carillon

Arduino Carillon project - Jim Bumgardner, 10/2014, based on a Flask framework by Ray Scanlon.

This is the Arduino code and backend server for my Arduino / XBee / Carillon project, in which I am using an Arduino to play the bells on a mass-market 9-bell christmas ornament, like this one:

Caroling Christmas Bells on Amazon

(Note: These have been around since the late 80s, you can find them a little cheaper on EBay.)

The bells can be mounted on a christmas tree, or more permanently. They play different tunes to announce interesting events.

Examples:

The bells can chime on the quarter hour, like a fancy clock.
When your Nest Thermostat is set to 'Home', the bells can play "Home on the Range"
If your thermostat gets really cold, they can play "Baby it's cold outside"
Make an EBay Sale? -- play "We're in the Money"
If the NY Times publishes a story on Ebola, play 'Fever'
Play messages when you receive SMS messages from specific people
Play 'Happy Birthday' on birthdays
Play the bells from your phone
etc...

Most of the above features can be scripted using IFTTT in conjunction with the PushBullet channel.

There are two Arduino scripts, one intended for use with an XBee radio which receives messages from the server in another part of the house, and one with a simple serial connection. Both scripts supports a simple protocol that plays melodies on the 9 bells, which are connected to pins 5 - 13 (Low - High pitched). The bells I have are tuned diatonically, like so:

Actual Notes:  D  E  F# G  A  B  C  D' E'
In C        :  G  A  B  C  D  E  F  G' A'
Note Number :  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 
Pin Number  :  5  6  7  8  9  10 11 12 13

The backend, implmented in Python/Flask, does a few different things:

It can chime the bells on the quarter hour in the style of Big Ben.
It listens for pushed notes (events) from the PushBullet service (which in turn, can be scripted using IFTTT).
- PushBullet notes of the form 'tune: <melody>' are played by the chimes.
- PushBullet notes of the form 'song: <name>' are converted to the 'tune' protocol using a transcription dictionary.
- Other incoming PushBullet events can trigger chimes using a pattern-matching table in the site.cfg file.
There is a REST API so you can trigger tunes from other home automation systems on your local network (e.g. motion detectors)
There is a web interface to mute the bells, and to set a mute schedule (e.g. don't play the bells at night) (IN PROGRESS)
There is a web interface to play the bells from a phone (IN PROGRESS)

Thanks to Brandon Creighton (CStone), Jamie Robertson, Joe Hager, and Ray Scanlon.

jbum/carillon

carillon