A CD40106 could do the same and would even be more reductionist (and uses less current).
jeffreygoesto•1mo ago
Touché ;)
tgsovlerkhgsel•1mo ago
How much current would the capacitor/resistor attached to it use?
Modern microcontrollers are insanely power efficient. An ESP32 in "light sleep" (which would be sufficient to serve timer routines) is said to consume <1 mA (at 3.3V), down to ~10 uA (microamps!) in "deep sleep".
In other words, 1 year in deep sleep is 315 ampere-seconds or less than 100 mAh.
Obviously it's irrelevant in this use case (where the goal is running a motor every wake-up cycle), but nowadays, as absurd as it looks, being power-constrained isn't necessarily a reason to not slap something on it that happens to also be able to do cryptography, connect to WiFi and make HTTPS requests.
tgsovlerkhgsel•1mo ago
This does the typical "two short buzzes with a break in between". I think that would be hard with a singe NE555, and of course much more annoying/complicated to fine-tune.
Also, the random delay between the notifications.
jeffreygoesto•1mo ago
Ah, right. With two buzzes it gets complicated again.
taneq•1mo ago
That’s brilliant. A phone’nt, if you will.
stavros•1mo ago
Come on, phon't.
naruhodo•1mo ago
A PDA... Portable Distraction Accessory. Or maybe that should be Plywood...
tdeck•1mo ago
This reminds me of the Hipster PDA craze from decades ago
Really needs an update, the No-Tiff-ier, that also doesn't display an image, in addition to the other features.
For 2026, the No-Tiff-AIer extension is planned to also not bury you in slop.
treetalker•1mo ago
> The medium is the massage.
tdeck•1mo ago
This is great for when I'm on the train and don't want to accidentally glance at another person. I can just hold the rectangle in my hand and stare at it!
jeffreygoesto•1mo ago
atoav•1mo ago
jeffreygoesto•1mo ago
tgsovlerkhgsel•1mo ago
Modern microcontrollers are insanely power efficient. An ESP32 in "light sleep" (which would be sufficient to serve timer routines) is said to consume <1 mA (at 3.3V), down to ~10 uA (microamps!) in "deep sleep".
In other words, 1 year in deep sleep is 315 ampere-seconds or less than 100 mAh.
Obviously it's irrelevant in this use case (where the goal is running a motor every wake-up cycle), but nowadays, as absurd as it looks, being power-constrained isn't necessarily a reason to not slap something on it that happens to also be able to do cryptography, connect to WiFi and make HTTPS requests.
tgsovlerkhgsel•1mo ago
Also, the random delay between the notifications.
jeffreygoesto•1mo ago