A way to automatically indicate who is home.
Currently, the only way to obtain presence information is by polling a local wifi network (in ledani.py). The other side of the equation relies on a raspberry pi to control LEDs, for which an enclosure design is provided (in widget/).
Obtain some materials.
- A raspi
- A wifi adapter compatible with the raspi
- 24x12in of 1/4 or 1/8in wood
- LEDs
- Wires
- Low valued resistors (100-1kohms)
- Parchment paper (wax paper)
- Shellac
- Zip tie
Use the design drawings (made with Inkscape) in widget/ to laser cut
an enclosure. You may have to re-draw the design to accomdate however
many people you want to indicate for, and compensate for the kerf on
your laser cutter (getting the tightest fit might not be the best
thing to do, given I had to have a little loose play in order to snap
the pieces together while incremently gluing everything
together). Assemble the enclosure.
Cut out a standard-sized piece of parchment paper, and print (inkjet/laser) whatever icons for each indicatee on it (see an example/template soon to be included in the repo). The wax paper provides diffusion, and the icon is, well... iconic. Spray some shellac over the icons to keep the printed icons from rubbing off the wax paper, and cut out the icons so they fit in the enclosure windows.
Now, wire up the LEDs in series with the resistors, wiring them through the holes, using glue to hold everything together (with a possible extension using PCBs to tie everything together in a neater fashion).
NOTE: There's a circuit/pcb for the LEDs http://www.circuits.io/circuits/3238
While you're doing the BUILD, ssh into the raspi and clone the repo
into it. Make a virtualenv in the repo directory, and run pip -r requirements.txt. Copy the ledani.example.conf to ledani.conf and
make the necessary edits, and configure your crontab to execute
ledani.py on a regular basis.
Possible future extensions:
- Service to make identifying who's who through the poller.
- Make mobile apps to update location
- Use RFID
- PCB for cleaner LED situation
Name comes from the indicator method (LEDs) and the lojban zdani (home).