Category Archives: blynk

Fight Mold and Mildew with an IoT Bathroom Fan

Posted on by

Delicious sheets of wallboard coated with yummy latex paints, all kept warm and moist by a daily deluge of showers and habitually forgetting to turn on the bathroom exhaust fan. You want mildew? Because that’s how you get mildew.

Fed up with the fuzzy little black spots on the ceiling, [Innovative Tom] decided to make bathroom ventilation a bit easier with this humidity-sensing IoT control for his bathroom exhaust fan. Truthfully, his build accomplishes little more than a $15 timer switch for the fan would, with one critical difference — it turns the fan on automatically when the DHT11 sensor …read more

Continue reading Fight Mold and Mildew with an IoT Bathroom Fan→

A Beverage Cooler That Comes To You!

Posted on by

Feel like taking a long walk, but can’t be bothered with carrying your drinks? Have no fear, this  “Follow Me” Cooler Bot is here!

Really just a mobile platform with a cooler on top, the robot connects to smartphone via Bluetooth, following it using GPS. Making the platform involves a little woodworking skill, and an aluminium hub with a 3D-printed hub adapter connects the motors to a pair 6″ rubber wheels with a swivel caster mounted at the rear. A pocket in the platform’s base houses the electronics.

The Arduino Uno — via an L298n motor driver — controls two …read more

Continue reading A Beverage Cooler That Comes To You!→

Son of Sonoff

Posted on by

We’ve covered the Sonoff a few times–a very inexpensive box with an ESP8266, a power supply, and an AC relay along with a way to tap into a power cord. Very inexpensive means $5 or $6. The supplied software will work with several systems (including, recently, Alexa). But what self-respecting hacker wants to run the stock firmware on something with an ESP8266 inside?

[Tzapu] certainly didn’t. But he also knew he didn’t want to start from scratch every time he wanted to deploy a switch. So he built SonoffBoilerplate and put the code on GitHub. The code manages taking configuration …read more

Continue reading Son of Sonoff→

Monitor All the Laundry Things with this Sleek IoT System

Posted on by

If like us you live in mortal fear of someone breaking into your house when you’re on vacation and starting a dryer fire while doing laundry, this full-featured IoT laundry room monitor is for you. And there’s a school bus. But don’t ask about the school bus.

In what [seasider1960] describes as “a classic case of scope creep,” there’s very little about laundry room goings on that escapes the notice of this nicely executed project. It started as a water sensor to prevent a repeat of a leak that resulted in some downstairs damage. But once you get going, why …read more

Continue reading Monitor All the Laundry Things with this Sleek IoT System→

A Menorah For The 21st Century

Posted on by

For those new and experienced, this time of year is a great chance for enterprising makers to apply their skills to create unique gifts and decorations for family and friends. [Mike Diamond] of What I Made Today built a phone controlled, light-up menorah. It’s a charming way to display some home automation know-how during the holidays.

Expanding on his previous project — a pocket-sized menorah — a Raspberry Pi Zero with a WiFi dongle, some LEDs, wire, and tea lights suffice for the materials, while setting-up Blynk on the Raspberry Pi and a phone to control the lights ties it …read more

Continue reading A Menorah For The 21st Century→

Blynk with Joy

Posted on by

Last time, I talked about how my storage situation and my cheap nature led me to build an RC joystick controller with a cell phone app and an ESP8266. The key to making this easy was to use the GUI builder called Blynk to make a user interface for an Android or Apple phone. Blynk can communicate with the ESP8266 and makes the project relatively simple.

ESP8266 and Arduino IDE

The ESP8266 Blynk code is straightforward. You do need to set up the Arduino IDE to build for the ESP8266. That can vary by board, but here’s the instructions for …read more

Continue reading Blynk with Joy→

The Joy of the ESP8266 and Blynk

Posted on by

I’ll admit it. I can be a little cheap. I also find it hard to pass up a bargain. So when I saw a robot kit at the local store that had been originally $125 marked down to $20, I had to bite. There was only one problem. After I got the thing home, I found they expected you to supply your own radio control transmitter and receiver.

Normally, that wouldn’t be a problem but lately… let’s just say a lot of my stuff is in storage and I didn’t have anything handy. I certainly didn’t want to go buy …read more

Continue reading The Joy of the ESP8266 and Blynk→

Avoiding Exercise with an ESP8266 and Blynk

Posted on by

[Mike Diamond] was tired of climbing down (and back up) 40 stairs to check his mailbox. He decided to create a mailbox alert using the ESP8266 to connect to his WiFi. The idea was simple: have the ESP8266 monitor when the mailbox flap opened using a magnet and a reed switch. As always, though, the devil is in the details. [Mike] got things working with a little help and shares not only the finished design but how he got there.

To handle the sending of e-mail, [Mike] used the Blynk app. You often think of Blynk as a way to build user …read more

Continue reading Avoiding Exercise with an ESP8266 and Blynk→

Fingerprint Garage Door Won’t Open Every Time A Neighbor Microwaves a Burrito

Posted on by

With three kids, including himself, [Dave] faced the very real likelihood of someone absent-mindedly leaving the garage door open and being robbed blind. Rather than installing some plebeian solution, he compiled a feature list. And what a feature list it is!

The garage door needed to notify him of its status with strategically placed LEDs around the house, and give him full control on his devices. He wanted to open and close it using his existing key-code entry system. Lastly, it would be extra-cool if he could add some biometrics to it; in this case, a fingerprint sensor.

The core …read more

Continue reading Fingerprint Garage Door Won’t Open Every Time A Neighbor Microwaves a Burrito→

App Control With Ease Using Blynk

Posted on by

App development is not fun for everyone, and sometimes you just want to control a device from your phone with minimal work. Blynk appears to be a fairly put-together library for not only hooking up any Arduino or esp8266 to a phone through WiFi, but also through the net if desired.

Install the app onto your iPhone or Android device. Install the libraries on your computer. Next, modify your Arduino source to either pass direct control of a pin to Blynk, or connect Blynk to a virtual pin inside your code for more advanced control. If you want to go …read more

Continue reading App Control With Ease Using Blynk→