Flutter Gadget — Hardware Buttons for Your Flutter Workflow 🚀

Tired of typing flutter clean, flutter pub get, or flutter upgrade every time? With this little ESP32/Arduino gadget, you can map physical buttons to your Flutter commands. Press a button on the device → the command runs instantly on your computer. ⚡

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✨ Features

• 🖱️ Physical buttons trigger Flutter commands
• 🖥️ Cross-platform Python daemon (macOS, Linux, Windows)
• 🔌 Auto-detects serial port
• ✅ Token validation (only recognized commands are executed)
• 🔧 Built with Arduino IDE / ESP32 firmware + Python script

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🖼️ Circuit

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📂 Project Structure

firmware/
  esp32_flutter_keys/
    esp32_flutter_keys.ino # ESP32/Arduino firmware
daemon/
  main.py                  # Python cross-platform daemon
  requirements.txt         # Python dependencies

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⚙️ How It Works

1. ESP32 / Arduino Firmware

• Written in C++ (Arduino IDE)
• Uses INPUT_PULLUP buttons on GPIOs
• On press, sends a short token via Serial:
  • CLEAN → flutter clean
  • PUBGET → flutter pub get
  • UPGRADE → flutter upgrade

👉 Flash the firmware using Arduino IDE (choose ESP32 board or Arduino board). 👉 On the ESP32 C6, recommended pins are 20 / 21 / 22 (safe GPIOs).

👉 Online project on Wokwi: https://wokwi.com/projects/440295324580074497

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2. Python Daemon

• Listens on the serial port
• Validates incoming tokens
• Executes the matching Flutter command in your project directory

Requirements:

# Create and activate virtual environment
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate  # On Windows: .venv\Scripts\activate

# Install dependencies
pip install -r daemon/requirements.txt

Run:

# Activate virtual environment
source .venv/bin/activate  # On Windows: .venv\Scripts\activate

# Set your Flutter project path
export FLUTTER_KEYS_PROJECT="~/dev/my_flutter_app"   # your project path

# Run the daemon
python3 daemon/main.py

Cross-platform details:

• macOS/Linux → runs inside zsh/bash, inherits your PATH correctly
• Windows → runs in PowerShell, uses your PATH or FVM shims

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🔗 References

• 💡 My LinkedIn post about this gadget
• 📝 Original Flutter community idea post

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🚀 Getting Started

1. Clone this repo
2. Flash the ESP32/Arduino firmware
3. Install the Python requirements
4. Run the daemon and press the buttons 🎉

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📜 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. Feel free to fork, modify, and share.