ESP8266

634 Articles

Five Bucks, Three Parts: WiFi Camera Remote

January 24, 2016 by 14 Comments

It’s just ridiculous how cheap and easy it is to do some things today that were both costly and difficult just two or three years ago. Case in point: Hackaday.io user [gamaral] built a WiFi remote control for his Canon E3 camera out of just three parts: an ESP8266 module, a voltage regulator, and a stereo plug that the camera uses as its remote trigger.

And the codebase is just about as minimal, although it’s not without its nice touches. Control is easy — just pull down a pin for focus or shutter. The ESP listens to a custom port, and when it gets the message, “presses” or “releases” the pins. It’s a good, simple example of how to work with the ESP IOT SDK.

The timing is all on the client side. [gamaral] knew that he was going to want to play around with how long to hold down the focus button, for instance, so he left that flexible. Using Netcat makes the client-side code completely trivial: echo -n "SHUTTER HOLD" | nc -w 1 -q 1 roosevelt 9021. Bam. And it worked first time. Check the well-done video just below for more details.

And keep your eye on [gamaral]’s Hackaday.io page, because he’s going to make another video when the PCBs arrive in the mail.

Continue reading “Five Bucks, Three Parts: WiFi Camera Remote” →

ESP-Micro Is A Tiny Development Board

January 20, 2016 by 26 Comments

The ESP-8266 packs a lot of networking power into a small package. Some would say too small, which is why they often come on a slightly larger carrier PCB. The PCB is usually little more than a breakout with an optional 3.3V regulator. [Frazer Barnes] went one step further: he put an equally tiny USB to serial bridge, an oscillator, and some power management on an ESP-8266 breakout board.

You can program the ESP-8266 via the serial port, so having a built-in USB port is handy. Of course, you might not need it in the final product, but with the board being 25x30mm, you can probably cram it into most projects. [Frazer] posted a bit about the project on Hackaday.io, and has a GitHub project, although right now the upload of the design files is pending.

There’s no shortage of ESP-8266 projects. We saw a small Zigbee to ESP8266 board last year, and also the antidote for a tiny carrier board that includes an LCD, switches, and more. We also have tons of breakouts on Hackaday.io: here’s one with all the bells and whistles, and a similar, stripped-down version. All open-everything, and ready to go.

Custom Siri Automation With HomeKit And ESP8266

January 17, 2016 by 11 Comments

Knowing where to start when adding a device to your home automation is always a tough thing. Most likely, you are already working on the device end of things (whatever you’re trying to automate) so it would be nice if the user end is already figured out. This is one such case. [Aditya Tannu] is using Siri to control ESP8266 connected devices by leveraging the functionality of Apple’s HomeKit protocols.

HomeKit is a framework from Apple that uses Siri as the voice activation on the user end of the system. Just like Amazon’s voice-control automation, this is ripe for exploration. [Aditya] is building upon the HAP-NodeJS package which implements a HomeKit Accessory Server using anything that will run Node.

Once the server is up and running (in this case, on a raspberry Pi) each connected device simply needs to communicate via MQTT. The Arduino IDE is used to program an ESP8266, and there are plenty of MQTT sketches out there that may be used for this purpose. The most recent example build from [Aditya] is a retrofit for a fiber optic lamp. He added an ESP8266 board and replaced the stock LEDs with WS2812 modules. The current version, demonstrated below, has on/off and color control for the device.

Continue reading “Custom Siri Automation With HomeKit And ESP8266” →

Hacker Welcomes Grandaughter With Web Enabled Frame

January 15, 2016 by No comments

We all have different ways of expressing excitement about new family members. [viscomjim] expressed his joy at the arrival of his first grandchild by building a twitter-enabled mirror/mood light. While we’d like to rage that this Internet of Things “thing” that people are doing has gone too far, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen this happen.

For the brains of his device [viscomjim] used an ESP8266 module. [Viscomjim] etched his grandchild’s name into the mirror and put some Neopixels behind it. When one of his family members tweets to the light’s channel they can change the color of the light to interact with their newest family member. We’re not so certain the Internet won’t find this and turn it into baby’s first 24 hour rave.

If you’d like to get in on the ESP8266 action, you’ll find the Huzzah board a good start, and we’ve got a special Hackaday edition in the store. Just sayin’.

Drive A Sony Camera With An ESP8266

January 9, 2016 by 11 Comments

Nearly everything has WiFi these days. [glaskugelsehen]’s Sony camera uses the wireless network to transfer photos to the computer, naturally, and it also has a remote-control application that’ll run on Android smartphones. [glaskugelsehen] doesn’t have an Android — but he does have shows us an ESP8266 that he turned into a WiFi-powered remote for the camera (Google translate into English).

Sony actually made [glaskugelsehen]’s work easy here. They have a publicly available API for the camera’s controls, and it’s all run by JSON sent over HTML HTTP POST. Which is to say, that it’s a piece of cake to script as long as you can send HTMLHTTP directives.

[glaskugelsehen]’s code, written in the Arduino environment for the ESP, first finds the camera’s WiFi network and authenticates to it. Then it sets the camera into remote-control mode, and takes over from there. So far, he’s only implemented taking still photos, but from the API it looks like you can also stop and start video recordings and more.

And yeah. We just wrote up another project doing virtually the same thing with a GoPro. [glaskugelsehen] read that too, and mentions it in his blog. We love it when people take inspiration from each other!

Internet Of Things In Five Minutes

January 8, 2016 by 22 Comments

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.)

6166971452133983621[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.

ESP8266 GoPro Remote Adds Buttons, Screen

January 5, 2016 by 11 Comments

Last year we featured a GoPro camera remote by [Robert Stefanowicz] that was built around an ESP8266. [Robert] has been working hard on improving this project, and has just released version 2, which adds a screen and multiple buttons. These additions allow the remote to become a two-way device: you can use it to monitor the status of the GoPro, keeping an eye on things like the battery level and the current video mode.

[Robert] decided to make his own PCB to do this, so it’s also a good intro into the stinky art of PCB etching. He isn’t finished yet, though: he is looking to expand the project further by controlling more features on the camera using the third button on the remote.