~ Clap detection - Trigger your anything

There is something about surprising interfaces. Having a switch to turn on a light gets quite boring after a while. Turning on a light by clapping twice, on the other hand, has some kind of magic feel to it. In a recent Mr Beast video he and his gang visit a number of expensive houses and in one of those mansions there is a light operated by clapping twice. I am not sure about the blatant materialism, but it got me thinking on how to build a similar clap-operated light yourself.

So, what are the elements needed: first a microphone to pick up sound. Second an algorithm is needed that detects claps. And finally, something that reacts to claps: a light or something else.

Many devices have microphones so sound input is relatively easy, and with some creativity there are many things waiting to be ‘clap triggered’: vacuum robots, sunscreens, lights, in-house ventilation, … The main difficulty is implementing a efficient clap-detection algorithm. Luckily there are already a few described in the literature. I have based my ANSI C implementation on ‘Duxbury, C., et al (2003). Complex domain onset detection for musical signals’.

My version of the clap-detection algorithm has two parameters which might need adapting to fit your environment. The silence threshold determines the minimum loudness for a clap to be triggered. The onset threshold determines more or less how ‘percussive’ the sound needs to be: the idea is to only react to things sounding like a clap and not to e.g. a loud whistle or other sounds. This is what the onset threshold tries to control. You can try it out below:

Clap detection on a micro-controller

With this working we now can try to run this code on a micro-controller. Running it on a micro-controller makes it more practical in daily use to e.g. switch on lights. A low-cost ESP32 with a MEMS microphone is a good platform: these microcontrollers are easy to use and have WiFi connectivity which opens the possibility to trigger commands to smart sockets or other WiFi-enabled devices. The pector GitHub repository contains an Arduino project to run the clap-detection algorithm on an ESP32 or similar device (Teensy, RP2040,… ).

Clap detection in the command line

Next to the main clap detection software, there is a small script to trigger commands when a clap is detected. In this case, the script waits for a double clap and then pushes updates to a git repository. There are two reasons for this: the first is that it is fun, the second is for bragging rights. Not that many people can say they once pushed source code simply by clapping twice. It is, however, a challenge to find people who have the patience to listen to me explaining what I have done and who are impressed by this feat, so maybe there is only one reason: it is fun. Below a screen capture can be found pushing code to the pector repository.

Have a look at the pector GitHub repository for more info on how you can make your websites/apps/command line tools/devices clap controlled!

UGent, 0110.be, Code, and Projecten