This project takes a Raspberry Pi and, web-enabling it, turns it into an alarm clock. The Pi is attached to a PowerSwitch Tail and controls a light in place of an audio-based alarm to wake us up.

The alarm is configured through a web interface, and has been optimized for both desktop and mobile. Instructions for building it below!

I made this for my wife for Christmas 2013, and it was super simple! After a month in the field, this alarm clock has received highest marks from the wife, who says it is a pleasant way of waking up.

Note that this project requires some "hardware hacking," but it's simple enough that any beginner should be able to follow along with this tutorial to make a light-up alarm clock.

• Raspberry Pi (Model B) -- $35
  • Micro USB power supply (2.1 Amps) -- $10
  • 8GB SD Card (4GB will work, but you will need to delete extra distros from NOOBS when installing Raspbian, so save yourself the time and just spend the extra $1 on an 8GB SD card) -- $6
• USB Wireless Adapter (I bought this one from my local Microcenter) -- $10
• Powerswitch Tail (to control the light) -- $25
• Tailed LED (I bought this one from my local microcenter). -- $3
• Cheap clamp-on lamp and light bulb: ~$10

Total Cost: ~$99 USD

Note that some things, like MicroUSB power supplies, lamps, wireless adapters, and light bulbs (etc.) you might already have laying around. No need to purchase everything outlined above -- "hacking" it together is half the fun!

There are already plenty of guides online for installing Raspbian on your Raspberry Pi. Covering this falls out of the scope of this guide, but I will at least link the NOOBS package I used.

I used this guide, substituting vi for nano because I'm a VIM guy.

Install git and screen so we can check out the code and run it in the background.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install git screen

Next, install virtualenv for python by following the Initial Setup section of this guide.

First, become root. Then, navigate to the directory in which the code will live, and create a virtual environment:

sudo su -
cd /opt
virtuanenv pi_alarm_env
cd pi_alarm_env

Next, check out the project from git, and install the python libraries:

git clone https://github.com/ajpierce/pi_alarm.git
./pi_alarm/script/setup.sh

For testing purposes, we want to hook up the LED to make sure that the signal processing works before attempting to attach the Pi to the PowerSwitch Tail.

I plugged the LED into Pin 10 on the Raspberry Pi, like so:

As root,

cd /opt/pi_alarm_env/pi_alarm
./run.py

If all goes well, you the Flask webserver should let you know that the application is running on 0.0.0.0:80.

Navigate to the IP address of your Raspberry Pi from a browser on another computer (or your mobile phone). If all goes well, you should see a web site full of mushy happy things for my wife.

Press the "ON" button near the bottom of the page. Does the LED light up? If so, you're in business!

After confirming that the LED lights up, I simply cut off the LED and screwed the two wires into the PowerSwitch Tail, like so: Afterwards, I attached the Pi to the PST with a zip tie, and the hardware hacking was complete!

To ensure the alarm starts on boot, follow the guide here, but your script will be the simple one outlined below:

#!/bin/bash
screen -S alarm python /opt/pi_alarm_env/pi_alarm/run.py

This starts a new screen (with the name "alarm" and invokes python to start the alarm clock server.

Plug your light into the PowerSwitch Tail, and the PST and Alarm into a couple of outlets. You're done!

Mushy love notes to a woman you don't know not your design aesthetic? No problem!

app/templates/index.html is where you can shorten the text to something practical.

app/static/css/alarm.less is the LESS file that compiles to app/static/css/alarm.css, in which you may adjust the color scheme to something less purple.

Finally, if you like the random messages that appear in the header, you can make your own by editing config.py. If you'd prefer not to have them, remove the tag from app/templates/footer.html.