First, make sure you've loaded the latest Raspbian Lite operating system on your Raspberry Pi. You can find the OS image download here, instructions for burning to an SD card image here, and a convenient guide here that explains how to load an operating system.
Next, have your Raspberry Pi connected to the Internet, either with a wired connection to its ethernet port, or by setting up wireless access to a WiFi network. Check out the guide on network setup for more details on using wireless and WiFi networks with the Pi.
Once your Raspberry Pi is powered up and connected to a network you can follow the steps below to install the bedclock software.
If you're familiar with connecting to the Raspberry Pi over SSH you can use an SSH terminal application to connect. If you aren't familiar with SSH, you can use the Adafruit Pi Finder tool to find your Raspberry Pi and open a terminal to run the installation. In either way, you should be able to be logged into the RPI as user pi.
Customization Options
As part of the Raspbian installation, visit the various options available and see if any of them needs tweaking. Setting the timezone is a good candidate. :)
Enable I2C via raspi-config
In order to read the gesture sensor, I2C must be enabled via the raspi-config interface. Follow the guide below for a step by step guide. If your familiar with this, use sudo raspi-config and enable I2C through the “Interfacing Options.”
sudo raspi-config
- Localization Options -> change timezone
- Interfacing Options -> enable ssh
- Interfacing Options -> enable I2C
sudo apt-get install -y python-smbus i2c-tools # Ensure i2c device is present ls /dev/i2c* && echo ok || echo bad error cannot see i2c
Install Matrix Driver
OK, now you are ready to install the driver for the LED matrix. We have a script that downloads the code and any prerequisite software. It works with the current Raspbian “Stretch” operating system (either the Lite or Desktop version). Walk through the options it presents and select the ones that pertain to your setup. If you get stuck, we have a more details in the Bonnet Matrix guide.
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/adafruit/Raspberry-Pi-Installer-Scripts/master/rgb-matrix.sh >rgb-matrix.sh sudo bash rgb-matrix.sh
The script will confirm your selections and offer one more chance to cancel without changes.
There’s a lot of software to update, download and install, so it may take up to 15 minutes or so to complete. Afterward, you’ll be asked whether you want to reboot the system.
Testing the Matrix Code
After the reboot, it's time to try the display! Run the following command and make sure it is working properly. By the way, it is okay to do this after the whole assembly; just come back here once the display is properly powered and connected.
cd ~/rpi-rgb-led-matrix/examples-api-use
ROTATE=180
TIMEOUT='-t 10'
for X in 0 {3..11} ; do \
PARAMS='--led-rows=64 --led-cols=64 --led-brightness=88'
sudo ./demo ${PARAMS} ${TIMEOUT} --led-pixel-mapper="Rotate:${ROTATE}" -D${X}
sleep 0.3
done
Press Control+C to stop the program and get back to the command line.
Install Git, Pip and Clone
Let's get the git command so we can clone the bedclock software repository. We will also need some Python packages, which we can easily obtain by using the pip command
sudo apt-get install -y python3-pip git
BRANCH=adafruit
cd && \
git clone -b ${BRANCH} \
https://github.com/flavio-fernandes/bedclock.git bedclock.git
cd ~/bedclock.git && sudo -H pip3 install --upgrade -r ./requirements.txt
Automatic Startup
We will use systemd to start the program automatically. This is just a copy command away from the cloned repo.
# add bedclock service to systemd sudo cp -v ~/bedclock.git/bedclock/bin/bedclock.service \ /lib/systemd/system/ sudo systemctl enable bedclock.service # start the application sudo systemctl start bedclock.service
You can monitor what is happening with the app by looking at the log or systemd status:
sudo systemctl status bedclock.service tail -F ~/bedclock.git/syslog.log | grep bedclock
Customize tweaks
There are lots of knobs that can be tweaked to make the clock behave as you want. Most of these settings are located in the file called const.py. After making the changes, make sure to restart the application by typing the following command
sudo systemctl restart bedclock.service
If you want to start it manually, use start_bedclock.sh
sudo systemctl stop bedclock.service ~/bedclock.git/bedclock/bin/start_bedclock.sh
Just like the time you ran the matrix demo, press the Control-C keys to stop the program and get back to the command line.
MQTT
If you have an MQTT broker that your bedclock can talk to, you can enable it via the mqtt_enabled setting in the const.py file.
That file will be located under the following directory:
# Edit file and modify the following parmameters:
# mqtt_broker_ip =
# mqtt_enabled = True
/bin/nano ~/bedclock.git/bedclock/const.py
# Install mqtt client to poke bedclock via mqtt broker
$ sudo apt-get install -y mosquitto-clients
$ mosquitto_sub -v -h ${MQTT_BROKER} -t "/bedclock/motion" -t "/bedclock/light"
/bedclock/motion on
/bedclock/motion off
/bedclock/light 365
Configuring the clock to stay awake in the dark
If you don't want the clock to go blank when the room is dark, you can change its default behavior in const.py by setting scr_stayOnInDarkRoomDefault = True. Or via MQTT, as shown below:
$ mosquitto_pub -h ${MQTT_BROKER} -t /bedclock/stay -r -m "on"
$ mosquitto_pub -h ${MQTT_BROKER} -t /bedclock/stay -r -m "off"
# to clear topic from broker and use const.scr_stayOnInDarkRoomDefault
$ mosquitto_pub -h ${MQTT_BROKER} -t /bedclock/stay -r -n
Remove/disable unnecessary services
RPI Zero W handles the display just fine but it does not hurt to help it out by disabling unused things that compete for cycles. These were the ones I did on my setup, based on Henner's advice:
sudo systemctl disable avahi-daemon && \ sudo systemctl stop avahi-daemon && \ sudo apt-get remove -y bluez bluez-firmware pi-bluetooth triggerhappy && \ echo ok
Safely Shutdown setup
Abruptly cutting power to the Pi can cause the files in the SD card to become corrupt. So, we suggest safely shutting down the Pi. There is a dedicated guide for enabling Read-Only mode, which will allow you to quickly turn off the Pi without risking corrupting the SD card.
Page last edited March 08, 2024
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