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A project for someone who lights up your life…
2 years ago, as a Christmas present for a long-distance friend, I created lamps that would synchronize animations via internet connection. This year, 2 years later, I created this updated version with the knowledge gained from the additional years of electronics dabbling. This version is much simpler, without any external monitors or keyboards needed (and just one simple chip, not two!) in addition to an easy phone app interface (thanks to Blynk IoT) instead of website and physical soft potentiometer.
There are buttons in the app that provide more flexibility in what animations you want to add: there are 3 sliders for RGB control, in addition to a widget at the bottom that allows you to pick colors from a map (so you don’t have to figure out what the RGB numbers are for the color you want). There are also preset buttons for happy, angry, sad, and “meh” so you can easily convey your emotions to the other person in the form of lamp animations, for the times you have something you want to talk about but don’t want to bother the person with lots of texts.
No electronics experience? No worries! There are just 3 main steps: connecting the hardware, uploading the code, and creating the Blynk app. Do remember, however: what can go wrong, will go wrong. Always add plenty of time for debugging.
If you use exactly what I did and upload exactly what I have, you should be fine even if you’ve never worked with electronics. Even if you make adjustments to the project, reading through this tutorial should give you a sense of what you need to change if you use this as a guide. Cost was also kept as low as possible: total cost, if you have absolutely none of the components, is ~$40 max per lamp.”

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