"Physical" notifications with Raspberry Pi and addressable LEDs
a project by dannysauer
Updated over 2 years ago. 3 hacker ♥️. 1 follower.

I'd like a way to have a device on my desk which lights up to indicate that I have something I should be paying attention to. Initially, I'd like this to be for Office365 calendar events and GitHub mentions, but ideally it should support arbitrary messages. The plan is to assign specific colors (ideally "patterns" consisting of a sequence of colors and time) to specific message types.

I have a handful of raspberry Pi Zeroes, a couple of OLEDs, a strand of individually-addressable RGB LEDs, a power supply, and some misc electronics (like the 3.3-5v logic level shifter necessary for the 5v LED strand). I'm thinking Python is probably the way to go for the software. I'm hoping OpenSUSE actually works on the Pi zero. :D If not, there's an ESP32 with a built-in display and a few Pi 3s laying around barely used, maybe one of them will work.

Either way, this should deliver a how-to (perhaps an instructable?) using all open source software.

Join this project

Looking for hackers with the skills:

python3 office365api hardware raspberrypi solder github

This project is part of:

Hack Week 19

Activity

  • over 4 years ago: a_faerber liked this project.
  • over 4 years ago: vliaskovitis liked this project.
  • over 4 years ago: xiaoguang_wang liked this project.
  • over 4 years ago: dannysauer added keyword "python3" to this project.
  • over 4 years ago: dannysauer added keyword "office365api" to this project.
  • over 4 years ago: dannysauer added keyword "hardware" to this project.
  • over 4 years ago: dannysauer added keyword "raspberrypi" to this project.
  • over 4 years ago: dannysauer added keyword "solder" to this project.
  • over 4 years ago: dannysauer added keyword "github" to this project.
  • over 4 years ago: dannysauer started this project.
  • over 4 years ago: dannysauer originated this project.


    • Comments

    • nunofilipesantos
      over 4 years ago by nunofilipesantos | Reply

      There is actually a PiHat with LED Matrix display that you can address specific LEDs or just scroll text. You can try the emulator here: https://trinket.io/sense-hat

    • dannysauer
      over 4 years ago by dannysauer | Reply

      I almost ordered one of those. But I want a big ol' display that gets my attention. :D So, I ended up with https://www.adafruit.com/product/3346 instead. It provides a few easy pickup points for several GPIOs, and also allows the potential of making noises to accompany the lights. :D

    Similar Projects

    This project is one of its kind!