This is the MK1 version of my simple DOT matrix display. It feeds data from most good UK based providers and also conversion from Indicies and Currencies. GBP to ??? for example.

You will need the Python script to run and convert the Proxy page to a JSON compatible document due to CloudFlare blocking what it thinks is a BOT. Important!!! make sure you name the python file as: You may need to create an enviroment to execute this.

info_cache_proxy.py

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from flask import Flask, Response, request
import requests
import threading
import time
import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
import urllib3

urllib3.disable_warnings(urllib3.exceptions.InsecureRequestWarning)

app = Flask(__name__)

RSS2JSON = “https://api.rss2json.com/v1/api.json”

HEADERS = {
“User-Agent”: (
“Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) “
“AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) “
“Chrome/122.0 Safari/537.36”
)
}

# ———- RSS FEEDS ———-
NASDAQ_FEEDS = {
“Markets”: “https://www.nasdaq.com/feed/rssoutbound?category=Markets”,
“Commodities”: “https://www.nasdaq.com/feed/rssoutbound?category=Commodities”,
“IPOs”: “https://www.nasdaq.com/feed/rssoutbound?category=IPOs”,
“Stocks”: “https://www.nasdaq.com/feed/rssoutbound?category=Stock-Market-News”,
}

BBC_FEEDS = {
“BBC”: “https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/rss.xml”,
“BBCUK”: “https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/uk/rss.xml”,
“SkyNews”: “https://news.sky.com/feeds/rss/home.xml”,
“ReutersWorld”: “http://feeds.reuters.com/Reuters/worldNews”,
“ReutersBiz”: “http://feeds.reuters.com/reuters/businessNews”,
“NASA”: “https://www.nasa.gov/rss/dyn/breaking_news.rss”,
“TechRadar”: “https://www.techradar.com/rss”,
“BBCSport”: “https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/sport/rss.xml”,
}

FLOATRATES_GBP = “http://www.floatrates.com/daily/gbp.xml”

BLYNK_BASE = “https://YOUR BLYNK IP ADDRESS:9443/ENTER YOUR BLYNK API KEY/get”
BLYNK_ENDPOINTS = {
“Temp”: “/V0”,
“Humidity”: “/V1”,
“Pressure”: “/V2”,
“Battery”: “/V4”,
“Forecast”: “/V7”,
}

# All GBP FX keys we care about (will be filled from FloatRates)
FX_CODES = [
“USD”,”EUR”,”JPY”,”CHF”,”AUD”,”CAD”,”NZD”,
“SEK”,”DKK”,”NOK”,”PLN”,”CZK”,”HUF”,”RON”,”BGN”,”HRK”,”ISK”,
“CNY”,”INR”,”SGD”,”HKD”,”THB”,”KRW”,”PHP”,
“AED”,”SAR”,”ILS”,
“MXN”,”BRL”,
“ZAR”,”TRY”,”RUB”
]

# ———- CACHE ———-
cache = {}

def init_cache():
global cache
keys = []

keys += list(NASDAQ_FEEDS.keys())
keys += list(BBC_FEEDS.keys())
keys += [“Temp”,”Humidity”,”Pressure”,”Battery”,”Forecast”]

for code in FX_CODES:
keys.append(“GBP” + code)

cache = {k: {“json”: None, “ts”: 0} for k in keys}

init_cache()

NASDAQ_INTERVAL = 300
BBC_INTERVAL = 300
FX_INTERVAL = 300
WEATHER_INTERVAL = 600

last_nasdaq = 0
last_bbc = 0
last_fx = 0
last_weather = 0

def fetch_rss_via_rss2json(name, url):
try:
r = requests.get(
RSS2JSON,
params={“rss_url”: url},
headers=HEADERS,
timeout=10
)
r.raise_for_status()
cache[name][“json”] = r.text
cache[name][“ts”] = time.time()
print(f”[CACHE] Updated {name}”)
except Exception as e:
print(f”[CACHE] ERROR fetching {name}: {e}”)

def fetch_gbp_floatrates():
try:
r = requests.get(FLOATRATES_GBP, headers=HEADERS, timeout=10)
r.raise_for_status()
root = ET.fromstring(r.text)

rates = {}
for item in root.findall(“item”):
target = item.findtext(“targetCurrency”, “”).strip().upper()
rate_text = item.findtext(“exchangeRate”, “”).strip()
if not target or not rate_text:
continue
try:
rate = float(rate_text)
except ValueError:
continue
rates[target] = rate

now = time.time()
for code in FX_CODES:
key = “GBP” + code
if code in rates:
rate = rates[code]
title = f”GBP/{code} = {rate:.4f}”
j = ‘{“status”:”ok”,”items”:[{“title”:”‘ + title + ‘”}]}’
cache[key][“json”] = j
cache[key][“ts”] = now
print(f”[CACHE] Updated {key}: {title}”)
else:
print(f”[CACHE] No rate for {code} in FloatRates”)

except Exception as e:
print(f”[CACHE] ERROR fetching FloatRates: {e}”)

def fetch_blynk_value(name, endpoint):
url = BLYNK_BASE + endpoint
try:
r = requests.get(url, headers=HEADERS, timeout=10, verify=False)
r.raise_for_status()
data = r.json()
if not data:
raise ValueError(“Empty Blynk response”)
val = str(data[0])

if name == “Temp”:
title = f”Temp: {val} °C”
elif name == “Humidity”:
title = f”Humidity: {val} %”
elif name == “Pressure”:
title = f”Pressure: {val} hPa”
elif name == “Battery”:
title = f”Battery: {val} V”
elif name == “Forecast”:
title = f”Forecast: {val}”
else:
title = f”{name}: {val}”

j = ‘{“status”:”ok”,”items”:[{“title”:”‘ + title.replace(‘”‘, ‘\\”‘) + ‘”}]}’
cache[name][“json”] = j
cache[name][“ts”] = time.time()
print(f”[CACHE] Updated {name}: {title}”)
except Exception as e:
print(f”[CACHE] ERROR fetching {name}: {e}”)

def cache_worker():
global last_nasdaq, last_bbc, last_fx, last_weather
while True:
now = time.time()

if now – last_nasdaq > NASDAQ_INTERVAL:
print(“[CACHE] Refreshing Nasdaq feeds…”)
for k, u in NASDAQ_FEEDS.items():
fetch_rss_via_rss2json(k, u)
last_nasdaq = now

if now – last_bbc > BBC_INTERVAL:
print(“[CACHE] Refreshing news/tech feeds…”)
for k, u in BBC_FEEDS.items():
fetch_rss_via_rss2json(k, u)
last_bbc = now

if now – last_fx > FX_INTERVAL:
print(“[CACHE] Refreshing FX feeds…”)
fetch_gbp_floatrates()
last_fx = now

if now – last_weather > WEATHER_INTERVAL:
print(“[CACHE] Refreshing weather feeds…”)
for name, ep in BLYNK_ENDPOINTS.items():
fetch_blynk_value(name, ep)
last_weather = now

time.sleep(5)

@app.route(“/rss”)
def rss():
cat = request.args.get(“category”, “Markets”)
if cat not in cache:
cat = “Markets”

if cache[cat][“json”] is None:
print(f”[CACHE] First request for {cat}, fetching immediately…”)
if cat in NASDAQ_FEEDS:
fetch_rss_via_rss2json(cat, NASDAQ_FEEDS[cat])
elif cat in BBC_FEEDS:
fetch_rss_via_rss2json(cat, BBC_FEEDS[cat])
elif cat.startswith(“GBP”):
fetch_gbp_floatrates()
elif cat in BLYNK_ENDPOINTS:
fetch_blynk_value(cat, BLYNK_ENDPOINTS[cat])

return Response(cache[cat][“json”], mimetype=”application/json”)

if __name__ == “__main__”:
t = threading.Thread(target=cache_worker, daemon=True)
t.start()
print(“[SERVER] Starting info caching proxy on port 5000…”)
app.run(host=”0.0.0.0″, port=5000)

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The Arduin0 Sketch below requires a few Libraries to work.

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