If you’re looking for the quickest way to go from zero to voice-controlled home automation system, you should spend five minutes checking out [Hari Wiguna]’s project on Hackaday.io where he connects up IoT gadgets and services into a functioning lightswitch. (Video below the break.)
[Hari] demonstrates how to set up a complex chain: Amazon Echo to IFTTT to Adafruit.io as a data broker, which is then polled by an ESP8266 unit in his home that controls his X10 setup. (Pshwew.) But each step along the way is designed to be nearly plug-and-play, so it’s really a lot like clicking Lego blocks together. [Hari]’s video is a nice overview.
There’s only one catch if you’re going to replicate this yourself: the X10 system that’s used for the last mile. Unless you have one of these setups already, you’re on your own for controlling the outlets that turn the lights on and off. For price and hackability, we suggest the common 433MHz wireless outlet switches and pairing them with cheap 433MHz transmitters, available at eBay for around $1. We’ve seen a lot of hacks of these systems — they’re quite common both in the US and Europe.
We’ve also covered [Hari]’s projects before: both his self-learning TV remote and a sweet Halloween hack. His video production skills are excellent. We’re in awe of how much info he crams into his YouTube videos.
Looking at the “before” pictures on [John]’s blog, we can see why he’d want to invest the effort – not exactly an attractive way to greet guests at the front door. A simple wooden box to replace the previous cover would have sufficed, but why pass up the opportunity to add value? [John] opted for a Nixie tube display to complement the glass of the electric meter. The Nixie modules were a bit on the pricey side, though, so with only a pair of tubes to work with, [John] came up with a clever system to indicate the scale of the display. We doubt he’ll ever see megawatt-level instantaneous power draw, but the meter is also capable of totalling energy use, and as a bonus an ESP-8266 gives lets him stream data to the web.
Disco Floor’s are passé. [dennis1a4] turned them upside down and built an awesome 
The hard part was wiring up all of the 160 LED pixels. Instead of mounting the 5050 SMD LED’s on PCBs, [dennis1a4] wired them all up “dead bug” style. Each pixel has one LED, a 100nF decoupling capacitor, and 91 ohm resistors in series with the Data In and Data Out pins – these apparently help prevent ‘ringing’ on the data bus. Check the video for his radical soldering method. Each SMD LED was clamped in a machine shop vice, and the other three parts with their leads preformed were soldered directly to the LED pins.
