Home Automation Integration

We all live in a house full of... things. We like them just fine the way they are. Its also a full time job just keeping an eye on everything.

A quick list might be: home security, remote viewing of children, music, A/V collection, front door button, a solar panel setup, wind generator, water tanks with water flow valves, a fish aquarium (with water and feeding to monitor), a garden to keep an eye on, maybe growing things to eat, pets running around, internet access, voice phone, pool and spa, air conditioning, irrigation and lawn watering, windows and blinds, remote control of power, weather station.... gee, everyone is different and Im sure you have different needs.

Plus the fact that people are getting busier and want to control these things from work or when away. Many of us are also getting older and don't want to traipse around all day handling these things.

So what is this project all about?

Well, most people now have a WiFi system somewhere in the house. Lets use that to capture any devices around the property, put them on one screen, and let us control or at least view whats going on.

Im envisaging the ability to retrofit existing devices - I include old fashioned water taps, power boards, smoke detectors and all sorts - which will then automatically be captured by the network controller. If you go out and buy something designed to be integrated into someones existing home automation brand, that's great, lets see if we can have our 'open' system communicate with them also.

Therefore this project will be ongoing. The plan is to set up a blog and website somewhere, assuming I can get it beyond stage one. The planning, which starts here, is to be a "top down" approach, meaning that I'll start with a vague overview and then start drilling down to more and more specific designs, right down the component level.

Another thing about this project. In the past Ive programmed professionally in C, in VBasic and a few other things. Way back Im originally a electronics hardware person. I know very little about Android/Java... so far. So this is a steep learning curve for me. I was recently awarded a IMX6UL (Pico-PI) from NXP as part of this competition and so am determined to make use of it. So this project is part blog, me getting to grips with what is for me a new platform. How hard can it be?

I see many projects in these pages for individual applications which are ready made to slot right into this project. Very good!

In the next section I'll deal with the top level of the system, which I envisage to be a web based application running on something like the NXP or Raspberry PI platforms. The application will need to be extremely interactive and communicate with all of the remote devices via WiFi. Ive been wondering whether the main component should be PC based. In any case, being browser based will open the door to it being controlled from anywhere within WiFi range. Beyond - if you know what you are doing security wise.

The vision is for another frame to appear on the screen where another device becomes available, complete with controls and so forth. You then slide them around on the screen (or minimize) to suit yourself.