Published February 25, 2018 © LGPL

Voice Controlled RGB Lamp

Make an Alexa clone using Raspberry Pi 3 and use it to control IOT RGB Lamp (Arduino Nano + ESP8266) that supports Philip Hue commands.

BeginnerFull instructions provided8 hours6,156

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Raspberry Pi 3 Model B

Espressif ESP8266 ESP-01

To Delete RGB Led strip

ULN2003A High-Voltage, High-Current Seven Darlington Driver Transistor

Bluetooth speaker Fenda

SparkFun Arduino Pro Mini 328 - 3.3V/8MHz

Software apps and online services

Amazon Web Services AWS IoT

Amazon Web Services AWS Lambda

Amazon Alexa Alexa Skills Kit

Amazon Alexa Alexa Voice Service

Hand tools and fabrication machines

Soldering iron (generic)

Story

In this project I make a smart speaker with Alexa built in (Raspberry Pi 3), and an IoT RGB lamp, which connects to the internet. I use speaker to get feedback from Alexa.

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How to Use

We can use Alexa to change the lamp's brightness and color using Philip hue commands:

1. Setting Hue Scenes

Turn on {scene}. For example: Turn on Relax

Scene: sunset, pencils, Deep sea, Kathy, Beach, Sky, Feet up, Blue rain.

2. Color Commands

Change the colors of bulb or rooms using these commands:

Turn on/off {specific light}

Set {light} to fifty percent

Turn my {light} light green.

Brighten to 60 percent or dim the lights.

This is sample color list (we can expand it easily using color code table):

"Turn the lights Tomato" – a nice shade of pink (#FF6347)

"Turn the lights Peru" – nice at-home champagne color (#CD853F)

"Turn the lights Firebrick" – A dark red warm color scene (#B22222 )

"Turn the lights Light Salmon" – A warm light pinky red color (#FFA07A)

"Turn the lights Dark Khaki" – A dark green color (#BDB76B)

All color and scenes are preset. Creating and editing theme will be supported later.

List of colors: A–F

The point is making affordable IoT devices. That's why I used Raspberry Pi 3 (so that I can reuse it later), cheap Arduino mini board and module ESP8266 (ESP-01). Thanks to Amazon for free AWS.

Using Arduino allows easily adding features like some sensors if needed.

How to Make

Step 1: Install Alexa on Raspberry Pi 3:

Follow the instruction here. There are many errors when I tried to install Alexa. After install sample application in my Raspberry Pi, Alexa returns no sound, here is the resolution for me. I hope it can help someone save time.

Step 2: Create a Smart Home Skill and Connected Lambda:

Follow the instruction here. But Alexa couldn't find devices: Alexa smart home discovery is not working. I spent a day to configure out. It was region problem. This is resolution.

Step 3: Create an IoT Thing, Connect your Lambda to your Thing:

You can follow these steps. More information here.

Step 4: Set up your ESP8266 and Arduino mini.

I use Arduino mini + ULN2003A to drive LED. +12V power is required for LEDs, so I put an DC-DC converter to get 3.3V for Arduino and ESP8266 module and put a 470uF tantalum capacitor. I used my CP210x USB-TTL converter to program both ESP8266 and Arduino.

Here are ESP8266 instructions.

Code

#include <ESP8266WiFi.h>
#include <AmazonIOTClient.h>
#include "ESP8266AWSImplementations.h"

Esp8266HttpClient httpClient;
Esp8266DateTimeProvider dateTimeProvider;

AmazonIOTClient iotClient;
ActionError actionError;

char *ssid="***";
char *password="***";


void setup() {
  //ESP.wdtDisable();
  ESP.wdtEnable(30000);

  Serial.begin(115200);
  delay(100);


  // Connect to WAP
  Serial.print("Connecting to ");
  Serial.println(ssid);
  WiFi.begin(ssid, password);

  while (WiFi.status() != WL_CONNECTED) {
    delay(500);
    Serial.print(".");
  }

  Serial.println("");
  Serial.println("WiFi connected");
  Serial.println("IP address: ");
  Serial.println(WiFi.localIP());

  iotClient.setAWSRegion("us-east-1");
  iotClient.setAWSEndpoint("amazonaws.com");
  iotClient.setAWSDomain("a3aph76rnqfrwl.iot.us-east-1.amazonaws.com");
  iotClient.setAWSPath("/things/GRBLamp/shadow");
  iotClient.setAWSKeyID("AKIAJWWNWVWFPNTYWS**");
  iotClient.setAWSSecretKey("BdVe1iw+2XxhyiDdc7tup1SBuuycwMnXfOM41W**");
  iotClient.setHttpClient(&httpClient);
  iotClient.setDateTimeProvider(&dateTimeProvider);

}

void loop(){

  char shadow[100];
  strcpy(shadow, "{\"state\":{\"reported\":{\"test_value1\":123, \"test_value2\":234}}}");
  
  ESP.wdtDisable();
  Serial.println("Trying to send data");
  ESP.wdtEnable(30000);
  
  
  yield();
  ESP.wdtDisable();
  Serial.print(shadow);
  ESP.wdtEnable(30000);
    
  yield();
  char* result = iotClient.update_shadow(shadow, actionError);

  ESP.wdtDisable();
  Serial.print(result);
  ESP.wdtEnable(30000);

  delay(5000);

}