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Monitoring your network activity is an important part of networking protectionBut have you ever thought that it could be an important element of design? We’re tickled to show off this cool Raspberry Pi An artistic rendering put together by the maker and developer Alex Chang It uses network activity to fire up LEDs in real time so you can know exactly when packets are arriving and going on your local network.
Visualize network activity – YouTube
The project is a huge geodesic sphere filled with fiber optic cables. The cables are connected to Raspberry Pi-controlled LEDs that are programmed to light up when network activity is detected. When data packets are sent or received, the ball lights up with a dazzling light show based on network activity.
The Raspberry Pi is not the only board used in this project, it is powered by an ESP32 module that helps track packets over a Wi-Fi network. This information is then transmitted to the Pi which triggers 40 separate LEDs to flash in response to each packet detected. This makes it possible to get an immediate understanding of your network activity at a glance.
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The project includes a set of 3D printed components, namely 12 pentagonal joints and 30 hexagonal joints available in… Something different Downloadable. These connect 60 wooden rods to form the geodesic field. Fiber optic cables are threaded throughout the interior of the ball and connected to the LEDs. Since the Raspberry Pi 3B+ only has so many GPIOs, it was necessary for Chang to develop a custom PCB to help power all the SMD5730 LEDs and TLC5916 drivers.
ESP32 is based on an open source tool known as ESP-EOS/ESP32-WiFi-Sniffer Which can be found on GitHub. The Raspberry Pi is programmed using a custom Python script that interprets data from the ESP32. This code has also been made open source and is available at github For anyone to check it out and use it for themselves.
If you want to take a closer look at this Raspberry Pi projectyou can check it out in action on YouTube as well as the official project page where it was shared Hakster By Alex Chang.
