Cute CO2 Gauge Tells You When To Crack A Window

March 19, 2024 by Kristina Panos 25 Comments

[Cyrill] has a good home automation scheme going: there are a number of physical switches set around the place that control the essential functions. The only problem is that in the winter time, this results in a great deal of phone checking as [Cyrill] tries to monitor the CO₂ level. Tired of all this screen time, [Cyrill] set about to create an incredibly cute (and useful) Co₂ monitor that plainly shows the current level and how bad it is, relatively speaking.

A large servo and an ESP32-S2 make up the guts of an analog CO2 sensor.

Behind that adorable face is a DS3225 servo being driven by a Wemos S2 mini, both of which [Cyrill] happened to have handy. Although the 25 Kg servo may be complete overkill for the situation, [Cyrill] reports that it is quieter than your average AliExpress alternatives, which makes it well worth it in our book. Then it was on to Inkscape to make the gauge itself. [Cyrill] says they’re an Inkscape noob, but that face could have fooled us.

Finally, it was time to integrate it into Home Assistant to get readings from the CO₂ sensors. This was easier said than done, but [Cyrill] does a nice job of explaining how to get the ESP32-S2 up and working.

If you’re out there monitoring CO levels in your home, beware of fake sensors that cropped up during the height of the pandemic and are likely still at large.

2024 Home Sweet Home Automation: A Piano-Controlled Smart Home

March 19, 2024 by Kristina Panos 7 Comments

There’s a scene in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory where a little flap in the wall flips down to reveal a small organ embedded there. Gene Wilder plays a bit of Rachmaninoff on the organ, and the giant door to the chocolate room slowly creaks open.

Once [Nathan Orick] got this into his head, he couldn’t get it out, and had to give it a go in his own home. Regrettably there’s no chocolate rooms in the house, so he’s using various chords and melodies to do things like control the lights and the TV, as you’ll see in the video after the break. Although this one may have started as a joke of a home automation scheme, [Nathan] thinks it turned out pretty solid, and so do we.

He already had the piano and a Raspberry Pi Zero lying around, so getting this up and running was mostly about connections and code. Speaking of connections, [Nathan] was hard-pressed to find a micro-USB to USB-B cord, so he ended up splicing one together. Simple enough. The harder part was getting Linux to recognize the keyboard, but all it took was touching all the pins with a multimeter, evidently. What’s a project without a little magic?

And not only did it show up, Linux went to the trouble of registering it as a MIDI device all on its own. Once [Nathan] obtained the port number, he had data printing to the console every time he played a note. Then it was mostly a matter of writing code to interact with MIDI data and track the notes as they’re played, and put it all together with Home Assistant. Be sure to check out the brief demo after the break.

Continue reading “2024 Home Sweet Home Automation: A Piano-Controlled Smart Home” →

DIY Pocket PONG Breaks The Mobile Spell

March 18, 2024 by Kristina Panos 8 Comments

[Minikk], aka [Athul] is about to enter 10th grade and reports that they and their contemporaries are eschewing boring mobile games for 90s stuff and old games like PONG. Well, we already knew the 90s were back, but it’s nice to see that even older stuff is coming along with it. The kids are alright.

Whether you want to play alone or with a friend, it’s a classic to have in your pocket for sure. The brains behind this 70s-era operation is a Seeed Xiao ESP32-C3, which takes input from the two potentiometers and outputs the game on a 128 x 64 OLED. There’s also a small buzzer for when the ball hits the paddle, or you or your friend slips one past the goalie.

Our favorite part of this build has to be the DIY rivets that hold the OLED in place. [Athul] built posts into the enclosure that get heat-smashed into place with a soldering iron. Pretty neat, huh?

PONG is a specific thrill, certainly. How can it be more thrilling? Maybe with LEDs instead of a screen? Just a thought.

Illustrated Kristina with an IBM Model M keyboard floating between her hands.

Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With The Offset-Stem Keycaps

March 18, 2024 by Kristina Panos 3 Comments

Love it or hate it, I think this is a really cool idea. [Leo_keeb] has designed a new set of keycaps for the Happy Hacking Keyboard (HHKB). The keycaps’ stems are offset to the left or right in order to turn this once-staggered keyboard into an ortholinear object.

So, how do they feel? There is a slight wobble to them, according to [Leo_keeb] — it’s a bit like pressing the left or right side of Tab. But the actuation is smooth, they say.

As you can see, these resin keycaps weren’t designed with the typical Cherry MX profile in mind, they are made for the Topre capacitive key switches of the HHKB. (No, those aren’t weird rubber domes.)

When I asked about sharing the STLs, [Leo_keeb] advised me that they might be willing to release STLs for Cherry MX switches in the US layout if there is enough interest.

Continue reading “Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With The Offset-Stem Keycaps” →

Goldilocks Beverage Coaster Tells You When It’s Just Right

March 13, 2024 by Kristina Panos 17 Comments

If you ask us, morning is the only excuse we need for a hot caffeinated beverage — weather be damned. Wherever [gokux] is, they may be experiencing actual winter this year, given that they are out there getting cozy with a hot cup of what-have-you. But how do they know it’s at the right temperature for drinking? Enter the temperature-monitoring smart coaster.

At the heart of this build is a GY-906 infrared temperature sensor, which senses the warmth (or lack thereof) and displays the degrees on a small OLED screen thanks to a Seeed Xiao SAMD21. To make things simple, there is also an ideogram that corresponds to the current temperature — snowflake for too cold, danger sign for too hot, and thumbs up for that just-right range. Although this coaster is mostly 3D-printed, the mug sits on a slotted piece of aluminium that is removable for easy cleaning. This would be a good-looking and useful addition to any desk.

This is isn’t the first temperature-indicating beverage coaster we’ve seen. The most recent one ultimately used a probe, which is likely about as accurate (and messy) as you can get with these things.

2024 Home Sweet Home Automation: Simple Window Closer Relies On Gravity

March 13, 2024 by Kristina Panos 8 Comments

While most pet owners are happy to help out their furry friends, everyone has a limit. For [Gauthier], getting up to open or close the window every three minutes so their cat can go out on the balcony was a bridge too far, so they decided to take a crack at automating the window. The end result not only does the job, it’s extremely low-tech and pretty much invisible except when in use.

Of course, [Gauthier] didn’t arrive at this solution immediately. Their first thoughts went to RFID or perhaps a pressure sensor to detect the cats, coupled with something motorized to open and shut the window, like a belt or maybe a linear actuator. But ultimately, the system has to be robust, so that’s when [Gauthier] got the idea to employ gravity by using pulleys and weights.

Due to the configuration of the space and the shape of the window, [Gauthier] was able to to hide cable pretty well — you can’t really see anything when the window is closed. Be sure to check it out in action after the break. Continue reading “2024 Home Sweet Home Automation: Simple Window Closer Relies On Gravity” →

A dress is shown in three shapes: the original, a slightly-heated A-line version, and a close-fitting body con version.

4D Knit Dress Skirts Waste

March 13, 2024 by Kristina Panos 21 Comments

Regular 2D sewing of anything is inherently wasteful. You can align the pattern pieces however you want, but there’s going to be wasted everything — thread, fabric, and interfacing — whether you get it right the first time or not. Never mind the fact that people tend to create a muslin (prototype) first using inexpensive fabric (like muslin) for the purposes of getting the fit right.

A few examples of the lines than can be created.

The MIT Self-Assembly Lab x Ministry of Supply have come up with a 4D garment construction technique that minimizes waste while being pretty darn cool at the same time. They’ve created a knit dress that combines several techniques and tools, including heat-activated yarns, computerized knitting, and 6-axis robotic activation. The result is a dress that can be permanently molded to fit the body however and wherever you want, using a heat gun mounted on a 6-axis robotic arm.

As far as we can tell, a finished dress does not come off of the machine in the short demo video after the break. It looks like it still has to be sewn together, which creates some potential for waste, but absolutely nothing like conventional methods.

This is probably the coolest dress we’ve seen since the one covered in LCD panels.

Continue reading “4D Knit Dress Skirts Waste” →