Martin Dimitrov
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51 lines
2.8 KiB
Markdown
51 lines
2.8 KiB
Markdown
# Make your apartment buzzer smart with Twilio Functions
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I wanted to make my apartment buzzer acessible without a physical key, so I created these Twilio Functions to make my buzzer smarter. Features include:
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* Voice password (make your friends shout stupid things in public to get into your building!)
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* PIN password, a classic
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* No obvious weirdness or extra waiting for first-time guests or delivery people
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* Notify multiple people until someone picks up the phone - as long as one of the roommates pick up, you won't miss your package
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I kind of went overboard I think, given my original goal. But this was actually *really* easy to develop and set up. And also really cheap.
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## How to set this up
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1. You could `git clone https://github.com/jlian/smart-door-buzzer-twilio-functions.git`, but it's not critical.
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2. Get a Twilio account and valid Twilio number.
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3. Go to https://www.twilio.com/console/runtime/functions/manage and hit **+**.
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4. Add each of the 4 `.js` files into its own function with names that you'd remember.
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5. Go to https://www.twilio.com/console/runtime/functions/configure and configure the environment variables:
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* `TWILIO_PHONE` with the Twilio number you bought
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* `PASSPHRASE` for voice password
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* `PASSCODE` for PIN
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* `JOHN_PHONE` and others for your cellphone number
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5. Go to https://www.twilio.com/console/phone-numbers/incoming and select the phone number you bought earlier.
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6. Scroll to where it says **A call comes in**, select **Function**, and then the function that corresponds to `buzzer-activated.js`.
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7. Contact your HOA to make the Twilio number your buzzer number - this might be the hardest step.
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## How this works
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[Twilio Functions](https://www.twilio.com/functions) is pretty sweet. It's completely serverless so you don't need a VM or computer to keep running an app. It's perfect for something small scale like your apartment buzzer. The flow of this program goes like this:
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1. A call comes to the Twilio phone number, `buzzer-activated.js` runs.
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1. The [Gather](https://www.twilio.com/docs/api/twiml/gather) verb is used to get either a voice password or a 4-digit PIN.
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1. If correct, `door-open.js` dials a `9` to the buzzer (my building's buzzer code, yours may be different), which opens the door.
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1. If incorrect, `call-residents.js` calls all the residents until someone picks up and manually dial `9` to open the door.
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1. When everything is finished, `text-me.js` texts a specified number with info on what happened.
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## How much this costs
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According to Twilio docs, collecting speech is charged at $.02 per 15 seconds. A Twilio number costs $1/month. Looking at my own billing dashboard, it never exceeds $2/month - pretty reasonable.
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## Twilio tooling
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Using the twilio serverless toolbox you can locally run the functions and test.
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```
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bun run start
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```
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Deploy to your account with
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```
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bun run deploy
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``` |