Arduino Mail Notifier

By Riley Porter
Time Required: 1 hour

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Many inventions/hacks often arise out of the need to solve a problem. The Arduino mailer notifier project was no exception. My workshop is in my backyard. During the day, I am far away from my mailbox. Using two Arduinos, some cheap RF modules, and a light sensor, I was able to create a solution that alerts me when my mail has arrived. In this project, I will show you how I did it.

December 18, 2012, 10:42 pm PST

Steps

Step #1: Putting Together the Circuits.

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Wire up the two Arduino boards as shown in this diagram
On the receiver there are multiple places for GND and VCC. Connect all of the GND's together and the VCC's together.

Conclusion

This project was designed to get you used to working with cheap and simple RF modules while providing a cool, practical application. There is much room for improvement here. For instance, if this were a long-term project, much code optimization would need to be done to have the processor "sleep." Also, for alerting purposes, perhaps an LED or some audible alert could be added.

In O'Reilly's "Arduino Cookbook," in recipe 14.1 Sending Messages Using Low-Cost Wireless Modules, there is much more information about using these RF modules.

You can get the book here at the Maker Shed.

For another mailbox alert system, check out Matt Richardson's Snail Mail Push Alerts project.

And for lots more Arduino, take a gander at the Make: Arduino page.