Big red button that opens a website when activated once...

Status
Not open for further replies.
R

Randyspants

New member
Hey everyone,

I work in IT support and I thought a push button for support would be a funny gift to hand out to our stubborn users.
Basically I would get a couple USB activated buttons from amazon or something and I was wondering if Teensy could be used to open a website to our ticketing site when pressed once and if pressed multiple times could fire off a email to our ticketing system.

Think this would be possible?
 
On MS windows, some keyboards have buttons along the top that cause apps to open and brower to go to a site.
Maybe you can get a keyboard setup with these buttons to do what you want. Then program a Teensy to emit the same codes, in Teensy's keyboard emulation mode.

Having Teensy sense button pushed is easy.

A caution: some managers may not think it's funny and that can zap you!
 
Well another way that it can be used in a work setting is to provide FAQ type texts. I recall that when I used to follow the Arduino forum, one regular there (Nick Gammon) made his Leonardo (same processor as the Teensy 2.0/2.0++, but the Teensy 3.0/3.1/LC can also act as a USB keyboard, so it should transfer over fairly easily) act as a USB keyboard, and if you pressed one of 16 buttons, it would type in the normal text that Nick would send to answer the many queries as FAQ entries: http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php/topic,112965.0.html
 
There are several projects in the projects section of the Teensy website that modify big red buttons from Staples with a Teensy board. Wiring the switch to an input on the board should be easy, then just the keyboard library to send commands to open a browser and load the support page. You'll have to work out a sequence of keystrokes that open the browser and navigate to the site (Windows key+R is useful for running commands).
 
If you're new to Arduino+Teensyduino and building this kind of thing, I highly recommend starting with the example, in File > Examples > Teensy > USB_Keyboard > Buttons.

The example uses the Bounce library to read the pushbuttons. That automatically deals with any mechanical chatter in the physical button, which can become a bigger problem with a physically large mechanism. Do yourself a huge favor and use Bounce, instead of digitalRead to directly access the pin.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top