Find solution
How to set smart url in zend framework?

inexpensive wireless buttons in my house?

  • What's the least expensive way to set up half a dozen to a dozen wireless buttons around my house, that when pressed make a request to an url? They should have very long battery life (or it is actually fine if they use a power supply if it is small). They should be mechanical buttons with tactile feedback, so that it is very obvious they have been pressed. An optional but very desirable feature would be that they display a counter of how many times they have been pressed, but only if it's quite small. Another optional but desirable feature is a small, not too bright LED so they can be found in the dark. They should also either look nice or discreet -- or my budget needs to include some sort of nice/discreet cases. When pressed they should make a request to an url with a unique identifier via my home's wireless network. There needs to be a convenient way to give them the network credentials. I'm an experienced programmer and learning a language/framework is no problem, but I haven't soldered anything in 25 years. If soldering is required, the cost of a soldering iron would have to be factored in to the total :) Is there anything out there that would make it possible for me to set up a dozen such buttons for under $150 & 4-6 hours work?

  • Answer:

    You could get some http://www.ebay.com/itm/HUAWEI-INSPIRA-H867G-ANDROID-PREPAID-SMARTPHONE-FOR-NET10-FACTORY-REFURBISHED-/121643836974 and add a http://www.ebay.com/itm/mini-Quick-Button-Smart-Phone-Dust-Plug-for-Andriod-Cell-Phone-Headphone-Jack-/291359577808 as a way to give it tactile feedback. That still leaves you some money to devise a nice case for it. (The price on those smartphones is slightly unbelievable, but I looked through the listing and didn't see any obvious gotchas. If those didn't work out you could look for something like http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lot-of-10-LG-Optimus-S-LS670-Gray-Sprint-Bad-ESN-Power-Up-Good-LCD-G887-/371350612840)

lastobelus at Ask.Metafilter.Com Visit the source

Was this solution helpful to you?

Other answers

I think https://www.amazon.com/oc/dash-button has given this some thought?

Dashy

ESP8266 + a button

Monochrome

I don't believe you're going to find anything in that price range just yet. You're asking for a price of $13/button. There are a boatload of indiegogo/kickstarter projects out there but I don't believe any of them are shipping in any quantity just yet. https://flic.io/ looked the most promising, but just like all the others their ship date keeps slipping. They're asking $149 for 6 at pre-order. I believe it's also BluetoothLE so you probably need a phone or some hub nearby to get those gadgets talking to the network. On the DIY-side, the Particle (nee Spark) https://store.particle.io/?product=particle-photon is $19 and has the processor and wifi module on it. You'd need to add a battery and a few days' worth of code to make it do what you want and not kill the battery in a day. Personally this is what I would do, although there's no enclosure that comes with it. And no physical button. There are also others waiting to hack on thehttp://www.theverge.com/2015/3/31/8316775/amazon-dash-buttons-turn-homes-into-shopping-carts, but I don't know how you would secure a dozen of them without knowing someone on the inside right now. Their provisioning scheme is also non-standard and has yet to be figured out. Trust me, I'm waiting for someone to make these affordable as well. We're just not there yet.

JoeZydeco

...and a battery.

pompomtom

The cheapest wifi enabled device I've seen is http://digistump.com/category/22 by digistump - they had a previous successful kickstarter for the Digispark which I received, so I think they are reputable. At $10 per device you'll have to supply the button and case and battery to keep under budget. A better idea may be to just get a bunch of Amazon Dash buttons, and use a proxy like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squid_(software) to redirect the HTTP request when the button is pressed from Amazon to whatever URL you want. I got 3 of them when they were offered to prime members for $1/each but haven't gotten around to messing around with them yet.

wongcorgi

The https://www.particle.io/button immediately comes to mind. But it still costs $49 each. I'm sure the price will come down rapidly though. Particle makes a wifi-enabled Arduino-like board for $19. I've seen cheap Chinese knockoffs for as little as $3 (yes, really). But I've done a lot of experimentation with this stuff and you're talking about significantly more than 4-6 hours to make something that really works reliably.

miyabo

Maybe I was too hasty. The ESP8266 is perfect as the brains of the operation but it's just a bare board. You couldn't get it built into a product in just 4to 6 hours.

Monochrome

Ah yeah... 4-6 hours: arduino uno + wifi shield + button + battery, but that'd be over the budget unless you can group the buttons to have fewer uno's.

pompomtom

Thanks everyone! It really seems that the cheapest & least amount of work is to buy bad-esn phones and add those headphone buttons, which I hadn't seen before. Flic does look promising -- if I haven't done my project by the time it ships, I might go with that.

lastobelus

Related Q & A:

Just Added Q & A:

Find solution

For every problem there is a solution! Proved by Solucija.

  • Got an issue and looking for advice?

  • Ask Solucija to search every corner of the Web for help.

  • Get workable solutions and helpful tips in a moment.

Just ask Solucija about an issue you face and immediately get a list of ready solutions, answers and tips from other Internet users. We always provide the most suitable and complete answer to your question at the top, along with a few good alternatives below.