Introduction: Personal EClock

By Break-Make-Invent
About: Love 3D printing , Raspberry Pi tools. Like to learn new things and share the same. Working on spreading maker culture around Pune region in India.

This project uses Raspberry Pi's programming capability to create your personal alert system. Now a days you can get these alerts on your smart phone anyways, but carrying your phone always in home is sometimes annoying. I though why not to create a digital clock, Weather condition and Rail Line alert display. So when I wake up in the morning and before heading to my office, I know 'how is my day starting' , what I should wear today (looking at weather condition), should I leave early and catch bus instead of train (if rail line is showing delays).

As I mentioned there are three sections :

Though project involves hardware but most of the items are easily available online and you don't need much hardware knowledge, but yes you would need little programming knowledge to modify the python program to make it work for you. (People in UK-London can use all three sections readily with little changes and rest of the world can use first two sections at least).

Recently added UK Hot Deals API, to get latest deals for clothing and perfumes(See second picture)

Step 1: Get Raspberry Pi and All Accessories

To create this project you need following items :

  1. Raspberry Pi A,B
  2. Wi Fi dongle (RBPi compatible)
  3. RBPi Touch Screen Display with frame (https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/raspberry-pi-7-...
  4. Dual Micro USB Cable as need to power RBPi and Display (https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/split-microb-us...
  5. Raspbian pre-installed SD card (https://thepihut.com/collections/raspberry-pi-acce...
  6. Power Supply (2.5 Amp) - (https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/raspberry-pi-un...

Apart from these items you would also need :

  • USB Keyboard
  • USB Mouse
  • Wi Fi Internet connection

Step 2: Set Up Display With Raspberry Pi

Once you attached display to raspberry pi , you can insert micro SD card with latest Raspbian version, you are ready to go.

Insert your Wi Fi Dongle , USB Keyboard and Mouse to RBPi USB ports and power on RBPi.

In case you need to install OS, then do it.

Configure your Wi Fi settings so your Raspberry Pi is always connected to your home Wi-Fi network.

Step 3: Upload Program and Run

Attached here is the program 'eClock.py' which you can use to display digital clock , Weather Condition and Rail Alert.

Download and upload this file at home folder of PI from where you can run python program.

As I mentioned , there are three section. Clock doesn't require any changes, but Weather and Rail Alerts do.

Weather API :

'http://api.openweathermap.org/data/2.5/weather?id= &appid= &units=metric'

You have to customize your location and app id. Visit "http://openweathermap.org/api" to register yourself and get those details.

TFL Line API :

https://api.tfl.gov.uk/StopPoint//Disruption?getFamily=False&includeRouteBlockedStops=False&app_id=&app_key=

Register yourself visiting "https://api-portal.tfl.gov.uk/login"

You can use other TFL API too if you want. There are many handy APIs available for use.

Latest update with Version of eCLock v11.py :

Recently added UK Hot Deal API, to get latest Hot deals for clothing and perfume, you can updated URLs in function. You can register yourself with "http://www.hotukdeals.com/rest-api" to get access.

http://api.hotukdeals.com/rest_api/v2/?

UK Hot Deals APIs:

http://api.hotukdeals.com/rest_api/v2/?key=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx&order=hot&forum=deals&category=fashion&tag=perfume&output=json&results_per_page=5'

You need to update key,category,tag as per your requirement.

Currently program retrieves Clothing (especially shirts) and perfume deals, you can modify as per your needs.

Attachments