Maker Glen Akins is making sensible lights smarter as soon as once more — this time including waterproof bodily buttons to manage panorama lights over Zigbee.
“We had a a lot wetter than regular summer season right here final 12 months. My bike (and myself) had been usually too muddy to usher in the home after a trip,” Akins explains of the inspiration behind his newest lighting mission. “I would both get finished with an evening trip or get dwelling after darkish after a protracted drive dwelling and could not see to rinse the bike off within the yard bike rack I constructed a few years in the past. I made a decision I wanted some lights for the bike rack and I needed to manage them outdoor with actual buttons. I didn’t need to must dig my telephone out of my pocket or take my gloves off or stroll in the home to manage the lights.”
The precise lights themselves are off-the-shelf pathway lights, which may be set to output a heat white mild or a colour of the consumer’s selection through the corporate’s proprietary smartphone app. While you’re again from a chilly, muddy bike trip, although, you won’t need to dig your telephone out of your pocket — which is the place Akins’ bodily buttons come into play.
“I chosen some generic 22mm momentary mushroom head push buttons in vibrant colours. They’re listed as IP65 however I’m a bit skeptical,” Akins writes of the chosen chunky buttons, completed in crimson and inexperienced for on and off respectively. These had been fitted to off-the-shelf IP65 enclosures into which Akins fitted a customized management board primarily based across the Minew Semiconductor MS88SF2 module, constructed across the Nordic Semiconductor nRF52840 — a tool low energy sufficient to run from a CR2450 coin cell battery connected to the board’s rear.
Two weatherproof buttons, chosen for the convenience with which they are often pressed with a muddy and gloved hand, management the sensible lighting system. (📷: Glen Akins)
Zigbee2MQTT with a customized converter proved able to listening out for a button push, transmitting actions to an MQTT dealer for consumption by a subscribing Python program. This then handles truly controlling the lights, bypassing the necessity for the proprietary smartphone app via the usage of the TinyTuya Python library — one thing with which Akins was already acquainted due to a earlier mission in placing patio lights from the identical firm beneath Python management.
Full mission particulars can be found on Akins’ weblog; supply code and board design recordsdata can be found on GitHub beneath an unspecified license.