⚡💡 Jolt.js now available! 🔌🔋

[gfwilliams]

Posted at 2024-09-27 by @gfwilliams

Jolt.js is now fully available to purchase:

It's a Bluetooth, JavaScript-powered device with powered outputs and screw terminals, so you can now use your JS knowledge to control things in the real world with nothing more than a screwdriver!

It's something I've been working on for a while, but I'm really excited by - it's always been more painful than I'd like to control 'real' things, but now it's super easy to control lights, motors, solenoids, relays and lots more, all while being super power efficient.

In the Jolt.js Bundle the small 300mAh battery will keep the Jolt.js running and available for Bluetooth connections for around 6 months (or over 2 years when sleeping) - but you can run Jolt.js out of much bigger batteries, or even connect it to 12v batteries with solar panels so you'll never have to worry about recharging again!

Features:

• Bluetooth Low Energy
• Espruino JavaScript interpreter pre-installed
• nRF52840 SoC - 64MHz ARM Cortex M4, 256kB RAM, 1MB Flash
• 8x high power 1A H-bridge outputs on screw terminals
• 4x Qwiic/Stemma connectors (2x analog capable with 500mA FET, 2x with 4x GPIO)
• 2.7v to 18v input range
• Ultra low power (down to 0.008mA) when idle
• LiPo battery connector with inbuilt charger
• USB-C with USB Serial support
• 1x 3mm mounting hole
• 1x Button
• 40mm x 40mm x 12mm with protective silicone case
• PCB Dimensions: 37.2mm x 36mm

Jolt.js is available as:

• A Bundle, including battery, box, screwdriver and cables: https://shop.espruino.com/joltjs-bundle
• Jolt.js with one cable: https://shop.espruino.com/joltjs

[gfwilliams]

Posted at 2024-10-04 by @gfwilliams

And there are a few more tutorials uploaded now too:

https://www.espruino.com/Jolt.js#tutorials

[espruino-discuss]

Posted at 2024-10-09 by @SimonGAndrews

Good luck with this @gordon it looks a useful option in the espruino toolbox.
I saw the Lego tutorial, im interested for the grandchildren. ;)
What’s a good solution for setting up a controller on an iPhone to control the jolt outputs with buttons and display inputs. Or maybe windows PC if iOS is an issue. All child friendly.

[espruino-discuss]

Posted at 2024-10-09 by @yerpj

Exciting news, Thanks @gordon ! Great that you have uploaded some tutorials as well!

Now the missing piece is a native Espruino integration in Home Assistant ;-)

[gfwilliams]

Posted at 2024-10-09 by @gfwilliams

What’s a good solution for setting up a controller on an iPhone to control the jolt outputs

I'd go with Web Bluetooth - you need to install a special Web Bluetooth browser on iOS to make it work, but it's not that hard. Nice and easy to develop: https://www.espruino.com/Web+Bluetooth

Otherwise I believe Adafruit has a Bluefruit app for iOS which already has lots of buttons/things in it. IIRC they send simple characters like l and r, so you'd have to do: USB.setConsole(1);Bluetooth.on('data', ...) to decode it.

... also on that Lego tutorial it shows how you can use it with graphical programming from the IDE, so if the grandkids are a little older that could be of interest too.

Now the missing piece is a native Espruino integration in Home Assistant ;-)

Tell me about it! I have spent quite a long time looking into it, but I'm not a great Python developer and doing an integration seems like a very steep learning curve :(

I did add https://www.espruino.com/ble_led which is an interesting solution for controlling Jolt/etc from Home Assistant (and https://www.espruino.com/BTHome is great for going the other way). A lot of these BLE things for Home Assistant don't seem great though as they seem to attempt to maintain a permanent connection.

If BTHome worked the other way that'd be great too, but I did talk to the developer and he's not interested in getting involved in that at the moment.

[espruino-discuss]

Posted at 2024-10-09 by @SimonGAndrews

Thanks @gordon. Those tutorials look good with explanations and detail. Cheers

[espruino-discuss]

Posted at 2024-10-09 by @yerpj

Tell me about it! I have spent quite a long time looking into it, but I'm not a great Python developer and doing an integration seems like a very steep learning curve :(

Yeah same conclusion, seems right now difficult to integrate BLE devices in HA (except with BTHome for sensors, obviously).
I still hope someone will eventually come up with an integration for BLE actuators, or at least with something we can easily use to push data into Espruino. I am thinking especially about Pixls.js which will be perfect for displaying information....

I did add https://www.espruino.com/ble_led which is an interesting solution for controlling Jolt/etc from Home Assistant

Oh, that's already really cool, didn't know about it! I will definitely give it a try! Thanks for that!

[gfwilliams]

Posted at 2024-10-11 by @gfwilliams

I still hope someone will eventually come up with an integration for BLE actuators

There is this:

• https://community.home-assistant.io/t/generic-bluetooth-integration/648952
• https://github.com/fuatakgun/generic_bt

I haven't used it, but it seems like it'd probably allow you to use Espruino/other devices in Home Assistant. It seems to need config using a config file though so it's perhaps not super-easy to use