Checking Email With The ESP8266

November 3, 2014 by Brian Benchoff 29 Comments

Ever so slowly, everyone’s favorite WiFi adapter is making its way into Internet-enabled projects. [jimeer01] created a device that reads the subject and sender lines from the latest email in his inbox and displays it on an LCD using the ESP8266 WiFi chip.

[jimeer] is using a ByPic for writing to the LCD and querying an inbox through an ESP8266 module. The ByPic is a board built around the BV_Basic firmware, stuffing a PIC microcontroller in an Arduino form factor and giving it a BASIC interpreter. Because this board isn’t ‘compile and flash’ like an Arduino, it’s perfectly suited for changing WiFi configurations and IMAP server credentials on the fly.

The device grabs the latest email in an inbox and displays the date, sender, and subject on the display. After scrolling through those lines, the PIC hits the ESP8266 to query the server again, grabbing the latest email, and repeating the whole process again, all without needing to connect the device to a computer. Video below.

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Raspberry Pi Spies On Your Front Door

August 6, 2014 by Bryan Cockfield 15 Comments

doorbell pictures

One of [Sander]’s first projects with a Raspberry Pi was to get it to send messages to his iPhone. From there he decided to take it a step further and wire the tiny computer up to his doorbell, creating a system that can send push messages to his phone whenever someone is at the front door.

[Sander]’s doorbell is wireless, and he decided to keep all of its original functionality. All it took to signal the Pi was a simple circuit tied to the doorbell’s status LED which turns off whenever the doorbell is pushed.

The Raspberry Pi runs a python program that handles the GPIO pin which is wired to the doorbell. When the doorbell is pushed, the program processes and sends the push notification while taking pictures of the visitor with an attached webcam. The pictures are included in the message so [Sander] can see who is at the front door. The code for the project is included on his project page.

This project rang a bell for us since we’ve seen projects using a Raspberry Pi and push notifications. None of them so far have included a webcam or utilized an existing wireless doorbell though, and this is a great step forward!

Telegraph Sounder Clicks Out Email Messages

June 12, 2013 by Mike Szczys 7 Comments

telegraph-box-together

[Patrick Schless] is excited to show off the project he took on about nine months ago. After finding an antique telegraph sounder he wired it up to an Arduino to see if he could make it tick. The successful experiment laid the ground work for different hardware that would make it into a morse code email reader.

He doesn’t know much about the background of the old hardware, but driving it is relatively simple. It’s basically a magnetic relay so you need to have a transistor for switching and a flyback diode for protection. Once those components are in place it’s just a matter of toggling a bit. [Patrick] knew he wanted to pull messages from an online source, so he set his Arduino aside and grabbed a Raspberry Pi. It worked like a charm. His plan was to put this on a bookshelf in perpetuity so he went the extra mile, designing his own PCB and having it spun using the OSH Park service. The project is finished with this low-profile laser-cut base which houses all of the electronics.

Now if he wants to respond to his emails in Morse code he needs to build this keyboard.

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Wireless Unread Email Counter Tells You How Busy You’re Not

June 8, 2013 by Brian Benchoff 12 Comments

counter

One of the marks of how busy you are – or how well your spam filters are set up – is how many unread emails you have in your inbox. [trumpkin] over on Instructables posted a great tutorial for making a wireless counter that displays the number of unread emails in your Gmail account.

[trumpkin] used a tiny and inexpensive 419 MHz transmitter and receiver combo to make this project work. On his desktop, he wired up a USB to UART bridge attached to the transmitter. For the receiver side, an ATMega328 reads the data coming off the receiver and displays the number of unread emails on two seven-segment displays.

The wireless device runs off of two AA batteries and should provide enough power to keep the email monitor running for a long time. More than enough time for your inbox to fill up and for you to become overwhelmed with the work you should be doing.

Web Connected Treat Dispenser Appeases The Pets

February 5, 2013 by Mike Szczys 8 Comments

web-connected-treat-dispenser

[John] was looking for a project for his newly acquired Raspberry Pi and decided to include his dog in the fun. although his finished project looks a lot like an old time camera, it’s actually a web-connected treat dispenser that uses his dog’s email address for dispensation.

Let’s take a look at the hardware from top to bottom. There’s a camera with a eagle’s eye shot of his furry friend waiting for treats. The cylinder below that is the motor which drives the treat dispenser. You can see the chain tensioner on the back which connects the motor to the tube dispenser in the center of the box. Just above that outlet is the character display which gives feedback to anyone watching the dispenser. Nearing the bottom is a hopper that catches the treats, then flips over to dump them onto the floor. And finally at the bottom is a slot for the Raspberry Pi which drives everything.

Most of [John’s] projects revolve around CNC work. In addition to the demo video found after the break there’s a second that focuses on CAD design. About half way through that clip he gives us a close-up tour of all the hardware.

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One-button Scan To Email Using Raspberry Pi

January 10, 2013 by Mike Szczys 7 Comments

We’ve come across extremely expensive photocopiers that also fax, scan to email, and generally have too many features to list. [Eduardo Luis] figured out how to implement some of this type office magic using very inexpensive components. Specifically, he can press one button to scan a document and send it to an email address.

The user controls patch into the RPi GPIO header. There’s the button we already mentioned, a red LED for “System Busy”, and a green one for “System Status”. A set of scripts montor the button and drive the LEDs. When it’s time to scan, the RPi uses the scanimage package to capture a .PNM file, then converts it to .JPG before sending it via email using the mutt package.

We’d love to see a character LCD and a few more buttons added to the setup. This way you could select between different recipients (or even send via fax). And there’s always the possibility of connecting a printer to the other USB port on the RPi to make it work as a photocopier too.

You can catch a demo video after the jump.

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