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| Thread ID: 150022 | 2021-08-12 00:53:00 | Wifi from the mailbox? | Tony (4941) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 1479313 | 2021-08-12 04:28:00 | Change the box? Ours has a glass panel door. I can see it from the lounge. I painted the inside black and now letters and small parcels, white, brown, whatever....stand out clearly.....even my mum can see from there now. Couriers all know to leave packages round back on the table on deck, and they all do. Also mail is only delivered certain days of the week now, look up which are your days.... Can't see my mailbox from the front door. Our delivery days/times seem to be completely random at the moment. |
Tony (4941) | ||
| 1479314 | 2021-08-12 05:13:00 | Using a microswitch: www.jaycar.co.nz |
psycik (12851) | ||
| 1479315 | 2021-08-12 05:15:00 | Using a microswitch: www.jaycar.co.nz That looks almost exactly like what I want to do. Thanks. |
Tony (4941) | ||
| 1479316 | 2021-08-21 00:14:00 | I've made some progress. I'm using the project plan posted by Psycik. I got all the bits from Jaycar and jumped in. The instructions are actually pretty opaque, and include some irrelevant bits, but I ploughed on. It turns out it uses IFTTT which I'd heard about but never used, so that was another learning curve. IFTTT is good, but once again the navigation could be easier. The little logic board is Arduino-based, so I started on that adventure as well. I eventually got the canned code tailored and loaded, so now I have a setup which works on my workbench and sends a signal to my phone on demand. (One major consideration will be finding an appropriate notification tone. I'm thinking of a sultry female saying "You've got mail'' :)). The next step is to take it out to the mailbox. The issues there will be siting the microswitch so that it gets fired reliably and doesn't get damaged or jam up the mail delivery, and siting the logic box so that it is in range of my wifi. I'm expecting that inside the mailbox will not be an option, but I'm hoping that fixing it to the outside underneath might do the trick and be protected enough from the weather. I'll post again with photos when I'm all set up. |
Tony (4941) | ||
| 1479317 | 2021-08-21 01:07:00 | How is your arduino talking to ifttt? I use mqtt internally in my network for all sorts of stuff, but seems a bit over the top for just one device Or your could just write some code to talk to something like pushover if you just want a notification on a phone |
psycik (12851) | ||
| 1479318 | 2021-08-21 02:22:00 | How is your arduino talking to ifttt? I use mqtt internally in my network for all sorts of stuff, but seems a bit over the top for just one device Or your could just write some code to talk to something like pushover if you just want a notification on a phone There are implications there that I actually understand what I am doing rather than just blindly following some instructions.:confused: As I understand it, when the arduino is triggered, it sends a message to IFTTT with my identifiers, and IFTTT then automagically sends me a notification that I defined when I set up the IFTTT recipe. MQTT and Pushover are both unknown to me, but I'll have a look at them. |
Tony (4941) | ||
| 1479319 | 2021-08-21 02:34:00 | Mqtt is a message service that you have to run at home. Bit overkill for what you’re doing. I have all my house temperatures and lots of other stuff running through mine, it’s heavily used. Maybe 100 messages a second. Pushover is a notification service where you run a pushover app on your phone, and it has an easy api command for sending a message to your phone. That would work well for you rather than adding ifttt to the mix. I assume you’re just using ifttt for posting a notification? Or are you also performing an action. Also if it’s working, you can just ignore me. Pushover is still internet based so no real benefit. Mqtt is a local thing though that doesn’t use “the cloud”. But to get a notification out you also need something else. Like I said overkill. |
psycik (12851) | ||
| 1479320 | 2021-08-21 03:31:00 | I think for what I am trying to do and its importance in the grand scheme of things, what I have will be quite enough. Maybe when I come to update my smart(ish) house MQTT might be worth a look. | Tony (4941) | ||
| 1479321 | 2021-08-22 06:25:00 | I've confirmed that is in WiFi range at the mailbox and will send messages from there. :thumbs: The next thing is to work out how to mount the microswitch inside the mailbox. This is going to be trickier that it might seem, as I have to have it so the mail will reliably trigger it without it causing the letters to jam. The location of the terminals doesn't help either - see pic. I think I will have to mount the switch on a block that will attach to the inside side of the mailbox, with a horizontal bar attached that will actually do the triggering. Unless there are other ideas? 11054 |
Tony (4941) | ||
| 1479322 | 2021-08-22 21:38:00 | Maybe have a look at an optical switch like this one at Jaycar Photo Interrupter CAT.NO:ZD1901 to trigger a circut when something enters the box. It may work better than a mechanical one unless you keep spiders in your mailbox :) | CliveM (6007) | ||
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