ECE497 Project: Alarm with Remote Speaker

An alarm clock with a separate speaker forcing you to get out of bed to turn it off!

Categories: Intermediate

Originally published at https://www.hackster.io/manoj-kurapati/ece497-project-alarm-with-remote-speaker-5eae5d.

Embedded Linux Class
by
Mark A. Yoder

Made by: Brian Jennings and Manoj Kurapati

Executive Summary

Have an alarm set up on a dresser which connects to a speaker either wirelessly or via cable (my concern is maybe wireless speakers are always reliable). The speaker is next to the bed. When the alarm goes off, you have to get out of bed to go to the alarm to turn it off.

The clock time shows up on the seven segment display. The “AM/PM LED” is on if the time is PM and off if the time is AM. If the “Show Alarm” button is pressed and held, it stops showing the clock time and instead shows the alarm time on the seven segment display. The alarm hour can be set by pressing the “Set Hour” button and the alarm minute can be displayed by pressing the “Set Minute” button. If the “Alarm Toggle” button is pressed, it turns the alarm on. If it is pressed again, it turns the alarm off. The “Alarm LED” is turned on if the alarm is on, and it is off if the alarm is off. When the alarm is on and the the alarm time matches the clock time, then the alarm goes off. When that is the case, the a youtube clip will be fetched and played on the Bluetooth speaker and the alarm will be turned off. We were currently using this youtube clip to play:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPRHumwZfk4
. When we press the “Snooze” button, the Bluetooth speaker will stop playing.

Packaging

Parts Used

Installation Instructions

Installing Necessary Libraries 

 git clone https://github.com/manojkur/RemoteAlarmClock

 cd RemoteAlarmClock
  • Run the install.sh script to install all of the necessary libraries
 ./install.sh
  • More Instructions are available in the README.md located int the repository

Setting Up Bluetooth

  • Run:
 Pulseaudio --start

 Bluetoothctl
  • Turn on Bluetooth device, if not paired yet run:
 scan on
  • Once you’ve found device:
 pair (Address of device)

 trust (Address of device)

 connect (Address of device)
  • If you have already paired to the device:
 connect (Address of the device)

 exit

Setting Up Correct Time

  • View the current time:
 timedatectl
  • View the current time zone:
 timedatectl status
  • List the available time zones:
 timedatectl list-timezones
  • Set the time zone:
 timedatectl set-timezone Zone/SubZone
  • The other option is locally setting time by using:
 timedatectl set-time "yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss"

User Instructions

Alarm Clock Schematic

*Note: The schematic above uses a BeagleBone Black, the pins should translate over to the BeagleBone Green Wireless.

Component Wiring

Highlights

YouTube Demo included at
here

  • Fully functional Alarm clock that can be programmed to any time for an alarm
  • Time converted to be normal 12 hour time
  • Bluetooth speaker that can be placed in another part of the room, forcing you to wake up
  • Song can be selected via YouTube link, providing a free source for music and other media to wake up to!

Theory of Operation

Flowchart of Alarm Code

Future Work

In the future, we could create a case for the alarm clock. We could also see if there is a way to get the API for Spotify to work with the alarm clock, so the alarm clock can also function as a jukebox.

Conclusions

Bluetooth is not always reliable since it sometimes disconnects. So in the future we might want to explore other connection options. Also the speaker is just powered by a battery, which would eventually cause issues with running out of battery when you might need it most. So the answer would in the future use a speaker that did not rely on battery power to function.

Comments are not currently available for this post.