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.

Steps

Step #1: Putting Together the Circuits.

NextPrev

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.

Riley Porter

8 Responses to Arduino Mail Notifier

Riley Porter on May 24th, 2011 at 8:29 pm said:

Hey guys didnt see these comments. Sparkfun is looking still for a replacement. However it looks like these are the same / similar from Speeedstudio.
http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/315mhz-rf-link-kit-p-76.html

Enclosure:
I made these for my projects. For now I am not selling them. However I might soon.

If you try this with the seeed rf modules let me know.

Riley
Riley Porter on May 26th, 2011 at 12:35 pm said:

Looks like you can get the pair here.

I think this is the 433 Mhz version however it should work just as the 315Mhz one I used did.

Riley
Riley Porter on November 16th, 2011 at 3:14 am said:

JD,

I am glad you liked the project! As for the case. I own a laser cutter. I also own a side business that cases like these. I however have designed these cases. I have not put them on my webstore. I have got more than a few requests for these. I just have been wrapped up as of late. Layering laser cut acrylic + etching is a bit of a time consuming process for the laser cutter. That means that to sell these cases they would be in the range of the price of the arduino it self. You see my issue. However I am wrapped up with a work project for then next few weeks. I will try to put something up on my website.

http://www.synthetos.com/webstore
Hambone on September 14th, 2013 at 3:40 pm said:

This was very helpful. Thanks for the nice article.
The only big hurtle I had was figuring out that I needed to download the virtualwire library, as it doesn’t come with the Arduino IDE. Whether or not it was the correct place to get it, I downloaded it here. http://www.pjrc.com/teensy/td_libs_VirtualWire.html
Brian on June 6th, 2014 at 8:28 am said:

How long do the batteries typically last?
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Michael Merryman on September 19th, 2017 at 11:59 am said:

In the mailbox sender code I see you have the line “sensorValue = analogRead(sensorPin);” to read the light sensor (photoresistor), then there is a 10-minute delay before reading the sensor again. What happens if the mailbox is opened during the 10-minute delay? Won’t it miss the event when the mailbox was opened?