The DressingGlass

This project is a decorative thermometer showing the temperature by its brightness, the user could get a more precise understanding of the weather without reading the measurement, but tell from how bright the thermometer is. You can use it as an indoor/outdoor decoration and hang aside your window, or simply place it on your desk. It could assist you to choose your outfit for the day.

Here is the list of resources you will need to build this project:

A plastic transparent hollow sphere

Moldable metal fabric

A sharp scissor

DHT22 sensor

Glue gun & glue sticks

Polyfill

RGBW Neopixel strip

Soldering iron & solder

ESP8266 NodeMCU 1.0

White breadboard wires

Wire strippers

Flush diagonal cutters

Third hand tool

Micro USB cable

Connect you temperature sensor and neopixel strips with the WiFi board, and play with the code to get a desired color affect.

void loop() {
  // read the temperature sensor
  delay(2000); //  Pause for a few seconds between measurements

  // Reading temperature or humidity takes about 250 milliseconds!
  // Sensor readings may also be up to 2 seconds 'old' (its a very slow sensor)
  humidity = dht.readHumidity();
  // Read temperature as Celsius (the default)
  temperatureC = dht.readTemperature();
  // Read temperature as Fahrenheit (isFahrenheit = true)
  temperatureF = dht.readTemperature(true);

  // Check if any reads failed and exit early (to try again).
  if (isnan(humidity) || isnan(temperatureC) || isnan(temperatureF)) {
    Serial.println(F("Failed to read from DHT sensor!"));
    return;
  }

The code below allows you to control the number of lights based on the data from your temperature sensor.

 temperaturePixels = map(temperatureC, 0, 100, 0, strip.numPixels());
  Serial.print("number of pixels to light up based on weather: ");
  Serial.println(temperaturePixels);

  for (int i=0; i

In order to have everything fit into the plastic ball, the first step is to measure the desired length of your neopixel strips and wires before soldering. Then solder each part and test it before putting them together.

Place your complete circuit and neopixel strips inside the hollowed sphere, add some polyfill to decorate and hide the wires.

Time to cut your metal fabric. Use a sharp scissor to cut out a small piece of material to test out the softness and play with it. Then, cut out a triangular fabric that is relative large to the plastic sphere, wrap around your plastic ball to get a round shape and start to sculpt the material into a desired shape.

Use the glue gun to glue your plastic ball and metal fabric together.

You made it! Congratulations :)