Category Archives: alarm

Keep the Burglars Away With Some Pi

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Ten years ago, we never imagined we would be able to ward off burglars with Pi. However, that is exactly what [Nick] is doing with his Raspberry Pi home security system.

We like how, instead of using a standard siren, [Nick] utilized his existing stereo system to play a custom audio file that he created. (Oh the possibilities!) How many off the shelf alarm systems can you do that with?

The Pi is the brains of the operation, running an open source software program called Home Assistant. If any of the Z-Wave sensors in his house are triggered while the …read more

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How Good Is Your Aim First Thing In The Morning?

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For the less than highly-driven individuals out there — and even some that are — sometimes, waking up is hard to do, and the temptation to smash the snooze button is difficult to resist. If you want to force your mind to immediately focus on waking up, this Nerf target alarm clock might get you up on time.

Not content to make a simple target, [Christopher Guichet] built an entire clock for the project. The crux of the sensor is a piezoelectric crystal which registers the dart impacts, and [Guichet]’s informative style explains how the sensor works with the help …read more

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How Good Is Your Aim First Thing In The Morning?

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For the less than highly-driven individuals out there — and even some that are — sometimes, waking up is hard to do, and the temptation to smash the snooze button is difficult to resist. If you want to force your mind to immediately focus on waking up, this Nerf target alarm clock might get you up on time.

Not content to make a simple target, [Christopher Guichet] built an entire clock for the project. The crux of the sensor is a piezoelectric crystal which registers the dart impacts, and [Guichet]’s informative style explains how the sensor works with the help …read more

Continue reading How Good Is Your Aim First Thing In The Morning?→

Sunrise Alarm Clock with Organic Twist

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Most hardware hackers have a clock project or two under their belt. A pretty common modification to a generic clock is to add lights to it, and if the clock has an alarm feature, it’s not too big of a stretch to try to get those lights to simulate a sunrise for a natural, peaceful morning alarm. The problem that a lot of us run across, though, is wiring up enough LEDs with enough diffusion to make the effect work properly and actually get us out of bed without an annoying buzzer.

Luckily for all of us, [jarek319] came up …read more

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Want To Wake Up In A Ship’s Warp Core? Circadia Sunrise Clock Makes it So

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Who among you has difficulty rising in the mornings? Sunrise clocks that simulate a — well, sunrise,  are a gentle means of returning to the waking world. [FlorianH], grappling with this very issue, has built his own impressive sunrise clock he has named Circadia. Some sunrise clocks mate an LED with a dev board and call it a day. This work of hardware art will never be confused for something rudimentary.

Standing at 187cm tall, the 8mm thick PCB frame contains three main sections that plug into each other “like Lego”: the top houses a cleverly designed (and virtually silent) …read more

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Simple Fuel Pressure Alarm Averts Diesel Disaster

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If you could spend a couple of bucks on a simple project that might prevent a $2000 repair bill on your vehicle, you’d probably build it, right? That’s the idea behind this simple low-pressure alarm for a diesel fuel system, and it’s so simple it makes you wonder why the OEM didn’t do it.

We normally see [Bob Johnson] coming up with nifty projects (like this claw or this camera slider) that more often than not combine woodworking and electronics. But no tree carcasses were harmed in the making of this project. [Bob]’s goal is just to sound a warning …read more

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Car Idle Alarm Helps You Stop Wasting Gas While Tweeting

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[TVMiller] has a bone to pick with you if you let your car idle while you chat or text on your phone. He doesn’t like it, and he wants to break you of this wasteful habit – thus the idle-deterrence system he built that he seems to want on every car dashboard.

In the video below, the target of his efforts is clear – those who start the car then spend time updating Twitter or Instagram. His alarm is just an Arduino Nano that starts a timer when the car is started. Color-coded LEDs mark the time, and when the …read more

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