Dash With Arduino

February 2, 2017 by 5 Comments

Amazon Dash is a handy service, and when Amazon released their AWS IoT platform, [Brian Carbonette] felt that it left out all the hardware hackers from the tinkering fun. Seeking justice, he put together a guide for an Arduino Dash button aimed at hardware hackers and those who are still easing into the world.

For his build, [Carbonette] used an Arduino MKR1000, laying out a few different configuration options for building your button. He has also gone to great lengths to help all comers tackle the Arduino-Dash API communication process by building an AmazonDRS Arduino Library, which handles all the “boring details,” so you can focus on the hardware. With the warning that the software-side setup is tedious the first time around, [Carbonette] has included a detailed manual for setting up the aforementioned AmazonDRS library, some example code, and a breakdown thereof. He also suggests implementing other features — such as a notification if the item is out of stock on Amazon — to tie the project together.

Continue reading “Dash With Arduino” →

Only One Button? No Problem!

November 18, 2016 by 26 Comments

Sometimes less is more. This is especially true when dealing with microcontrollers with limited I/O pins. Even if you have lots of I/O, sometimes you are need to pack a lot into a little space. [Hugatry] was inspired by the simple interface found on a lot of flashlights: one button. Push it and it turns on. Push it again, and it switches modes. You cycle through the modes until you finally turn it back off. One button provides mutliple functions. The question is how can you use a power switch as an I/O device? After all, when you turn the power off, the microprocessor stops operating, right?

[Hugatry’s] answer is quite simple. He connects a resistor/capacitor network to an I/O pin (or multiple pins). When the processor turns on initially, the pin will read low and the capacitor will charge up. If you turn the power off, the CPU voltage will fall rapidly to zero, but the voltage on the capacitor will discharge slower. If you wait long enough and turn the power on, there’s no difference from that first power on event. But if you turn the power on quickly, the capacitor voltage will still be high enough to read as a logic one.

What that means is that the processor as part of its start up can detect that it was recently turned off and take some action. If it remembers the previous state in nonvolatile memory, you can have the code cycle through multiple states, just like a flashlight. You can see a video of the setup, below.

Continue reading “Only One Button? No Problem!” →

Amazon Dash Reboots Your Pi

October 15, 2016 by 15 Comments

We all know feature creep can be a problem in almost any project. A simple idea can often become unusable if a project’s scope isn’t clearly defined in the beginning. However, the opposite problem sometimes presents itself: forgetting to include a key feature. [Zach] had this problem when he built a Raspberry Pi magic mirror and forgot to build a physical reset/shutoff switch. Luckily he had a spare Amazon Dash button and re-purposed it for use with his Pi.

The Raspberry Pi doesn’t include its own on/off switch. Without installing one yourself, the only way to turn off the device (without access to the terminal) is to unplug it, which can easily corrupt data on the SD card. Since [Zach]’s mirror was already complete, he didn’t want to take the entire thing apart just to install a button. There’s already a whole host of applications for the Dash button, so with a little Node.js work on the Raspberry Pi he was able to configure a remote-reset button for his mirror.

This is a similar problem for most Raspberry Pi owners, so if you want to follow [Zach]’s work he has done a great job detailing his process on his project site. If you’re looking for other uses for these convenient network-enabled buttons, he also links to a Github site with lots of other projects. This pizza button is probably our favorite, though.

Fight That Tesla Envy With A Tablet Dash For Your Car

May 31, 2016 by 37 Comments

[Aykut Çelik] uses some strong words to describe how he feels about his VW Polo’s current radio set-up. Words like, “useless,” are bandied about. What is a modern man supposed to do with a car that doesn’t have built-in navigation or Bluetooth connectivity with phones? Listen to the radio? There are actual (mostly) self driving cars on the road now. No, [Aykut] moves forward, not backwards.

To fix this horrendous shortcoming in his car’s feature package, he set out to install a tablet in the dash. His blog write-up undersells the amount of work that went into the project, but the video after the break rectifies this misunderstanding. He begins by covering the back of a face-down Samsung tablet with a large sheet of plastic film. Next he lays a sheet of fiberglass over the tablet and paints it with epoxy until it has satisfactorily clung to the back of the casing. Afterwards comes quite a bit of work fitting an off-the-shelf panel display mount to the non-standard hardware. He eventually takes it to a local shop which does the final fitting on the contraption.

The electronics are a hodgepodge of needed parts: An amplifier, to replace the one that was attached to the useless husk of the prior radio set; a CAN shield for an Arduino, so that he could still use the steering wheel buttons; and a Bluetooth shield, so that the Arduino could talk to the tablet. Quite a bit of hacking happened, and the resulting software is on GitHub.

The final assembly went together well. While it’s no Tesla console. It does get over the air updates whenever he feels like writing them. [Aykut] moves forward with the times.

Continue reading “Fight That Tesla Envy With A Tablet Dash For Your Car” →

1btn – An Open Source Dash

April 29, 2016 by 7 Comments

The availability of cheap radios, omni-present WiFi and powerful web services means the IoT wave is here to stay. Amazon got into the act with its “do only one thing” Dash button. But a more interesting solution would be an IoT “do it all” button.

[Anand] has been working on his 1btn Open Source WiFi connected IoT button for a while. It connects to the Internet over WiFi to trigger whatever action you have assigned to it using a simple, online interface. It’s reconfigurable and open source. Which means it can be used in pretty imaginative ways, and if needed, can be re-flashed with your own custom firmware should you decide to really get under its hood.

The 1btn’s ESP8266 module is usually in sleep mode, waking up when the button is pressed, making the connection, performing the task and then going back to sleep once confirmation is received. A Red/Green LED indicates if the action was successful or not. You can set it up to send e-mails, messages, tweets or perform actions via a custom script, API or the IFTTT – maker channel. To make it hacker friendly, all of the ESP8266 GPIO pins are accessible via headers. This makes it convenient to add external sensors, for example. There’s also a (unpopulated) QFN footprint to allow adding an ATmega device (168P/328P) whose GPIO pins are also accessible via headers. This opens up a large number of additional applications for the device such as home automation.

On the software side, the 1btn connects to a web console, where you can set up an account, configure the device, register its MAC ID, assign it an alias and set up its actions. All of the source files for the 1btn – firmware, enclosure, schematic, BOM, PCB layout and example use cases – are posted on his Github repository.

The HackadayPrize2016 is Sponsored by:

Hack Corporate Overlords For Single Button Beer Delivery

April 2, 2016 by 9 Comments

[Brody Berson] is at it again, but this time he’s hacked the services floating in the aether around him to give him beer on demand. Finally the future we’ve been waiting for.

This hack is not as hacky as his first one, which, at the push of a button, could summon a bad driver straight to his house who would then give him pizza. The first one was done with a modified version of a button used to summon paper towels; because there’s nothing like needing paper towels RIGHT NOW, and then pushing a button to get them a few days later.

Apparently Amazon saw how practically no one was pushing the dish detergent button, but a lot of people were making scary mailboxes and magic pizza apps after ruthlessly scratching the branding off. So they shrugged and decided to sell the buttons as the newly branded (these get more hilarious when you don’t use the acronyms) Amazon, Amazon Web Services Internet of Things Button. Now your button can die along with the internet because Amazon is hosting your Raspberry Pi for a small fee, neat.

Anyway, [Brody] did some research on the best beer delivery services in his area, and went with one called Drizzly because they had a nice API. After integrating this system with Amazon’s, he can now push a button and minutes later, after subtracting some currencies from his account, a bad driver will show up and hand him beer.

Help Needed: No-Soldering ESP8266 IFTTT Button

January 1, 2016 by 18 Comments

We all love to see amazing hacks in their finished state and be dazzled by what our peers can do. But that’s just the summit of the hacker’s Everest. We all know that the real work is in getting there. Hackaday.io user [stopsendingmejunk] is working on an ESP8266-based IFTTT Button based on a simple breakout board so that anyone could rebuild it without having to do any soldering, and he’s looking for collaboration.

[stopsendingmejunk]’s project takes off from this similar project on different hardware. The board he’s chosen to use is the EZSBC ESP8266-07 breakout, which should have everything he needs, including an on-board button. It should be an easy enough job, but he’s having trouble getting the thing to stay asleep until the button is pressed.

We’ve seen more than a few hacks of the Amazon Dash button, but aside from hacking for hacking’s sake, we’re also happy to see a ground-up open redesign. Besides, this looks like it’ll be a great introductory project, requiring little fiddling around. With a little help. The code is up here on GitHub. Anyone game?