Build your own smart clock that will show time, date, temperature, and more.

A smart clock can display much more information than a traditional digital clock. Most importantly, a smart clock is connected to the network or internet and can be controlled through a smartphone or PC. You can also display whatever text or information on the smart clock.

In this guide, we will build a smart DIY Wi-Fi-based clock using an ESP8266 microcontroller, and MAX7219 4x8x8 LED matrix. You may use it to display time, date, temperature, humidity, desired text, alerts, Instagram followers, YouTube subscribers, views, animated texts, emoji, and other information with just a few taps.

To build a DIY smart clock, you need the following:

Follow these steps in the given order to build the DIY smart clock using the MAX7219 matrix. You may also buy one of these best smart clocks.

Alternatively, you may also these libraries as a .zip file and extract them in the Documents > Arduino > libraries folder.

The smart clock is ready to display whatever text or sensor data you want to display on it via MQTT topics. You can use any MQTT client app to send JSON data for display on the smart clocks. To automate the clock, you can install and set up a Home Assistant server with an MQTT broker and NodeRed on a Raspberry Pi.

You can then use it to display various sensor information and status on the DIY smart clock. To learn more about the topic and animations you can use with the clock, refer to the project on GitHub.

Meanwhile, you can use the following NodeRed sample flow, import it into your NodeRed and edit it according to your sensors to display desired data.

MAX7219 is a popular matrix display that you can control through Arduino boards or ESP8266 WIFI-based microcontrollers, such as NodeMCU and D1 Mini, to display desired information or animations.

This DIY guide used a 4-in-1 MAX7219 matrix to build a smart clock. More than that, it can also be used as a notification panel to display information, such as room temperature, humidity, tank water level, energy usage, and any data or information received via MQTT topics.

If you have set up a Home Assistant or any other home automation server at your home, you may integrate this smart MQTT clock panel to fetch and display all the information received through various sensors and devices you may have installed in your home and integrated with Home Assistant.

Ravi is an expert tech explainer, an IoT enthusiast and Linux lover with a background in big data and app development. He spends most of his weekends working with IoT devices and playing games on the Xbox. He is also a solo traveler who loves hiking and exploring new trails.

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