This Raspberry Pi-Powered Fridge Magnet Surprises Guests with the Latest BBC News Headlines
Powered by VLC and a cron job, this fridge magnet adds some smarts to the morning milk run.
Pseudonymous maker "frakman1" has put together a fridge magnet with a difference: Powered by a Raspberry Pi Zero Wireless, it plays back the latest news headlines when a passive infrared (PIR) sensor picks up movement.
Frakman1's build centres around the low-cost and compact Raspberry Pi Zero Wireless single-board computer, connected to three key additional components: A battery pack for wireless operation; a Pimoroni Speaker pHAT hardware attached on top add-on for audio playback; and a passive infrared (PIR) sensor for picking up movement — plus magnets on the rear of a plastic case, so the whole thing can stick to the front of a fridge.
When motion is detected, the gadget springs into life - playing the latest news headlines through the speakers. "I used an hourly cron job to download the news via youtube-dl," frakman1 explains. "Then, for the triggered playback, I used command-line VLC to play the downloaded file. [Originally] it would play a chime and depending on the time of day, turn my lights on and to a certain color using a Python script."
"Everyone has a different idea of what it should play. It's always fun to see how others would use it," frakman1 writes in a Reddit thread on the project, in which suggestions for other uses include an automated insult-thrower, a weight-loss aid, or an aspirational message generator.
More details are available on Reddit; frakman1 has not yet written up the finer details of the project.