Bumper stickers are usually political, crude, or otherwise inflammatory. Rather a more fun example is this digital creation from [Guy Dupont], who made a bumper sticker that broadcasts what he’s listening to on the stereo.
[Guy] found a nice wide 11-inch bar LCD that was the right aspect ratio to suit the “bumper sticker” aesthetic. It had an HDMI interface, so he decided to drive it with a Raspbery Pi Zero 2W. Power for the system was derived from 12-volt lines going to his vehicle’s rear view camera. For an enclosure, he simply stuck the Pi and a buck converter on the back of the display and heat shrinked the whole thing. He also threw some magnets in there to stick it to the car.
How does the screen know what song to display? Well, [Guy] already has his Spotify listens scrobbling to Last.fm. Thus, he just made a script that scrapes his Last.fm page, which runs on a Particle Boron microcontroller, which has a cellular connection of its own. The Boron gets the song data, and spits it over to the Pi via Bluetooth. Then the Pi generates an image for the display.
Oh, and there’s also a neat Easter Egg. In honor of brat summer, the background changes to #8ACE00 green if the system detects you’re listening to Charli XCX. Neat.
It’s a neat build with a lot of moving parts. We’re surprised we haven’t seen anything like this before though, it’s really rather fun. Also, how’s about that taste of the old Internet—when was the last time you heard somebody mention scrobbling? Gosh, we’re getting old.
We’ve featured some of [Guy’s] works before, too, like the amusing Mailblocks project. Video after the break.
Every Guy Dupont project is an absolute pleasure for me to see here and on youtube.
I need to say more than just what I’m listening to.
I think with great shrink pressure and thin electrical tape, the component pins might pierce the tape and short.
Nice display.
What the hell? Do you always use the comments section to wish death upon people?
Whoops, replied to a comment that was removed. Disregard this.
Lol!
I came here to do this. Or at least, speech recognition, and cuss at people.
Or tell them their f*** brake lights don’t work. Ok, maybe that will save lives too.
Jungle – Us Against The World [03:27] | You will not thank me for this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqg50BgGTdE
Volcano (Jungle album)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcano_(Jungle_album)
It’s not terrible.
@Andrew said: “It’s not terrible.”
OK you’re right, I’ve heard worse. But it’s really not my cup of tea.
I think the display panel for the bumper display thingy came from AliExpress:
LESOWN 11.3 inch Bar Long Display HDMI LCD Panel 440×1920 Module Secondary Screen CPU GPU Temperature Monitoring. USB 5V Input, HDMI Interface, 440×1920 IPS. $63.81 USD 52% off.
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256806216385746.html
If only external signs like these weren’t illegal where I live. ;(
You can always compensate by turning up your volume!
Same in Australia! We had a few car-company clients who wanted to do this kind of thing over the years, and we had to turn them down every time. So sad.
Oy bruv you got a loicense for that bumpa sticka
Doesn’t putting them behind your rear windshield solve the problem?
this thing requires a dedicated cellular connection (and therefore a monthly cost$ in order to display data from inside the car to a screen slapped on the trunk?
The Particle board comes with a free (but limited) data plan with no monthly fee. I’m sure it will die someday, but it’s ended up being a relatively good deal since I purchased a few yrs ago. It’s bounced between a few different projects.
Hacked to show: Cop Killer!
There are ways that this could go wrong….
It’s fine, I already got put on a list when I typed ‘sudo killall fbi’ in an effort to get the image to change. : P
Neat idea…but there’s a part of me that objects to something founded in 2002 being called “the old internet”!
re: Scrobbling, I just recently got an Android app (Pano Scrobbler) and browser extension (Web Scrobbler) set up again to keep track of my listening habits. I used Last.fm a ton when I had an iPod but then streaming apps didn’t work well or at all with it and my activity died off.
I’m really happy that I can use the service again because I like being able to have the information outside of whatever goofy algorithm my streaming platform uses – especially since you get catalogue license changes and large swathes of music just go missing from your saved items!
On top of that scrobbling lets me combine my streaming history and my local music playback history for the times I do dig out my FLAC CD rips.