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Ask HN: What do you do with your Raspberry Pi?

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Re: Ask HN: What do you do with your Raspberry Pi?

#701

Post by klambda »

toephu2 wrote: post #660
klambda wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did something similar. Raspberry pi is automatically uploading video of each watering to YouTube ( https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtl442fLi6KAOowkw_w83rA/vid... ) and informing me with summary (incl. watering duration, soil moisture level, temperature, humidity, light level etc.). Not that I care that much about the plant but automating it has been fun. It's been on auto pilot now for a couple of months now and the…

How did you guys automate watering? Any good DIY tutorials you recommend? What devices/parts do I need?

I'm using a cheap submersible water pump controlled via relay by a python script running on raspberry pi. Water pump is connected to a clear vinyl tube for water distribution to the plant.

Availability of water level at source is checked by a non-contact liquid level sensor.

Triggers for watering plant are defined as follows: 1. There is water in tank / source (checked by non-contact liquid level sensor) 2. Soil moisture level is below certain threshold (measured by 2 soil moisture capacity sensors embedded in the plant) 3. Watering duration is determined by current soil moisture level; Python script activates relay to run the pump for the right duration. 4. Same python script also: - activates camera to record watering (+2s buffer to have all on the video) via usb cam connected to the pi (leveraging opencv lib) - uploads recorded video automatically to youtube channel (if pi has internet connection) - summarizes watering event and sends me notification with link to the recording and other helpful stats (temp, humidity, moisture level etc.) - saves all metrics to sqllite db for future reference

Key parts I ended up using for the project: 1. Water pump: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LWXV7DE/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...

2. Non-contact Liquid Level Sensor -XKC-Y25-NPN: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07D3246BH/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...

3. Gikfun Capacitive Soil Moisture Sensor: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07H3P1NRM/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...

4. Relay: https://www.amazon.com/KeeYees-Channel-Indicator-Arduino-Ras... (though I just bought my when visiting Fry's)

Primary motivation to do the project was so that wife can have pice of mind knowing plants are taken care of while we are away on longer trips.

Hope this helps.

Re: Ask HN: What do you do with your Raspberry Pi?

#702

Post by sparker72678 »

wycy wrote: post #651
sparker72678 wrote: post #527

I have 13 in service right now: - Outdoor irrigation control via OpenSprinkler Pi: https://opensprinkler.com/product/opensprinkler-pi/ - Z-Wave home automation via ZWay: https://z-wave.me/products/razberry/ - 2 Custom HAVC thermostats using: https://github.com/jeffmcfadden/PiThermostat - An NTP server with GPS attached for a time source. - 2 for weather monitoring (one directly attached to sensors, one that aggregate…

What sort of equipment are you using for monitoring your HVAC system performance?

Just temperature monitoring, really. I have sensors measuring temperature right at HVAC input, output, attic temperature, as well as home interior temp and outside temp and humidity.

Re: Ask HN: What do you do with your Raspberry Pi?

#703

Post by toolboc »

idonotknowwhy wrote: post #642
toolboc wrote: post #503

I use a Raspberry Pi to stream PlayStation 2 backups over SMB by networking the onboard Ethernet port of the Pi to allow access to a Samba Share service running on the Pi. This allows for seamless playback of games with heavy Full Motion Video sequences as the Ethernet transmission is faster than the max throughput of the USB2.0 ports provided on the PlayStation 2. It -also supports auto mounting and sharing of exter…

How fast is streaming cut-scene heavy games like MGS4 to the PS3 using this setup? Also, for the PS2, how does it compare with HDDLoader and an internal HDD. Relevant for games like Fatal Frame, where you have to open doors a lot, and on the DVD, it takes like 5-10 seconds, but on the HDD, it takes I didn't know we could steam to the Xbox OG, sounds pretty useful compared with the 1hr process to open it up and upgrad…

In my tests using iftop, speed on PS3 seems to top out around 60 MB/s which is slower than HDD but should be sufficient for most games.

On PS2, the speed to access SMB is also slower than HDD at around 6 MB/s, however, this is nearly 6x the speed of the USB. Although it is slower than HDD access, it allows for playback of most games without stuttering.

Good point on calling attention to the OG Xbox, as I should have been more specific there. OG Xbox games can only be played back via HDD or Disc due to a limitation in the system itself, however, a number of emulators support SMB paths for playing backups.

Re: Ask HN: What do you do with your Raspberry Pi?

#704

Post by captainmurvel »

noamelf wrote: post #688

I connected it to "dumb" computer speakers at my office and made it into a Bluetooth sink so that everyone can use it to play music

Any good guide on how to do this? I tried this a couple of years ago but got stuck in that I always had to pair my handset every time I wanted to use it.

Re: Ask HN: What do you do with your Raspberry Pi?

#706

Post by [deleted] »

toephu2 wrote: post #660
klambda wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did something similar. Raspberry pi is automatically uploading video of each watering to YouTube ( https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtl442fLi6KAOowkw_w83rA/vid... ) and informing me with summary (incl. watering duration, soil moisture level, temperature, humidity, light level etc.). Not that I care that much about the plant but automating it has been fun. It's been on auto pilot now for a couple of months now and the…

How did you guys automate watering? Any good DIY tutorials you recommend? What devices/parts do I need?

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What do you do with your Raspberry Pi?

#707

Post by vmurthy »

hlfshell wrote: post #17

I've made some interesting projects over the years - only a writeup on a few of these, and some are in pieces and in various states of disrepair after moving so much. Some write ups on larger projects: 1. I used a raspberry pi to coordinate the firing of multiple cameras, and then had the pi upload to a cloud service that would stitch them together to an "infinite zoom" super selfie. https://medium.com/@thekeithchest…

Great projects. I tried clicking the link for 1. Looks like some of the URL is truncated. You may want to update the link :-)

This worked for me : https://medium.com/@thekeithchester/gigasnap-a-prototyping-s...

Re: Ask HN: What do you do with your Raspberry Pi?

#708

Post by ThatPlayer »

toolboc wrote: post #503

I use a Raspberry Pi to stream PlayStation 2 backups over SMB by networking the onboard Ethernet port of the Pi to allow access to a Samba Share service running on the Pi. This allows for seamless playback of games with heavy Full Motion Video sequences as the Ethernet transmission is faster than the max throughput of the USB2.0 ports provided on the PlayStation 2. It -also supports auto mounting and sharing of exter…

I'd probably do the same if my PS2 was a slim model, but I have the fat, and used an older hard drive for it.

I'd love it if modern consoles like the Xbox One and PS4 supported any sort of network share hosting for games. They do support USB drives and I thought about using Linux Gadget USB to emulate a USB drive and store the backing file on the network share. Previously that wouldn't have really worked with the Raspberry Pis as the full sized models did not support USB OTG. It does look like the new Pi4 supports USB OTG over the USB-C power port.

Re: Ask HN: What do you do with your Raspberry Pi?

#710

Post by TeMPOraL »

idonotknowwhy wrote: post #643
DrAwdeOccarim wrote: post #521

I have an old Raspberry Pi 1 that runs headless raspbian with a set of cheap speakers plugged into it and an old usb wifi adaptor. It has only one purpose: to play a wav file of a telephone ringing for one minute. My spouse does not ever have the ringer on her cell phone. So when I am out and I need her to look at her phone, I VPN in to my home network, ssh into the pi using Terminus on my iphone, and 'aplay' the wav…

Similar issue, but I worked around it by setting up one of those find-your-phone apps and whitelisted my number. Now I can just text her the secret code and it makes her phone ring loudly even when it's on silent.

I have something similar set with Tasker to locate _my_ phone. That is, a particular word texted to my phone number will make the phone max out the volume, turn on the camera flashlight, and start making noises in the loop. I can also trigger this from my smartwatch[0].

I also have a "haptic test" function: press the button, the phone vibrates briefly. I originally created that check the delay on the Pebble-Tasker connection, but ended up using it almost every day to find my phone among the clutter in the house.

Tasker is amazing, if you have Android, I recommend checking it out.

--

[0] - misplacing a phone while having it still in Bluetooth range actually happened to me once long ago with a feature-phone. I looked and looked and couldn't find it. It was set on silent, so calling it didn't help. Then I noticed it's still connected via Bluetooth to my PC's phone management app, so I manually turned the ringer on, and discovered it deep within the mechanism of my bed. Finding it there without this trick would probably take me hours.

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