Blink out IP address for Raspberry Pi using Python

So in the final chapter of the long saga that has been connecting my Raspberry Pi to my Campus’s WiFi network, I needed a way to obtain the IP address of the Pi without using a display or a serial cable.

I’m actually pretty proud of this and I think it’s an elegant solution to a fairly annoying problem. Here’s a video of the system in action:

The program starts with three blinks. After that, the pattern goes as follows:

So

Etc. Four short blinks indicate a 0 and six short blinks indicate a “.”

Once the address is fully read out, three long blinks will occur.

Here’s the code:

You can make it run every time the Pi boots with:

Add the following line:

And your good to go! You can now press the button any time the pi boots to get the IP address without connecting anything!

Hey! This post was written a long time ago, but I'm leaving it up on the off-chance it may help someone. Proceed with caution. It may not be a good idea to blindly integrate this code or work into your project, but instead use it as a starting point.

4 Comments

  1. any way to make this use the onboard status LED? i know it’s possible to toggle that on and off.. just not sure how difficult that would be to do.

    1. Hey dan, thanks for commenting – I know it’s possible, but didn’t know how to do it at the time. Let me know if you try it!

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.