“Wake to any of 100’s of MP3 messages from SDRAM. Scrolling display w/remote shows clearly w/o glasses. Temp too!
This is my second Arduino build. Lots of fab issues have been resolved and this is more of a bolt up than the first. Lots of functional software is being ported. Some new hardware is being added to create the ultimate alarm clock.
The plan is to have a large, bright display that can be easily read from across the room coupled with a remote to control multiple readouts and functions. Instead of waking to just a buzzer imagine waking to any of hundreds of MP3 audio files randomly selected from existing or self recorded items.
Everything is remotely controlled but there is an alarm silence button in case you can’t find the remote while waking.
The unit has a scrolling 8x8x4 dot matrix display for time display with other information available.
The MP3 player has its own speaker.
Wazzit do?
A lot of things time related. First & foremost it’s a battery backed up clock. Not only does the time continue running, but it retains the alarm settings as well. No more missed alarms because of a power blip. While there is no seconds display, the clock can be precisely set. Seconds can be inferred by the blinking heartbeat LED, and the blinking colon between the hours and minutes display. The clock does something different every 15 seconds so the seconds can be anticipated.
It chimes the hour (after displaying “Cuckoo! Cuckoo!”) between 11A and 10P and is more-or-less silent between time.
It always make a short “blip” sound at the top of the hour to get you to look, but the sound is mild enough not to disturb a sleeping baby.
Recorded sounds can be played via an internal speaker on an internal MP3 player. These sounds are recorded on an internal microSD card permanently installed in the MP3 player module. Custom sounds available as special order.
It has special alerts at 4:20p and 8:40p.
It senses the local temperature (in °C or °F) & humidity and displays them at :15 and :45 on the minute respectively. At the bottom, :30, of the minute, the date is displayed in mm/dd/yy format.
The temp/humidity can both be displayed by pressing button 21 (2nd row, 1st col) on the IR remote. Oh yeah, the clock can be controlled from across the room with an IR remote - did I forget to mention that? (grin)
Pressing button 22 displays the date with the DoW formatted like “Saturday 3/5/2022”.
The time, temp and humidity are automatically logged to an internal microSD card (accessible through the rear panel) every 15 minutes. The file is human readable ASCII and named “logmm-yy.txt” where mm-yy is the current month/year. The 32gb microSD card should be able to hold a CENTURY of data.
Anyway the time can be displayed in standard AM/PM or 24 hour format. Toggle between them with remote button 13.
Likewise the temperature can be shown in °C or °F by pressing button 23.
The unit has a switched AC outlet that comes on with the alarm (coffee pot) and turns off an hour later automatically. If the power blips, the coffee pot outlet automatically disables. The outlet can be manually controlled by pressing button 12 on the IR remote.
The brightness of the display is controlled by buttons 31 and 32, dim with button 31, brighter with 32. There are a total of 16 brightness levels, each press steps the brightness once. The display can be instantly dimmed with a single press of button 72 (bottom center). Likewise, the sound is muted with button 73 (bottom right).
Row 4 controls the alarm functions:
- 41 - Display alarm state & time
- 42 - Toggle alarm state on/off
- 43 - Set Alarm time
The alarm on/off status is shown by the red indicator on the “traffic light” display. Pressing button 42 will toggle both the alarm state and the red traffic light indicator. If the alarm is disarmed (off) the unit will beep twice as an audible confirmation.”