5 ms·

If you're looking for something with an addressable LED matrix in a clock style form factor, the Ulanzi TC001 [0] for ~$50 is worth having a look at. Doesn't q

If you're looking for something with an addressable LED matrix in a clock style form factor, the Ulanzi TC001 [0] for ~$50 is worth having a look at. Doesn't quite have the same aesthetic but inside it's just an ESP32 (flashed via the USB-C port) and there's various mature open source firmware replacements. I use awtrix[1] on mine and it's very easy to tie in HomeAssistant for doorbell notifications and that sort of thing. I did also knock up a Pomodoro app for it. 0: https://www.ulanzi.com/products/ulanzi-pixel-smart-clock-2882 https://www.ulanzi.com/products/ulanzi-pixel-smart-clock-288... 1: https://github.com/Blueforcer/awtrix3 https://github.com/Blueforcer/awtrix3

import 2y ago
I have 2 of them and love them, blueforcer firmware supports home assistant and I can mix it with automations
CobrastanJorji 2y ago
I was going to say that $200 seemed awfully expensive for a programmable kitchen timer. I've had a project idea for a while that would require a bit more juice. In short, I want to make a music practice timer for ADHD kids that avoid actually playing music during practice time. I want it to be beefy enough to run some simple ML for detecting instruments being played, and I only want the timer to count down while the instruments are playing. I picture it looking a lot like the clock above, but with something like a Raspberry Pi jammed inside so it's got enough power to reliably detect "violin." Any ideas on hardware for that?
- r2_pilot 2y ago
  "Identifying Different Musical Instrument Sounds Using Fourier Analysis in LabVIEW" Rather than "ML" du jour, I would say that a fast Fourier transform would get you sufficient data to determine if practicing or talking or silence.
  - CobrastanJorji 2y ago
    Definitely valid callout. I was also looking for an excuse to play with audio ML, but you're totally right that just examining a Fourier series could very likely do a great job of determining whether a given type of instrument is being played.
    - girvo 2y ago
      Which an FFT on an ESP32-S3 with it's Xtensa LX7 vector extensions can be quite fast https://www.reddit.com/r/arduino/comments/16asjx9/esp32s3_doing_fft_on_mic_input/ https://www.reddit.com/r/arduino/comments/16asjx9/esp32s3_do...
      - r2_pilot 2y ago
        The actual github : https://github.com/stolk/little_kiss_fft https://github.com/stolk/little_kiss_fft
- bobnamob 2y ago
  The adversarial child would be playing recordings into the timer within minutes no?
  - knownjorbist 2y ago
    For the non-adversary who wants something similar in nature, that might help them practice, why not? Not everyone is trying to cheat.
  - CobrastanJorji 2y ago
    I'm assuming the child is question is not so much adversarial so much as ADHD. They'll be actively looking to divert their attention to more stimulating activities than playing an instrument but not attempting to cheat the system. And I'm assuming a parent is present but not necessarily in full control of the child. Or it could work equally well for an adult in a similar situation.
- blutack 2y ago
  The ESP32S(1?) that's inside is fairly powerful as embedded mcus go but that said... If you need grunt and you don't specifically want the aesthetic of an led matrix panel you'd probably be better off with an old phone or tablet based thing. The TC001 afaik doesn't have any mics inside anyway.
- seabass-labrax 2y ago
  Hate to burst your bubble, but as an amateur musician I fear this would backfire, or at least fail to result in any improvement in playing ability. Silence and time are absolutely critical to playing music. By analogy, measuring 'time spent drawing bow across strings' would be as useful to a violin student as 'time spent pressing foot on accelerator' would be to a driving student! From my own experience learning to play the organ, I have improved least when I play relatively fluidly, practising with music well within my abilities. On the contrary, the most improvement has come when I've slowed down, allowed myself to count the timing, repeat sections, read the sheet music more carefully or even just take a break entirely. So although silence won't improve one's playing by itself, I think it's a natural by-product of an effective studying technique that, if at all possible, shouldn't be discouraged with such a timer.
  - metabagel 2y ago
    There could be an allowance for time spent not playing music. Keep the timer going for a few minutes after the music has stopped. Require a minimum ratio of music playing time to overall time. So, after a lengthy silence, only playing music will advance the timer. But, yeah, it may or may not be helpful.
  - CobrastanJorji 2y ago
    It's a great point. For a contemplative learner deeply focused on what they're doing, this is definitely a bad idea. I'm aiming at sort of the opposite kind of learner.
- zuppy 2y ago
  i'm building a low volume product. if you add the cost unfortunately you will see it's impossible to do something of good quality and low volume with much lower price. you don't only add the sum of the electronic parts, but materials, r&d, payment for the one who does the assembly, marketing, taxes & accounting, shipping package, refunds and defects, payment for someone to produce it or the usage of your existing equipment, etc. if you add all of these, you will see that it's not cheap.
purpleidea 2y ago
Neat! Can't tell if it has a speaker at the back or not. Would like to play sounds or alarms... I'd love to attach this to a PoE to USB-C ethernet adapter to talk to it over API via hardwired. Still looking for something like that. The flipper busy bar seems to at least have some connectivity over USB.
- wildekek 2y ago
  It has a small piezo buzzer, and you can use it to play RTTTL sounds. https://blueforcer.github.io/awtrix3/#/sounds https://blueforcer.github.io/awtrix3/#/sounds I have to warn that it sounds like hot garbage though. The neat thing with ESP32 devices is that you can make it sound okay using its built in 8-bit DACs, or great using I²S. Speaking of hardware hacking; you can also get POE/LAN adaptors for the ESP32, if you have free hardware pins left for it.
  - blutack 2y ago
    +1 for the hot garbage piezo, but as OP says the ESP32 has a lot of fun hacking potential and there's plenty of space in the case especially if you remove the battery.
dr_kiszonka 2y ago
Neat! This is very close to what I want. I am looking for a very affordable device like this to affix to my home office doors. I would like it to be programmable allowing me to set the status to Don't Enter when I am having a Zoom call, etc.
- blutack 2y ago
  Very simple if you flash it with awtrix, it has a neat JSON API.
- adamyormark 2y ago
  [flagged]
- eastbound 2y ago
  I’d like it to have buttons (the apps Ulanzi mention are view-only).
password4321 2y ago
This 16x32 RGB LED panel (6.75"x2.75", USB powered, Bluetooth programmable) was $15 for a while, now $26: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CP5P7RY7 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CP5P7RY7 Programming it with your own code is still a mess, see "Panel Communication": https://github.com/auc0le/JT-Edit https://github.com/auc0le/JT-Edit
- nine_k 2y ago
  Could be even cheaper as a string of addressable LEDs + some arduino board. But quite some people are happy to pay the extra $174 for not needing to hack together software, a housing, physical controls, etc.
astrostl 2y ago
Yes, exactly, thank you! I have a Tidbyt that I enjoy but it's pricy and has a subscription local API. I thought the thing in the OP might be a discount smart home alternative and was hoping to find exactly this kind of alternative recommendation in the comments.
rkachowski 2y ago
ahh that's incredible. I've attempted similar projects with various devices over time. this looks cool!
m4r71n 2y ago
This looks great! I've considered building a simple device with an LED matrix that looks similar to this, but could never figure out what gives the LEDs the muted look. All of the devices mentioned here (Tidbyt Gen2, Lamarca, Ulanzi, even the busy.bar) have it. Is the back-pannel just an LED matrix with a custom acrylic in front of it? How do they ensure the light from individual LEDs doesn't bleed into its neighbor?
- egeozcan 2y ago
  > custom acrylic While I'm not an expert, my own experimentation suggests this is correct
- blutack 2y ago
  I wouldn't swear to it but from mine it looks like there's a grid of light guides between the led PCB and the front screen to prevent any cross bleed. The front screen is translucent but not transparent (think heavy tinted window) acrylic which gives it the muted look. It's pretty good hardware wise, it would be hard to knock up DIY for $50 even just in BOM. Edit: teardown in German https://youtu.be/-Dn3A5V8ZPo https://youtu.be/-Dn3A5V8ZPo @ 04:30
jdoss 2y ago
This looks exactly what I have been looking for to put outside of my home office to keep my family from interrupting me during work meetings. Thanks for sharing it!
- adamyormark 2y ago
  [flagged]
- eastbound 2y ago
  The “Live on air!” sign that triggers with Zoom (or Slack) is a very common usecase. I wonder why it’s not better addressed. It needs to 1. be out of the office, on the door, 2. therefore bluetooth, 3. always on, and 4. it’s simple on/off light!
blutack 2y ago
As I'm too late to edit - if you use it in a setting where it's always powered, you might want to consider removing the battery as a safety measure. It's a fairly simple hardware hack, various YouTube videos and blogs on the subject.
sylvinus 2y ago
The Ulanzi TC001 is a great, cheap piece of hardware. I found a second-hand one for $20 and flashed it via USB with https://github.com/lubeda/EspHoMaTriXv2 https://github.com/lubeda/EspHoMaTriXv2, a more practical firmware if you already have a bunch of ESPHome devices at home.
Psychotherapist 2y ago
Thank you! This is a nice rabbit hole to go down to. I've previously thought about building one myself, but this is probably way nicer.
nsbk 2y ago
That looks amazing! I'm ordering one, thanks for the tip!
ornornor 2y ago
Thanks! Love the marketing on it: « the body is moderately thick and thin »

import 2y ago

I have 2 of them and love them, blueforcer firmware supports home assistant and I can mix it with automations

CobrastanJorji 2y ago

I was going to say that $200 seemed awfully expensive for a programmable kitchen timer. I've had a project idea for a while that would require a bit more juice. In short, I want to make a music practice timer for ADHD kids that avoid actually playing music during practice time. I want it to be beefy enough to run some simple ML for detecting instruments being played, and I only want the timer to count down while the instruments are playing. I picture it looking a lot like the clock above, but with something like a Raspberry Pi jammed inside so it's got enough power to reliably detect "violin." Any ideas on hardware for that?

r2_pilot 2y ago
"Identifying Different Musical Instrument Sounds Using Fourier Analysis in LabVIEW" Rather than "ML" du jour, I would say that a fast Fourier transform would get you sufficient data to determine if practicing or talking or silence.
- CobrastanJorji 2y ago
  Definitely valid callout. I was also looking for an excuse to play with audio ML, but you're totally right that just examining a Fourier series could very likely do a great job of determining whether a given type of instrument is being played.
  - girvo 2y ago
    Which an FFT on an ESP32-S3 with it's Xtensa LX7 vector extensions can be quite fast https://www.reddit.com/r/arduino/comments/16asjx9/esp32s3_doing_fft_on_mic_input/ https://www.reddit.com/r/arduino/comments/16asjx9/esp32s3_do...
    - r2_pilot 2y ago
      The actual github : https://github.com/stolk/little_kiss_fft https://github.com/stolk/little_kiss_fft
bobnamob 2y ago
The adversarial child would be playing recordings into the timer within minutes no?
- knownjorbist 2y ago
  For the non-adversary who wants something similar in nature, that might help them practice, why not? Not everyone is trying to cheat.
- CobrastanJorji 2y ago
  I'm assuming the child is question is not so much adversarial so much as ADHD. They'll be actively looking to divert their attention to more stimulating activities than playing an instrument but not attempting to cheat the system. And I'm assuming a parent is present but not necessarily in full control of the child. Or it could work equally well for an adult in a similar situation.
blutack 2y ago
The ESP32S(1?) that's inside is fairly powerful as embedded mcus go but that said... If you need grunt and you don't specifically want the aesthetic of an led matrix panel you'd probably be better off with an old phone or tablet based thing. The TC001 afaik doesn't have any mics inside anyway.
seabass-labrax 2y ago
Hate to burst your bubble, but as an amateur musician I fear this would backfire, or at least fail to result in any improvement in playing ability. Silence and time are absolutely critical to playing music. By analogy, measuring 'time spent drawing bow across strings' would be as useful to a violin student as 'time spent pressing foot on accelerator' would be to a driving student! From my own experience learning to play the organ, I have improved least when I play relatively fluidly, practising with music well within my abilities. On the contrary, the most improvement has come when I've slowed down, allowed myself to count the timing, repeat sections, read the sheet music more carefully or even just take a break entirely. So although silence won't improve one's playing by itself, I think it's a natural by-product of an effective studying technique that, if at all possible, shouldn't be discouraged with such a timer.
- metabagel 2y ago
  There could be an allowance for time spent not playing music. Keep the timer going for a few minutes after the music has stopped. Require a minimum ratio of music playing time to overall time. So, after a lengthy silence, only playing music will advance the timer. But, yeah, it may or may not be helpful.
- CobrastanJorji 2y ago
  It's a great point. For a contemplative learner deeply focused on what they're doing, this is definitely a bad idea. I'm aiming at sort of the opposite kind of learner.
zuppy 2y ago
i'm building a low volume product. if you add the cost unfortunately you will see it's impossible to do something of good quality and low volume with much lower price. you don't only add the sum of the electronic parts, but materials, r&d, payment for the one who does the assembly, marketing, taxes & accounting, shipping package, refunds and defects, payment for someone to produce it or the usage of your existing equipment, etc. if you add all of these, you will see that it's not cheap.

purpleidea 2y ago

Neat! Can't tell if it has a speaker at the back or not. Would like to play sounds or alarms... I'd love to attach this to a PoE to USB-C ethernet adapter to talk to it over API via hardwired. Still looking for something like that. The flipper busy bar seems to at least have some connectivity over USB.

wildekek 2y ago
It has a small piezo buzzer, and you can use it to play RTTTL sounds. https://blueforcer.github.io/awtrix3/#/sounds https://blueforcer.github.io/awtrix3/#/sounds I have to warn that it sounds like hot garbage though. The neat thing with ESP32 devices is that you can make it sound okay using its built in 8-bit DACs, or great using I²S. Speaking of hardware hacking; you can also get POE/LAN adaptors for the ESP32, if you have free hardware pins left for it.
- blutack 2y ago
  +1 for the hot garbage piezo, but as OP says the ESP32 has a lot of fun hacking potential and there's plenty of space in the case especially if you remove the battery.

dr_kiszonka 2y ago

Neat! This is very close to what I want. I am looking for a very affordable device like this to affix to my home office doors. I would like it to be programmable allowing me to set the status to Don't Enter when I am having a Zoom call, etc.

blutack 2y ago
Very simple if you flash it with awtrix, it has a neat JSON API.
adamyormark 2y ago
[flagged]
eastbound 2y ago
I’d like it to have buttons (the apps Ulanzi mention are view-only).

password4321 2y ago

This 16x32 RGB LED panel (6.75"x2.75", USB powered, Bluetooth programmable) was $15 for a while, now $26: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CP5P7RY7 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CP5P7RY7 Programming it with your own code is still a mess, see "Panel Communication": https://github.com/auc0le/JT-Edit https://github.com/auc0le/JT-Edit

nine_k 2y ago
Could be even cheaper as a string of addressable LEDs + some arduino board. But quite some people are happy to pay the extra $174 for not needing to hack together software, a housing, physical controls, etc.

astrostl 2y ago

Yes, exactly, thank you! I have a Tidbyt that I enjoy but it's pricy and has a subscription local API. I thought the thing in the OP might be a discount smart home alternative and was hoping to find exactly this kind of alternative recommendation in the comments.

rkachowski 2y ago

ahh that's incredible. I've attempted similar projects with various devices over time. this looks cool!

m4r71n 2y ago

This looks great! I've considered building a simple device with an LED matrix that looks similar to this, but could never figure out what gives the LEDs the muted look. All of the devices mentioned here (Tidbyt Gen2, Lamarca, Ulanzi, even the busy.bar) have it. Is the back-pannel just an LED matrix with a custom acrylic in front of it? How do they ensure the light from individual LEDs doesn't bleed into its neighbor?

egeozcan 2y ago
> custom acrylic While I'm not an expert, my own experimentation suggests this is correct
blutack 2y ago
I wouldn't swear to it but from mine it looks like there's a grid of light guides between the led PCB and the front screen to prevent any cross bleed. The front screen is translucent but not transparent (think heavy tinted window) acrylic which gives it the muted look. It's pretty good hardware wise, it would be hard to knock up DIY for $50 even just in BOM. Edit: teardown in German https://youtu.be/-Dn3A5V8ZPo https://youtu.be/-Dn3A5V8ZPo @ 04:30

jdoss 2y ago

This looks exactly what I have been looking for to put outside of my home office to keep my family from interrupting me during work meetings. Thanks for sharing it!

adamyormark 2y ago
[flagged]
eastbound 2y ago
The “Live on air!” sign that triggers with Zoom (or Slack) is a very common usecase. I wonder why it’s not better addressed. It needs to 1. be out of the office, on the door, 2. therefore bluetooth, 3. always on, and 4. it’s simple on/off light!

blutack 2y ago

As I'm too late to edit - if you use it in a setting where it's always powered, you might want to consider removing the battery as a safety measure. It's a fairly simple hardware hack, various YouTube videos and blogs on the subject.

sylvinus 2y ago

The Ulanzi TC001 is a great, cheap piece of hardware. I found a second-hand one for $20 and flashed it via USB with https://github.com/lubeda/EspHoMaTriXv2 https://github.com/lubeda/EspHoMaTriXv2, a more practical firmware if you already have a bunch of ESPHome devices at home.

Psychotherapist 2y ago

Thank you! This is a nice rabbit hole to go down to. I've previously thought about building one myself, but this is probably way nicer.

nsbk 2y ago

That looks amazing! I'm ordering one, thanks for the tip!

ornornor 2y ago

Thanks! Love the marketing on it: « the body is moderately thick and thin »