I am new to arduino and to this forum and so I would like to ask for your opinion/ideas about the planned arduino project.
The idea is to collect various data from various places at my office. Data may be for example: measured e.g. temperature or movement reporting but also typed in as a simple text. The system will be used to monitor (safety measures) an office and to provide a simple ways (text) of communication.
Requirements:
There must one central hub and nine data sources all able to exchange data with the hub but not between themselves.
Maximum distance between hub, data sources is approximately 15 meters (with some thin walls between - made out of wood).
Data must be sent/communicated only in a wireless form.
Power supply to the hub or any of the data sources is not a problem.
Solution should be KISS - keep it short and simple and budget is not an issue.
The question is. What hardware should I use for this project. For example - should I use?:
1.Ten WeMos D1 R2 WiFi uno based ESP8266?
2.Ten Arduinos UNO (maybe one Mega for the hub?) and ten (more for using various frequencies?) 433Mhz RF transmitters and receivers?
3.Ten Arduinos UNO and ten HC-06 Bluetooth serial pass-through modules?
Before someone will start to criticize me and - "search the forum". I have browsed well and one-place comparison of this forms of communication from the point of view of the raised above requirements does not take place.
I personally would bend toward 433 MHz but according to your experience what would be your design for the requirements raised?
I thank for your help - please be kind I am new here,
Adam
I'd strongly suggest taking a look at the NodeMCU (ESP8266) breakout. There is now arduino IDE support for it so you can program them just like a normal arduino.
A range of 15m is well within their WiFi range capabilities. You can easily set one up as an Access point (This one hosts the WiFi network) and the other 9 can connect to this wifi network.
You can then either use a server and client method or UDP (a very simple data transfer protocol) to transmit the data to the central node. The easiest way is to allocate fixed IP addresses however you could have each node identify itself when it joins the network (more complicated but makes it easier to add more nodes in the future)
Thank you for this advice and to develop just a bit the topic ... While thinking of possibility to send simple text messages to and from the Access point I was also thinking of using TFT Touch LCD Screen Display Module For Arduino UNO (as an input device).
In such a situation, and while choosing wifi connectivity – may it be more reasonable to use the WeMos D1 R2 WiFi UNO based ESP8266? Would it not be then easier to directly connect TFT shield?
Another possibility may be the nRF24L01+ modules. It is easy to set up one Arduino as master which then polls each of the other "slaves" in turn to collect their data.
The pair of programs in this link are designed to work like that.
Yun may be too advanced for the purpose/requirements given. However I have read now some about nRF24L01+. It looks pretty simple and interesting. The question is ... I have nine data sources and nRF24L01+ is limited to support 6 pipes (for me data sources) maximum (I understand - to listen at the same time). Is this possible to connect two nRF24L01+ to the central hub and so support all together 12 pipes? It would be more than I need - 9 data sources ...
I am new here,