Lasers, Servo, WiFi MESH Networks and Snowboarding. Part 2

This is approximately what it looks like in real life on the slope.

One of the suggestions in the comments was to replace the WiFi connection between the poles with BlueTooth. During the May holidays, I tried to switch to BlueTooth (hereinafter BLE) for the mesh network. There were several arguments for this, and the main one was that I initially planned to make the WiFi mesh network of poles isolated from the Internet. Therefore, to control the poles, the user would have to connect his phone to the WiFi network of the light poles. But in this case, access to the Internet on the phone is usually lost. I think not many people will give up instant messengers now, even when doing sports. Unfortunately, it was not possible to launch the network on BLE right away, so the connection between the light poles remained on WiFi, but the user's connection to the poles is already done via BLE. Each light pole can act as an entry point, and the control commands received via BLE are transmitted further via WiFi to all the others. Thus, you can control from anywhere on the ski slope, the main thing is that at least one light pole is within reach via BLE.

The list of all nodes via BLE is transmitted to the control program in the phone, and the program itself transmits back via BLE to each of the nodes its settings. If the first node connected via BLE received settings with an ID that is not its own, it forwards them further via WiFi to the desired recipient.

The program interface on the phone is still extremely simple.

To write the application for the phone I used MIT App Inventor 2. When I started getting acquainted with MIT AP2, I first thought – here you are, down to the level of a schoolboy programming Lego. But the capabilities, the speed of creation and, most importantly, the compactness of the source code are amazing. The entire program now looks like this:

Now let's return to the light towers themselves and how they work now.

Original design

Prototype design.

I unscrewed the battery compartment from the flashlight and made a plug from a PVC pipe which I attached to the servo drive.

Of course, all the mechanics will be hidden from the outside world by a flexible rubber hose and sealed on both sides.

Power is taken from an external powerful power bank. It should last for 2-3 hours. That's all for now. I think I'll finish the prototype completely by the end of the summer. In the meantime, I've also bought some regular flashlights. So summer isn't over yet, but I'm already waiting for winter.