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Ask HN: What have you built with ESPHome, ESP8266 or similar hardware

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Re: Ask HN: What have you built with ESPHome, ESP8266 or similar hardware

#101

Post by dgacmu »

cocoflunchy wrote: post #70
dgacmu wrote: post #66

I tend to roll my own with rp-picos for no good reason other than they're easy. 1) Wattmeter for a toy solar installation - broadcasts a UDP packet every few seconds, which I then record into a staging JSON log that gets ingested into DuckDB. 2) Little pico-w wifi temperature sensor that feeds into the raspberry pi zero that controls my boiler. Thread about the boiler: https://hachyderm.io/deck/@dave_andersen/1115791…

I also made an "ok to wake" alarm clock for my daughter :) https://cosmith.fr/projects/nightbox

Oh my gosh that is totally charming! The clock i repurposed for ours has a bit too much of a "this belongs in an office" vibe. Fun to see how different the same idea ends up. I had the same concern about kid-proofing, but I took the route of putting mine on the wifi and using NTP instead of an RTC. (Because it knows the date, it plays different patterns on holidays and on his birthday.)

Re: Ask HN: What have you built with ESPHome, ESP8266 or similar hardware

#102

Post by steve_adams_86 »

deivid wrote: post #87

I've built a bunch of things: A snapcast client, which can play audio synchronized on multiple rooms https://github.com/DavidVentura/esp-snapcast An stratum-1 NTP _server_ (read: gets its time from GPS), and displays time with unreasonable precision (not necessarily accuracy!) https://github.com/DavidVentura/esp-ntp A few HUB75 signs which display public transport status (the public transport bits are not published a…

The on air package is so cool! I was a bit surprised to see it written in Go, but it explains the Mac/Linux portability. I just got a spare esp32 a couple days ago and thought it would take a while to find a good use for it, but I think this is it.

Is the esp board connected to a relay which toggles a regular 110V sign? I’m conflicted about running the board on a higher amperage 5V power supply and using a 5V LED matrix for indicating on-air status or just getting some off the shelf 110V type thing to toggle on or off. The matrix sounds more fun, for sure.

Edit: and thank you for sharing your work on this!

Re: Ask HN: What have you built with ESPHome, ESP8266 or similar hardware

#104

Post by Mostlygeek »

guiambros wrote: post #48
Mostlygeek wrote: post #18

I built a little robot that props open a door when the av cabinet gets too hot. It has a temperature sensor, two fans and a linear actuator. It even has a small webui so I can manually enable/disable cooling. Been working for several years.

Ha, that's a great idea. I have a smart exhaust fan in the av closet, but it still lacks air circulation, so opening the door slightly every now and then (particularly when there's high load / heat dissipation) could be a nice extra feature. How did you mount the linear actuator? I need to retain the ability to manually open/close the door. Maybe using a magnetic latch.

The door hinge has a spring that will self close if it’s not opened too far. I mounted the actuator so it pushes the door open just behind that point. That turned out to be simplest solution.

Re: Ask HN: What have you built with ESPHome, ESP8266 or similar hardware

#105

Post by steve_adams_86 »

This is sort of on topic, except I haven’t finished.

I’ve been working on making a magnetic stirrer with an integrated scale and heating. It isn’t specific to esp or esphome stuff, but I happen to be using an esp32 to power it.

I wanted to buy a stirrer and discovered even the most basic equipment is extremely expensive. Once you add heat, let alone heat control that’s accurate with a digital readout, or a scale, prices are in the multiple thousands.

I know the one I make isn’t going to be as precise or accurate, the build quality won’t be as good, but it’ll be good enough for my purposes.

I’ve found very cheap models online, but oddly a lot of them can’t be shipped here and not surprisingly, the reviews are reliably terrible anyways.

I’ve been having a hard time figuring out the stirring part, ironically. The heat and scale part struck me as the trickiest initially, but I’m not smart enough to know how to protect the magnets from the heat.

My intuition at this point is that maybe I can accomplish this using electromagnets since they won’t be permanently damaged by heat, but I have no idea how to program this to work with a stirrer at a distance. It might be the completely wrong path to take, too.

In any case it’ll be worth it. I’ve been wanting a proper stirrer for quite a while, and the one I’m using at the moment is a computer fan hooked up to a potentiometer and an nmos, glued into a 3d printed platform.

Re: Ask HN: What have you built with ESPHome, ESP8266 or similar hardware

#108

Post by IvyMike »

There's something called a "Wandering Hour Clock" that, well, displays the current time in an interesting way. When I ran across a 3d printable version online, I knew I had to build one. A picture (or two) is worth a thousand words: https://www.printables.com/model/327198-improved-wandering-h...

Someone upgraded that project to use a stepper motor controlled with an ESP32: https://www.printables.com/model/688154-mounting-plate-and-e...

Of course once you have an ESP32, you might as well put the clock on the network and get time over NTP. So the above project includes that.

I added some features, such as fractional time zones, and being able to set the time zone and DST from the web interface rather than in code. My software changes have been upstreamed, so the above project now has them. I also added a few small 3d printable covers to make the back of the clock look a little cleaner: https://www.printables.com/model/688154-mounting-plate-and-e...

Re: Ask HN: What have you built with ESPHome, ESP8266 or similar hardware

#109

Post by z2 »

Brought an inactive home security system onto Home Assistant using the below repository, so I can track everything from smoke alarms to motion, doors, and windows. I swear there's a niche business opportunity in retrofitting all these deactivated systems!

https://github.com/taligentx/dscKeybusInterface

Re: Ask HN: What have you built with ESPHome, ESP8266 or similar hardware

#110

Post by jasonjayr »

Don't have a git repo or pictures up; but I've built:

1) a fridge door monitoring system. We have a fridge in our garage that doesn't see frequent traffic, and it does NOT have an alarm on the door if it's left open too long. an esp8266 Watches 2 reed switches and transmits the status to home assistant. I 3d-Printed a case for the MCU + 2 holders for the reed switches (for the freezer + fridge)

2) A passive LIDAR based sensor for watching our oil burner's tank's gauge. I have to finish this up into home assistant, but I've been collecting the position into a log file. I 3d-printed another cylinder that fits over the transparent gauge, and positions the sensor in just the right place so it can reflect over the opaque float inside the sensor. Even though it's external, this one I have to be careful so the main ESP8266 is a bit aways from the sensor + tank, and I should add more protection to the lines going to the sensor. Electronic devices near fuel can get ... spicey if you are not careful.

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