Claudio, a wake-up alarm not so simple

New blog and to tell you the truth, my first blog. No personal introduction, no sensitive content… 🙂

I made some basic tests with an ESP8266 a couple of years ago and I was very pleased with the board capabilities, the freshness of NODEMCU, the quick schema uploading… everything. But I didn’t like one aspect, in the same way, I didn’t like some years before about Arduino boards: connectivity.

The ESP32 arrived, WiFi and BLE connectivity, a bunch of IO pins, a lot of different pin working modes… and for someone with limited knowledge of electronic theory… a marvelous tiny thing.

Lately, I am having much more spare time that I used to have, so I decided to start doing things I always wanted to do but I never had the time to. I don’t like using my cellular for all purpose. I like WakeUp alarm clocks, but not the ones they sell. My last WakeUp alarm was a Sony, very nice, spectacular design but “who the hell designs an alarm clock supposed to be stopped while you are sleeping by pressing a tiny switch in the middle of a lot of more tiny switches? Yes, Sony” And what if I design my own Alarm Clock with that ESP32 Developer board I have? And that’s what I did.

The requirements:

  1. Time visible in the dark, but not like a red UFO. Light intensity has to accommodate to room light.
  2. No need for time adjustment. No need to change the hour every spring or autumn.
  3. Minimal use of buttons, tiny buttons, micro switches… :S
  4. If there’s enough room on the screen… some other indicators like temperature and relative humidity (these are enough important in the dry & hot Madrid nights)
  5. If possible, some communication capabilities: remote configuration, remote alarm stopping, …
  6. Easy to wire components between

The prototype:

I needed a box to fit all the components in. Perfect reason to buy my first 3D printer, and that’s what I did.

This is the screen design today… it’s evolving and probably will not be the same in a couple of days.

Claudio WakeUp Alarm Screen

The box is 11cm x 65mm x 65mm and though is a bit bigger than I expected it to be I think of it as a prototype and time will bring smaller designs.

Claudio Wake Up alarma box
Claudio Box

This has been only the introduction. Check out the rest of the posts to know more about the design, the code and the possibilities of ‘the creature’.

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