Dollhouse with IoT Sensors: Party-Activated Disco Ball, Temp & Lighting Control, even a Burglar Alarm! | #IoTuesday
Dollhouse of Things?!
This is an absolutely remarkable project by Ivo Pullens – complete with thorough documentation and pictures on the MySensors website (after it was exhibited at the Eindhoven Maker Faire earlier this year).
I specifically designed a sensor node for the dollhouse. It is spread throughout the house, small enough not to disturb the looks of the dollhouse. This sensor node is basically an Arduino Pro Mini with an SMD nRF24L01+ radio and a CR2032 battery holder. You can build your own, or build a setup using a regular Arduino.
Some remarks upfront:
Due to the large amount of sketches and sensors I will not be able to update the sketches or hardware designs when libraries change or hardware becomes obsolete.
The dollhouse sketches are shared on my github page
Make sure all required libraries are installed, which are described in the readme. The exact SHA of each library version I used for compilation is included, so if you run into troubles try these exact version first!
I use a small ‘library’ called DemoSensorConfig which is shared by all sketches. It contains the MySensors network configuration, node ID’s and some LED blinking code in a single location. To run a sketch standalone only the relevant parts from DemoSensorConfig have to be copied to the sketch (replace the DemoSensorConfig #include).
Among the many technological upgrades and features to this dollhouse are a wind sensor:
A television set whose unit appears ‘plugged in’ to the wall behind it:
A voice-controlled fireplace:
And yes even a ‘toilet node’ with motion-detected capabilities for flushing the loo:
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Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
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