Tweet-a-Pot: Twitter Enabled Coffee Pot using Arduino

Like the idea of making coffee on the fly? from your bed? While you’re on the bus coming home? Then the Tweet-a-pot is for you!

Tweet-a-pot is the next in fancy twitter enabled devices. This coffee pot enables its owner to make a pot of coffee from anywhere they have cell phone reception, using twitter and an arduino board.

The tweet-a-pot is the easy implementation for remote device control! with a bit of code and some hardware, you can have your very own twitter enabled coffee pot.

Take a look at this quick video, Special thanks to Sam:

Arduino Twitter Enabled Coffee Pot

Step 2: Setting Up Your Computer

First you need to set up your receiving computer.

To interface between the arduino and twitter, we are going to use python. There is a library that is already put together that enables us to use the twitter API. It’s called python-twitter.

After you have installed python, install the python-twitter library and all its dependencies. If you run into trouble just consult the documentation over on the python-twitter website.

Next, install the Arduino IDE so you can program your arduino and talk to it via serial port.

Once those are set up and working, time to go grab your credentials from twitter.com

 

Step 3: Setting up Twitter

Interfacing with twitter used to be easy, all you had to do was put your name and password into your code and it would work. Now twitter has taken user info more seriously using oAuth, and as a result now you must register your app with twitter and get an API key.

First, make a twitter account for this project that is separate from your main twitter account. I chose, driptwit.

Then, go to dev.twitter.com and register your app, this will enable you to grab 4 important pieces of information

-Access Token
-Access Token Secret
-Consumer Key
-Consumer Secret

These keys will be needed in the python code later to interface with the twitter API. After you have those 4 codes, you should be able to continue.

Step 4: The Code: Python Side

First lets go over our python code. The python code basically uses the python-twitter library to ask twitter for the statuses of user “x”, it then takes the last status and searches for the term “#driptwit”.
if found sends the ascii value of 1 to the serial port (and to the arduino), if #driptwitstop is found, it sends an ascii value of 0.
Lastly it loops and checks the twitter account every 15 seconds looking for changes.

As you can see, below is where you enter the keys you got from twitter in the last step.

Here is the actual code:

#******************************************#
# Tweet-a-Pot by Gregg Horton 2011 #
# Please email changes or #
# updates to [email protected] #
# *****************************************#

##Import Libraries

import twitter
import serial
import time

##authenticate yourself with twitter
api = twitter.Api(consumer_key=’consumerkeyhere’, consumer_secret=’consumersecrethere’, access_token_key=’accesskey’, access_token_secret=’accesssecret’)

##set to your serial port
ser = serial.Serial(‘/dev/ttyUSB0’, 19200)

## check serial port
def checkokay():
ser.flushInput()
time.sleep(3)
line=ser.readline()
time.sleep(3)

if line == ‘ ‘:
line=ser.readline()
print ‘here’
## Welcome message
print ‘Welcome To Drip Twit!’
print ‘Making Coffee..’
def driptwit():
status = [ ]
x = 0

status = api.GetUserTimeline(‘X’) ##grab latest statuses

checkIt = [s.text for s in status] ##put status in an array

drip = checkIt[0].split() ##split first tweet into words

## check for match and write to serial if match
if drip[0] == ‘#driptwit’:
print ‘Tweet Recieved, Making Coffee’
ser.write(‘1’)
elif drip[0] == ‘#driptwitstop’: ##break if done
ser.write(‘0’)
print ‘stopped, awaiting instructions.’
else:
ser.write(‘0’)
print ‘Awaiting Tweet’

while 1:
driptwit() ## call driptwit function
time.sleep(15) ## sleep for 15 seconds to avoid rate limiting

[box color=”#985D00″ bg=”#FFF8CB” font=”verdana” fontsize=”14 ” radius=”20 ” border=”#985D12″ float=”right” head=”Major Components in Project” headbg=”#FFEB70″ headcolor=”#985D00″]

Supplies

To make your very own tweet-a-pot you will need the following

1 Power Switch Tail, this is basically a relay that is used to interface with the AC voltage
1 Arduino Board (any will do)
1 Computer running the arduino IDE and Python
1 Drip Coffee Pot

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About The Author

Ibrar Ayyub

I am an experienced technical writer holding a Master's degree in computer science from BZU Multan, Pakistan University. With a background spanning various industries, particularly in home automation and engineering, I have honed my skills in crafting clear and concise content. Proficient in leveraging infographics and diagrams, I strive to simplify complex concepts for readers. My strength lies in thorough research and presenting information in a structured and logical format.

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