“The Cassette Pi is a self-contained real-time notification scroller, all housed neatly inside a transparent cassette tape. A Raspberry Pi Zero is sandwiched between the two tape reels, retrieving all manner of Internet of Things notifications from the fabulous IFTTT (If This, Then That) service, delivered almost instantly to the Pi via an Adafruit.IO feed and a Python script. The whole cassette vibrates to alert you to the incoming notification, and the text is then scrolled clearly across a Pimoroni 11x7 LED display.
Everything is powered by a 150mAh LiPo battery, connected to the Pi via a LiPo Shim - also within the cassette is an Adafruit Micro Lipo so when the battery runs low it can be plugged directly into a Micro USB power source to grab some juice.
The most fun part is that thanks to some trimming of the Pi itself, the cassette can still fit inside any vintage tape player, turning that old ornament into a functional and classy Internet of Things device.
The Cassette Pi is perfect for use as a conference badge too, dangling from a lanyard and scrolling your name or a custom message.
In case you can’t see the embedded video you can find it at https://youtu.be/kgY40e9mi8w- it’s well worth a look to see this little scroller in action!
Supplies:
Cassette Tape
Raspberry Pi Zero W
Pimoroni LiPo Shim
Pimoroni 11x7 LED breakout
Adafruit Micro LiPo
150mAh LiPo Battery
1x DPDT 6-terminal slide switch
Patience”