Winamp Reborn With The Adafruit PyPortal

February 20, 2022 by Tom Nardi 23 Comments

One look at the default Winamp skin is sure to reawaken fond memories for a certain segment of the community. For those who experienced the MP3 revolution first hand, few audio players stick out in the mind like Winamp and its llama whipping reputation. No, the proprietary Windows-only media player isn’t the sort of thing you’d catch us recommending these days; but it was the 1990s, and things were very different.

For those who want to relive those heady peer-to-peer days, [Tim C] has posted a tutorial on how to turn Adafruit’s PyPortal into a touch screen MP3 player that faithfully recreates the classic Winamp look. As you can see in the video below it certainly nails the visuals, down to the slightly jerky scrolling of the green track info which we’re only now realizing was probably the developer’s attempt to mimic some kind of a physical display like a VFD.

With minimal UI functionality, playlists must be created manually.

[Tim] has even included support for original Winamp themes, although as you might expect, some hoop-jumping is required. In this case, it’s a Python script that you have to run against an image of the original skin pulled from the Winamp Skin Museum. From there, you just need to edit a couple of lines of code to point the player at the right skin files. In other words, switching between skins is kind of a hassle, but you should at least be able to get your favorite flavor from back in the day up and running.

But before you get too excited, there’s a bit of a catch. For one thing, the Winamp UI isn’t actually functional. You can tap the top section of the screen to pause the playback, and tapping down in the lower playlist area lets you change songs, but all the individual buttons and that iconic visual equalizer are just for show. Managing your playlists also requires you to manually edit a JSON file, which even in the 1990s we would have thought was pretty wack, to use the parlance of the times.

Of course, things could easily be streamlined a bit with further revisions to the code, and since [Tim] has released it into the public domain under the Unlicense, anyone can help out. As it stands, it’s still a very slick media display that we certainly wouldn’t mind having on our desk.

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IoT flower pot monitors moisture and temperature levels.

Smart Flower Pot Build Is All About That Base

October 26, 2021 by Kristina Panos 10 Comments

For some reason, it seems like most of the plant monitoring setups we see separate the plant and the monitoring system. This makes sense in a don’t-own-a-waterbed-and-a-cat kind of way, but it also doesn’t from an aestheitc standpoint. This build by [Jorge Enrique Gamboa Fuentes] sure does look nice and tidy as an all-in-one unit, and fortunately is built with obvious issues in mind. It tracks water level, soil moisture, and soil temperature with a single device — a STEMMA-connected soil sensor that does all the monitoring work.

This attractive beginner build is a Python-powered project that runs on a PyPortal Titano and has a speaker that anthropomorphizes the thing so it can ~~berate you~~ politely ask for water in English. But the real magic of this build is in the enclosure itself. Thankfully, it’s designed with a drip tray, but it also keeps the electronics out of the water, allowing just the tip of the sensor to get wet. You can view the vital signs directly on the device, or on a web dashboard whenever you’re away.

In the future, [Jorge] wants to experiment with GCP and Azure, connect more flower pots together, and add more sensors so that it is more autonomous. One of the major lessons learned was that you probably shouldn’t start with a succulent, because they need very little water and this will drag out your development time considerably unless you over-water it, which will kill it. Check it out after the break.

If [Jorge] wanted to go the easy route, they might stick this plant under an old Keurig that’s been converted to an automatic watering device.

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Building A Pocket Sized Python Playground

January 7, 2021 by Tom Nardi 24 Comments

Like many of us, [Ramin Assadollahi] has a certain fondness for the computers of yesteryear. Finding his itch for nearly instant boot times and bare metal programming weren’t being adequately scratched by any of his modern devices, he decided to build the PortablePy: a pocket-sized device that can drop him directly into a Python prompt wherever and whenever the urge hits him.

The device is powered by the Adafruit PyPortal Titano, which combines a ATSAMD51J20, ESP32, an array of sensors, and a 3.5″ diagonal 320 x 480 color TFT into one turn-key unit. The PyPortal is designed to run CircuitPython, but the scripts are usually dropped on the device over USB. That’s fine for most applications, but [Ramin] wanted his portable to be usable without the need for a host computer.

For a truly mobile experience, he had to figure out a way to bang out some Python code on the device itself. The answer ended up being the M5Stack CardKB, a tiny QWERTY board that communicates over I2C. Once he verified the concept was sound, he wrote a simple file management application and minimal Python editor that could run right on the PyPortal.

The final step was packaging the whole thing up into something he could actually take off the bench. He designed a 3D printed clamshell case inspired by the classic Game Boy Advance SP, making sure to leave enough room in the bottom half to pack in a charging board and LiPo pouch battery. He did have to remove some of the connectors from the back of the PyPortal to get everything to fit inside the case, but the compact final result seems worth the effort.

While an overall success, [Ramin] notes there are a few lingering issues. For one thing, the keyboard is literally a pain to type on. He’s considering building a custom keyboard with softer buttons, but it’s a long-term goal. More immediately he’s focusing on improving the software side of things so its easier to write code and manage multiple files.

It sounds like [Ramin] isn’t looking to compromise on his goal of making the PortablePy completely standalone, but if your convictions aren’t as strong, you could always connect a device like this up to your mobile to make things a bit easier.

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Ghost Frame Shows People (and Cats) That Don’t Exist

February 25, 2020 by Donald Papp 14 Comments

[Dan]’s project from last year slipped past us until now, but his Ghost Frame is a great example of tying some modern hackable hardware together with online resources into a clean result, and we like the clear idea behind it. The Ghost Frame is so named because its purpose is literally to show pictures of people (and cats) that do not exist in the physical world.

This cat does not exist (thank goodness.) The computer doesn’t always get it right.

To make it all work, [Dan] used an Adafruit PyPortal as the guts of the device. It pulls images from ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com (which displays computer-assembled images of faces that do not represent actual living people) and displays them as though they were pictures in a digital photo frame. Formatting the image to show up nicely on the PyPortal’s 320 x 240 display took a little extra work; [Dan] solved that problem with a small PHP script to convert the image to a bitmap and scale it correctly in the process. The PyPortal makes fetching resources from the web simple, so this kind of fiddling didn’t present much of an obstacle to [Dan]’s artistic vision.

What about the cats? Well, it turns out that ThisCatDoesNotExist.com is also out there, and Ghost Frame can happily display computer-generated images of nonexistent cats as easily as it shows imaginary people. However, it does seem that the state of nonexistent cat generation is lagging somewhat behind that for people. The site usually gets it right, but results are occasionally (amusingly) bizarre as you can see here.

The PyPortal is perfect for this kind of project, and it can do more than just display static content. It has some GUI functionality baked in, as we saw showcased recently in this touchscreen Blackjack game.

Blackjack Game Plays With The Limits Of PyPortal

November 10, 2019 by Kristina Panos 4 Comments

It’s that time of year again, when fall is quickly ushered out to make room for all things holiday-related. For many of us, this means going on trips to visit relatives, which, depending on the relatives, can mean soul-crushing boredom. [Andy] has fun relatives who frequent the casino tables, and they inspired him to brush up on his blackjack game.

Some people would just find a virtual blackjack table or bust out an actual deck of cards to practice, but this is Hackaday. [Andy] busted out his PyPortal and tried his hand at making a blackjack game. The PyPortal is an Adafruit IoT box that makes it easy to scrape and display all kinds of JSON goodness from around the web, like NASA’s image of the day. GUI building is already baked in, so he just needed some oome open source playing card images and he was off.

The real gamble here might be the code he wrote; at 500+ lines, [Andy]’s probably pushing his luck with the PyPortal. But you know what they say — you can’t win if you don’t play. And if you want to improve your odds of winning, teach a robot to count cards for you.

Thanks for the tip, [foamyguy].

A Friendly Reminder That You Might Be In Danger

August 19, 2019 by Tom Nardi 5 Comments

Product recalls are one of those things that most people don’t pay attention to until things get really bad. If it’s serious enough for somebody to get hurt or even die, then the media will pick it up, but most of the time they simply pass by in silence. In fact, there’s a decent chance that you own a recalled product and don’t even know it. After all, it’s not like anyone is actually watching the latest product recalls in real-time.

Well actually, there might be one guy. [Andrew Kleindolph] has created a cute and cuddly gadget using CircuitPython on the Adafruit PyPortal to display the latest release from the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission (USCPSC). In a wonderfully ironic touch, the child’s unicorn boot that the device lives in is itself a recalled product; apparently kids could pull off the “horn” and choke on it.

The PyPortal is basically built for this kind of thing, allowing you to easily whip up a display that will scrape data from whatever online source you’re willing to write the code for. All [Andrew] had to do was pair it with a battery so the boot could go mobile occasionally (we’re told they’re made for walkin’), and design some 3D printed accoutrements such as a screen bezel and charging port.

As these recalls (thankfully) don’t come out quite so fast that you need it to update more than once or twice a week, it seems like this could also be an excellent application for an Internet-connected e-ink display.