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By jschwalbe
#196349
Greetings,

I've got a Spark Core and C.H.I.P. and I'm having trouble doing what I want because these aren't Arduinos.

The project I want to do is:
https://github.com/matlock08/homesecurity

There are just so many options! Which Arduino should I get? I don't feel like I need an elaborate starter kit.. I've got Resistors and wires, a breadboard, etc.

Any ideas? Thanks!
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By exeng
#196350
Having trouble how? It would seem that any Arduino like micro will support the RX/TX aspect of your needs. But if you are trying to use Blynk as per the home security example that you reference, you are going to need some sort of wifi capability. Also I assume you are trying to keep costs down and not over engineer or buy to solve this.

Since this is the Sparkfun forum you might consider the ESP8266 Thing board. I don't have one so I can't speak from direct experience but I do use other ESP8266 based boards for all kinds of apps that need wifi built in and have used them with Blynk, Partical and Thingspeak.

All depends on what you what to do with the data.
By jschwalbe
#196354
Having trouble because the code I want was developed for Arduino and these don't "do" Arduino.

You've highlited my example perfectly though, I need wifi and an Arduino and I want to keep my costs down. The Thing board looks promising, but it doesn't look like an actual Arduino (is it?).. this is my dillema.
exeng wrote:Having trouble how? It would seem that any Arduino like micro will support the RX/TX aspect of your needs. But if you are trying to use Blynk as per the home security example that you reference, you are going to need some sort of wifi capability. Also I assume you are trying to keep costs down and not over engineer or buy to solve this.

Since this is the Sparkfun forum you might consider the ESP8266 Thing board. I don't have one so I can't speak from direct experience but I do use other ESP8266 based boards for all kinds of apps that need wifi built in and have used them with Blynk, Partical and Thingspeak.

All depends on what you what to do with the data.
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By exeng
#196359
The Thing board looks promising, but it doesn't look like an actual Arduino (is it?).. this is my dillema.
There are the literal "Arduino" products and then there are the many many boards that have been developed over time to take advantage of the Arduino IDE and sketch structure (setup and loop). Also, there are all the libraries that have been written for these boards. So no, it doesn't have to be a literal Arduino product, it just needs to be able to play and live comfortably within the Arduino environment and have the library support that you anticipate needing.

Again, can't speak for the ESP8266 Thing, but perhaps others can chime in (especially Sparkfun).

If it can happily live and be programmed in the Arduino enviroment and has Wifi native, and has the libraries needed you should be OK. The other thing to look at is serial support as you will be talking to the security device over serial. Ideally, you would have native USB based serial for programming and some additional hardware/soft serial support for RX/TX being connected directly. My ESP8266 based boards do not have native USB serial support and must be programmed via Wifi (Over the Air) which (form my boards) can be less than reliable (just the nature of the product I use). Other ESP8266 products (that can use Arduino OTA) and perhaps the Sparkfun ESP8266 Thing may be more reliable in this regard.
Not sure if the Thing supports Arduino OTA or not.

BTW, you could also research real or clone Arduino boards that can easily accept a Wifi shield. I prefer to have it native to the board due to cost and simplicity.
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By exeng
#196362
UPDATE: Just took a look at the code you reference for this project and it appears that it uses ethernet to communicate with Blynk (albeit eventually through Wifi I assume). So you could also use an Arduino like board that supports ethernet that is ultimately connected to a Wifi capable network. Your choice. It would avoid to need to mod the code to use Wifi instead of ethernet.
By jschwalbe
#196367
I really appreciate your input, exeng, but you've very eloquently told me what I already know: there are various devices out there and one of them might work.

Perhaps this is too much to ask, but: Can someone (perhaps from Sparkfun?) help an ArduiNoob find the right device to purchase from your website?
By jremington
#196371
The code appears to expect two hardware serial ports and an ethernet shield.
An Arduino Mega and a matching shield will work.
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By exeng
#196374
I really appreciate your input, exeng, but you've very eloquently told me what I already know
Don't know that is was eloquent, but thanks and sorry for not suggesting a specific solution. Just trying to provide some guidance. If ultimately using ethernet as in the example, I assume you will have wired network access near or at your security device.