DIY Sunrise alarm clock and speaker system

[japoll]

Ive been thinking about intergrating an alarm clock powered by some raspberry pi or arduino into my bed. Im planning to install some leds to mimic a sunrise and of course speakers, a display for the clock and control of the whole thing (some raspberry/arduino) which would also need to support bluetooth as i would like to use the speakers from my phone. Im just looking for suggestions for parts and software i should use for this thing, especially in terms of the control device everything will be hooked up to (whats the most budget friendly and suitable device) and leds that would be suitable for a use case like this.

[Aranwe]

Hi @japoll !

 

There are many ways to achieve such a project, depending on your desired result. Given that this is a "one off" the easiest route would be a "lego" approach by using existing modules and just wiring everything to do what you want. If you want something nice-er you can make a custom pcb for the whole thing but that will take more time and effort.

 

This might be the electronics engineer point of view so others might disagree, but I'd say a Raspberry Pi is overkill for such a basic task. I'd recommend an ESP32, which is still very powerfull when it comes to MCUs, and most importantly it has Wi-Fi so you can easily get NTP time, add automation etc. It's also cheaper, easier to find, commonly used so well documented etc.

 

As for the audio system you can buy an off the shelf bluetooth reciever and AMP so you don't have to deal with the whole audio side of things, and have the volume and pause/play controled by the ESP32.

 

For the LED strips I never used any, but I'd say any will do the job just fine as long as you have access to the data line and it comes with a good power supply.

 

So these are some other parts you'll probably need  :

• RTC module to keep time
• LCD, this will depend on the aestetics you're looking for (16x2, dot matric, 7 segment...)
• Bluetooth audio reciever + amp + speakers

 

Hope this helps !

 

[Aranwe]

Also take a look at GreatScott's channel for some ideas  not exactly the same project but you can certainly adapt it to your needs !

 

[japoll]

On 11/16/2023 at 10:55 AM, Aranwe said:

Hi @japoll !

 

There are many ways to achieve such a project, depending on your desired result. Given that this is a "one off" the easiest route would be a "lego" approach by using existing modules and just wiring everything to do what you want. If you want something nice-er you can make a custom pcb for the whole thing but that will take more time and effort.

 

This might be the electronics engineer point of view so others might disagree, but I'd say a Raspberry Pi is overkill for such a basic task. I'd recommend an ESP32, which is still very powerfull when it comes to MCUs, and most importantly it has Wi-Fi so you can easily get NTP time, add automation etc. It's also cheaper, easier to find, commonly used so well documented etc.

 

As for the audio system you can buy an off the shelf bluetooth reciever and AMP so you don't have to deal with the whole audio side of things, and have the volume and pause/play controled by the ESP32.

 

For the LED strips I never used any, but I'd say any will do the job just fine as long as you have access to the data line and it comes with a good power supply.

 

So these are some other parts you'll probably need  :

• RTC module to keep time
• LCD, this will depend on the aestetics you're looking for (16x2, dot matric, 7 segment...)
• Bluetooth audio reciever + amp + speakers

 

Hope this helps !

 

I did quite a bit more research and got most things figured, but got stuck on the audio a bit, by the fact that i should use a bluetooth reciever, even though the esp32 has one built in, did you mean that I should connect the speakers to bluetooth and tell them what to play through bluetooth from the esp32. That sounds like it could function just dont know how to go about doing that