--- date: 2015-10-29 title: Internet is magic image: /images/internet-is-magic/fluttershy-glow.jpg aliases: - /2015/10/29/internet-is-magic.html --- LEDs for two figurines that show whether my friends are online. Friendship is magic! I like the My Little Pony series, and two of my best friends, knowing that, surprised me with self-made versions of Twilight and Fluttershy at my birthday. ![Twilight and Fluttershy](/images/internet-is-magic/twilight-fluttershy.jpg) _Aren't they adorable?_ As you can see in the picture, I grabbed some diffused LEDs and illuminated my ponies. That was kind of unexciting after a while. Luckily, I had an [ESP8266](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESP8266) to spare. These modules are small Arduino compatible WiFi modules, so with some programming knowledge you can control GPIOs via WiFi. Awesome! Let's connect the ponies to the world wide web. ![Inside view](/images/internet-is-magic/inside.jpg) _Not much to see here_ I wrote a quick-and-dirty Arduino sketch, [uploaded it]({% post_url 2015-10-14-esp8266%}) and was able to control the LEDs via netcat. You can find the sketch [here](https://git.schneefux.xyz/electronics/internet-is-magic/src/master/luminate.ino). ![Twilight glows](/images/internet-is-magic/twilight-glow.jpg) _The cables in the background supply power._ And now comes the fun part. Both of my friends chat with me via [Telegram](https://telegram.org). Unlike WhatsApp, Telegram has an open API that allows me to easily receive their online status. I installed the [telegram-cli](https://github.com/vysheng/tg) client on my [Raspberry Pi](https://raspberrypi.org), a cheap and small computer, and set up an autostart script. telegram-cli runs in bot mode, a python script updates the LEDs every minute. I uploaded the script [here](https://git.schneefux.xyz/electronics/internet-is-magic/src/master/client.py). So whenever my friends are online, their corresponding pony starts to glow. ![Fluttershy glows](/images/internet-is-magic/fluttershy-glow.jpg) ![Twilight and Fluttershy glowing in the dark](/images/internet-is-magic/night.jpg) _When they light up at night, you can feel the magic._ If you want to build something similar to this, be sure to ask your friends whether it's okay for them that you monitor their presence all day long.