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Archive for the ‘nightstand’ Category

Nov
21

Beautiful Touch-Sensitive Furniture

arduino hacks, capsense, Furniture, nightstand, wood working Commenti disabilitati su Beautiful Touch-Sensitive Furniture 

lamp

It’s taken over a year, but [tinkering techie] has finally completed his touch sensitive nightstand. At first glance, it looks like any normal piece of furniture. With the addition of an Arduino, some copper clad board, and a few LEDs, he’s turned it into a very elegant, electronic home furnishing.

The nightstand is built out of a few very nice pieces of mahogany. Underneath the top of the nightstand, three Kapton-covered copper clad boards are inset along the front and side edges. These capacitive sensing boards are connected to an Arduino Fio that reads the capacitance of these sensors and turns on a small LED under the drawer or the mains powered lamp.

The electronics are powered by a small USB charger with a battery backup all hidden underneath the top of the nightstand. Inside the drawer, a magnetic reed switch turns on an RGB LED whenever the drawer is opened.

While the nightstand itself is a wonderful piece of woodworking, we need to tip our hat for a remarkably seamless integration of fine furniture and electronics. The electronic furniture modifications we usually see are Ikea cruft, but this wonderful homemade nightstand should last decades or centuries.

Video of [techie] going over his build below


Filed under: Arduino Hacks


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