<h1 id="driving-a-blinkt-as-an-iot-device">Driving a Blinkt! as an IoT device</h1>
<h2 id="introduction">Introduction</h2>
<p>I managed to buy a Raspberry Pi Zero when they first came out in December 2015. This was not easy since they were very scarce. I also bought a first-generation case from <a href="https://shop.pimoroni.com/" title="Pimoroni Ltd">Pimoroni</a> and some 40-pin headers. With the Zero this header is not pre-installed and it’s necessary to solder it onto the Pi yourself.</p>
<p>I have had various project ideas for this Pi Zero, but had not decided on one until recently. Within the last month or two Pimoroni produced a device called the <a href="https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/blinkt" title="Blinkt!"><em>Blinkt!</em></a> which has eight APA102 RGB LEDs and attaches to the GPIO header. This costs £5, just a little more than the Zero itself.</p>
<p>My plan was to combine the two and turn them into a status indicator for various things going on that needed my attention.</p>
<h2 id="long-notes">Long notes</h2>
<p>I have written out a moderately long set of notes for this episode and these are available here <a href="https://hackerpublicradio.org/eps/hpr2173/full_shownotes.html" class="uri">https://hackerpublicradio.org/eps/hpr2173/full_shownotes.html</a>.</p>
<h2 id="links">Links</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/pi-zero/">Raspberry Pi Zero</a></li>
<li><a href="https://shop.pimoroni.com/">Pimoroni Ltd</a></li>
<li><a href="https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/blinkt">The <em>Blinkt!</em> add-on from Pimoroni</a></li>
<li><a href="https://learn.pimoroni.com/tutorial/sandyj/getting-started-with-blinkt">Pimoroni’s documentation “<em>Getting Started with Blinkt!</em>”</a></li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/pimoroni/blinkt">The GitHub repository for <em>Blinkt!</em></a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/70078335/#/40214202">The <em>RIBBA</em> picture frame from IKEA</a></li>
<li><a href="https://inkscape.org/en/"><em>Inkscape</em> vector graphics editor</a></li>
<li><em>MQTT</em> (<em>Message Queuing Telemetry Transport</em>):
<ul>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MQTT">Wikipedia article on <em>MQTT</em></a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publish%E2%80%93subscribe_pattern">Wikipedia article on the <em>Publish-subscribe pattern</em></a></li>
</ul></li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/arvydas/blinkstick-python/wiki/Example%3A-MQTT"><em>BlinkStick</em> MQTT page</a></li>
<li><a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/thunderbird/addon/mailbox-alert/"><em>Mailbox Alert</em> add-on for <em>Thunderbird</em></a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.jezra.net/blog/orb">Jezra’s Orb project</a></li>
<li>Resources:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://hackerpublicradio.org/eps/hpr2173/blinkt_legends.svg">My Inkscape template “<code>blinkt_legends.svg</code>”</a></li>
<li><a href="https://hackerpublicradio.org/eps/hpr2173/blinkt_client.py">My first primitive listener script “<code>blinkt_client.py</code>”</a></li>
<li><a href="https://hackerpublicradio.org/eps/hpr2173/cronjob_comments">My cron script for checking comments “<code>cronjob_comments</code>”</a></li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
