Sunrise Pialarm

Python alarm running on a Raspberry Pi which controls a LED strip. An alarm clock that is not like any, it imitates the sunrise.

It has a simple web interface where the alarm time can be set, for this purpose the web server only turns on in a specified time period. The web interface turns back on before the alarm goes off, so it can be turned off without waiting. The alarm time indicates when the sunrise is at its brightest, yellow phase. To turn off the alarm a passcode is required which is different for each day of the month. The light goes off, the web server goes off again.

Read more about it in my blog post series: Sunrise Alarm Clock Using A LED Strip Series.

Documentation

Python related

It works with Python 3.8 or higher (tested with Python 3.10), install the dependencies from the requirements.txt.

Configuration

Environment variables

There are some basic settings in environment_variables.py

Name	Type	Description
DEV_MODE	bool	If it is on, then a PySimpleGUI window will serve as the LED instead of changing the actual PI's state (with pigpio).
WEB_SERVER_IP	str	Web server IP address.
WEB_SERVER_PORT	int	Web server port.
PASSCODES_JSON_PATH	str	Where the passcodes are held for each month day.
ALARM_JSON_PATH	str	Where the main alarm/sunrise config is at.
SETTINGS_JSON_PATH	str	The alarm time and web server settings file path.
RGB_PINS	dict	The GPIO pin number for each color: red, green, blue.
CLEVER_SLEEP_SECS_SEGMENTS	int	How frequently the alarm will check if it has been turned off.

Passcodes

Before starting make sure to run generate_passcodes.py. This will write out the passcodes for each day. These are shown once, then they are hashed. Write these down in order to stop the alarm later. 31 passcodes are generated, meaning the passcodes are same for each month. (The hashed passcodes will be at PASSCODES_JSON_PATH.)

Sunrise settings

There is a basic alarm included in the repository (alarm.json). Which is a sunrise that is about 15 minutes long. Feel free to use this, or you can create your own one with the easy methods I made.

The JSON must be an object. It operates with steps. It has 3 settings:

• wait_time: This is the default wait time in seconds, it is like a variable that can be reused. This is required.
• when_yellow: When will the alarm turn yellow, meaning the sun came up fully. It is necessary because, based on this, the light will be completely yellow at the set alarm time. The sunrise will start at alarm_at - when_yellow. It is in seconds. This is required.
• repeat_last: A number to repeat last X steps. Not required.

Steps change the light, the code will execute step after step. It is an array. There are two actions: range and transition each iterate and change the rgb colors based on the modify. Properties of a step:

• sleep: How much time should the step wait, or should it wait (if range or transtion is defined) after each modify related iteration. Can be any number or "wait_time". This is required. (Note: a simple wait step can be created too.)
• range: start, stop, step these 3 properties can be set (integers), it is a Python range in a for loop where each iteration the modify is run.
• transition: To calculate the transition to a color. red, green, blue can be set (integers). Steps can be defined with the steps property, the default is 255 meaning it will step the smallest possible.
• modify: What will be modified at this step or (if range or transtion is defined) at each iteration. Any arithmetic calculation can be used (parentheses too). Few built in variables can be used:
  • red, green or blue to get the current color values.
  • If it is running in a range, then use i to get the current iteration's number.
  • If it is running in a transition, then r g b can be used to get the transition related values.

Schedule settings

Make sure you restart the app after editing server_state settings. The alarm will be scheduled after the web server goes off.

• alarm_at: When the alarm will go off, the web interface will change this. It is in HH:MM format (string).
• server_state:
  • turn_on_at: When the web server should turn on at, so the alarm time can be set. It is in HH:MM format (string).
  • turn_off_at: When the web server should turn off at, so the alarm can be scheduled. It is in HH:MM format (string).
  • turn_on_before_alarm: How many seconds before the sunrise start the web server should turn on, so it can be turned off before the alarm goes off. It is a number.

Contributions

Any contribution is welcome. I made this for myself. No updates will come till someone requests it, or I need another feature // I discover something.