This project combines everything I love: technology, tinkering, and beautiful design.

As soon as you address the world receiver with the activation word “Alexa”, the control panel on the sides lights up and gives the user feedback, just like you already know it from the Echo Dot and other smart speakers.

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Technical Details

The base was an old world receiver that I - so far - haven’t structurally modified. On top of that came an Echo Dot and an Arduino, along with a brightness sensor, LEDs, and a few other components.

I built the brightness sensor into the Echo Dot, right in the center of the device, so that it can pick up the light from the light ring and relay it. The captured signal is passed through a register, and depending on the intensity, a signal is sent to a higher number of LEDs.

The more feedback the Echo Dot gives, the more feedback the control panel gives as well. To round off the effect a bit more, the driven LEDs have different colors that blend together to create a blue-green gradient.