Quick help needed if possible?

I’m sorry to write asking for more help than I would normally. We’ve just moved into a new house. A very tall but very narrow Victorian terrace. We’ve got a typical amount of space for England but spread across more floors than is perhaps typical. Basically we’ve got a situation where the doorbell could ring and depending on what floor we’re on, there’s a very good chance we won’t hear it.

Now I’ve got four Spark Cores sitting doing nothing and it occurred to me they could be pressed into service to act as a doorbell ‘system’ for the house. One Spark Core could sit on the door and poll the push button (the door bell). Another could sit in the basement and light an LED and/or sound a buzzer. A third could sit on the 1st floor and do the same there. And a fourth could sit in our attic bedroom and do the same there.

Now the thing is (here’s the ask) I don’t really have the time to write this code myself at the moment. We’ve got a new baby, HUNDREDS (I’m exaggerating but there’s a lot!) of boxes to unpack and lots of sort of more mundane less fun but more pressing projects to complete before my wife would countenance letting me play with electronics and indulge my interests.

So would anyone fancy (quite happy to pay or make a charity donation) writing the (presumably particle publish/subscribe-based?) code for me? Basically the sketches would need to be fairly complete and I could then just wire them up.

As I say (in case this is offence or against the netiquette of this forum) I am quite happy to pay/make a charity donation.

THANK YOU

The code is fairly simple, but we’d need to know what hardware you have available to hook up, and how you’re planning on connecting things?

Doorbell button:
https://go.particle.io/shared_apps/59542d6cd2ef45addb001624

Doorbell notifier:
https://go.particle.io/shared_apps/59542f84d2ef45f5cc001606

Like what @Moors7 mentioned, we will need to know the hardware involved.

Some other considerations:

  1. How will you turn off the notification (buzzer, led) when you receive the guest? Or simply wait for it to timeout?
  2. Are you able to wire up a microUSB cable to the entrance for the doorbell? Otherwise, changing batteries might be painful.

I took the liberty to write some basic code and shared here as part of the motivation to secure a donation for greater good.

Happy to modify and test the code when you get things setup!

1 Like

Connecting things: I was thinking particle subscribe and publish - so wirelessly - is that what you meant?
Do you mean my I/O devices or how my Cores will talk to one another? Sorry!!

  1. Notification to be simply turned on for a few seconds when an input is detected on the push button connected to core 1. Like a traditional doorbell in that regard but just mirrored wirelessly to the other devices. And it’s quite possible in the attic I might have a buzzer whereas in the basement I might use an LED. I can (I think? I hope!) work that out myself…famous last words…
  2. Yes I can wire up power in the form of a microUSB

I will take a look at your code - thank you! :smiley: :smiley:

I was hoping on figuring out how you were planning on hooking up the doorbell, since those voltages might be too high for a direct input. But, if you can figure out the hardware, and let us know what signals we have to work with (a digital input, a pizzo buzzer output, neopixels, etc.) then most of the code should be easy enough to write :slight_smile:

Hi Moors7. I THINK I can figure out the hardware OK. I think it’s a 12v doorbell. But I have some relays for that. Working with a digital input (the doorbell), a 12v AC doorbell (but switched by a DC relay) and some regular LEDs.

1 Like