Glen Akins’ Bike Rack Will get Sensible But Accessible Lighting, Due to Zigbee, MQTT, and Python

Maker Glen Akins is making good lights smarter as soon as once more — this time including waterproof bodily buttons to regulate panorama lights over Zigbee.

“We had a a lot wetter than regular summer time right here final 12 months. My bike (and myself) had been usually too muddy to usher in the home after a journey,” Akins explains of the inspiration behind his newest lighting undertaking. “I would both get finished with an evening journey or get house after darkish after a protracted drive house and could not see to rinse the bike off within the yard bike rack I constructed a few years in the past. I made a decision I wanted some lights for the bike rack and I wished to regulate them outdoor with actual buttons. I didn’t need to have to dig my telephone out of my pocket or take my gloves off or stroll in the home to regulate the lights.”

The precise lights themselves are off-the-shelf pathway lights, which might be set to output a heat white mild or a colour of the consumer’s alternative through the corporate’s proprietary smartphone app. If you’re again from a chilly, muddy bike journey, although, you won’t need to dig your telephone out of your pocket — which is the place Akins’ bodily buttons come into play.

“I chosen some generic 22mm momentary mushroom head push buttons in vibrant colours. They’re listed as IP65 however I’m a bit skeptical,” Akins writes of the chosen chunky buttons, completed in purple and inexperienced for on and off respectively. These had been fitted to off-the-shelf IP65 enclosures into which Akins fitted a customized management board primarily based across the Minew Semiconductor MS88SF2 module, constructed across the Nordic Semiconductor nRF52840 — a tool low energy sufficient to run from a CR2450 coin cell battery hooked up to the board’s rear.

Zigbee2MQTT with a customized converter proved able to listening out for a button push, transmitting actions to an MQTT dealer for consumption by a subscribing Python program. This then handles truly controlling the lights, bypassing the necessity for the proprietary smartphone app by way of using the TinyTuya Python library — one thing with which Akins was already acquainted because of a earlier undertaking in placing patio lights from the identical firm below Python management.

Full undertaking particulars can be found on Akins’ weblog; supply code and board design recordsdata can be found on GitHub below an unspecified license.