may add more memory to the router in order to squeeze a little more life out of it.

[via Hackaday forums]

It’s no secret that wireless mice can eat through batteries pretty quickly. Rather than keep a fresh supply of AAs on hand at all times, [Phil] decided he would convert his mouse to use a rechargeable lithium polymer battery instead.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a cell phone battery crammed into a mouse to increase capacity, but we think this one has been done quite nicely. [Phil] managed to fit a 2.7 – 4.2v Li-Poly battery in the mouse’s palm rest, where there was a little extra empty space. The battery can be charged from any USB port via a custom-built charging module, which he constructed using a MAX1555 charge controller. Another custom-built circuit resides in the space previously occupied by the AA batteries, which uses an MC340063 DC to DC converter to drop the battery’s voltage down to the 1.25v required by the mouse.

The only part of the build that [Phil] is not pleased with is the power switch on the bottom, but since you rarely see that, we could care less. We think it is quite well done, and with a second version already in the works, we anticipate that it will get even better.

Be sure to check out [Phil’s] video tour of the hack, which you can see below.

With the recent announcement and release of their ADK, it was only a matter of time before Google started invading your home in a big way. From the looks of it, Google will be jumping into the home lighting market very shortly, which could prove to be quite interesting.

Partnering with Florida-based Lighting Sciences, Google is planning on developing consumer-grade 60W equivalent smart LED light bulbs. The bulbs will be able to wirelessly communicate using Google’s new open-source home networking protocol. The lights will be controllable using any Android device allowing users to dim, brighten and toggle the lights on and off without ever touching a wall switch.

We think it’s an interesting idea, and we’re all for getting quality LED lighting in the home. That said, some of Google’s other utility-centric endeavors such as PowerMeter have met only mediocre success, so it remains to be seen if this concept takes off. If it does however, we can’t wait to see the flood of ADK-based hacks the community puts together. Since their new wireless protocol will likely be extended to all sorts of other household systems, the possibilities are endless.