What you need:
- Some custom art – buy some or make it yourself like I did!
- RFID sticker tags – aim for NFC 213 tags
- Home Assistant installed on your local network
- A smartphone to trigger the RFID tags
- Something to trigger – it can be anything change your lights, close the curtains. I chose to play some music
1. Create or buy your art
I wanted to have different pieces of art that could play music playlists at a tap. I love lots of musical styles, so I figured it’d be cool to have lots of different playlists ready to go. So I created some custom paintings!
The design was:
- All needed to look consistent to each other and have lots of green to bring the ‘outside’ into the dining room.
- Each piece then contained a unique signature to signal a different country. For example a castle in the British painting, a bald eagle for the American one, a Roman column for the Italian one and so on.
- Then each picture had a little detail in three places to remind me where the sticker was. Broadly this was top, middle and bottom. These were to signify the era of music. Bottom would be classical, middle would be 20th Century and top would be modern.
So for the British painting, tap the rocks at the bottom and you get Handel, Elgar and Holst. Tap the path in the middle and you get David Bowie, the Beatles and Queen and tap the top for Adele and Harry Styles!
** Had a few requests already, so drop me a line if you’d like to have the full copies of this art – more than happy to share for any non-commercial use!
2. Frame your art!
Now frame that art – I had loads to do, so it was fairly tiresome as you need it to be perfectly aligned! But once you’re in the rhythm it’s ok!
3. Add the RFID Tags
Now you need to simply stick each RFID sticker on the back so it’s lined up with where you want on your art.
Simple as peel and sticking!
4. Scan each into Home Assistant
Now go into Home Assistant in your phone and navigate to Settings > Tags > Add Tag.
- Type a recognizable name for each tag. I went with one that reminded me of both the location on the painting and the genre (eg British – TowerTop – Modern)
- Then scan your painting in the right spot to lock to the RFID token
Once you’ve done this, go into automations and set it up how you fancy!
I had mine announce using text-to-speech the country and genre through the Sonos speakers in the room and then start playing through Spotify the relevant playlist in random order.
5. Hang your paintings!
This was made harder by using Ikea Ribba frames that bizarrely don’t appear to be designed to hang on walls.
I created a 3d print model to solve this challenge – grab it here if helpful!
Other than that, it’s pretty simple!
6. Enjoy your creation!
Give it all a test and make sure it works and you’re done!