Embedded Lab

Here is a very comprehensive Instructable from fgebhart about building a smart IoT alarm clock using Pi Zero that has some really nice features such as text-to-speech synthesizer, multiple wake-up sounds (such as MP3 songs, your favorite internet radio station, or news channel), alphanumeric LED segment displays with auto intensity adjustment, and more.

Features:

• text to speech synthesizer
• three ways of wake-up sound:
  • play local mp3 files
  • play internet radio station and
  • play latest news as podcast (independent to the alarm time)
• set alarm via smartphone or any other computer
• running apache2 server
• automatic display brightness adjustment
• audio amplifier volume control
• 3D-printalbe case
• case built-in tactile switch
• alphanumeric display shows text
• 3W speaker definitely wakes you up
• … whatever you want to add …

In order to complete this project you need to set up a Raspberry Pi running Raspbian (Lite), the Debian version of Raspberry Pi. Sure you might use different Raspberry Pis and a different OS, but therefore you might need to modify your system somewhat. For example if you want to use Raspberry Pi 3 you don’t have to buy and use an additional WiFi-stick, might just use the on-board audio output, but might not be able to use the given 3D-printable case. So by changing some parts of this project you got to keep in mind that this instruction is based on using Raspberry Pi Zero.