Author of The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg, found in his research that “as soon as a behavior becomes automatic, the decision-making part of your brain goes into a sleep mode of sorts.”

I have been exploring the unconventional way to facilitate a mundane morning routine by hacking the on/off functions of various electronic appliances. The inspiration for this project derived from my fascination with appliances as musical instruments, however for this project I want to take a different/experimental approach to introduce myself to hacking electronics and using an arduino.

Process

To develop my concept prototype, I have taken a standard lamp, hairdryer, and juicer and have attached them to a relay shield on an arduino. Each appliance has been paired to a different arduino sensor to replace its on/off switch.

Sensors Used

• adafruit microphone amplifier to turn on desk lamp
• photoresistor to turn on hairdryer
• thermo sensor to turn on citrus juicer

To complete this cycle, the twitter hashtag #hackmyroutine turns off all devices from a Twitter API through Python.

Check out my code on Github