21–30 of 35 posts
There might be a market for an e-paper based version of this that shows an entire day or week of schedule.
The nice thing is they have python drivers for it and it works with the gpio pins.
Sorry, spark.io is down and I'm not sure what it is: A dev-board? Why not use an RPi instead of an arduino for something like this? costs ~ 25-35 USD (depends on model) + a WiFi dongle and you can write code in Ruby/Python?!
Spark core is a low power ARM Cortex M3-based board with WiFi onboard. Very neat. I can give you several good reasons why it is more useful to do this with a Spark core (or an Arduino), but the most important to me is that learning how to program very constrained hardware platforms is useful.
Anyway it's good to have choices! I'd probably grab a 'spark' since I can write code in ruby, comes very handy! :-)
Either way the Spark looks nice, and the extra cost is sure to be recoverable in developer time.
I'm working on a smart building project, anyone recommend any good resources? This calendaring system is right up my alley of types of integrations we are looking into.
There might be a market for an e-paper based version of this that shows an entire day or week of schedule.
At the base level you have DIY solutions (small LCD's, e-ink etc) which are loads of fun to build and can work quite nicely for some scenarios.
Another option that a lot of buildings are starting to use is iOS / Android apps along with a device in a wall mount (https://eventboard.io/ et al). Cheap (ish), easily replaceable and upgradeable hardware and apps that are quite affordable.
From here you then move into more dedicated devices which also provide some deeper integration with the environment. Traditionally this has something that has been handled by the AV world with products such as AMX's (http://amx.com/) RMS or Crestron's (http://www.crestron.com/) RoomView, however there's a bunch of other really exciting players around to like Condeco (http://www.condecosoftware.com/) which merit some consideration. Regardless of who's providing it, its at this level the tech starts to getting a little more exciting. Generally you begin to tie in with sensors (PIR, seat pressure, signal presence on laptop input etc) inside the room to provide analytics on occupancy, auto cancel meetings when there's a no show, integrate with NFC for handling access control or user auth etc. If you coming from the AV side the rest of the room can also start to interact with that booking information to (for example, parsing meeting info for video / teleconference details etc).
The linear voltage regulator basically turns 4V of the 9V block into heat. This is not really efficient.
Site lists the Core with embedded chip antenna at $39, which is about the cost of a $35 Trinket 6-pack ( http://www.adafruit.com/products/1509 ). Granted those lack connectivity, but I think there's a sweet spot for something in between (i.e., with built-in BLE), maybe along the lines of these: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2016620887/mcthings-tin... Either way the Spark looks nice, and the extra cost is sure…
To power this with a battery a better solution would be to use a switching power supply. (For example a LTC3525 step up converter with two AA 1.5 V batteries.) The linear voltage regulator basically turns 4V of the 9V block into heat. This is not really efficient.
Way back before the WWW my student dorm door was plastered in misc comics and clippings - I kept cycling the clippings and being part if a high traffic corridor it got me a number if interesting people knocking to say they enjoyed it. It was I guess my first blog (maybe Pinterest) Anyway, besides that I think this really would be a fantastic solution to the "meeting room" problem. Book a room direct from the door its…
I worked for a very large software corporation for a few years, and we had exactly this. Little touchscreen LCD displays to the side of the door for all the major meeting rooms, on which you could book the room. Nobody used it for that, though. They just did it from their desk through Outlook. It was useful to see how long a room was free for if you needed it for an impromptu meeting, however ("Next booking for this…
I think the lack of rooms available to scatterbrained too busy people is a major source of negative creativity in the world