In part one of project iRotary, we got the Arduino to detect pulses from a rotary dial and turn them into a phone number, all in the name of turning this phone:
into a mobile phone I can use on the go. In part two, we will actually connect the Arduino to a GSM shield and place calls with the rotary dial like it’s 1993. I have seen the future, and it is the past. Read on for details!
Lately, my mobile phone (an HTC One) has become very slow. I think it’s mainly SwiftKey, which is slow like dog, but no matter. As a good consumerist, I must purchase a new phone. However, I am also an angry person, and I sorely miss the tactile sensation of slamming the phone on someone’s face.
Because of this, I decided to put my engineering degree to good use, and went out and bought a phone. Thus begins project iRotary, which aims to turn this:
Like every person, I have a burning desire to know who’s in my house when I’m not. A few months ago, I decided that I had had enough of the uncertainty of my extradomicilial activities, and that I needed to do something about it. I realized that I had two options. The first option would be to hire someone to be in my house 24/7, but that would get a bit embarrassing when I wanted to watch reruns of Desperate Housewives. The other option would be a motion sensor that texts me when it detects motion.
Luckily, this proved really easy to do with an Arduino. All I needed to get was
A few weeks ago, I was showing my dad my latest project, the Arduino RF remote control, and he lamented the fact that I still hadn’t made an irrigation system remote control for him. We have a few acres of fields that need irrigation, which is done with a system of pipes from a central water pump. At that point, however, the fact that he needed a remote control for the pump was as news to me as it is to you, so I asked him what he needed exactly.
He told me he needed a system that would allow him to call or text a phone number and turn the pump on and off remotely, as well as something that would text him if there was a problem that
If you’ve been following this site, you’ll know that I’ve been going through lots of alternatives in trying to achieve the Holy Grail of home automation, which is to get my garage door to open remotely with a Raspberry Pi. To this day, I haven’t managed to do that, but I did get some great guides going.
For example, I managed to turn the Raspberry Pi into an infrared remote and control my TV and AC unit with it, and, after that, the next step was to control RF wall sockets, which was also great.
After all this, I connected my house lights to RF sockets so I can control them from the Pi, but having a Pi running all the time is a bit of a hassle. It requires an SD card, a USB hub for the wifi, it freezes sometimes, etc, so I wanted a solution that was less of a complete PC. The obvious choice was
Greek. Amateur F1 driver. Technology enthusiast. Single parent. Liar.
Founder of Stochastic Technologies, a software development agency, and creator of various products which you can find in the résumé.
