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The Arduino code is responsible for connecting to the Wifi network, getting the latest data from the server (with the help of the fetch_current.php script), and moving the servos to the correct location. Arduino sketch:   Whereabouts.ino Before you download and install the sketch to your Arduino, you will need to update some of the code for your specific environment: /* Network Information */ char ssid[] = "your_SSID"; // your network SSID (name) char pass[] = "your_WPA_pass"; // your network password // WiFi/Ethernet vars IPAddress server(10,10,10,10); This is all pretty self-explanatory. Add the Wifi SSID, WPA password, and server IP address to the sketch. // Servo control vars // The number of people (or hands) that I have on the clock #define NUM_PEOPLE 5 // Names of the people we track (must match what is returned from the server String peopleNames[NUM_PEOPLE] = {String("DAD"), String("MOM"), String("CHILD1"),...

The PHP script that is called by the Arduino looks into the database and grabs the most recent locations for each user.  It then returns the data in an XML output that the Arduino can parse. Here's the source code:   fetch_current.php You will need to update the following with your own server data: // Database connection information $db_hostname = "localhost"; $db_username = "db_username"; $db_password = "db_password"; $db_database = "whereabouts"; When executed with `php fetch_current.php` you should receive output similar to this: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <whereabouts> <DAD> home </DAD> <MOM> home </MOM> <CHILD1> home </CHILD1> <CHILD2> home </CHILD2> <CHILD3> home </CHILD3> </whereabouts> The clock will use the user names and locations to move the hands to the appropriate places.

The server-side collection and processing is done with a PHP script on a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) server and is executed by cron.  I set mine to query the phone data every 15 minutes, and it didn't seem to kill my battery any more than normal.  Increase or decrease the timing as you see fit. The script is dependent on the work of Tyler Hall and his Sosumi PHP library to get the location data from the Find my iPhone service.  You will need to download the class from  his website. The script included below will query the phone data for users in the database whose 'location_source' is 'GPS'.  You will need to modify the following in the script to get the location grabbing code to work: // Enter your iCloud username and password $ssm = new Sosumi('your_apple_id', 'your_password'); // Database connection information $db_hostname = "your_database_host"; $db_username = "db_username"; $db_password = "db_password...

The Whereabouts code is comprised of three parts: the webserver code that fetches the data from the iPhones, the database that stores the information, and the Arduino that represents the server data in physical form in the clock. This post is on the MySQL database that hosts the location data.  I've attached a SQL file that can be loaded into an empty database.  Some tweaking will need to be done for your specific environment which I will detail below. whereabouts.sql The 'clock_location' table is a key/value pair table that represents the physical locations on the clock.  The names in the 'name' field are important and must match exactly (case-sensitive) the values that will be used in the Arduino code for clock locations.  The twelve locations provided are the ones I used but may be modified as needed. The history table is an empty table that will be populated each time the location fetching code is run.  This will be purged after 30 days by the same c...

We bought a new home a few months ago, and I'm finally getting around to some updates on the Whereabouts Clock.  I decided that hosting an 802.11b WEP secured Wifi network just to host the clock was a bit silly. Prior to the move, I was using the Arduino Ethernet Shield attached to a 3Com OfficeConnect WL-524 to bridge the clock data to my Wifi network.  The only way to connect it as a bridge was to use WEP security, which by all accounts is now completely insecure. I saw that Arduino now sells a shield with a built-in 802.11g that supports open, WEP, WPA networks.  I picked one up and after much frustration with upgrading the firmware on my Arduino (Uno rev. 1) and the shield itself, I finally got it online.  This reduces the number of components in the clock, and certainly the power consumption as well. I also redid my homebuilt servo shield because the Wifi shield required the use of one of the pins I had been using for the clock servos.  Here's the sch...