CALclock

CALclock runs on an Espressif EPS32 microcontroller and shows upcoming events on a circle of RGB LEDs incorporated into the faceplate of a clock.

It can be used as anything from a decorative/interactive art piece to just a normal clock (powered or unpowered) that reminds you of upcoming appointments in a fun and sleek way.

I've been using it to remind me of upcoming appointments since school moved online.

Features:

• Synchronizes with Google Calendar
• Shows calendar events in different colors using an LED circle on a clock.
• Push notifications for timely updates to calendar changes.
• Open source!

Hardware

⚠️ THIS PROJECT IS OFFERED AS IS. IF YOU USE IT YOU ASSUME ALL RISKS. NO WARRENTIES.

Two approaches can be used when deciding the look of your clock; one of which is to have the ring fully visible, with the other being to use the leds as an artsy-backlight that gives a slightly less accurate depiction of event times.

Technically, the DATA-IN of the LED circle should be driven with TTL signal levels, but we seem to get away with using the 3.3 Volt output from ESP32 in series with a 470 Ohms resistor. We didn't notice a diffeence when using a level shifter.

Schematic

The 5 Volt power adapter connects to the micro USB port on the ESP32 module, and to the LED strip.

Bill of materials

Name	Description	Sugggested mfr/part#
CLOCK	Analog clock with glass face plate	Tempus TC6065S
PCB1	Espressif WROOM32 development board, 4MB flash	LOLIN-D32 or ESP32-DevKitC-VB
PCB2	RGB LED Pixel Ring, WS2812B, 5 V, 172 mm outer diameter	RGB LED pixel ring ws8212b
ADAPTER	Power adapter, 5 Volt / 3 A	Tempus TC6065S Wall Clock
C1	Elrolytic Capacitor, 470 µF / 16V, radial	Würth 860010372004
R1	Resistor, 470 Ω, 1/4 W, 5%, through hole	Yageo CFR-25JT-52-470R
SRAY	Optional frosting spray	Rust-Oleum frosted glass spray
GLUE	Glass glue	Loctite Glass Glue
CONNECTOR	Connector set, 2 position, 18-24 AWG	MOLEX Mini-Fit Jr

The LED ring, PCB2, contains 60 WS2812B addressable LEDs. Each pixel draws about 60 mA at full brightness. If you plan to use it in a bedroom, you probably want less bright LEDS such as WS2812 (without the "B").

Software

Clone the repository and its submodules to a local directory. The --recursive flag automatically initializes and updates the submodules in the repository,.

git clone --recursive https://github.com/sandervonk/CALclock.git

If you haven't installed ESP-IDF, I recommend the Microsoft Visual Studio Code IDE (vscode). From vscode, add the Microsoft's C/C++ extension. Then add the Espressif IDF extension and follow its configuration to install ESP-IDF 4.4.

Google Apps Script

The software is a symbiosis between a Google Apps Script and firmware running on the ESP32. The script reads events from your Google Calendar and presents them as JSON to the ESP32 device.

The ESP32 microcontroller calls a Google Apps Script that retrieve a list of upcoming events from your calendar and returns them as a JSON object. As we see later, the ESP32 will update the LEDs based on this JSON object.

To create the Web app:

• Create a new project on script.google.com;
• Rename the project to e.g. CALalarm-doGet
• Copy and paste the code from script\Code.js
• Add the Google Calendar API service .
• Select the function test and click Debug. This will ask for permissions. There will not be any output.
• Click Deploy and chose New deployment, choose
  • Service tye = Web app
  • Execute as = Me
  • Who has access = Anyone, make sure you understand what the script does!
  • Copy the Web app URL to the clipboard

Open the URL in a web browser. You should get a reply like

{
    "time": "2022-04-20 12:56:37",
    "pushId": "some_id_or_not",
    "events": [
        { 
            "start": "2022-04-20 10:55:00",
            "end": "2022-04-20 15:45:00"
        },
        { 
            "start": "2022-04-20 15:55:00",
            "end": "2022-04-20 17:15:00"
        }
    ]
}

Now, copy the clock/main/Kconfig.example to clock/main/Kconfig and paste the URL that ends in /exec to clock/main/Kconfig under CALCLOCK_GAS_CALENDAR_URL.

As we see in the next sections, the ESP32 does a HTTP GET on this URL. That way it retrieves a list of upcoming events from your calendar, and update the LEDs accordingly.

ESP32 Device

In menuconfig, scroll down to CALclock and select "Use hardcoded Wi-Fi credentials" and specify the SSID and password of your Wi-Fi access point.

git clone https://github.com/cvonk/CALclock.git
cd CALclock/clock
idf.py set-target esp32
idf.py menuconfig
idf.py flash

Your clock is now functional!

Push notification from Google

Normally, the devices polls for changes in the Google Calendar every 2 minutes. We can improve this response time by pushing notifications from Google to your device. You should only enable this, if your router has a SSL certificate and you're familiar with configuring a reverse proxy on your router.

The Push Notifications API documentation says:

Allows you to improve the response time of your application. It allows you to eliminate the extra network and compute costs involved with polling resources to determine if they have changed. Whenever a watched resource changes, the Google Calendar API notifies your application. To use push notifications, you need to do three things:

1. Set up your receiving URL, or "Webhook" callback receiver.
2. Set up a notification channel for each resource endpoint you want to watch.

To meet the first requirement, the push notification need to be able to traverse your access router to reach your ESP32 device. This requires a SSL certificate and a reverse proxy. This implies you need to configure a reverse proxy (Nginx or Pound) on your router.

Setup this reverse proxy so that it forwards HTTPS request from Google, as HTTP to the device. On the device, the module http_post_server.c is the endpoint for these push notifications.

The second requirement is already met by the Google apps script that we installed earlier.

Feedback

We love to hear from you. Please use the Github discussions to provide feedback.