Home automation

towbar

Not sure if there is a better forum out there but I am keen to hear experiences of home automation particulalry remote control for lights via telephone, mobile or web etc.

I am using a kit from Quasar Electronics to control central heating and lighting circuits but considering building my own solution as program is a bit limited.

pipers

can you expand a bit on how you control your heating please?

Im a heating and plumbing contractor and i have a deep interest in home automation.

Cheers

Pipers

towbar

Pipers

Good stuff with your plumbing skills and my electrical skills we might get somewhere!!!

I use a DTMF telephone relay switch, you connect this to your telephone line ideally a second or spare line and remotely dial in using a touchtone landline or cell phone, enter a password and enter commands to control up to 4 relays.

I have connected one of the relays across the wires at the back of the timer switch.

It works well but the killer is the need for the second phone line as using your main line means that call answering will not work however I think I have a solution based on a mobile phone with a ready to go sim card but it needs a bit more testing.

If you are interested PM me and I can setup so you can dial in and see how it works. Where are you based?

joc_06

I'm doing a project at the minute - control of a domestic appliance using sms text message.

I'm goin using a microcontroller to connect to a mobile phone and onto an x-10 module which can control upto 256 different thing over the power lines in a house. So far i almost have the Uc talking to the phone and the next step is the x-10


i have already made up a board that will talk to a normal landline phone and it worked well, all i did with it was turn on an led but i could expand it further to x-10 if i get the time

towbar

I looked at the sms option but it seemed too expensive. The DTMF based switcher seems cheaper and more flexible as it will work from any phone not just mobile. Where SMS gets interesting is sending messages from the device under control. Are you building your own micro from scratch? I be very keen to exchange notes

joc_06

Hold it now!! build my own micro from scratch?? Wha??

I'm using an atmel with uart to connect to my phone and sending at commands according to the etsi spec for gsm standards.

I won't fool you it's not easy and if you have never done any programming then it'll take a long time before you are even ready to start. Even then there is no guarantee that it will ever work as you will need access to expensive equipment like scopes with capture, dmm's, serial protocol analyser, programmer's etc.

I wont be releasing my source or schematics as i hope to market this eventually but if you are willing to learn or even know all of this already then i can give you some pointers.

What exactly is your backround in electronics??

towbar

Sorry, of course I didnt mean build the micro from scratch but meant design your own micro based solution from scratch. I have programmed motorola series 6800 and 68k a long while back now just a C windows programmer but I might give it a go. I have written some AT command stuff in windows to test SMS from a pc but I know it'll take a lot more to put it on an atmel. You could be onto something as any of the SMS control solutions I seen retailed from €350 upwards!!

joc_06

ok sorry i didnt mean to jump down your throat there but i just needed to make sure you werent completely green.

To start get over to etsi.com and get gsm03.38 and read it, then read up about uarts and baud rates on micro's. Thats a good start but you'll need hardware if you wanna go further. i can advise you on dev kits if you'd like. farnell has an excellent 1 for E110


I reckon i can throw the whole thing together for under a tenner if the user supplies the phone so i'd say there might be a market for it eventually.

If there isnt then i have other idea's on how to make a million before i'm 21!!

Whaddya think of an car radio with internal 80 gig hard drive, usb connection, gps and a big graphical display for under E400. There's money in that my friend surely

towbar

I had considerd the Quasar kit
http://www.quasarelectronics.com/abcmini.htm

I'd been keen to know which Farnell kit alright.

joc_06

If you want to get into the Uc scene get the stk500 from kanda systems from farnell. It's the job.

There are loads of tutorials around for it and avr-gcc is unreal if you can configure it.

Dont mind that piece a sh_it kit from quasar. A lot of "cheap" Uc programmers sold online wont work straight out of the box and need a lot of touching up. This will work straight out of box and has a free compiler/ degugger and c compiler too.


But please note that this is a big enough step. if you arent serious about Uc's and are just into this project then i'd advise you to head to ucables.com where you can buy a fully working version of this project. There's no point fooling yourself if you are just gonna discard the hardware in 3 weeks!!

towbar

Damn it man why did you tell me it had a c compiler- now I want to experiment, eventhough that kit on ucables is pretty cheap and would do most of what I want but not with a simple enough interface.

Youve obviousily done your research in this area. I hope the project goes well.

BTW, why would you put an 80gib harddrive in a car radio!!! Could a traditional hard drive even withstand the vibrations?? An integrated GPS - yes can see the sense in that

joc_06

Sorry about that but if you really wnat to get into this then the stk500 is the way to go.
It's so versatile and easy to use.

Why out a hdd into a car radio?? so people with massive mp3 collections can put them straight onto their car, also to play divx, dvd's etc. eventually. i dont want an os in terms of linux or windows- u need a fast boot ie under 20 secs so that's a really big challenge but sur i'll give it a lash anyhow.

any more q's drop us an oul pm or reply here

Best of luck

Falkorre

interesting idea that car system.....
hmmmm, far as an OS goes, u *could* set it up that as soon as the ignition is turned it fast boots into standby mode, as long as there is minimal software to load, like just one or two proggys, it shouldnt take more than 30-40 seconds max.

Even still, win or linux wouldnt be the greatest, somthing like a bones version, like PPC or maybe even a palm type interface would be more appropriate.......
Your biggest problem will be vibration..... *most* HD's wont be able to deal with car vibrations very well or for very long, you could try a laptop HD, might be a bit more shock-proof....... and there *are* vib-proof hds on the market but at a price

few bugs would need working on, but it is a quality idea........ one single unit where u could plug in phone, PDA, built in MP3, digital radio, dvd, etc etc....

B

RicardoSmith

Hey I'm interested in this home automation stuff, especially the heating. Can you do any of this stuff via VB.Net?

towbar

You can do this stuff through a PC using whatever language you want just need some form of input output module but the difficulty is then you have to leave a PC turned on all the time.

How do we go about setting up a new forum under after hours to cover this topic as there seems to be reasonable interest on the boards or should it be under sci tech.


You'll find modules on the net - I have used quasar electronics in the past.

RicardoSmith

I'm running a little ASUS mini PC as server and it practically silent so I don't think 24/7 operation would be a problem. You could always use one of those mini PC's by VIA . They are tiny and silent.

towbar

Does the PC have a parrallel port?

If so you could use this http://www.quasarelectronics.com/3074.htm

otherwise they have a serial version also.

You could also make your own simple version to connect to the parrallel port and write some code to control the parralel port bits directly - not sure how its done in VB but I am sure there is plenty of sample code on the net.

PM if want to talk through it?

RicardoSmith

It does actually. I'm not ready to work on this at the moment. I have a friend that has done some work in this area with VB I think. I'm going to go off and quiz him a bit.

towbar

Just found a USB version of an IO board seems cheaper too

http://www.dontronics.com/u401.html

synapse

Hi
am also currently working on a proj. using STK500 for mobile systems ( CDMA).
would like to communicate and discuss - though not through an open forum.
u can leave your messages at aks2205@gmail.com

Cal

Not sure if anyone has seen the 'resonse' wireless home alarms sold in B&Q. Not a top of the range home alarm but it has a menu for "Home Control Setup" but has no documentation with the alarm about the setup of this feature. As the alarm already features a dial in system to control the alarm and listen in to the house (and it has the ability to work on your main phoneline and does not interfere with your voicemail etc.) there may be some way to bring this cheap system further.

Cal

gream

I won't likely be of any help, but I do have a question. Do you intend to simply use the phone line in the same way that a high-speed internet connection does, or do you want an acoustic command system that goes through an actual telephone handset?
Plz clear It
_____________
http://www.zigbee.eu/

Borzoi

gream wrote: »

I won't likely be of any help, but I do have a question. Do you intend to simply use the phone line in the same way that a high-speed internet connection does, or do you want an acoustic command system that goes through an actual telephone handset? http://www.zigbee.eu/

Old thread -it's been 5 years:o