Week 1

Smart Clock

For the final project I wanted to create something very usefull and something that is not available in our market. Then one day I noticed my Mother counting on her fingers to find the time in USA.
Since my sister is settled in New Jersey and my mother being in India they both have a time gap of -8:30 hours. And my mother always use her fingers to subtract 8:30 hours from the Indian time to obtain the Eastern time so that she can call my sister and talk to her. I noticed that it was'nt easy for her to subtract 8:30 hours all the time, and even though she uses an android phone she never used the clock app to find the time nor googled. So I thought I can easly solve this problem by making a smart clock for her.



I had two options in front of me, Either make a digital clock or an analog one. Even though the making side of a digital clock is easy, I chose the analog type because my parents are used to analog clocks and also it'll be a unique one.
My parents do wake up at night for drinking water or to go to toilet, so I also wanted to add a night light around the clock that glows when the ultrasonic sensor detects any motion.

How the Smart Clock works

The Smart Clock has an in-bulit microcontroller and a WiFi module. The WiFi module connects the microcontroller to the home WiFi and fetches the Indian Standard Time (IST) and Eastern Standard Time (EST) from the internet. The microcontroller then sends signals corresponding to the IST to the hour and minute motor drivers and the stepper motor turns accordingly.
If the Ultrasonic Sensor detects any presence within 20cm from the clock, it will send a signal to the Microcontroller. The microcontroller then sends signals corresponding to the EST to the hour and minute motor drivers and the stepper motor turns accordingly and changes the time from IST to EST. The clock will work according to the EST for 1 minute and then turns back to the IST.
At Night if the Ultrasonic Sensor detects any motion in the room, It will send signal to the Microcontroller. The microcontroller then sends signal to the RGB LED strip and the LED's glow and act as a night light in the room.

Future Possiblities

This is a small project to break the Time barrier between my Mother and Sister. But I believe there will be a huge scope for this product If the clock is capable of handling all the different Time Zones, So that you can switch between any Time zones at any Time. Since the clock has a Wifi module, it can be connected to ALEXA and then the possiblites are immense. Now by speaking to the clock you can change Time Zones, change the ambient light colour, you can set alarms and reminders. Moreover the clocks works by fetching the time from the internet, so it will never show a wrong time.