Do you suffer from a lack of natural sunlight in your room? Does the lack of sunlight make it almost impossible to get out of bed when you hear a dreadful alarm?

Yes, windows would be nice, but we live in New York City and who needs those when you got a PyPortal and a NeoPixel strip?

In this project, you can wake up to a soft white light fading into your consciousness! You could get a consumer grade sunrise alarm clock that may solve your problem but you can also do it yourself!

Using a PyPortal, and a NeoPixel strip, make a sunrise alarm clock that wakes you up with light! Program the PyPortal with CircuitPython to set your wake-up times and the strip will begin to brighten 30 minutes before your wake-up time.

Prerequisite guides

This project may require some soldering depending on the NeoPixel strip you get. Here's a great guide on soldering if it's your first time or you need some refreshing!

Parts

You can pick up an Adafruit PyPortal and a USB cable (if needed). If you like, you can mount the PyPortal in the Adafruit laser-cut acrylic stand. All these parts are bundled in AdaBox 011 if you'd like to buy them together. 

Instead of AdaBox 011, you can buy parts separately:

Front view of a Adafruit PyPortal - CircuitPython Powered Internet Display with a pyportal logo image on the display.
PyPortal, our easy-to-use IoT device that allows you to create all the things for the “Internet of Things” in minutes. Make custom touch screen interface...
$54.95
In Stock
USB cable - USB A to Micro-B - 3 foot long
This here is your standard A to micro-B USB cable, for USB 1.1 or 2.0. Perfect for connecting a PC to your Metro, Feather, Raspberry Pi or other dev-board or...
$2.95
In Stock
Assembled PyPortal in acrylic enclosure
PyPortal is our easy-to-use IoT device that allows you to create all the things for the “Internet of Things” in minutes. Create little pocket...
$9.95
In Stock

Other parts

You only need 1m of neopixel strip:

Adafruit NeoPixel Digital RGB LED Strip with different rainbow and white lights moving around
What is better than smart RGB LEDs? Smart RGB+White LEDs! These NeoPixels now have 4 LEDs in them (red, green, blue and white) for excellent lighting effects. These LED...
$69.75
In Stock
Angled shot of STEMMA JST PH 3-Pin to Male Header Cable - 200mm.
This cable will let you turn a JST PH 3-pin cable port into 3 individual wires with high-quality 0.1" male header plugs on the end. We're carrying these to match up with our...
$1.25
In Stock
Bundle of multi-colored multi-length wire jumpers
75 flexible stranded core wires with stiff ends molded on in red, orange, yellow, green, blue, brown, black and white. These are a major improvement over the "box of bent...
$4.95
In Stock
Bundle of Small Alligator Clip Test Leads
Connect this to that without soldering using these handy mini alligator clip test leads. 15" cables with alligator clip on each end, color coded. You get 12 pieces in 6 colors....
$3.95
In Stock
Hook-up Wire Spool Set in box with 6 colorful wires coming out
This is a box of six 25ft spools of stranded-core wire. Stranded-core wire is best used for wiring jigs where there's...
$19.95
In Stock
Premium Female/Female Jumper Wires - 40 x 6"
Handy for making wire harnesses or jumpering between headers on PCB's. These premium jumper wires approximately 6" (150mm) long and come in a 'strip' of 40 (4 pieces...
$3.95
In Stock
5V 2.5A Switching Power Supply with 20AWG MicroUSB Cable
Our all-in-one 5V 2.5 Amp + MicroUSB cable power adapter is the perfect choice for powering single-board computers like Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone, or anything else that's...
Out of Stock

Other materials

  • single-sided tape
  • foam tape
  • hot glue gun and sticks
  • a bed frame or dresser to attach NeoPixel strip to

This guide was first published on Aug 07, 2019. It was last updated on Mar 18, 2024.

This page (Overview) was last updated on Mar 08, 2024.

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