Where's my friend? Build this simple IoT project to display a friend's or loved one's location on an Adafruit PyPortal.
Using Adafruit's ItsaSnap iOS app and Apple Shortcuts, you can send a pre-selected GPS location from an iPhone to a shared (private) Adafruit IO feed. The PyPortal connects to the internet, fetches a location value of a shared feed, and displays the location on the screen along with a corresponding icon and text.
About this project, your privacy, and Adafruit IO
Adafruit IO's data feeds are private (not viewable by others) by default and secure (we will never sell or give this data away to another company).
This project uses the ItsaSnap iOS App to bridge Adafruit IO and Apple Shortcuts. Apple Shortcuts utilizes your iPhone's GPS (with permission) to write a string of text (i.e.: "park" or "work") to identify where a friend is. It does not send specific GPS location data to the Adafruit IO servers.
The data sent by the Shortcuts app is stored on a private Adafruit IO data feed, only viewable by you and the friend sharing their location with you.
ItsaSnap for iOS
It's a Snap (ItsaSnap) is a simple iOS app designed for exploring Adafruit IO. It allows you to send data to your Adafruit IO feeds. You can also link it to control or monitor your internet-connected projects. This lets you control and check Adafruit devices from your phone, anywhere.
It also allows us to use Apple's Shortcuts app to create a code-free automation from your iOS device.
Parts
The following products and parts are required to complete this project:
Note: The code in this guide is designed for the original Adafruit PyPortal. If you have the PyPortal Pynt or PyPortal Titano, you can still complete this project, but you will need to adjust some of the code to accommodate the Titano/Pynt's different display sizes.
The following parts are not required to complete this project but are nice to have.
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