Good morning!! Arduino n00b here...forgive my ignorance.
I have a couple of these and I'm wanting to use arduinos to turn the little base station things on and off on a schedule. I'm not sure, is this even possible? Maybe a Raspberry Pi would be a better choice?
They run on 5V via micro-USB. All I want is to turn them on and off on a schedule as I want to have them around my house but I don't want them all going off all the time. Beings as they run on 5V, I was thinking this would be relatively simple...dunno though. Maybe not. Coding and stuff, I can do that...electrical and power-related stuff though? No clue. lol
By base station are you indicating the sensor or the annunciator. These appear to be battery powered and solar charged is that how you are installing them? With all the information on the amazon site I will assume they will work when the 5V is not present and the battery is functioning. How many of each is involved? How many transmitters and how many receivers are we talking about? If the sensors are outside are you planning on running wire and how long will it be and where will the wire be placed. Do you have the resources to modify the units, knowing that doing that will void the warranty?
"Base station" = the "annunciator" part...the part with a speaker. It runs on either batteries or 5V micro-USB.
One "base station" per arduino. Forget the transmitters altogether...they're outside, they're all on, all the time. They aren't a part of this.
I don't think I'll need to open or modify the "base stations", but even if I do, I don't care about warranties. If I break it, I'll just buy another one.
I was thinking I could connect a micro-USB connector to the 5V pins and turn the power output on and off via code. Dunno if that's how it works or not, but that's the idea.
If there are no batteries you have it right. You can purchase some cheep USB cables from your favorite china supplier and cut the un needed end off and you will have an assembly. I would not recommend powering the speaker with the Arduino 5V. Something like this should do the job and they are normally under a buck.
Arduino or pi doesn't really matter. The code is simple enough. Just need to make sure you have a real time clock on the system.
Easy enough to do with a handful of relays or FET switches. Also, remember that there are software-switchable USB hubs that you can buy off the shelf although they can be expensive.
Ooo...software switchable USB hub...I'll have to look into that. If it's going to take all kinds of relays and stuff anyway, that will probably be simpler. Thanks!
If you're in the US, I found micro and type C USB cables at $ Tree for $1.25 last week. At that price I can cut them up as needed without shedding a tear.
