March's Impact Spotlights Highlights Smart Home Innovations From the Hackster Community

Hackster's recent March Impact Spotlight highlighted some innovative smart home projects from several talented engineers. From a desktop robot that monitors room environments using eye expressions to a smart plug that allows users to control appliances over Wi-Fi, the engineers showcased their unique builds using off-the-shelf hardware and some fancy programming. The ability to integrate them into the smart home ecosystem demonstrates how far we’ve come from the simple beginnings of controlling just a few devices to taking control of entire houses.

First guest Makestreme explained how he developed Gus 2.0, a desktop robot that monitors environmental room conditions and employs eye emotions to denote room health. Gus 2.0 isn’t an actual robot but rather an environmental sensor suite that tracks several environmental factors, including temperature, air quality and humidity.

Gus 2.0's eye levels are designed to denote changing conditions, which are indicated by the amount its eyes start to droop. When users wonder why the robot looks gloomy or tired, they can press a hidden touch sensor on its head to show what the sensors are reading via its OLED face display. While temp and humidity levels are straightforward, the air quality sensor is meant to detect concentrations of potentially hazardous gases, including carbon monoxide, alcohol, formaldehyde and more.

Makestreme developed Gus 2.0 using a Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32C3 board, along with sensors from Seeed’s plug-and-play Grove module line. All of the hardware is packed into a novel 3D-printed case Makestreme designed using Autodesk’s Fusion 360 platform. He then programmed the tiny robot with the Arduino IDE and included a function that denoted “comfort levels,” which range from 0 to 4 and are displayed by the robot’s eye droopiness.

The session's second guest, Daniel Nemeth, introduced his Smart Do Not Disturb Sign project that helps prevent intrusions during meetings and online classes. Nemeth built his sign using a five-row RGB LED tube display that can generate customizable animations, which are driven by Nordic Semiconductor’s nRF7002 DK.

For the display, Nemeth implemented WS2812B programmable LEDs that he chose for their brightness and ability to support dynamic animations. They are housed in plastic tubes that evenly diffuse the light, making for a better-looking dynamic. Because the nRF7002 DK operates at a 1.8V logic level, Nemeth took advantage of a TXS0108E level shifter to ramp up the signals to 5V to ensure proper LED operation. He then needed to add an external 5V power supply to handle the draw of those LEDs and prevent the microcontroller from overloading.

Nemeth designed a 3D-printed case with Shaper3D, which encloses the hardware in the lower half and the LEDs overhead to make for a unique and streamlined design that can be integrated within a smart home ecosystem.

Third up was Arnov Sharma, who presented his Smart Home Heater Plug, a project aimed at controlling standard room heaters or any other appliance via an app over Wi-Fi. Sharma created the smart plug using a custom relay board outfitted with an XIAO ESP32C3, an isolated 240V to 5V power module and a relay controlled by an AO3400 N-channel MOSFET. It also packs an AC-isolated power module to step down 240V AC to 5V DC.

Seeed Studio’s Fusion Service produced the custom PCB, and Sharma populated the board himself using a blue solder mask with a white silkscreen, then placed the SMD components by hand using ESD tweezers. He then reflowed the board and mounted the microcontroller, relay and power module.

Sharma 3D-printed an enclosure for both the plug and socket housing with a thermal-grade PC to ensure they wouldn’t melt while using the plug. Remotely operating the plug was done using a web-based control interface that enables users to toggle the relay remotely. It currently features an ON/OFF button, but future versions could include timers or scheduling functions.

The event's final guest, Negar Rafieedolatabadi, was on hand to show off her Smart Temperature Lightening Watertap that changes the color of the water based on its temperature. The build is designed as a visual safety device that prevents users from accidentally burning their hands by changing the water’s color, which is done via blue, red and green LEDs.

Rafieedolatabadi designed the smart water tap using an Arduino UNO and Adafruit’s Sensirion SHT45 temperature and humidity sensor module, which is strapped to a faucet nozzle to grab accurate water temperature readings. As the water temperature changes, LEDs tapped near the faucet head will seemingly change the water color – blue for cool, green for lukewarm and red for hot. Rafieedolatabadi states that her project is still in the prototype phase, but she plans to improve the design and enhance its features in the future.