Gadgets

This Arduino Hack Makes Reading RSS Feeds More Fun

Looking for a way to keep an eye on RSS feeds throughout the day? You could be sensible and use a good RSS reader, or you could do something like the Arduino RSS Feed Display.

This project from Instructables user fritterdonut displays headlines form your RSS on a small LCD, along with an LED that flashes whenever it shows a new headline. It seems simple, but it could be useful for quickly glancing at your RSS feeds while you’re working.

The display must be compatible with LiquidCrystal, a common way of rigging up Arduino with an LCD. This project requires you to use two programming libraries: LiquidCrystal440 and Python.

The project does take a fair bit of coding, but the Instructables guide provides all the code you need to load onto the Arduino, which is what makes this project so newbie-friendly. For the upcoming tinker with their eye on Arduino, this is an ideal mini-project.

The only daunting thing missing now is a way of informing you just how many items are sitting in your feed waiting to be read—for me, this is usually in the thousands.

For more useful information and images to help you connect wires correctly, visit the project’s page.

[Instructables]