☀️ How I Built a Daily Motivation SMS Bot with AWS in 10 Minutes

  • Java

Mornings can be rough. Some people need coffee, others scroll through social media, but I wanted something different. I wanted a simple text message with a motivational quote waiting for me each day.

So I built a Daily Motivation SMS Bot on AWS. Every morning at 9 AM, my phone buzzes with a fresh quote from the internet.

🏗️ The Architecture

The idea is simple:

  1. EventBridge (scheduled rule) triggers every morning at 9 AM.
  2. The event invokes a Lambda function.
  3. Lambda fetches a random quote from an external API.
  4. Lambda uses Amazon SNS to send the quote straight to your phone as an SMS.

EventBridge (Daily Schedule) → Lambda → ZenQuotes API → SNS → SMS

⚡ Step 1: Setting Up Amazon SNS

SNS is the service that delivers the SMS to your phone.

  1. Go to the SNS Console and create a new Topic.
  • Type: Standard
  • Name: DailyMotivation

2. Add a subscription to the topic:

  • Protocol: SMS
  • Endpoint: your phone number

That’s it. SNS is now ready to send texts.

⚡ Step 2: Fetching Quotes from the Internet

Instead of hardcoding motivational quotes inside Lambda, we can use an API.

The one I used is ZenQuotes API. It’s lightweight, free, and doesn’t need an API key.

👉 Example API call:

https://zenquotes.io/api/random

It returns a response like this:

⚡ Step 3: Writing the Lambda Function

Here’s the Python Lambda function I used:

import boto3
import requests

sns = boto3.client(‘sns’)

def lambda_handler(event, context):
# Fetch a random quote
resp = requests.get(“https://zenquotes.io/api/random“)
data = resp.json()[0]

# Format the message
quote = f”“{data[‘q’]}” — {data[‘a’]}”

# Publish to SNS
sns.publish(
TopicArn=”arn:aws:sns:REGION:ACCOUNT_ID:DailyMotivation”,
Message=quote
)

return {“status”: “Quote sent!”, “quote”: quote}

Every time this Lambda runs, it pulls a new quote from the API and sends it to your phone.

⚡ Step 4: Automating with EventBridge

We don’t want to run this function manually. That’s where EventBridge comes in.

  1. Go to EventBridge → Rules → Create Rule.
  2. Choose Schedule and set it to run daily at 9 AM.
  3. Add your Lambda function as the target.

Now your bot runs automatically, every single morning.

📲 The Result

The next day, my phone buzzed:

“Believe you can and you’re halfway there.”-Theodore Roosevelt

It’s a small thing, but honestly, it feels great. Starting the day with a little dose of motivation makes mornings lighter.

🔥 Going Beyond Motivation

Once this worked, I realized the same idea can be applied in so many fun ways:

  • Send daily weather alerts using the OpenWeather API.
  • Send jokes or fun facts instead of quotes.
  • Send your to-do list or reminders.
  • Generate AI-based affirmations with Amazon Bedrock.

The pattern remains the same: EventBridge → Lambda → API → SNS → SMS.

✨ See Y’all

Thanks for reading. If you found this interesting, I’d love to connect and exchange ideas. You can reach me here on Medium or on LinkedIn@https://www.linkedin.com/in/mukhteshpendem/

☀️ How I Built a Daily Motivation SMS Bot with AWS in 10 Minutes was originally published in Javarevisited on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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