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Smart Lamp Notification

Take 1 AC Lamp, a uController, a normal LED bulb and some color LED strips to get a functional lamp that also can send colored alerts.

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I have IoThings that are controlled/monitored by my Misterhouse HA including lights, temps, humidity and Caller ID. But one thing still annoys me, hearing that voice on the answering machine "... this is your final notice as it relates to the financial stimulus ... ". Now I could lower the answering machine so we can't hear it but then we might miss important calls (older relatives). So it would be nice is my wife and I had some convenient way of getting notifications while we watch TV. So I've decided that adding a Fubarino Mini, a network connection (Wiznet or one of the ESP8266 boards) and multi-colored LEDs inside a lamp would allow me to notify anyone in viewing distance of different things.

The Fubarino would subscribe to an MQTT topic (public or private). Then Misterhouse would monitor things and send different alerts to the Fubarino to be displayed. The Fubarino would have a library of alert types so it can support different alerts and colors.

A nice lamp that would look normal in any living room and be acceptable to my wife is important to me. So when I discussed this with my wife I was surprised when she began helping me choose the lamp. The first lamp I found is an Ikea Borbby Lantern and an instructable how-to etch the glass to make it more opaque. The opaque glass should allow for enough light to be visible so the lamp is useful but also hide the electronics inside.

The basic operation of the lamp is not overly complex. The Fubarino Mini can use DHCP to get it's initial network settings. It then connects to a pre-configured MQTT server and configuration topic. This topic will allow the Fubarino to reconfigure itself to subscribe to the appropriate topic for commands and to publish its sensor data to the appropriate topics. The command topic would tell the Fubarino how to control the LED lighting sequence. The sequence would carry some kind of meaning. Such as flashing red could mean please pay attention something drastic is about to happen.

The use of MQTT will allow multiple command sources such as Misterhouse, Node-Red, shell scripts and/or Homeseer 3, to issue commands and listen to data. Additional sensors could be added to the Fubarino and it would publish this information to the appropriate topic for other processes to use.

This project will require an Borbby Lantern, an AC lamp kit, an AC/DC power supply, a Fubarino Mini, RGB LED strips, LED drivers, and a network interface. I like the larger Borbby lantern as it has plenty of room for everything and the LED strips will be positioned in the corners. The Fubarino Mini and network interface will sit, inside, at the base of the lamp. The etched glass will hide from view everything inside the lantern. The bulb can either be controlled by a relay or perhaps a Cree or Hue wireless bulb instead.. The main purpose of the bulb is as a source of light. An LED bulb would be a good choice as this would reduce the amount of heat being generated.

  • 1 × Bulb LED or CFL, something bright enough for the area but not something that will get too hot
  • 1 × Fubarino Mini (or anyArduino++ like board you like :-)) mini micro-controller
  • 1 × power supply AC/DC power supply
  • 1 × RGB LED strip addressable RGB LED strip
  • 1 × LED drivers

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  • Prototypes working

    Neil Cherry07/22/2015 at 05:10 0 comments

    I had a frustrating but wonderful weekend. I was able to get the MQTT client compiled and running on both the UNO32 and Furbarino Mini. Both have the DHT22 and are reporting the information to the MQTT broker. The Furbarino Mini has a traffic light (3 LEDs) controlled by Misterhouse via the MQTT broker. Both prototypes have interrupts working, both have the special MPIDE task process (running as a parallel task to the main loop). I'm not sure the Arduino environment supports such functions. The Interrupts and multitasking are not necessary for the project but are a bit of experimentation (because we can :-) ). I'll clean that up before posting to github.

    In the new picture posted the processor is on the right, the WIZ550io is on the left, in the middle a red, yellow and green LED. The right solo red led. I'll need to get the LED strips added next and then figure out how to control it externally.

    The red, yellow and green LEDs are being controlled by Misterhouse user code. It behaves like a traffic light and while the client code and the Misterhouse code both work well something odd is going on with the MQTT server. I'm not sure whether the issue is a problem with the mqtt options are incorrectly set or the MQTT server is misbehaving.

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Neil Cherry wrote 07/18/2015 at 19:01 point

I have working UNO32 & MQTT code working But now I've got the initial MQTT code compiled and running on the Fubarino Mini with the WIZ550io board. It was a bit difficult to find a compiler version that would work with both the UNO32 and the Fubarino Mini (mpide 0023 20140821). Living with old (0.23) and new (1.50) Arduino environments is annoying. At the moment it's old until I figure out all the new differences.

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Neil Cherry wrote 07/17/2015 at 22:46 point

Well the Borbby lamp has arrived and it's huge! I could easily put 2 bulbs in it and the prototype electronics. So perhaps the smaller lamp (9" vs 17") is a better idea.

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Neil Cherry wrote 07/17/2015 at 12:13 point

I've ordered the Borbby lamp (x2) and the Fubarino min (x2). I already have the network boards, WIZ550io boards and ESP8266 (-01 and -12). So the project is finally progressing. I'll need to find the A/C bulb holder. I have a set I used for my HA dollhouse but I'm not sure if it's safe to use with a metal lamp.

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Neil Cherry wrote 07/13/2015 at 13:16 point

Yea! Wrote an article and now I have enough budget to purchase the parts. :-)

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Neil Cherry wrote 06/15/2015 at 12:18 point

The project is not forgotten, just on the back burner until next month when the new budget opens up :-).

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