IFTTT plays a significant role in the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem. As IoT involves the interconnection of various devices and platforms, IFTTT provides a simple and user-friendly platform for devices to integrate together and automate embedded applications. IFTTT provides a cross-platform integration of among a multitude of platforms, brands, and standards, bridging the “things”…

In this tutorial, I am going to measure DC current using Acs712 Hall Effect-Based Linear Current Sensor and arduino uno. Acs712 can measure current precisely and accurately if properly managed. I have gone through various blogs on internet about interfacing acs712 current sensor with arduino and other microcontrollers. I found that all of them are…

A majority of middle-aged people suffer from health issues like asthma and breathing problems, particularly in cities. Air pollution is the major cause of it. In this project, we have designed a portable device that detects different air pollution metrics and displays them on a small OLED screen. People with respiratory issues can use the…

Proximity sensors are used to detect something approaching near. These sensors are useful in many applications like collision avoidance, obstacle detection, path following, touchless sensing, motion detection, and object detection. There are different types of proximity sensors like optical, ultrasonic, capacitive, inductive, and magnetic. The capacitive, inductive, and magnetic proximity sensors are used in specific…

A very common feature in Android and iOS fitness apps is calculating the number of steps the user walks and the distance he covers. These apps calculate the number of steps walked by the user either using GPS location and manipulating the geospatial data or by monitoring the acceleration vector of the device using an…

Metal detectors offer several useful applications. A few examples include: Security checks Positioning detection for production equipment Elevator floor control Mineral prospecting Unearthing relics and artifacts Collecting traffic statistics  Metallic waste detection  Game entertainment Each detection circuit employs different electronic components and designs. A simple metal detector can be constructed using an RLC circuit. In…

BMP180 is a digital pressure sensor designed for low-power, low-voltage operation in mobile phones, navigation devices, and personal digital assistants. The sensor has an I2C interface to communicate sensor data. It can operate on 2.5~3.6V and consumes only 12 uA even in the ultra-high-resolution mode. The sensor can be used for several applications, including measuring…

Environment sensors are of great importance in embedded applications. Many temperature sensors measure the ambient temperature or temperature of a surface. For measuring water temperature and other fluids, waterproof temperature sensors are required. One of such temperature sensors is DS18B20. This sensor can measure the temperature of the air, liquids like water, and ground. The…

When it comes to general-purpose microcontrollers, nobody expects them to perform heavy-duty software operations. Microcontrollers are simple devices that control binary devices and talk over serial interfaces. Building audio/video or multimedia applications on microcontrollers is never attempted. It is challenging and infeasible in most situations to handle any kind of multimedia through microcontrollers. Microcontrollers are…

Adding sound to Arduino is fun, and interfacing speakers with Arduino is relatively straightforward. You can directly attach a speaker to Arduino or connect a speaker through an amplifier circuit. In both cases, Arduino can output digital audio from any GPIO. Whether or not one needs an amplifier circuit depends entirely on the selected speaker.…

In this mini-DIY project, we will make a color-flashing coconut tree. It has two 3W RGB LEDs using, which generate multicolor flashing effects. Also, a tiny 8-pin microcontroller ATtiny85 generates eye-catching colorful LED-chasing effects. It is battery-operated, and the battery is rechargeable so it does not require a power connection through wires. It can be…

A polygraph is an instrument that records physiological indicators like pulse rate, blood pressure, and electrodermal activity of a human subject under questioning by an operator. It’s commonly referred to as a lie-detector test because it’s designed to assess whether a person is telling the truth. Industry-standard polygraph equipment is said to be 80 to…

You might have heard about USB rubber ducky. A Rubber ducky is a programmed USB HID device, often a pen drive, to send a programmed sequence of keystrokes and mouse events to a computer. It is a powerful device that can unlock a PC or login credentials by inserting a USB stick. Even a rubber…

Node.js is the most popular server at this time. Due to its asynchronous and non-blocking nature, Node is the obvious choice for real-time web applications like chat rooms, single-page applications, video streaming, etc. For the same reasons, Node is attracting IoT engineers. As web applications developed on Node operate in real-time, these are best suitable…

The LCD module is the most common output unit in a microcontroller board. It is very effective since it can display messages, values, clock etc. Special kinds of LCD drivers are used to drive the LCD. Two or more of this kind of driver ICs together with the LCD screen forms LCD modules found in embedded systems. The characters displayed in the LCD modules are actually stored in the internal memory locations of those controllers. They are stored in such a way that they exactly resemble the ASCII table. Whenever the microcontrollers send an ASCII value the LCD controllers displays the ASCII character which has been stored corresponding to that value.The LCD modules can display not only ASCII characters but custom characters also. 

This is a simple tutorial on arduino, ldr(light dependent resistor)/photoresistor sensor and piezo buzzer. Piezo buzzer output sound level will variate by arduino depending on the intensity of light thrown on ldr/light sensor. An led will also fade by arduino depending on the intensity of light thrown on photoresistor. The diy project is same like…

Biometric devices are the backbone of modern security and access systems. The most commonly used biometric device is a fingerprint scanner. Fingerprints are unique identifiers that cannot be easily faked. Optical fingerprint sensors are widely used in security systems as these are low-cost compared to capacitive and ultrasonic scanners. Optical fingerprint sensors digitize fingerprints by…

The applications of microcontroller are not limited to control simple electrical or electronic device but they are widely used in robotics and automotive industries nowadays. From simple rear view mirror control to complex engine control functions are done by the microcontroller. The microcontroller can even implement to automatically controlling the vehicle without a human driver inside it and such kinds of vehicles are called Unmanned Vehicles (UV). The UVs are commonly used research, military, rescue and agriculture fields. For any UVs the real time tracking of their path is necessary to ensure that they are moving through the proper way.This project demonstrates how it is possible to make a simplest path tracking device for a ground vehicle with the help of optical mouse. This project makes use of an optical mouse which works on PS2 protocol and is interfaced with an Arduino board to read the data from it.   

The mouse and the Keyboard form the standard input unit for a Personal computer. The QWERT keyboard which is used in the PC comes with a PS2 connector or USB port connector. The PS2 keyboard uses a simple synchronous serial protocol using only two wires for communication. Due to its simplicity the PS2 keyboards are widely used with simple microcontroller based boards also. The PS2 keyboard always acts as a slave device which can send the equivalent ASCII value of the key which has been pressed to its master device which can be a PC or a microcontroller. The ZigBee is the name of a wireless protocol maintained by the IEEE 802.15 standard. This is a protocol specified for wireless Personal Area Network (PAN) using low powered wireless transceivers. There are already wireless transmitter and receiver modules which can do point to point communication.   

One can use a cell phone with any cellular networks around the globe if the proper SIM card is inserted in it. This is possible because there is some device inside the cell phone which follows a global standard enabling them to connect with different cellular networks. This standard is called Global System for Mobile communications (GSM). The mobile phones have built in GSM modules which then be used by the processor inside the phone to make a call, send or receive message or even connect with the GPRS network.  In certain applications the microcontroller based systems has to be connected with the GSM network which will enable a user to control the system by sending messages or making a call. The systems can also send messages to the user to alert or inform about the status of the system running.