Waiting for an important letter, but don't want to wear out the path to the letterbox by checking it every half an hour? Or perhaps some nefarious characters are trying to steal your mail? Either way, it would be convenient to have an automated notification system - and an interesting version of such as device has been documented by Instructables user "nikoala3". It uses an Arduino, a SIM900 GSM shield and a light sensor to detect when the letterbox door has been opened. Upon which an SMS is sent to a mobile phone with the alert.
At first thought the battery life may seem to be quite short for such a device, however most SIM900 shields can have the power to the GSM module controlled by a digital output pin - so the Arduino could activate the module only when necessary. In general this project may seem like overkill, it provides the framework for other Arduino-SMS notification systems. Nevertheless, visit the Instructable to get started. And for more, we're on twitter and Google+, so follow us for news and product updates as well.
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