Some things are more fun when there are more folks involved, and enjoying time in the pool is one of those activities. Knowing this, [Bert Wagner] started thinking of ways to best coordinate pool activities with his kids and their neighborhood friends. Out of this came the Splashflag, an IoT device built from the ground up that provides fun pool parties and a great learning experience along the way.
The USB-powered Splashflag is housed in a 3D-printed case, with a simple 2×16 LCD mounted on the front to display the notification. There’s also a small servo mounted to the rear that raises a 3D-printed flag when the notification comes in—drawing your attention to it a bit more than just text alone would. Hidden on the back is also a reset button: a long press factory-resets the device to connect to a different Wi-Fi network, and a quick press clears the notification to return the device to its resting state.
Inside is an ESP32-S3 that drives the servo and display and connects to the Wi-Fi. The ESP32 is set up with a captive portal, easing the device’s connection to a wireless network. The ESP32, once connected, joins an MQTT broker hosted by [Bert Wagner], allowing easy sending of notifications via the web app he made to quickly and easily send out invitations.
Thanks, [Bert Wagner], for sharing the process of building this fun, unique IoT device—be sure to read all the details on his website or check out the code and design files available over on his GitHub. Check out some of our other IoT projects if this project has you interested in making your own.
And, what does it do?
I’m guessing that unlike the thumbnail the Splashflag is not actually by the pool but in the houses of the friends / neighbours. When the flag goes up this signals “people are in the pool” with the message how long they will be there. Meaning: People can decide if they want to join or not plus they know for roughly how long they will be there.
This needs a pair of leads running into the pool to provide a nice little tingle when time is up.
At first I misread the title as “Poo party”. Sounds exciting.
Does it include a motion sensor?
“Originally our idea was to put up a special “we’re swimming” flag outside in our front yard when our kids were in the pool, alerting the neighbors that they are welcome to come over and swim as well. The flag would be an open invitation, without the overhead of planning, group texts, and phone calls.”
Fun idea. I like it better than the far more practical idea of sending out a text message to a list of potential attendees.
This little gizmo could be used for any spontaneous neighborhood social activity. My neighbors who have been there a while tell me that they used to have something they called the 9th Street Lounge (“9th” is an obfuscation). This was an occasional get together in somebody’s driveway or front patio where they’d hang out and consume a few adult beverages.
Can I get one that tells us when the ice cream man is in the neighborhood so I don’t have to hear the Waltzing Matilda tune at high volume with really terrible audio quality for 10 minutes or so at a time?
:-)