☕ My Coffee Now Has Wi-Fi. What Are You Doing With Your Life?

Rich Washburn
Apr 27
3 min read

Updated: Apr 27

My Coffee Now Has Wi-Fi.

0:00

OK, so here's the deal:

I was supposed to just knock out a simple control project for a client — build a gizmo that handles remote functions inside a network. Detect change… Report change… Bad thing happens, make noise… Standard stuff.

Designed. Delivered. Done. They loved it. Rah-rah. Whatever.

After dropping it off, I came home, started cleaning up my desk (it took a couple prototypes...), and while putting parts away, I spotted one of those I2C Temp/Humidity boards (probably came with a kit).

With my sails full of creative inertia, I thought to myself:

“I really need my current coffee temp displayed in my coffee cup logo on the site... 🤔 A coffee temperature monitor. On the internet. In real time.”

And then I said — out loud, to absolutely no one:

"This is the way."

Clearly, the real-time coffee-to-website telemetry super important and life-altering mission became my primary goal. A better project name was... secondary.

That punk-ass "engineer" Elon can catch rockets out of the sky all day long, but do you see any of that happening without fresh, delicious coffee!?

No, you sure the hell don’t!

You feel the impotence of this now, don’t you?It all comes crumbling down! Priorities, people.

What’s Under the Hood

At the heart of this gloriously over engineered solution is my trusty XIAO ESP32-C3 — basically the silicon version of slave labor.

Paired with it?

A super tiny, super cheap temperature and humidity sensor that just happened to be within arm’s reach.

(Fun fact: these I2C sensors come in all flavors — microphones, voltage/current sensors, barometric pressure, heart rate, blood oxygen — you name it. Basically, if you can sense it, you can report it.)

The Setup:

ESP32-C3 does the heavy lifting: Wi-Fi, web server, control logic.
Temp/Humidity Sensor reads the coffee’s soul.
OLED Screen displays live readings.
LED changes color based on temperature thresholds I set (because why wouldn't you want mood lighting for your coffee?).

It’s all self-contained, battery-powered, USB rechargeable, and not much bigger than an iPod case.

Key Features:

Wi-Fi provisioning right from your phone — just like a real commercial product.
Web-based UI to view and control everything.
Live temperature and humidity readings (humidity's just tagging along for the ride — nobody invited it).
Trigger outputs when target temps are hit — could be a laser pointer, a motor, a buzzer... whatever you’ve got.
Pushover notifications sent straight to my phone when thresholds are crossed or triggers fire.
Raw text endpoints for /temp, /humidity, and /trigger — pure, fast, hacker-friendly API goodness.

And of course, you’re looking at a live stream of the real device right here on the site. That’s my actual coffee’s temperature, right now.

(Yes, I am that committed to ridiculousness.)

Now What?

Next downtime day, I already know what I’m doing:

Designing a proper coaster to embed the whole system into.

I’ll 3D print a prototype here first, but probably order a production version from JLCPCB (the same place I get custom boards for projects).

They'll use my 3D file to send me one in aluminum — because good thermal conduction matters, and if you're gonna overdo it, you better overdo it properly.

I’m picturing:

A nice heavy aluminum base
Flush-mount OLED
Glowing LED ring underneath
Wireless charging? Maybe? Don’t tempt me.

A Quick Thought...

You know, the distance from "hey, what if..." to "hey, it works!" is getting really short these days.

I don't know if this is vibe coding or just the new reality, but it's getting real interesting.

You can dream something up at breakfast and have a working prototype by lunch if you've got a few basic parts and a little know-how. It’s a wild time to be a maker.