Casual IoT tinkering and DIY for people who love modern programming languages.

NOTE: This project is heavily WIP.

What is Bricks?

I come up with dumb gadget ideas all the time.

“Wouldn’t it be cool if a light goes on when I take my keys out of the
key tray or if a message is posted to the coffee chat whenever I put the
kettle on?”

They’re fun for a while and maybe even inspire actual useful ideas,
but mostly are disposable one-offs.

I’m a developer by profession, but spending days writing C++, flashing
microcontrollers, soldering custom PCBs, and building enclosures for
what are essentially throwaway projects always felt a little harder than it should.

That led to the idea of building a suite of pre-programmed IoT “Bricks”:

Individual LEDs, buttons, sensors, that can be pulled out when needed, are all internet-enabled,
and whose behavior can easily be programmed ad hoc using modern program
languages such as Ruby or JavaScript.

You could say Bricks is a poor man’s Sony Mesh,
running entirely on existing Arduino-compatible hardware and open source software,
and made for people who already know how to code.

How to use Bricks?

This repository contains all the info required to build a collection of Bricks.

Depending on your needs, it could be used to:

• Create Bricks using any ESP8266/ESP32s you have and the examples found in this library.
• Integrate just the C++ library to easily internet-enable your own ESP8266/ESP32 projects.
• Recreate the full original suite of Bricks including Node-RED flows, hardware, and enclosures.

Todo

Software

• Figure out how to get a static IP on Balena
• Write up building a Brick
• Figure out why logging doesn’t show up unless delayed
• Switching from Char to Graph Matrix animation doesn’t seem to work?

Nice to haves

• Extract Lumi
• DRY up const uint8_t PROGRESS_MAX = UINT8_MAX

Hardware

• More sturdy button placement
• Avoid battery rattling about
• Rebuild Bricks suite
• Try out Wemos D1 hack