Texting-Enabled Raspberry-Pi-Powered Espresso Machine | Hacker News Reader

Texting-Enabled Raspberry-Pi-Powered Espresso Machine

blog.zipwhip.com

71 pointsrdb21 comments

This is my Raspberry Pi-powered espresso machine dashboard:

I use this with an iPad standing next to the machine to check that the temperature is okay before pulling a shot. The temperature controller is implemented with an Arduino board.

Nice, here is the current progress of my Silvia / PID monitoring: http://i.imgur.com/mis4L.png.

I'm using Arduino + TC4 shield for PID and interfacing w/ thermocouples, SSR, and opto-isolators (for front panel switch sensing). Serial to RasPi to web sockets for the frontend.

Their power hookup looks a bit dangerous:

http://zipwhip.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/raspiblog2.jpg

Yeah, that should be sheathed. Let's hope no-one texts for a coffee and starts a fire instead!

Agree, at least put a bit of heat-shrink tubing on that. Though, I'll admit to having done worse.

Would have been so much cooler if it supported HTCPCP: https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2324.txt

Perfectly executed. But for home use I would have just screwed an RC servo motor on the front to press the button :)

It was looking pretty good until that last picture.

That mains wiring is plain unsafe and almost criminal...

Admit it, you just needed an excuse for the company to buy a nice espresso machine for the office :)

And ~20-40 hours of hardware hacking.

Nice, but what happens if two people text the machine at the same time :P

I'd assume it would work just like a printer que.

I'd assume it works just like pressing a button while the coffemaker's brewing a cup. You'll probably have to resend the text.

You call that an espresso machine? And I suppose you're filling it with Starbucks beans.

</snob>

Yeah - I feel the same. Looked at my hand-me-down Rancilio Silvia and wondered about the set up. A text to turn it on and prime the boiler would be great and very useful for my late morning weekend coffees. I love this machine, with 2x $40 services it has run for about 15 years, a minimum of 2 coffees per day.

Trying to sign up for ZipWhip, I got this: http://d.pr/i/IEr3

Feel free to send us an email @ support@zipwhip.com with the number you are trying to register and we can get it sorted out. We are publishing better error handling for the bug you encountered this afternoon. -james @ zipwhip

Does anyone know if this sort of hack also exist / is possible for a Philips Senseo machine?

I don't see why not, but you would need a machine with a built in pod dispenser to make coffee "unattended" The machine in the article grinds coffee beans.

What do I have to text to make a mug appear?

yea, good point - what if we have many people in the office and everyone is using his own cup ? :)

pic recognition + robot arm ?

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