Adafruit IO Time Server
In order to get the precise time, our project will query the Adafruit IO Internet of Things service for the time. Adafruit IO is absolutely free to use, but you'll need to log in with your Adafruit account to use it. If you don't already have an Adafruit login, create one here.
If you haven't used Adafruit IO before, check out this guide for more info.
Once you have logged into your account, there are two pieces of information you'll need to place in your settings.toml file: Adafruit IO username, and Adafruit IO key. Head to io.adafruit.com and simply click the View AIO Key link on the left hand side of the Adafruit IO page to get this information.
Then, add them to the settings.toml file with a text editor, similar to this:
CIRCUITPY_WIFI_SSID = "your_wifi_ssid" CIRCUITPY_WIFI_PASSWORD = "your_wifi_password" AIO_USERNAME = "your_aio_username" AIO_KEY = "your_aio_key"
Install CircuitPython Code and Assets
In the embedded code element below, click on the Download Project Bundle button, and save the .zip archive file to your computer.
Then, uncompress the .zip file, it will unpack to a folder named PyPortal_CircuitPython_2020.
Copy the contents of theĀ PyPortal_CircuitPython_2020 (code.py, countdown_event.bmp, circuitpython_day_countdown_background.bmp, fonts directory) to your PyPortal's CIRCUITPY drive.
This is what the final contents of the CIRCUITPY drive will look like:

# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2019 Limor Fried for Adafruit Industries # # SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT """ This example will figure out the current local time using the internet, and then draw out a countdown clock until an event occurs! Once the event is happening, a new graphic is shown """ import time import board from adafruit_pyportal import PyPortal from adafruit_bitmap_font import bitmap_font from adafruit_display_text.label import Label # The time of the thing! EVENT_YEAR = 2020 EVENT_MONTH = 9 EVENT_DAY = 9 EVENT_HOUR = 0 EVENT_MINUTE = 0 # we'll make a python-friendly structure event_time = time.struct_time((EVENT_YEAR, EVENT_MONTH, EVENT_DAY, EVENT_HOUR, EVENT_MINUTE, 0, # we don't track seconds -1, -1, False)) # we dont know day of week/year or DST # determine the current working directory # needed so we know where to find files cwd = ("/"+__file__).rsplit('/', 1)[0] # Initialize the pyportal object and let us know what data to fetch and where # to display it pyportal = PyPortal(status_neopixel=board.NEOPIXEL, default_bg=cwd+"/circuitpython_day_countdown_background.bmp") big_font = bitmap_font.load_font(cwd+"/fonts/Helvetica-Bold-36.bdf") big_font.load_glyphs(b'0123456789') # pre-load glyphs for fast printing event_background = cwd+"/countdown_event.bmp" days_position = (8, 207) hours_position = (110, 207) minutes_position = (220, 207) text_color = 0xFFFFFF text_areas = [] for pos in (days_position, hours_position, minutes_position): textarea = Label(big_font) textarea.x = pos[0] textarea.y = pos[1] textarea.color = text_color pyportal.splash.append(textarea) text_areas.append(textarea) refresh_time = None while True: # only query the online time once per hour (and on first run) if (not refresh_time) or (time.monotonic() - refresh_time) > 3600: try: print("Getting time from internet!") pyportal.get_local_time() refresh_time = time.monotonic() except RuntimeError as e: print("Some error occured, retrying! -", e) continue now = time.localtime() print("Current time:", now) remaining = time.mktime(event_time) - time.mktime(now) print("Time remaining (s):", remaining) if remaining < 0: # oh, its event time! pyportal.set_background(event_background) while True: # that's all folks pass secs_remaining = remaining % 60 remaining //= 60 mins_remaining = remaining % 60 remaining //= 60 hours_remaining = remaining % 24 remaining //= 24 days_remaining = remaining print("%d days, %d hours, %d minutes and %s seconds" % (days_remaining, hours_remaining, mins_remaining, secs_remaining)) text_areas[0].text = '{:>2}'.format(days_remaining) # set days textarea text_areas[1].text = '{:>2}'.format(hours_remaining) # set hours textarea text_areas[2].text = '{:>2}'.format(mins_remaining) # set minutes textarea # update every 10 seconds time.sleep(10)
Page last edited January 22, 2025
Text editor powered by tinymce.