Home Automation - where do I begin

[GreenBantam]

Hi all

I promise I have read a lot of the posts on this board, but am completely baffled by the various PICAXE, JeeNode, Arduino and HalfBee references.

I'm new to this home automation game, and I'm also not an electrical boffin.  I could probably give soldering something together a go ... providing someone told me what and how!!  I could probably manage a nice bit of scripting, although C is beyond me.  I've got a CurrentCost energy monitor, which I have got talking to my Viglen-MPC via some great help at jibble.org, and am looking to expand on this setup somehow.

I thought the ideal first step would be to have some kind of sensors in and around the house, measuring things like heat, light, etc.., and storing the results in the Viglen in a similar way.  Then, once I've started to get a bit more comfortable with my data, I could look at using the Viglen to control more things (am I right in saying that something like Mister House would help here?)

Obviously though, I am on a budget, so I'm trying to figure out what my next steps should be?

Can anybody suggest a high level roadmap for me to get started with my sensors?  Should I be looking at the JeeNode stuff?

MTIA

GreenBantam

[Greenbeast]

you could start with arduino for sub £20 for a board and some sensors

That's what i did at the beginning of the year and i'm now on some hot water/ heating stuff with KenB among others and have already implemented a hot water display for myself and my parents

[Baz]

If you trackdown Misterhouse Wiki there is a bit about getting it onto a Plugcomputer which will be similar to your Viglen. http://misterhouse.wikispaces.com/MisterPlug
Best to run it on Windows first to understand it. It gives you a very good high level control system but not low level I/O normally discussed on this forum.

The big problem with small linux devices is the lack of I/O and needing to be a geek to add drivers. You may want to try an Arduino + Ethernet to give you a portal into some customisable I/O and 1-wire or something like this
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180539039159
though it doesn't have 1-wire.
Temperature measurement is the main requirement for all house automation and for that there is nothing better than 1-wire.

[EccentricAnomaly]

I could probably manage a nice bit of scripting, although C is beyond me.

Have a look at some Arduino code.  The C as it's used there is pretty much like scripting - for example, there's very little use of pointers which is one aspect of C which can confuse the unfamiliar. 

By the way, thanks for the reminder about the MPC-L - I remember when it was announced but hadn't been back to look since.  I've been wondering what machine to get for a low-power always-on server.  Was thinking of a BeagleBoard or SheevaPlug but the MPC-L looks like a good option, too.  Viglen's descriptions are a bit light-weight, though.  Two questions:

1) Default is 256 MB of RAM with cheap upgrade to 512 MB.  Any idea if it would be possible to fit more?

2) They don't say but presumably it comes with a mains power adapter.  What DC voltage actually goes in to the box?

[Paul and Rona]

Hi,
    The Little MPC runs directly from 12v and does or did when i bought some for work, come complete with a small external mains PSU.

When i purchased six they were originally called The MPC contender and were fitted with a 80Gb drive and 512Mb Ram.

The original (Software) purpose for which they were bought required Windows!!! Belive me they crawl when running Windows....

I ended up running Windows Legacy on them to get a workable enviroment...... In 24/7 usage they do get quite warm, the hard drive has a sort of screen come heatsink fitted, it can be arranged so the "heatsink" is in contact with the Ali casing to help cool the drive.

Three of my units have now run 24/7 for 2 years, so I guess they will be perfect for the likes of home automation, They also function very well a a simple low power web server, And If my memory serves, they run about 12 watts in normal use.

The whole beast is-or WAS based on the GEODE CPU..

A Standard Unbuntu Install DID not run on my units!!! it needed the Viglen tweaked version... An easy tweak !

And at the Time I bought them only the drivers for Windows Xp / Legacy were availible....

All in all not a bad little unit

Regards Paul & Rona

[KenB]

GreenBantam,

The references to halfbee devices, JeeNodes, Navitrino etc are really for the hardcore of the community who wish to develop their own systems.  It involves assembling hardware and firmware from scratch using open source devices, and customising the application for specialist monitoring and datalogging.

This is clearly not the best place to start if all you want is a working home automation system,  but it does offer a low cost entry point into sensing.

For example you could buy an Arduino for about £17, and some one wire temperature sensors for about £2.50 each and then load a simple pre-written sketch which outputs the temperatures over the Arduino's serial port to your MPC-L. That might be the budget approach and you would very quickly pick up experience in C working within the Arduino programming enviroment.

If you don't fancy C and the Arduino, you could get a 1-wire USB dongle - similar to this one,

http://www.hobby-boards.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1503

or on ebay

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/DS9490R-USB-to-1-wire-adapter-Dallas-Maxim-digitemp_W0QQitemZ130449666566QQcmdZViewItem?rvr_id=171791181115&rvr_id=171791181115&cguid=fe2ef0651270a0aad4549a34fffbc883

which would allow you to connect 1-wire sensors direct to your MPC.   I have not used one of these  - and I am probably not best placed to advise about 1 wire - having only just started to use it myself.

JeeNodes are rather a specialist wireless node development based on Arduino, which offers a wireless sensing network - I would not recommend these until you have gained experience of Arduino first. There would still be a fair amount of fiddling around to make a system.

Unfortunately there are few "plug and go" systems on offer - and what there are tend to be somewhat expensive.

You might get some better information asking a similar question on the home automation forum,

http://www.homeautomationforum.co.uk/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?

to see what commercial equipment is being offered, plus a bit of googling to see who the main suppliers are.



regards



Ken

[Alan]

Mr Green Bantam

Gizmoids for monitoring temperature is not an issue.

One wire spurious readings due to Radio Frequency interference / cable capacitance / P.L.C. / Processor timing issues. Will just give you corrupt / wrong information.

But that is all it will be. ( Corrupt / Wrong information )

Ref : “ Home automation – where do I begin. “

If the one off

“ coded / programmed – P.C. / Arduino / Pic Basic / Pic Assembler / C code / Machine code / Visual Basic “

Thingy is not working. Who do you know who can come in and fix it. / get the heating going / sort out the problems.

99.9 % of trade peoples you phone up would not know where to start.

As an example Here. Just about every thing relating to Wind turbines / Hot water solar panels / Heat pumps / Solar P.V. /  Boilers / Grid connect / Proportional electrical heating / Under floor heating / Fail safe if normal controls go wrong.

Is home made.

Me and Lady of the house getting on in years. I look at some of the programming / Code I did 15 / 20 years ago. ( that is still fully functional )

Its in my own hand writing. I have left Help notes for myself in all the code. I look at some of it and It don’t mean a thing any more.

 


The point I’m trying to make is Gizmoids for temperature monitoring. Yup   

Controlling Thingies. Think hard about it.   

Regards

Alan

[EccentricAnomaly]

Paul & Rona, thanks for the extra MPCL details.  12 W sounds much more plausible for an Intel architecture machine with a hard drive than Viglen's claim of £1 per year which would indicate 1 W (a W·year costing about £1).  Either that, or I want the electricity rate Viglen's getting.

[Greenbeast]

Thingy is not working. Who do you know who can come in and fix it. / get the heating going / sort out the problems.

99.9 % of trade peoples you phone up would not know where to start.

As an example Here. Just about every thing relating to Wind turbines / Hot water solar panels / Heat pumps / Solar P.V. /  Boilers / Grid connect / Proportional electrical heating / Under floor heating / Fail safe if normal controls go wrong.

Is home made.

Me and Lady of the house getting on in years. I look at some of the programming / Code I did 15 / 20 years ago. ( that is still fully functional )

Its in my own hand writing. I have left Help notes for myself in all the code. I look at some of it and It don’t mean a thing any more.

 


The point I’m trying to make is Gizmoids for temperature monitoring. Yup   

Controlling Thingies. Think hard about it.   

Regards

Alan

This is something i'm concerned about.

For my part the current work on heating/water automation is fun for tinkering and i'm ultimately planning for my next property which will either be self-build or an existing house stripped and customised and i plan to stay till i die.

But i couldn't leave this current property with anything but a standard control system.

[GreenBantam]

WOW!  Lots of great replies - thanks.

I think all of the questions about the Viglem have been answered - as far as I am aware, 512MB is the maximum supported by the ION503 motherboard at the heart of it, but full technical specs seem to be sparse on the internet.  Mine is currently running 10.04 Xubuntu, and is perfectly good at doing what I am asking it to do (print server, web server, currencost data collector).  I don't think its geared up to browsing the internet, particularly the flashy internet that exists today (maybe ten years ago!)  I am more than comfortable with sticking new OS's on the Viglen, so may look to change that to Lubuntu or Mint at a later date.

Ken - you seem to have hit the nail on the head.  This is obviously a very technical community (hence my confusion mentioned in the first post), but if money IS a constraint, there isn't currently another option available to someone wanting some kind of home automation/monitoring system than to build it yourself.

It sounds like I need to have a play with an arduino to see what it can do.  Whilst I appreciate the warning from Alan, this is definitely a hobby piece for me, and I would never do something that would not be easily reversible!  So expect more stupid questions

And I'll check out the other forum too.

Thanks

GreenBantam