Smart Home Automation and Signalling via Old-School Rotary Phone

Hacker Kristiaan N. (AKA “SuperKris”) is a fan of how old-school rotary phones look, but how could he justify actually having one mounted in his abode? Sure, he could hack up some sort of console with an iPhone inside, or perhaps even pay for a landline, but Kris decided to instead turn his into a home automation console.

Originally, he wanted to make it just respond to doorbell presses, and while it does do that job, he added an Arduino Nano and NRF24 radio inside to allow it to do much more. Aside from ringing normally, he can activate up to five different ringtones — or ring patterns, as it’s still banging on the original phone’s physical bells— using his modern cell phone. Domoticz, running on a Raspberry Pi 3, is used as a browser-based interface for the system, and wireless functionality is taken care of software-wise by the MySensors library.

Even more impressive, the phone, which appears to be unmodified on the outside — as seen in the video below — is able to control connected appliances with the rotary dial. This enables up to 10 commands to be input by dialing 0–9, and his particular setup turns a nearby light off and on by dialing 5 then 4. It’s an interesting project in itself, and a great intro to the unique home automation solutions that one can construct!