LED light control

Other Hardware Home Automation
1

Hi,

I am planning on installing some LED down-lights in front of my garage doors. While I could use an AC power remote socket to do this, I want to also sense outdoor light levels and automatically (with manual override) turn the lights off and on. This is the first time I have done anything like this with a Arduino so I have a few questions. I apologize in advance if these are too basic.

  • Should I try to control the AC power to the power supply, or control the DC from the power supply? And what sort of control circuit should I use?
  • I would like to also be able to turn the lights off and on manually via a remote control switch and phone so am thinking about using an Arduino 101 and it's BT module. Does this make sense? Or should I look at some other control mechanism?
  • What sort of enclosure should I use? The lights will be under the eaves of the house and components will be in the garage, so I don't think I need anything weatherproof. But I do want to ensure that the system has a long, maintenance free life.

Thanks in advance.

2

  1. Neither. You need to purchase a LED driver that is designed for dimming; it should have an additional input to allow it. Trying to chop up the AC input to the driver or DC output to the LED rarely gives you the result you expect.

  2. ESP8266 with Lua/NodeMCU firmware is the best option for wireless, IMHO. It's a Wifi module with excellent range. See also GitHub - jeelabs/esp-link: esp8266 wifi-serial bridge, outbound TCP, and arduino/AVR/LPC/NXP programmer

  3. Whatever works :slight_smile: