Hacking iBeacons For Automating Routines

Every self-respecting hacker has an automation hack somewhere in his/her bag of tricks. There are a lot of modern-day technologies that facilitate the functionality like GPS, scripting apps, and even IFTTT. In an interesting hack, [Nick Lee] has combined iBeacons and a reverse engineered Starbucks API to create an automated morning routine.

By creating a mobile app that scans for iBeacons, [Nick Lee] was able to reduce the effort made every morning while heading to his office. When the app encounters a relevant beacon, a NodeJS app sitting in the cloud is triggered. This consequently leads to desired actions like …read more

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Boombox Doorjam Plays Your Theme Song When You Step in the Ring

Although many of us may have had childhood aspirations to be a famous wrestler in the WWE, not very many of us will ever realize those dreams. You can get close, though, if you have your own epic intro music theme that plays anytime you walk into a room. Although it’s not quite the same as entering a wrestling ring, [Matt]’s latest project will have you feeling just as good whenever you enter a room to your own theme song.

The core of the build consists of a boom box with an auxiliary input. The boom box is fed sound …read more

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Broadcasting Bluetooth Beacons With Bubbles

Bluetooth beacons have only been around for a few years, but the draw is incredible. With Bluetooth beacons, your phone is location aware, even with location services are turned off. They’re seen in fast food joints, big box retailers, and anywhere else there’s a dollar to be made. [Nemik] has been working on a home automation project, and came up with a use for Bluetooth beacons that might actually be useful. It’s a WiFi-based Bluetooth beacon notifier that scans the area for beacons and forwards them to an MQTT server.

[Nemik]’s ‘Presence Detector’ for Bluetooth advertisements is actually a surprisingly …read more

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