SparkFun Forums

[deveauzt]

Hi all,

I envision my home eventually having many sensors, dimmers, plugs with relay control, you name it. Lots of home automation tinkering.

I'm wondering if anyone has thoughts / recommendations on the best technology to use. I've used XBee modules, I've used Zigbit modules (back when they were owned by Meshnetics), I haven't tried Z-Wave, bluetooth, X10, low power wifi stuff yet...

Also wondering if anyone has a recommendation on what the 'brain' or 'gateway' of the home automation network should be. I know there are a few software frameworks out there - I could put together some kind of set top box / mini computer or just run something as a VM....but there are a few ways to go.

Anyone have any thoughts? I don't want to spend too much time writing complicated code - I'd rather just have the fun building the devices.

[Mee_n_Mac]

The obvious answer is a PC running as a home server. It alone has the computational power to render spoken words, by normal people, into the proper actions.

[deveauzt]

As far as what low power wireless technology to use - anyone have an opinion on which way to go? (Zigbit, XBee, other). I know there's not one answer - just wondering if anyone has strong feelings why they like to use one type of module over another.

[waltr]

That's the million dollar question.
Do you want to design and build every thing? or be able to use some off the shelf products?

[deveauzt]

Ideally I'd like to design and build all of the end devices. After all, that's a big part of the fun.

I'm no expert programmer or web developer though (mostly just have experience programming microcontrollers or writing simple python scripts / c programs to collect data), so I'm hoping there's some kind of ready to go software that I can start to modify / interface to as I go.

Something like http://thethingsystem.com/ or http://www.openremote.org comes to mind, but I'm sure there are other home automation/control systems out there.

[blu3lit3]

How about a control box per room? For instance you could drop a raspberry pi and some solid state relays in a box that could live in the basement beneath the room or in a closet and then re-wire everything to that. I understand that rewiring a room is no small task, but it would be a cheaper task then dropping a wifi-based control for every outlet and light-switch in a room.

[Ross Robotics]

You do know that you just replied to a year old thread right?

[Brennen@SparkFun]

codlink, we just added a "Forum" tab to the main navigation on sparkfun.com, so a lot of people are probably seeing stuff here for the first time. It's also worth observing that phpBB can be fairly... Opaque, let's say, if you're not used to it. At any rate, I don't see any particular harm in replying to long-dormant threads.