Desk Drawer Protector‘ that has both an alarm and ability to send alerts to a mobile device, to notify you when a desk drawer has been opened – the light dependent resistor knows when the drawer is accessed, setting in motion the alarm followed the alert (see video below).
I am slightly (just a teeny bit, I assure you) obsessed with my desk drawer and the arrangement of the contents therein. When I am in dire need of my Kuru Toga pencil (sketch emergency) or my Alaskan knife (bear emergency), my hand knows where to find it – even in the murky darkness of an all-too-common Bengaluru power outage. Since my desk drawer remains the only place at home where sightings of scotch tape, a pair of scissors, or a pen that actually writes – is guaranteed, this sacred space is frequently violated. The marauders who purloin such precious artifacts vary in ages 3 to 74. I’ve been threatening to do something about it for a while, and now the time has come to unleash the power of ESP8266 and IFTTT on this situation.
The goal of the project is as follows:
When my desk draw is opened, I want a buzzer to sound, and want to get an alert on my mobile phone. I also want the circuit to consume minimal power.
Since it’s for home use, I decided to use ESP8266 for this project. I had a Sparkfun ESP8266 Thing Dev board lying around, and this seemed like the perfect excuse to try it out. For mobile alerts, I am using the IFTTT (If This Then That) service. Let’s look at the design.