"Mr. Watson – come here! The Roomba's broken:" Whole home intercoms with Arduino

John Biggs

Biggs is the East Coast Editor of TechCrunch. Biggs has written for the New York Times, InSync, USA Weekend, Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Money and a number of other outlets on technology and wristwatches. He is the former editor-in-chief of Gizmodo.com and lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. You can Tweet him here and G+ him here. Email him directly at... → Learn More

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

ati_disassembled
This cool system uses an Arduino board and home wiring to turn your local home telephone network into an intercom. When you take the phone off the hook it disconnects from the phone line and rings all of the phones with a different cadence. When you pick up the phone you get an open line so you can talk with loved ones and burglars who have broken in anywhere in the house.

The plans are amazingly complete and it could be a fun home project although it looks like it could take a while, especially if you electrocute yourself while wiring everything up.

More information on the Arduino board is here.

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