GSM Switch question

Thread Starter

MNBoarder

Joined Sep 1, 2013
2
Hi, I'm looking to see if someone could help me figure out what I need. I'm a caretaker at an apartment complex where we have a trash compactor that has a light that turns on when it is full and needs to be emptied. Now what I want to do is find a switch of some sort that I could wire to the light that would send me a text message when power goes to it, I believe it would be a GSM switch, but I may be wrong, and all the ones I can find seem to allow you to turn things on via text message, but not alert you when something gets turned on, any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated, thanks. I should add that I don't really know much about electronics, so any advice, or ideas you may have to help me do this right would be great!
 

sirch2

Joined Jan 21, 2013
1,037
I'd guess that there is a commercial unit out there but I'd also guess that it would be pretty expensive. You could put something together with a GSM Modem and Microcontroller but it sounds like you would have a steep learning curve.

Another thought - which is not as far off-base as it may sound at first - is to use a cheap Android mobile phone. You would need to write (or get someone to write) an app for it but you could put the phone camera near the light and have an app that checks the camera for a change in light level/colour and sends a text.
 
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Thread Starter

MNBoarder

Joined Sep 1, 2013
2
Thanks for the advice, I'll have to look into that idea about the cell phone, I never even thought of that. I'd definitely have to agree with you about the whole microcontroller/modem idea, considering I don't even know what they are I'm guessing that's way beyond my abilities, lol.
 
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