camera = PiCamera() camera.start_preview()Ĭamera.capture('/home/pi/Desktop/FeedCapPre.jpg') Then we initialize the camera, and take our first ‘before’ image. Next we initialize the email settings (use your own email/password here) SMTP_SERVER = '' These libraries are the ones needed for the GPIO ports, the Camera, the SMTP client (Email), and the text/image encoding, to add the images.Īlso, datetime, and time, so that we can add the date and time to the email. import RPi.GPIO as GPIOįrom import MIMEMultipart Now we can move on to steps 1, 2 and 3, with a little Python code.Ĭreate a new python code file (I’ve called mine ‘FeedOlly.py’), and open it up for edit in Python (IDLE).īut I will explain the parts. This setting allows you to login to your email account, with a plain text username and password. Select ‘Security’ and scroll down to ‘Less secure app access’ - Turn this on. Go to the Gmail webpage, and click ‘Create Account’

(NOTE - You will be saving your password in plain text, so don’t use your active or main email client, otherwise anyone with access to your raspberry pi, could see your password)

You could name it something to do with your raspberry Pi, since you can use this for many projects if you like. My suggestion is that you create a new gmail account. Set a timer, so that these events happen at certain times of the day.įirst we need to set up an email client.Send a signal to the GPIO pin to open the feeder.OK, so the plan now is to write some code, that brings all these things together. This will open the camera preview window for a few seconds, and then save the image to the ‘home’ folder, as ‘image.jpg’ Adding it all together Once you have enabled these (you may need to restart your Pi), you can test the camera, by running this command in the console: raspistill -o image.jpg When I opened up the feeder, I could see that it would be easy to solder a few wires to the button I want to still be able to use the feeder as it was intended.

My only rule, is that I don’t ‘break’ the feeder. My plan is to use the GPIO (General Purpose Input Output) ports to send a signal to the feeder, which will ‘press’ the button, and thereby take the timing control from the feeder, and letting me ‘program’ the times, using the Pi.Īdded to this, I can also take a photo, using the PiCamera, when the bowl opens, and email this to myself. The feeder, has a button, that opens the bowl when you press it. I want to be able to feed at any time of my choosing. So for us to be able to feed every 12 hours, we would have to set the timer to 12 hours, at 7am. you can only set the interval between feeds. ( )īut, this particular feeder has some limitations. So, an automated feeder is the answer! And we do have one. We usually feed him at about 7am every morning, and then when we get home from work, at 7pm each evening.

Automatic dog feeder with button