ESP8266 Mass Notifier

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  The device searching for a network

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  Tweet I triggered via my device

Inpiration

Those life-alert buttons you always saw on TV. For those you had to pay a monthly subscription to the service which made them incredibly expensive to have. My goal for the project was to build roughly the same thing for less (it's <15$) that gave you the ability to post custom messages on sms and almost all social media platforms.

What it does

When pressed it pings a specific url. IFTT then reads that URL and triggers multiple events "applets" via webhooks. I configured it so that when pressed it sends a text message to friends, creates a tweet on my Twitter account, and updates my Facebook status. Theoretically you can link it up to anything IFTTT comparable.

How I built it

I built it using an ESP8266 board along with a set of Neopixel. For software I used Arduino IDE and IFTTT. The entire thing was constructed with the help of many diet Cokes and coffee.

Challenges I ran into

I was originally planning to have the ESP8266 use TUguest as a WiFi access point, however because of its portal I had to resort to connecting the ESP8266 to a mobile hotspot I created with my phone

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

I'm proud of the fact that I got this to work with the IFTTT API. I'm also proud that I managed to send text messages with the device.

What I learned

I learned how to operate Neopixel using the FastLED library as well as well as how to use the ESP8266 with IFTTT

What's next for ESP8266 Mass Notifier

Next up is powering it with batteries so that it can be wireless and not tethered to my laptop for power. Aside from that I plan to add the ability to decide specifically what services you want to trigger via a switch on the device.

Built With

• api
• arduino
• ifttt-a