Building Spy HQ

Happy New Year!  Here's the post that started this entire blog.  Today I had a great time playing with my son Max.  It did involve his Christmas presents to an extent, but we actually had a lot more fun playing with some things I didn't really anticipate being as much fun for a 7-year-old.  We took a z-wave security system, which was collecting dust in the basement and a couple of smart plugs and turned his room into Spy HQ!

It started with a book.  Dude Book of Super Spy Secrets.  Grandma Nene got it for him because she always seems to know exactly what he needs.  The book itself is pretty silly, but oh man did it get Max's wheels turning.  For the last week, he's been sitting at the desk in his room sketching out blueprints and coming up with ideas on how to start a proper spy academy.  Lucky for me, I was extended an invitation to join!

Mission #1: Sound the alarm!

The task: to make sure any intruders into spy HQ would set off an alarm.  As you can see, everyone gets a fair warning that beyond this point you must have the proper clearance level.  So far only Max and I are cleared (with provisional access for Mommy on an as-needed basis).  No little sisters allowed. 

This is where we broke into the Christmas gifts.  Thanks to Aunt Marse, we had most of what was needed for a basic alarm.  

Discovery Action Circuitry

This wire maze gizmo worked perfectly.  We have an alarm and a flashing light all in one.  Early drafts of this project involved putting a plastic drinking straw tied to a string between the contacts for the maze.  The string was tied to the doorknob so when it was pulled out the alarm would sound.  It was cool, but not quite awesome.  Once it was pulled out the alarm just kept going off until you turned the whole thing off and setting it up every time was a pain.  There had to be a better way.  

A quick trip to the workshop yielded an interesting find.  I have no idea when I bought this thing but for some reason, I hadn't even taken it out of the box.  

And boom:

Ok so now we have a way to know if the door is open, but how do we tie this to triggering the alarm?  Hmm... thinking cap time.  There are all sorts of switches out there that work with z-wave and smart devices but I knew I had some smart plugs lying around from black Friday deals.  

So how could I make this:

Power this:

The answer was this:

I never knew this existed but it's a super cool device with lots of possible uses so I picked one up.  Now if we leave the switch for the alarm on we can turn off the smart plug and then when it turns back on... bam, gotcha intruder!  

Ok, so some boring techno stuff:

Having never used the alarm sensors before I realized that they were designed to work with the Wink smart home system.  I don't have one of those but luckily my SmartThings Hub also works with z-wave.  The plugs work with yet another system called Kasa.  Argh, too many apps.  Luckily Kasa has an integration with SmartThings so it seems like I can make all this magic come together.  A little legwork on the apps and I successfully got the plug and the door sensor to show up in the SmartThings app.  Built a quick routine to trigger the plug when the door is opened and we were in business.  

Parts:

Discovery Mindblown Action Circuitry Set

TP-Link Smart Plug

Lenink AA Battery Eliminator Power Supply

Z-Wave Door Sensor

Max's Notes: What the idea started with is two signs and the book we mentioned earlier.  On a scale from boring to awesome, this project was AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Official Sign

Also very official

Ok so without further ado, here is the final product:

Up next: Let's have some fun with that motion sensor.  Also, we've been tinkering with a Raspberry Pi robot!