Ybox 2 Project. Alarm Clock/multimedia day planner

Dgswaner

I'm finally getting around to posting this. Life is crazy this time of year in my industry.

first of let me know if this isn't possible so I can change the scope before I get into it too far. but here is what I intend to do with my Ybox2
I want to make an Alarm Clock/multimedia day planner, the best way I can describe this is give a scenario.

typical work day, I set the Ybox2 is set to wake me up (with a buzzer) at 6:00 to get ready for work, all is well I go to bed the night before. sometime in the morning a bad wreck happens which will make my commute longer at best, so the Ybox2 knowing this (via the web) adjusts the wake up time to 5:45 and suggests an alternate route, I can now leave sooner and still make it to work on time, so I wake up, wonder why I'm so tired and look at the wall of my bed room where the time, reason for alarm time change, and traffic conditions are projected on to the wall, (via a Zoombox). once I'm up and going it displays any daily meetings or appointments,

the time would be provided by a internet time server so no real time clock would be needed
the information about traffic could be pulled from any number of commuter link sites, and the daily schedule ifo would come from a local site on my home computer.
preloaded weather Icon images could be used for graphical displays of weather forecasts.
standard functions of an alarm clock could be used, snooze, multiple alarms times, different noises.

If this was used in a main part of my house, or I had 2, I could display kids school lunch menus so they can decide if they want to take a lunch, dentist appointment reminders
on weekends movies and show times could be displayed. the sky is the limit.

please give input, let me know what you think.

Added: Images

▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
"A complex design is the sign of an inferior designer." - Jamie Hyneman, Myth Buster

DGSwaner

Post Edited (Dgswaner) : 2/20/2008 10:36:36 PM GMT

darco

For people unaware of what a ybox2 actually is, go here: www.deepdarc.com/ybox2

▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
—
darco
www.deepdarc.com/
[url=mailto:xmpp:darco@deepdarc.com]xmpp:darco@deepdarc.com[/url]

darco

What you are describing sounds really cool, and I don't see any obvious show-stoppers. The trick is parsing the data that you would get off of the website in a robust fashion. If you can find a CSV feed for traffic, that would be ideal. Even better if you could set up a PHP script on a web-server which would distill the info into something even more easily parsed. In fact, I think this is your best option: put most of the logic in a PHP file which the ybox2 would then query to figure out that it should do.

A slight observation with respect to your application: traffic conditions can change pretty rapidly, so there is a good chance that traffic conditions could deteriorate before you managed to get out the door even if it detected no problems and woke you up at the normal time.

▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
—
darco
www.deepdarc.com/
[url=mailto:xmpp:darco@deepdarc.com]xmpp:darco@deepdarc.com[/url]

Dgswaner

Traffic is quite volatile as any major city, my previous house had only one way to my work, 50 miles away, I had days where I had a 3 hour commute one way, so yes, 15 minutes wouldn't make a difference, at my new house I only have a 30 minute commute, and 2 options. the 2nd option beign slightly longer than the 1st so a little earlier would make all of the difference in that case,

Weather would also be another trigger, I live right next to the Great Salt Lake, in Utah, and we can get a massive amount of snow in a hurry, extra time to allow me to drive slower would be great,

as anything this will have it limits and hiccups but if it completely fails on some days, and I get woken up at the wrong time or not notified about something I'm no better off than I am with out it. so I think it's a project well worth doing.

my intent was to have a web page with preformatted info from other sites.... I picked that up from your discussion with other people.

▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
"A complex design is the sign of an inferior designer." - Jamie Hyneman, Myth Buster

DGSwaner

Post Edited (Dgswaner) : 2/20/2008 8:45:38 PM GMT

darco

A few quick observations from your pictures:

C8 needs a 10uF cap, not 0.1uF. Sorry for the confusing silkscreen. This will be fixed in a future board revision.

You will need either a ferrite bead or a wire on L1 (I've used a wire, and it works fine) in order for the ethernet to be properly terminated. It won't work otherwise.

I noticed that you put (what appears to be) 0.1uF caps on C9 and C10. Those caps would be better placed at C13 and C3. C9 and C10 can be left empty with no problems. If you do put caps on them, make sure they are high-voltage (perhaps around 2000v, 0.01uF or less).

Don't forget to put a jumper on J1, otherwise nothing will work. [noparse]:)[/noparse]

Looks great otherwise. Thanks for the pics! It warms my heart to see someone else making what I thought up. [noparse]:)[/noparse]

Also, mind if I put the pics on the ybox2 page I have? [noparse]:D[/noparse]

▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
—
darco
www.deepdarc.com/
[url=mailto:xmpp:darco@deepdarc.com]xmpp:darco@deepdarc.com[/url]

Post Edited (darco) : 2/21/2008 2:49:15 AM GMT

Dgswaner

you did my home work for me.... much appreciated, I did know that I had to change a few caps as you had e-mailed me about. but I would have spent at lest 10-15 minutes tracing back the power to J1, so thanks for the Info, Would you happen to have a Part# for the LED? I read your page about this I have the IRM I just need to install it, and I thought I was going to get a mouser order in before now but I didn't so I'll just use a wire for L1

Can't wait to try this out!

Do what ever you want with the photos! it's your work I'm just the parts installer!

▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
"A complex design is the sign of an inferior designer." - Jamie Hyneman, Myth Buster

DGSwaner

Post Edited (Dgswaner) : 2/20/2008 9:35:51 PM GMT

Harrison.

I have been wanting to do something similar for the past year. My idea was to have a clock that could read my Google Calendar (iCal format) and wake me up accordingly.

Be sure to post updates. Sounds like a really awesome project.

Dgswaner

common Harrison, you know I can't make a web based app with out your help! That's exactly what I had in mind but knowing that I wouldn't be able to do it I was just going to make a custom local page. I'm going get the basics working and then I'll see if I can make that work. I even want my wife to schedule items also,

▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
"A complex design is the sign of an inferior designer." - Jamie Hyneman, Myth Buster

DGSwaner

Drone

You might want to give some thought to the complexity of passing time over the Internet. The server that mashes up the traffic data etc. will probably be running a version of NTP. The Ybox2 might use SNTP for simplicity. But SNTP support is being rapidly deprecated (if it hasn't already) in NTP, but I don't know if it is in the less capable (IMHO) OpenNTP that comes with xBSD. Running a full-up NTP client on ybox2 might be too complicated.

In any case, if you want a real-time clock display, you are going to waste a lot of Internet bandwidth, and possibly delay your applications waiting for time updates unless you have some form of real-time clock software or hardware. There are some nice low-cost high-stability RTC chips out there these days, I2C or SPI interfaces if memory serves.

Regards,

David

stevenmess2004

There is one that Parallax sells that has an driver for it in the obex.

Dgswaner

I haven't got past the general ideas on this project yet I haven't done anything like this to refer to, but my thinking was even if it checks once a minute that would be sufficient, and I was just thinking, that I could add in some conditions where is there were no alarms or triggers in the near future, than it would only check the time every 5-10 minutes, I don't really want this thing displaying the time constantly mostly just when an alarm triggers, the Zoom box would wear out pretty quick if that were always on.

however if it's taking a lot of bandwidth, extra code and time I'm not against a RTC. I'm a firm believer of the KISS method.

thank for the input.

▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
"A complex design is the sign of an inferior designer." - Jamie Hyneman, Myth Buster

DGSwaner

Dgswaner

Success! I made the few corrections listed above, added the IRM and the piezo speaker, uploaded the code and now I have the weather for Austin projected on my wall VIA Zoombox! this is one cool gadget! I have to get one other project out of the way and then I'm going to see what this thing can really do!

Draco, what are you using under the board to keep it from touching the tin. I tried using 1/8" stand off's and it's too tall for the hole pattern, Ruined my tin /cry.

▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
"A complex design is the sign of an inferior designer." - Jamie Hyneman, Myth Buster

DGSwaner

krazieintentz

This sounds like a cool project. I too had this idea. I am a student, and everyday of the week classes can start at a different time which is hard for setting an alarm, most alarms offer just one alarm. So I was using my cellphone for a long time so I can have flexible hours. But my wm6 phone only allowed for up to 3 alarms. Also sometimes I drive to school, other times I take the train to avoid high priced parking. However NYC trains are never on time, and always have some trouble, as well as traffic.

I implemented this same project in C++ at first. It would run my alarm schedule, check the weather, check the mta site for any service interruptions, check traffic driving conditions all in a little window on my laptop.

I later coded it in Labview so I could have a nice user interface and I still use it today. I have also added a phidgets board and I am working on it to start my car for me via remote start (RF link), and maybe turn on my lights.

As we get creative we find our creativity leads us to be more lazy...[noparse]:)[/noparse]

I really hope you get your project to work.

Dgswaner

Well I looked at the example code from Draco, I've have a long way to go before I can even figure out what's going on. and how this thing works, all in due time I guess.

▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
"A complex design is the sign of an inferior designer." - Jamie Hyneman, Myth Buster

DGSwaner

Harrison.

The example code probably looks complex because it contains portions of my tcp sockets code. The way I wrote the code, combined with how it communicates with the remote webserver, makes it a bit confusing. I'm sure you'll figure it out after having some time to mess around with it.

I'm hoping to get started on my alarm clock project soon. If only I could find a nice little display that could run 24/7 to show time and the next alarm time....