Multi Sensor Central for Energy saving

Hello World!

My project is about measuring and finding a solution with the data.

My idea is to take from a room (it can be an office or even a bedroom) a lot of data, for example, light intensity and temperature.

Why? Because I like to find solution for daily problems and as I'm living with my parents and they are always complaining about high energy bills. I thought that maybe it would help if I find where are our biggest energy expenditure and then try to minimize it.

A simple idea is to see how oft is the light on without no one and how oft is the air conditioner on without reason (cold days or windy days). Arduino and his sensors (third-part sensors) are a great solution for that.

My plan is to measure the data, and try to make simple auto tasks, like, when it is not so warm and the air conditioner is on, we can receive a message in the cellphone or in the future, Arduino can even turn the machine off and save energy! This easy task can save a lot of money and when you think about, not only money but also the nature... Less Energy consumption means less pollution...

My project is still in the beginning as I'm a beginner but think about the uses!

Offices: How many light are on without reason? Why is the coffee machine 24/7 on when the coffee is still warm?

Houses: Why is the water being heated in the boiler if there is no one taking 

[Update 17.01.]

After some programming with Python, my Arduino and my computer are working together to save all the collected data to a file (until now, the program is writing everything in a .txt with date, time and collected data).

But only with some hours of program running, I could already create some really interesting graphs with Microsoft Excel.

To have and idea, here is the Python code to export the data:

#arduino project for texting data
#all rights reserved to the project of Nickolas Wejner
#if you have some questions or want to copy the code, please fell free to contact
# me at https://www.hackster.io/nickolasf

import serial

#here we are using the PySerial Library
#PySerial can be found here: 
#https://github.com/pyserial/pyserial

import time

serial_speed = 9600
serial_port = '/dev/cu.usbmodem1421'
ser = serial.Serial(serial_port, serial_speed, timeout = 1)


f = open('***/data.txt','a')

#here, the *** show the path in my computer

go = str()


while True:
     data = ser.readline()
     if data:
          print data
          string = str(data)
          go = time.ctime() + ' ' + string
          f.write(go)
          f.flush()



#arduino project for texting data

import serial
import time

serial_speed = 9600
serial_port = '/dev/cu.usbmodem1421'
ser = serial.Serial(serial_port, serial_speed, timeout = 1)


f = open('***/data.txt','a')

#again we have the path as ***

go = str()


while True:
     data = ser.readline()
     if data:
          print data
          string = str(data)
          go = time.ctime() + ' ' + string
          f.write(go)
          f.flush()

#the flush function here works for refreshing the data in the .txt
#so we have a new line of data saved every time