Side Project nearly done!
..or do side projects ever get done? Anyways, I've learned a lot about nodeMCU/esp8266, RFID, MQTT, 3D Printing and soldering
Aug 07 2020
The last year or so I’ve been working on and off on a really exciting side project. It started when I couldn’t find a satisfying way to let my kid (6 years old) play music whenever he wanted. He had a CD player a couple of years ago, but CDs are hard to get these days, and they also get scratched or break easily in the hands of kids.
So, we have a couple of Sonos speakers at home, and I found out they have a nice API for controlling the speakers. I decided to make a physical device for him that would let him control Sonos playlists. Initially, I planned on having several buttons on the device for selecting playlists. But a colleague had this idea that I should try to make something that would make it work similarly to CDs. After some research, I figured out that using an RFID reader could solve that.
I bought some nodeMCU’s, RFID readers and tags and started experimenting. The idea was that each RFID tag would represent a playlist. Fast forward from beginning till now I’ve learned a lot about soldering, electronics, 3D printing, and microcontrollers (specifically nodeMCU).
I started with prototyping on a breadboard, went on to soldering, and now I’m ordering a custom printed PCB that will make it easier to make it a nice looking device.
I’m going to make a few more blog posts about this that go more in-depth about what I’ve been doing, and I’ll also share some pictures from the evolving device.