nerd-alarmclock

A Pi-Zero W based alarm-clock for nerds with many unique functions:

wake-up light (using Pimoroni's Blinkt!)
clock display (using Pimoroni's Four Letter pHat)
play sounds or internet radio
use a chat-bot for configuration

After a few prototypes, there is now a nice case: . You can download and modify the design from 3D-case. STL-files are also available from the misc-directory.

News and Status
Installation
Hardware
Prerequisites
Configuration
Usage
Hacking

News

As always, the software and documentation is work in progress. A detailed list of functions (current and planned) is available in the document Features. Nevertheless, once in a while I will release a stable version.

Available branches:

stable_v?: stable versions (frozen)
master: the current stable branch plus fixes
next: the bleeding-edge development version with new features, but possibly unstable

next / work in progress

enable update of settings from web-interface (planned)

stable_v3 / Nov 15, 2018

Besides fixing some minor bugs, this version adds the following features:

control the clock using an IR remote
use the LED-strip as a lamp
add parameter delay to all alarms (e.g. to start the sound later than the light)
add configuration of text-alarms via bot
add "lights-off-mode": turn of/on LEDs and display
Add a web-interface to be independent from telegram (currently read-only, i.e. no update of settings from the web-interface yet)

Note that you should read the section Upgrade below if you are upgrading from a previous version.

stable_v2 / Dec 08, 2017

Besides fixing some minor bugs, this version adds the following features:

add support for internet-radio
- play radio independently of alarms
- two encoder-knobs (KY040) for on/off and volume and for switching between channels and channel-lists
add support for snoozing alarms
added a set of overlay-functions initiated by a long press of button-2:
- restart the clock
- reboot the system
- shutdown the system
refactored code for future IR remote control suoport

For details, see Features.

Note that you should read the section Upgrade below if you are upgrading from stable_v1.

stable_v1 / Sept 14, 2017

First productive version. All basic features working.

Prerequisites

Besides the hardware-modules listed in section Hardware and the software-environment described in Installation there are no special prerequisites with the exception of a telegram ID and your own telegram-bot. If you don't want to use telegram you either have to configure the alarms using ssh, or wait for the yet to come web-interface.

Registering with telegram is easy, just download the messenger and follow the instructions. After that, start a chat with @BotFather and this chatbot will lead you through the process of defining your own bot.

Hardware

From hardware-side, you need

a Pi with internet access (a Pi-Zero-W will do fine)
the LED-strip Blinkt! from Pimoroni
the segment-display Four Letter pHat from the same manufacturer
four to five buttons, e.g. a cheap 4-key keypad available from ebay or Amazon marketplace.
a real-time-clock (DS3231, optional)
jumper cable or an extension board (e.g. a Mini Black HAT Hack3r)
two encoder-knobs (KY040) for controlling the internet-radio (optional)

Since you need the GPIOs for both hardware extensions, you cannot just plug in the LED-strip or the hat on the Pi. You can either connect the components using some jumper cables, or you use an extension board. When using jumper cables, observe the pinout provided by https://pinout.xyz. The pins are also documented here.

Installation

As a prerequisite, you need a basic install of Raspbian Jessie-Lite or Stretch-Lite, but note that the latter has problems with the initial configuration of IR-remotes (an IR configured under Jessie will work fine with Stretch though).

Use the following commands to install the software:

git clone https://github.com/bablokb/nerd-alarmclock.git
cd nerd-alarmclock
sudo tools/install
cd ..
git clone https://github.com/bablokb/gpio-poll-service.git
cd gpio-poll-service
sudo tools/install

This will pull-in all dependencies, install the software, create technical users and do a basic configuration of the system. Since the install command changes the file /boot/config.txt, you need a reboot to activate the changes.

Note that the installation of the gpio-poll-service will ask you to configure the service (file /etc/gpio-poll.conf), but this project already provides a suitable configuration file.

Upgrade

Before uprading an existing system, you should stop the relevant system services:

sudo systemctl stop nerd-alarmclock.service
sudo systemctl stop gpio-poll.service

Then run a normal install like documented above. After installation, you should update you existing /etc/nerd-alarmclock.conf from the file /etc/nerd-alarmclock.conf.nerd-alarmclock and the file /etc/gpio-poll.conf from the file /etc/gpio-poll.conf.nerd-alarmclock.

Configuration

System services

Edit the file /etc/nerd-alarmclock.conf to configure the systemd-service running the clock. In this file, you at least have to edit the section [BOT] and enter your own user-id and the id of your bot. The latter is provided by BotFather. To query your own id, edit the python-script tools/simplebot.py, start it and exchange some messages with the bot. The script will print all messages and you will find your own id in the messages (extract the "from-id").

You should also make sure that the GPIOs configured in /etc/gpio-poll.conf match the GPIOs in the section [GPIO] of /etc/nerd-alarmclock.conf.

Bot configuration

The bot of the alarmclock uses a predefined set of commands. You should register the following commands for your bot with BotFather:

Command	Description
`/alarm`	Configure alarms
`/restart`	Restart the clock
`/reboot`	Reboot the system
`/shutdown`	Shutdown the system
`/start`	Start a dialog with the bot
`/help`	Provide help
`/settings`	Show settings

This is not strictly necessary, but it greatly simplifies interaction with the bot.

IR remote

The alarm clock can also be controlled using an IR remote control. First, you have to install IR support (lirc) and configure your remote. There are various tutorials on the net, please make sure you follow a version for the base operating system (configuration of lirc has changed in Stretch compared to Jessie). After configuration, you should have a lirc-configuration file which maps IR-pulses to (lirc-) keynames.

Once you have the lirc keynames, you must map the keys using these keynames to logical functions of the nerd-alarmclock. This is done in the section [LIRC] of /etc/nerd-alarmclock.conf. The installation provides a sample configuration, depending on your remote, you will want to change the mapping or add additional functions.

A special function is called LONG (in the sample mapping assigned to KEY_0). Pressing this key will simulate a long-press for the following key. E.g. if you press KEY_0 and then KEY_1, this will emulate a long press of BTN1 (which in turns activates the first set of overloaded functions for all keys). Since most remotes have enough keys, this feature is not really necessary when using a remote control.

Audio

The install script will add a file /etc/asound.conf which is suitable for USB-audio. If you use the pHat-DAC, you should move the file /etc/asound.conf.pHatDAC to /etc/asound.conf. Note that the pHat-DAC uses GPIO19, so you have to reconfigure the default setup of the pins (edit the files /etc/nerd-alarmclock.conf, /usr/local/sbin/nerd-gpios.sh and /etc/gpio-poll.conf and reassign the pin for the encoder-knob).

If you want to use Bluetooth-audio, you should head over to the project pi-btaudio and follow the instructions.

Adding sounds

To play music or sounds during an alarm, you have to add the files to the directory /var/lib/nerd-alarmclock/sounds. The nerd-alarmclock uses the program mpg123 to play the files, so all formats supported by mpg123 should be fine. If you want to play an internet-radio station, add the url to a file with the extension m3u (playlist). Note that mpg123 does not support nested playlists.

Adding Radio channel-list

Since version v2, the nerd-alarmclock supports playing internet-radio. The distribution supplies some sample channel-lists in the directory /var/lib/nerd-alarmclock/channels. Add your own lists using the format in the samples.

Pressing one of the encoder-knobs will cycle through the channel lists, while turning the knob will cycle through the channels of a given list. The display will show the name of the channel list after a change for a few seconds. The same holds true for changing channels.

Manual configuration

Program defaults are in the file /var/lib/nerd-alarmclock/defaults.json. You should not edit this file directly (unless you know what you are doing). After first run, the settings are saved in /var/lib/nerd-alarmclock/settings.json. You can edit this file manually, but you should make sure the clock-service is stopped before doing so (it will be otherwise overwritten).

There are still some settings which you typically only change very seldomly and these settings are not exposed by the config-interface of the bot, so you have to change the manually:

day.start: start of day-mode (e.g. brightness depends on this)
day.end: end of day-mode (e.g. brightness depends on this)
lamp.rgb: RGB-values of LEDs in lamp-mode
lamp.brightness: brightness of LEDs in lamp-mode
some special options to tweak the alarms

Usage

After initial configuration as explained above, restart the system and then it should just run. Use the bot to configure alarms and the buttons to enable or disable the alarms. See keyboard usage for details about the behaviour of the buttons.

The two encoder-knobs have builtin switches. One encoder-knob controls the radio (switch: on/off, dial: volume), the other knob controls the channels (switch: cycle channel-lists, dial: choose channel).

Hacking

If you want to change the code and adapt it for your needs, you need some python know-how and you have to understand the structure of the program. For details read the hacking-guide.

Wikinaut / nerd-alarmclock