Top Photon Projects

2019-02-18 | By Maker.io Staff

The Particle Photon is an IoT prototyping platform that allows for the quick creation of Wi-Fi enabled projects while providing a very user-friendly cloud-based IDE. In this article, we will look at the top Particle Photon projects!

Photon Wi-Fi Strength Meter

Trying to determine the Wi-Fi strength of a particular area can be difficult, and the variance in a room can be staggering! Putting your phone or laptop two inches to the right could make the difference between potato video resolution and full HD resolution from your favorite video streaming service. This Particle Photon project is a simple Wi-Fi strength meter that uses a LED bar meter as the display output showing the Wi-Fi strength as a variable bar. But this project also incorporates a speaker that plays a short tone when there is a significant change in Wi-Fi signal, so if you do build this project keep your ears open!

Particle Photon Flip Dot Clock

Flip-dot displays are incredibly common and yet rare at the same time. They are often found in bus and train stations but they are almost never found in hobby projects. This project takes electromechanically flip-dot displays and controls them with the use of a Particle Photon and an RS-485 module that allows the two to communicate. Flip-dot displays are interesting because they are large, loud, and arguably very vintage, with each display being controlled by a tiny electromagnet.

Weather Meter Panel

While there are many weather station projects out there, this one has gone the extra mile by producing a beautiful panel of meters showing different values including barometric pressure, the chance of precipitation, and temperature.

These meters are originally mA readers which have had their face removed and replaced with a printout showing different data. The Photon then controls the individual meters as it reads data from forecast.io, and the entire project is mounted onto a CNC carved wood panel.

https://www.instructables.com/id/Panel-Meter-Weather-Station-With-Photon/

Lie Detector

One maker, in particular, has used their Particle Photon to create a lie detector. This design includes 3 LED outputs for indicating truth and lie, while simple DIY finger clips measure the voltage from the user's fingertips. While not an IoT project, this does demonstrate that the Particle Photon is not just a Wi-Fi microcontroller that can only be used in IoT based projects. According to the author, the analog reading from the fingertips will suddenly shift when a user is asked a question and answered with a lie however the author has also said that the results are not 100% accurate. Although, to be clear, most polygraph systems are not 100% accurate.

https://www.instructables.com/id/Particle-Photon-Lie-Detector/

Droid Helmet Communication System

Communicating with others in a secret language can be difficult, but this Particle Photon project makes it appear that you are communicating with friends in a droid language! The helmets have a two-way radio system built into them using the Photon which transmits voice from one helmet into the earpiece of the other helmet and therefore requiring no translation. When a voice is detected, the Photon creates a fake stream of droid sounds in the form of a droid language to fool others. While not entirely practical for office use, these helmets would be a fantastic project for any sci-fi fan!

https://makezine.com/2016/10/28/talk-like-droid-using-particle-photon/

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