BrickClock

An ESP32-Arduino simple alarm clock with some weather monitoring features.

Description

Some key points about the project:

• BrickClock is a simple alarm clock plus temperature, pressure and humidity monitoring
• The name comes from the fact that I personally used a big Lego brick as a case
• A WiFi connection is required to operate
• It has a BMP280 sensor to collect indoor data whereas the OpenWeather API is used to get outdoor data;
  Maybe in the future I'll use another sensor to collect external temperature and humidity... we'll see
• It use a HR-SR04 ultrasonic sensor as a unique, sleepiness-proof, interface with the user: roughly put your hand in front of the clock to stop the alarm sound or change the view.
• All the settings are made through the exposed web page
• The collected data is saved inside an SD card
• A simple chart of pressure and outdoor temperature is shown on the display
• A more complex chart including humidity and both indoor and outdoor data is accessible through the exposed web page
• There is a RGB Led on the back that can be configured to change color by time
• The alarm can be scheduled by week days and the melody is a nerdy Start Wars theme (I'm planning to make it customizable)

How it looks

Ok, neither building cases nor css are my speciality.

Parts list

• ESP32 - 38 pin variant - Amazon
• ST7735S - TFT Display 160x128 with SD card reader - Amazon - Amazon (alternative)
• HC-SR04 Ultrasonic Distance Sensor - Amazon
• RGB LED (com. cathode, rbg) - Amazon
• BMP180 - Barometric Pressure Sensor - Amazon
• 4 X 220Ω Resistor - Amazon (220Ω) - Amazon (assorted)
• Speaker - I usually salvage it from old toys - Banggood

Of course you will also need common prototyping tools:

• Large Breadboard - Amazon
• Jumper Wires - Amazon

And if you are going to solder everything in something permanent:

• A soldering kit - Amazon
• Perfboards - Amazon

Libraries required

• Adafruit_BME280_Library
• Adafruit_Unified_Sensor
• ArduinoJson
• AsyncTCP
• ESPAsyncTCP
• ESPAsyncWebServer
• TFT_eSPI
• melody-player

Breadboard

Schematics

Useful links

• Arduino IDE
• ESP32 Board for Arduino
• VS Code
• VS Code Arduino Extension
• ArduinoJSON Assistant: the tool used to compute json buffer size
• Fritzing download

To Do

• try to reduce json payload size
• check if it is possible to not use additional buffer in json serialization
• better naming in the configuration struct
• remove all Serial print if not in in debug
• make the alarm melody editable
• investigate and filter out abnormal sensor reading