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Viet Nguyen is a game developer, artist, and one of three brothers behind Asobi Tech. With all of his experience and creativity, it should come as no surprise that he’s put together a fun, interactive decoration for Halloween. Just earlier today, Nguyen shared a creepy Raspberry Pi-powered picture frame to Twitter that comes to life when anyone walks by.
Getting ready for Halloween. Put together a motion sensing spooky picture frame. pic.twitter.com/B8cahvGyOfSeptember 14, 2021
It looks like something from Harry Potter but it’s not powered by magic—it’s powered by Python! With the help of a $3 passive infra red (PIR) motion sensor, the still image displayed within the frame begins to move as video playback is triggered.
Nguyen is using an old LCD monitor for the display and has it housed inside a fancy picture frame. Inside is a Raspberry Pi 3 with a PIR sensor installed to the GPIO. When the PIR sensor is triggered, a Python script makes a call to Omxplayer, a video player built in to Raspberry Pi OS, to play a video.
The best Raspberry Pi projects are ones you can make at home and this one is perfect for Halloween! It was inspired by this possessed portrait project found on Hackster and features a video from AtmosFX, a company specializing in decorative Halloween content for DIY projects.
The project looks stunning, but at the heart of it, the tech is super simple and anyone could build this in time for Halloween. To get a closer look at Nguyen’s living Halloween picture frame, check out the original thread shared to Twitter and be sure to follow him for more cool creations.
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Ash Hill is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware with a wealth of experience in the hobby electronics, 3D printing and PCs. She manages the Pi projects of the month and much of our daily Raspberry Pi reporting while also finding the best coupons and deals on all tech.
