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Poboy is a "poor man's smart home" device. We've all experience the anguish not being able to reach the light switch while laying in bed or on the couch. The first solution was the clapper. A more modern method are the devices of the "smart" home: light bulbs and switches that are connected to the internet and controllable via a mobile app. The only problem with this is that it requires the capability to replace the traditional light switch or at the very least change a light bulb, neither of which were avialable options to me as I lived in my college dorm room. Thus, poboy, a smart, internet-connected device that would attach to the wall next to the light switch and manually flip the light on and off.

I have toyed with this project on and off for several years. A lot of work was initially spent on getting the web interface up and running. The first prototype was built using an esp8266 Wi-Fi enabled MCU.

You can check out the messy code on github.