CoffeeBot UPDATE

CoffeeBot is in for more physical changes, but these ones are all digital. Not many pictures for this post.

New picture will come with next update.

CoffeeBot was functional before, but had some shortcomings. My fiance mentioned how she would like to brew a pot off schedule. CoffeeBot was capable of this, but was not designed with interaction in mind.
CoffeeBot needed to take requests. While an off schedule brew could be done with a button on the unit, what if we wanted to change the schedule? I wanted a simple interface that was easily accessible, a basic webpage seemed like an effective option.
The Raspberry Pi that runs the CoffeeBot needed to host a webpage, take and present information on that webpage, and process information from the website to run the hardware. CoffeeBot needed to become a LAMP server.
Linux - The Raspberry Pi runs Raspbian, a linux kernel
Apache - The webpage is hosted on the Pi with Apache2
MySQL - DB used for data storage and access
PHP - Scripts used to check and update MySQL DB
If you are familiar with this tool set the aesthetics of the webpage should make you feel right at home, design is likely to change in future update.

In the picture you can see four sections: Quick Actions, Schedule, Next Brew, and Errors and Suggestions. The Quick Actions section has buttons to BrewNow and Suspend, below the buttons CoffeeBot displays current status. The Schedule section allows users to select date, time, how long to keep coffee hot, and whether to repeat brew schedule. The Next Brew area shows the next brew time in CoffeeBot’s queue. The final section lets users leave comments.

Using some simple PHP scripts the webpage and MySQL DB exchange information. The BrewNow, Suspend, and Submit button in the Schedule section each update the MySQL DB with user submission. The Current State indicator in Quick Actions and the Next Brew section both display information pulled from the MySQL DB.

Behind the scenes, the python script from earlier versions has changed a lot. The python script regularly checks the MySQL DB, processes schedule submissions, updates MySQL DB for Next Brew, and triggers the relay when scheduled.

Still early in testing, updates will continue.

CoffeeBot’s new UI.