it keeps the cord from getting yanked out (Figure
O
). You may also want to hot-glue your jumper
cables and components to the breadboard to help
fix them in place.
SOLUTION DEPLOYED!
Set up your Smart Gate circuit somewhere close
enough to your gate or garage for the button
press to make it open (Figure
P
). Remember,
you’ll still need power for the Boron, so look for
an accessible AC outlet.
Now you’re all set to go— click away and your
gate or garage will open, even if you’re far away
on an overseas vacation.
You can also keep refining this project. A few
areas of improvement to consider:
• Powering the remote via the voltage output on
the Boron to eliminate battery changes
• Moving everything to a perfboard, or creating
a custom PCB for the Boron, components, and
remote, to make the circuit more durable
• Adding a sensor to detect and alert that the
gate has opened successfully (you might as
well use more than just one of those Boron
pins, after all)
• Eliminating the opener remote entirely
by wiring the Boron directly to the gate
mechanism’s electronics
• Building an Alexa skill to open the gate with a
voice command
• Dedicated Android app, anyone?
There may be more efficient code options
as well— if you see ways to optimize it, be
our guest.
Mobile garage openers are one of the go-to
starter IoT maker projects, but this one brings in
the new aspect of near-unlimited range thanks
to LTE. Use this project as a basis to think of
other LTE integrations, and how you might also
incorporate transistor switches into your projects.
Have fun!
77
make.co
N
O
P
DATA
CONSIDERATIONS
Particle’s new LTE platform is free for up
to 100 devices and 100,000 data operations
per month. Each button press uses one
data operation; we used about 60 in one
month, including setting up and testing our
opener. If you surpass these device and
operation limits, you'll have to move to one
of their paid plans: particle.io/pricing.
Grab the code files at makezine.
com/go/cellgateopener.
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