PC to Arduino communication help wanted

Projects General Guidance
1

hey guys,

I'm sure something like this has been asked before but I cant find what I was looking for so I'm posting my question here....

Current Set up / Background

I'm currently making a C# (WPF) application and I can communicate over serial to my arduino Uno R3 via USB (I'm building a application that lets me control some home automation).

Where I need help:

I am unsure what form of communication I should use to communicate to my arduino uno (multiple in distant rooms) I was hoping to use Ethernet as my home is pre wired with it but i do NOT know how to send serial commands over Ethernet ( I have a Seed studio Ethernet Shield version 1.1 ) I'm looking to send and receive data from sensors (temp RH% , Open closed, On off relay control etc..)

any advice or resources you folks could share with me would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

2

If you look at the different examples under File > Examples > Ethernet you will see some options demonstrated. TCP(ChatServer), UDP, web server. Another option is MQTT which there are Arduino libraries for. Of course you can't send serial commands over Ethernet but the Arduino commands to read/write data are the same once it is initialized and connected. I'm not sure what changes would be required of your application so that might be a deciding factor in your choice of protocol.

3

If you can use WiFi the cheap ESP8266 modules may be worth considering.

...R