IKEA PATRULL Nightlight
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So, I was browsing the IKEA catalog and came across their nightlight/sensor (PATRULL):
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/30241140/
Any chance this could be hacked into something useful? It seems like a cheap way to get your mains power down (I presume there is some sort of low voltage LED inside). I also presume that unlike similar converters that may be found on Ebay, this wont burn your house down, at least until after you've tinkered with it. There is no info on power consumption or anything like that and I haven't been able to find anyone that has taken it apart and documented the components.
Btw. I think IKEA used to have a nightlight that looked a lot like the fibaro z-wave wall plugs and could have offered perhaps an even better modding platform, even if that would have required some serious soldering skills and ultra-small components. This new light could probably be fitted with a new dome or front housing if the current one wont accommodate your components.
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Probably just a resistor/capacitor to bring the voltage down; the same trick you can use in your designs, but without mains isolation so be careful!
From the things I did a teardown on the amount of space in the housing available for DIY stuff is usually very limited. I doubt if you can fir a APM & nRF24 in. Why not take one apart and post some pictures?
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@Yveaux I was hoping for some more valuable insides so to speak. But we'll see. I'll buy a couple of them next week. Worst case, they'll probably work as nightlight. Just hope they don't spread any interference back into the power lines. Knowing IKEA quality I wouldn't be surprised if they're shoddy.
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Example schematic how to run a led of 230V:
I bet there won't be much more inside, but let's wait for your teardown!
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It would be nice to control the Patrull similarly to http://thingm.com/products/blink-1/.