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

I once built an Arduino project that monitored one room to an sd card while we were on holidays. That allowed me (in principle) to know if the heating could be lowered a bit more during absence. The results were not conclusive.

Another thingy tried to determine where the mouse that sometimes came into another room came from, by using infrared distance sensors. Never caught anything.

What did work was a two op fm synth with midi in and audio out. I was satisfied when it worked, so I didn't go all the way of making a 4 or 6 op version with pots and buttons (or one of those horrible deep menu systems).

So nothing practical. Just toying around, trying to get a bit of knowledge about how things work and having fun at the same time.

I’ve built a small scale ‘flat’ that is meant to act as a ‘living’ object that is a bed side companion for sick children that are lying in a hospital.

The idea is that you give a certain floor to family or friends so that they can control the lights (and color). The child can see if parents, grandparents or friends are home or not (based on a schedule or manual action). It gives a sense of reassurance and closeness of the relatives. Also very fun to see a living object next to your bed.

See it here: https://imgur.com/gallery/4ZOYdH5 And here (colors): https://imgur.com/gallery/z0yZJ7d

The hardware is a Atom Lite from M5Stack (see: https://shop.m5stack.com/products/atom-lite-esp32-developmen...) and a led stripe with addressable leds.

The software on the atom is micropython and the neopixel module. It connects to a webapp (through wifi) and listens to a JSON endpoint that gives the states of the leds (aka floors).

The webapp is a django app with a main user for the flat and he or she can invite others to control certain floors. All mobile friendly (no native app).

We have 4 live and deployed flats and are in the process of making more for our local hospitals.

The flat (wood) is custom made and pretty labour intensive.

A very fun project and learned a lot about hardware (and the deployment) coming from a saas background.

I built a weather dashboard using an M5Paper from M5Stack. The M5Paper has an E-ink touch display, is the size of a small smart phone, and only needs to be charged every week or so.

https://speechcode.com/blog/weather-dashboard/

I feel sheepish mentioning this project because there are so, so many weather displays like this. But this is mine, and not only was it fun to put together, but I use it every day.

I made one of the prototypes of a shooting target for a wacky wheels-inspired buggy racing project with esp and a pressure sensor (bmp something) enclosed in a plastic tank. Had some fun shooting at it from a paintball gun and looking at the graphs, but real conditions were too noisy for the most mechanical prototypes. The project was abandoned. I believe I fried one esp due to the lack of electrical experience and burned few fingers. I also remember having some arduino in the loop, but can’t tell why (or if, tried few setups in process).

I have a power meter that sits in front of my kettle (that I also use as a teapot) that notifies me when the tea has finished brewing (i.e. when it finished boiling + a fixed delay).