Set containing the electronics necessary to manage the Wi-Fi CHRISTMAS Tree published in the magazine Elettronica In n.231 December / January 2018. The set includes the Main Board, Fishino Guppy, the mini MP3 player, four pieces of neopixel LED strip , a loudspeaker and connecting cables to conveniently connect the Neopixel strips.

The Christmas tree, complete with electronics, is made of transparent assembled plexiglass, it is illuminated by Neopixel LED strips (RGB addressable) managed by Fishino Guppy and controlled with a smartphone via a Telegram bot. You can manage the colors and effects of the lights (rainbow effect, rainbow effect with flashing, confetti effect, bounce effect, sliding effect, sequential switch on) and the music to be played. The latter must be saved on a microSD to be inserted in the mini MP3 player, which supports up to 100 folders, each of which can contain up to 255 tracks.

The structure is formed by two fir-shaped silhouettes to cross, along which four LED strips and transverse planes run, fitted perpendicularly to the shapes and which will propagate the light that the Neopixel LEDs radiate from the inside. Everything rests on a 3D printed base with transparent PLA, which also acts as a container for electronics.

Warning! The package does not include the 5V 2A switching power supply, the Plexiglass parts and the 3D printed base code 7100-WIFITREEST (see related products).

Made of transparent plexiglass and interlocking assembled, it is illuminated by a Neopixel strip managed by Fishino Guppy that can be controlled with a smartphone via a Telegram bot. He is able to make various light games and play music.

The electronics include four Neopixel LED strips controlled by the small Fishino Guppy board equipped with WiFi, so perfect for managing light animations and tree music using a smartphone. More precisely, the command is not direct but takes place via Telegram, the instant messaging app that contends with notoriety with Whatsapp, but which offers interesting functions such as bots, although less known to the general public: with a bot we control the strip Neopixel and the music of the luminous sapling through the smartphone.

The choice of transparent plexiglass as a tree structure is not accidental, but derives from the ability that this material has, like glass, to be traversed by light transversely; this allows us to create a structure made up of two fir shapes to cross, along which four LED strips and transverse planes run, fitted perpendicularly to the shapes and which will propagate the light that the Neopixel LEDs radiate from the inside. Everything rests on a 3D printed base with transparent PLA, which also acts as a container for electronics.

The brain of the WiFi Christmas tree is a Fishino Guppy board. On the Main Board there is also an MP3 player and connectors to conveniently connect the Neopixel strips. Everything is powered by a common AC / DC power supply with stabilized voltage 5V 2A output.

Everything must be connected according to the wiring diagram below.

• Power supply: 5 Vcc
• Consumption: 1 A
• Control interfaceo: WiFi
• LED Neopixel illumination
• MP3 player on board with microSD

Fishino Guppy connects in WiFi to the router that overlooks it on the Internet and from here it communicates with the Telegram servers through a bot created artfully; the bot is created with web services like BotFather and resides in Fishino.

But let's take a step back and explain, to those who do not know, what a Telegram bot is: it is a virtual user, not associated (or not necessarily associated) with a phone number, as is instead necessary if you want create a Whatsapp account. The peculiarity is that it is a software robot (hence the name bot, which is its abbreviation) that interacts with other users almost as if it were a real user and allows us to create some automations. In our case the bot sends Fishino Guppy the commands that we, through our Telegram user account, send from the
smartphone in the form of text messages and receives status replies (on the execution of the commands) and requests to be sent, always through text messages by Telegram. In short, the bot is like a person to whom we write what our luminous WiFi tree must do and that takes care of interacting with Fishino Guppy, also informing us about the activity of the sapling itself.

When we turn on the tree for the first time, Fishino looks for the WiFi connection (in the sketch we have to enter the SSID and the password of our network) and if it doesn't find it it launches the fading lighting, which is the default animation; when it connects to WiFi, instead, it executes what we send it from a smartphone. Each time it is turned on it executes the last light animation that was set remotely last. In addition to the lights, if we order it from Telegram it also turns on the MP3 player and executes the song corresponding to the request.

To manage Fishino Guppy from Telegram we used a special library called Fishgram, which allows management through a simple Telegram message. To be able to carry out our project, we first need to download Telegram on our portable device, whether it is based on the Android, iOS or Windows Mobile operating system, connecting to the store or on the web, to the page https://telegram.org/.

• Fishgram library
  The library is part of a library package, so download the complete library package and follow the link instructions to make them available in the IDE.
• Sketch
  The Guppy supplied with the purchase of the product is already programmed to allow use without the Telegaram functions, in which case the shaft is activated after about 1 minute when power is supplied. If you want to check through Telegram, load this sketch, completing the strings concerning the Token, SSID, IP and Access Point as per instructions..