Hacking a BLE Rubik’s Cube Into a Smart Home Controller
Probably the most difficult way to turn on a light bulb.
Rubik’s cubes are fun and colorful, but at the end of the day, solving them doesn’t really accomplish anything besides perhaps a bit of mental stimulation. On the other hand, the Cubelelo Xiaomi Giiker cube features built-in BLE functionality. This BLE functionality is unprotected, making it easy to connect to with a mobile phone, or something more interesting like an ESP32 module. Dhiraj Gehlot used this interface capability to convert it into a unique home automation control prototype.
His device, as shown in the videos below, receives a signal from the cube to note that it is solved, and flips a relay in response that triggers a light bulb. He's also using an Arduino Uno here to provide the proper 5V signal for the relay. The second video is interesting as well, turning a servo in response to rotations of the cube’s surface — something of a more interactive setup.
The build could have security applications, or potentially be used as a part of an escape room or something along those lines. Notably, he mentions being able to program it to respond to certain arbitrary square patterns, though this could certainly be a struggle for even those that are quite good at solving such a cube. For that matter, if you need the light on to solve the cube, you may simply be out of luck!