android controlled reef monitor/controller

Projects General Guidance
1

Hi guys I've been doing plenty of reading but confusing myself more and more. I'm looking to build a moniter/controller for my reef aquarium and wondered how I would go about being able to get readings of temps etc and multiple controls on an Android device. I was just going to go with using a tft touch screen to be able to scroll through various menus and operate relays but really like the idea of full wireless control.

Is it possible to either use an Android tablet or would I be better off using a tft screen wireless communicating with my mega board somehow.

As you can prob tell I'm really new to arduino and know very little so any guidance is very much appreciated. As far as coding goes my friend is going to do that side while I work on the hardware side.

Thanks in advance guys.

James

2

Connecting an Android to talk to an Arduino is enitrely possible. You have a couple different ways to go about doing this

You can connect them through Bluetooth, WiFi or Ethernet. WiFi and Ethernet would probably be the easiest as it allows you to create a webpage as the interface. They also give you the option, depending on your network, of connecting through a computer. Bluetooth would require an app to interface with, but you wouldn't need a network. This would be a good idea if the aquarium is isolated with no means of connecting to a computer network.

3

Thanks for the reply, believe it or not I don't have any networking my house, all my internet based work is done using my phone as a WiFi hotspot. Bluetooth sounds ok to me. I'm assuming I would need to make a GUI app then tell it to transmit a certain code to the ardunio to make it perform a task. Or am I looking at this wrong? This is where I'm really stuck, the communication between tablet an ardunio.

4

jamesferg666:
I'm assuming I would need to make a GUI app then tell it to transmit a certain code to the ardunio to make it perform a task. Or am I looking at this wrong? This is where I'm really stuck, the communication between tablet an ardunio.

Yeah, you need an app to connect, send data, receive data then display data.

I would google around for projects using Arduino, Android and Bluetooth. There's plenty of projects out there already that should give you ideas and guidance on the communications portion.

5

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. Looking forward to learning a load more

6

Having looked into this a lot more I'm not sure I can do what I wanted. So plan b would be to make a wireless touch display using a 5" tft. Just wondering if anyone can point me in the right direction for this. Would prob use either rf transceivers or pos blue tooth.

Thanks guys

7

This is similar to my reply in the camera control thread. If you are tackling a large project, and you haven't done anything like this before, you want to break the project into smaller steps that are each complete so that you get to your goal.

Right now, you have quite a few things that need to work before you have the end product.

Lets see, I would first tackle the basic monitoring of your reef with the Anduino. Start with getting one temp. setting, and display it on one of the cheap 16x2 displays or similar displays. Don't worry about changing the temp, just get the first step of reading the temp. Next, add additional sensors and worry about displaying them on your device.

Perhaps the next thing to do is add a primitive menu system to your system, so that you can scroll down to get the appropriate temp to print out.

Next add the ability to change a particular setting, using your menu system to select what you want to change, and either buttons or a pot. to change things. Obviously this step depends on what type of heaters, etc. you have and whether they are electronically controllable or you have to use a relay to turn the heater on/off, and a servo to rotate the dial.

Once you have the basic setup, you may want to switch to a graphic display with a touch screen. This is likely more programming than just a character based menu, so you want to wait to tackle this until you have the basic controls in place.

Once you have the setup, then it is time to think about wireless controls. Unless you want to learn a whole new set of programming for Android development, perhaps the best way is to change the controller to be a basic web interface and use a wifi interface (or perhaps a wired ethernet interface first). Then you can connect to the Arduino remotely. However, note this is somewhat different programming than previously.

It really depends on how motivated you are, and how much electronics and programming you need to learn. Note, in terms of the programming, there are several different types of programming involved. I suspect it will take most people about a year. If you have been doing programming for a while, it may shave it down to 4-6 months instead of a year, but I would suspect it may be closer to a year.

I suspect this isn't what you wanted to hear.

There is a kickstarter project right now with 23 days to go that aims to make Arduino, etc. programming much easier for the non-programmer. I don't know much more about it, but maybe it might be helpful to reduce the time to make your project: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/modkit/modkit-micro-the-easiest-way-to-program-microcontr?ref=category

8

Thanks for that I'll have a look. I know nothing about the programming side, a friend who wants to do the project with me can program pretty well, its his day job. I'm just doing the hardware side of things. But not having much knowledge in computers etc I'm finding it a little hard to get my head round it. We all ready have the code for temp reading and control of two relays to control heating or cooling. Next part is to make 3 pwm channels to ramp up/down at set times etc for LEDs.

How would people have a standalone screen to communicate with a mega 2560? I was thinking of using screen, rf transceiver and a micro board. Or am I miles off?