Published October 29, 2017 © Apache-2.0

Room Automation for Kids

A Google Assistant compatible box for kids (from 2 years old) to control lights and other devices in their room.

IntermediateFull instructions provided4 hours15,837

Things used in this project

Hardware components

TechNexion PICO-IMX7

NXP i.MX7D

Adafruit Mini USB Microphone

RC522 RFID Module

SparkFun Arduino Pro Mini 328 - 3.3V/8MHz

Acts as a proxy between the RC522 and the Android Things board

SparkFun Big Red Dome Button

Red, Green, Blue, Yellow, White, Black

Resistor 221 ohm

Pull-up resistors

Resistor 1k ohm

Pull-up resistor for the last button, connected to the 1.8V GPIO

Jumper wires (generic)

Breadboard (generic)

Audio Speakers 3.5mm jack USB powered

Or any compatible audio speaker

Software apps and online services

Google Android Things

Google Assistant SDK

Story

Home automation is not limited to adults! This device lets children control lights and other devices in their rooms, in a fun and easy way.

This project is a box with an NFC sensor and 6 colored buttons. When a kid places an RFID device on top of the box (such as a "toys-to-life" figurine) and presses a color button, it will have a direction action in his room, depending on the RFID device.

Among the possible actions, you can:

Change the light color

Control the fan

Play some music

Learn colors in Chinese

Talk to the Google Assistant

Here's a video of the prototype, in action:

Prototype

Children have lots of imagination. Here, controlling the light color is a fun way to imitate the police siren:

Police Siren Imitation

Handling RFID devices

To simplify using the RC522 RFID Module, we will use an Arduino Pro Mini 3.3V as a proxy.

The Arduino will read RFID devices UIDs, and forward those to the Serial bus, as you can see in the enclosed Arduino sketch (in the "Code" section below).

To receive UIDs from the RC522 module to the Android Things project, a LiveData (from the Android Architecture Components) wrapper will listen to the UART serial, and emit received data (see the enclosed Rc522LiveData file in the "Code" section below).

Now, when a device is detected, the Android Things project will know the ID. When pressed, buttons will have different actions, depending on the last emitted RFID UID.

Handling buttons events

The device has 6 buttons: red, green, blue, yellow, white and black.

We will therefore need 6 buttons and 6 (pull-up) resistors, and again create a LiveData wrapper, so that when a button is pressed, an event is emitted to the observer (our MainActivity)

(See the ButtonsLiveData in the "Code" section below)

Let's use a tissue-box to prototype our device, and place the Android Things board inside

Now, in our MainActivity, we can observe the ButtonsLiveData and execute an action depending on the last emitted RC522LiveData UID, and the last emitted ButtonsLiveData value:

viewModel.buttonsLiveData.observe({ lifecycle }) { buttonData ->
    Log.i(TAG, "Button pressed: $buttonData")
    val button = buttonData!!.first
    val isPressed = buttonData.second

    viewModel.rc522LiveData.value?.let { rfid ->
        val rfidDevice = RfidDevice.getFromRfidId(rfid)

        // Perform actions here depending on button and rfidDevice variables
    }
}

Adding the Google Assistant

Children can also be able to talk to the Google Assistant, if parents allow them to providing them an RFID device to trigger Google Assistant actions.

That way, their fun device turns into a real Google Home device.

To setup the Google Assistant, you have to:

Enable the Google Assistant API and create an OAuth Client ID (name=androidthings-googleassistant ) (Read here for help)

Download the client_secret_NNNN.json file from the credentials section of the Console

Use the google-oauthlib-toolto generate credentials:

pip install google-auth-oauthlib[tool]
google-oauthlib-tool --client-secrets client_secret_NNNN.json \
  --credentials ./google-assistant/src/main/res/raw/credentials.json \
  --scope https://www.googleapis.com/auth/assistant-sdk-prototype \
  --save

Make sure to set the Activity Controls for the Google Account using the application.

Setting up buttons actions

As you have noticed, button actions (e.g. setting the lights to blue) are hard coded in the project and depend on specific hardware.

But since the device is connected to the Google Assistant, parents could be able to record predefined sentences (such as "Set the lights to red in the kid's room") for each RFID device and button. Those sentences will be persisted in the Android Things device, and forwarded to the Google Assistant when a button is pressed. That way, it makes the kids' assistant compatible with any devices in the market (as long as they support the Google Assistant). To add support to a new device, you won't have to write specific code for this project, but instead, use the Actions on Google SDK, to make your new device compatible with both the Google Home, and the Kids' Room Automation device.

Prettify the device

A tissue-box and RFID cards look boring, so my kid personalized everything with some drawings and stickers. We also used real "toys-to-life" figurine available in any video games store.

Here's what our own device looks like. Each device will be different depending on your children's tastes.

Drawing for each card

One example of prettifying the device.

Cloning the repository:

Full project is available on GitHub (see the Code section below).

We would love to see your own kids assistant too!

Schematics below are for the NXP.iMX7D. You can, of course use any Android Things compatible board.

Code

class Rc522LiveData : LiveData<String>() {

    companion object {
        private const val UART_NAME = "UART6"
        private const val UART_BUFFER_SIZE = 512
    }

    private var handler: Handler? = null
    private var handlerThread: HandlerThread? = null

    private var uartDevice: UartDevice? = null
    private var pendingUartData = ""

    private val callback = object : UartDeviceCallback() {
        // This method is called when the Arduino write data to the Serial interface. We will get data and emit a LiveData value
        override fun onUartDeviceDataAvailable(uart: UartDevice): Boolean {
            val buffer = ByteArray(UART_BUFFER_SIZE)
            val read = uart.read(buffer, UART_BUFFER_SIZE)

            if (read > 0) {
                postValue(buffer)
            }

            return true
        }

        override fun onUartDeviceError(uart: UartDevice, error: Int) {
            Log.e(TAG, "UART device error ($error)")
        }
    }

    override fun onActive() {
        openUart()
    }

    override fun onInactive() {
        closeUart()
    }

    // Open the UART connection
    private fun openUart() {
        handlerThread = HandlerThread(TAG).also { handlerThread ->
            handlerThread.start()
            handler = Handler(handlerThread.looper)
        }

        uartDevice = PeripheralManagerService().openUartDevice(UART_NAME).apply {
            setBaudrate(9600)
            setDataSize(8)
            setParity(UartDevice.PARITY_NONE)
            setStopBits(1)

            registerUartDeviceCallback(callback, handler)
        }
    }

    // Close the UART connection
    private fun closeUart() {
        handler = null
        handlerThread?.quitSafely().also { handlerThread = null }

        uartDevice?.let {
            it.unregisterUartDeviceCallback(callback)
            it.close()
        }.also { uartDevice = null }
    }
}

#include <SPI.h>
#include <MFRC522.h>

#define RST_PIN 9
#define SDA_PIN 10

MFRC522 mfrc522;

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600);
  while (!Serial);

  SPI.begin();
  mfrc522.PCD_Init(SDA_PIN, RST_PIN);
}

void loop() {
  // Forward Uid to the Serial interface
  if (mfrc522.PICC_IsNewCardPresent() && mfrc522.PICC_ReadCardSerial()) {
    writeUidToSerial(mfrc522.uid.uidByte, mfrc522.uid.size);
    mfrc522.PICC_HaltA();
  }
}

void writeUidToSerial(byte *uid, byte size) {
  for (byte i = 0; i < size; i++) {
    if (uid[i] < 0x10) {
      Serial.print("0");
    }
    Serial.print(uid[i], HEX);
  }
  Serial.println();
}

class ButtonsLiveData : LiveData<Pair<DataLayerButton, Boolean>>() {

    companion object {
        private const val BUTTON_DEBOUNCE_DELAY_MS = 20L
    }

    private val DataLayerButton.gpio: String
        get() = when (this) {
            DataLayerButton.RED -> "GPIO_37"
            DataLayerButton.GREEN -> "GPIO_32"
            DataLayerButton.BLUE -> "GPIO_39"
            DataLayerButton.YELLOW -> "GPIO_34"
            DataLayerButton.WHITE -> "GPIO_33"
            DataLayerButton.BLACK -> "GPIO_174"
        }

    // This map is helpful to know which button is pressed
    private var buttons: Map<DriverLayerButton, DataLayerButton>? = null

    // When a button event is received, we emit the button and its state (pressed=true, release=false)
    private val listener = OnButtonEventListener { button: DriverLayerButton, pressed: Boolean ->
        buttons?.get(button)?.let {
            value = it to pressed
        }
    }

    // Here, we open and setup all buttons according to their GPIO names
    override fun onActive() {
        buttons = DataLayerButton.values()
                .map {
                    DriverLayerButton(it.gpio, DriverLayerButton.LogicState.PRESSED_WHEN_LOW).apply {
                        setDebounceDelay(BUTTON_DEBOUNCE_DELAY_MS)
                        setOnButtonEventListener(listener)
                    } to it
                }
                .toMap()
    }

    // We close buttons when the LiveData is inactive
    override fun onInactive() {
        buttons?.let { buttons ->
            buttons.forEach { (button, _) ->
                button.setOnButtonEventListener(null)
                button.close()
            }
        }.also {
            buttons = null
        }
    }
}

Credits

Gautier Mechling

2 projects • 13 followers

Software Craftsman

Room Automation for Kids

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Software apps and online services

Story

Handling RFID devices

Handling buttons events

Adding the Google Assistant

Setting up buttons actions

Prettify the device

Cloning the repository:

Schematics

NXP Pico i.MX7D I/O Pinout

Schematics

Code

Rc522LiveData

Arduino Sketch

ButtonsLiveData

Full project on GitHub

Credits

Gautier Mechling

Comments

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Room Automation for Kids

Room Automation for Kids

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Software apps and online services

Story

Handling RFID devices

Handling buttons events

Adding the Google Assistant

Setting up buttons actions

Prettify the device

Cloning the repository:

Schematics

NXP Pico i.MX7D I/O Pinout

Schematics

Code

Rc522LiveData

Arduino Sketch

ButtonsLiveData

Full project on GitHub

Credits

Gautier Mechling

Comments

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