Home automation products have hit critical mass in the world of consumerism, and now suddenly everyone has a product you can control using some protocol or other. Cree (the maker of LEDs) has a rather cheap IOT-enabled bulb available in Canada and the US for the low price of $15 — not bad considering regular LED bulbs can run you that much, without wireless connectivity!

So if you want to outfit your house in smart lights — great. But what about other things? Well, [Mac Alpine] decided to crack open one of the bulbs to see if he could re-purpose the IOT board. Turns out, you can.

In fact it’s almost too convenient. It’s a remarkably small chip, about half the size of a silver dollar. And it features a small ZigBee radio module. All you need is a 3V power supply, and boom — you have an IOT module that is capable of PWM output. It features an Atmel ATSAMR21E microprocessor which communicates over the radio to a Quirky Wink hub — it can also be triggered using IFTTT.

Continue reading “Repurposing IOT Lightbulb Chip For Anything” →