The goal of this project was to create a switch that is able to toggle on and off if sound above a certain level is detected.
The motivation for this project came after a conversation with my father who is always at the fact that lights are on all over the house, mostly because once a family member hits the bed, he or she isn't willing to get up and turn the switch off. I wanted to design something that would ease this supposed nuisance.
What I wanted to do is simply create a device that takes an easy gesture to activate it. Considering that lights switches in most homes are close to beds, I figured it would be easy to simply devise that activated with a simple clap. So if a user forgot to switch off a light, he/she could just clap and set if off.
I did, however, realize that the switch could go off at just about any loud sound that went past the threshold level. So I added in a button through which I could switch the sensor on and off, depending on when he or she entered the room.
The process here is quite simple - all I had to do was identify the parts involved.
Besides the obvious Argon development kit, I understood I needed a microphone, and part to actually switch the circuit on and off. I decided to use a servo for the latter, which is easy to connect and code. Finally, I used a simple tactile push-button to set the system ON or OFF.
Initially, the servo kept going off as the sound threshold was too low. So I then updated the code to only detect sounds above a high value of 3000.
Because the switch only activates in two directions, it made sense to turn the servo from 0 to 180 degree - essentially ON & OFF.
The code for the entire project can be viewed below
A logical next step would be to encase this circuit into a box that can be retrofitted onto existing switch panels. An added but useful feature would be to switch from sound to an app-controlled signal, so the input signal can be guaranteed to come from one source.
Ideally, I would have liked a smarter device, and with an ambient display that reminds users to turn the switch on or off, instead of clapping all the time. For my next creative project, I would like to scope this out better and take into account the readings and what we've learned in class so far, and create a better object.
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