Hi everyone,
I need ideas on the best way to display real time data from a Mega. The data consists of current weather (rainfall, temp, humidity, etc.), energy usage (electric, gas, water), x10 info and more. Now I use a 4X40 lcd and scroll 2 of the lines every few seconds to display everything. I would like 2 or 3 displays remotely located in my house. I thought about using my home network, but that would require additional computers running 24/7. Any suggestions are welcome!
Have each client monitor be a board containing a standalone Arduino (ATMega328) coupled to the LCD and a cheap RF receiver. On the mega, output the data to the clients via a cheap RF transmitter.
If you want more reliability (at a greater cost), use XBee.
When you build them, it might be a good idea to drop the character LCDs and go with graphical KS0108 displays as an "upgrade"...
display data on an arduino server web page
use phone to see your data (guess that only works if you got a wifi/3g/edge phone).
You could also port forward to your arduino via your router to your web page for external views
or push to pachube.
I also think that you could pick up some of those cheap lcd picture frames some allow internet access or display of a web page.
+1 to Cr0sh's suggestion. I'd go with a cheap transciever in the master and all of the slaves so that slaves can request data from the master and pass commands to the master.
I have thought about the RF and network methods. My question about these is the overhead involved in sending the data. How much more processor time is required to setup and send say 1000 bytes of data vs just sending it thru a straight serial connection. And yes it would need to be bi-directional. As for the screen on the remote, a 7" minimum would be needed. Has anyone tried Picaso by 4dlabs.
Usual RF modules use Rx and Tx lines, so using then or a wired serial comm is exactly the same thing, no more, no less.