I'm thinking of building a network of Arduinos over an existing powerline network in a single home. However I can't find anything about this in the Arduino scope (except X-10, but I need a reliable solution ;)).
I found that Yitran and Cypress chips are extremely reliable and are used in some large scale projects. Does anyone have some experience with these or other Powerline PHY chips and using them with Arduino?
Thanks
The consumer products you're talking about are for creating an Ethernet without new cabling. They cost a lot, they are big, they are fast, but not reliable (the reliability is achieved via TCP protocol).
I need another approach - cheap, small, slow, but reliable solution with small payload. There are chips especially made for "Command & Control" (they are different than the chips for fast Ethernet or video transmission). Yitran and Cypress are specialized in these chips and they say the transmission success is more than 97% without packet retries and 100% with retries. The baud rate is 2400 - 7500 Kbps, depending on the chip and protocol options.
Search for Cypress's CY8CPLC10, CY8CPLC20 and Yitrans's IT800 and IT700. Maxim also produces Powerline PHY chips, but as I read, they are far less reliable.
So, my question is, is there anybody that has done anything similar that I'm trying to do with some of these chips? And if there's anybody, could he share some experience?
Thanks 
No, Maxim's ads are also written by marketing people, but the chips they made are not praised by the engineers as Yitran's and Cypress's... as far as I read on the NET.
I don't need fast speeds, 2400 Kbps is enough. I'm trying to control some units like lamps and curtains, and read some sensors.
Yes, I did some search in the forums, but didn't find anything neither here or in AVRFreaks and similar forums.
Well, wireless has the same issue that Powerline has - noisy, unreliable and overpopulated medium. And is still expensive - an average Xbee transceiver is about $30. And I don't like to have 30 antennas near my head next 20-30 years... 
Everyday for the past year, about a dozen X10 devices turn on and off at the proper time and IR sensors report movement to an Arduino based X10 controller I made. Personally, I can't think of a better - cheap (if 115V) + flexible + safe (UL approved) way of doing it.
However, I'm not at all trying to convince you or anyone of this. In fact, I agree with Richard that data transmission over power lines will always be a bit iffy. It's just that for my non-critical needs, it works just fine.
The main reason for my post is to mention that if you live in the US, it is likely that 1/2 of your house will be on 1 phase of the 220 and the other half on the other. This means that without some kind a "bridge" (and it could be your hot-tub or cloths drier or stove!) your signal will have to cross the transformer at the power poll to get to the other side of your house. Perhaps the chips you mention don't have a problem with that, but it may still be a factor. (There is an X10 repeater/bridge that solved my problem with this.)
Anyway, just something to consider.
...in the US, it is likely that 1/2 of your house will be on 1 phase of the 220 and the other half on the other...
Well, there is no way (no way) that I am going to go mucking around inside the power mains breaker box, and it's not very likely that I am going to pay a licensed electrical contractor to hook up a bridge between the two phases. (That's what it would take to keep my insurance valid, or so I'm told.)
However, some time ago I decided to use X10 to connect to porch lights, motion sensors, wireless switches for floor lamps, 3-way stair lights, etc., all over the house.
Here's what I did: I bought two X10 wireless transceivers. (Hang around the X10 site until you see a special that you like. They have all kinds of specials all the time. I got two of these and some other stuff at a real discount rate.)
I plugged one wireless transceiver into an upstairs outlet and carried around an appliance module to various outlets in the house. I tried to active the appliance module with the Universal X10 Remote control (you can hear the relay click when it turns on or off). When I found an outlet (downstairs, as it happened) that wouldn't activate the appliance module, I figured that the phase it is opposite to the phase of the wireless transceiver. So---I put the second wireless transceiver in that outlet.
Now, I can plug in anything anywhere and it always activates from anywhere that I want it to. No, I don't use an Arduino controller, but if I did, I would connect the Arduino to one of the X10 serial interface modules.
I have an old "X10 Sparkplug" set of stuff with an RS-232 interface, and I found lots of information on the Web about how to talk to it from my Linux workstation. With my vast (almost three months now) experience playing with Arduino boards, I'm thinking that it wouldn't be too tough to make the Arduino talk to it (through the TTL to RS-232 interface that I built) if I really wanted to.
I didn't have to hire anyone to hook up anything. I can turn on the porch light from an X10 keyfob or from an interior wall switch. It is turned on automatically by a motion detector when it's dark but not during daytime (no programming required). Stuff like that.
I find the X10 system to be very reliable in my modest-sized house in a fairly dense neighborhood.
Do I have to say it? Well, I will: IWFMYMMV (It Works For Me; Your Mileage May Vary.)
Regards,
Dave
Well, X10 is not the technology I want in my house. The Web is full of articles and posts of people that curse X10 of it's unreliability and slow speeds (2-3 seconds to execute a command). It's very old technology (35 years old) and uses a primitive protocol without packet delivery notifications. And I live in Europe, here we have 220V 50Hz lines and X10 modules are not so cheap as they are in USA (in my country an average X10 switch is about $80-$85). So, for my opinion X10 is old, expensive, slow and unreliable... and did I mention ugly? (just look at the European version).
The main reason for my post is to mention that if you live in the US, it is likely that 1/2 of your house will be on 1 phase of the 220 and the other half on the other.
In Europe, or at least in my country there is no such thing as 2 phases in a house, so we don't have this problem.
You apparently didn't look at Sparkfun's "Wireless Buying Guide". Xbee is likely overkill for your application, so it is a red-herring argument.
I did look at the article and I'm pretty much familiar with all these technologies. And Xbee, ZigBee and Z-Wave are exactly made for applications like mine - home automation. The end products which use them are extremely easy to install by non techie guys, there are no new wires and they are reliable (because of the retransmission mesh topology and the smart protocols). All this make them "the perfect home automation solution" and are loved by the mass market.
But I don't like it... it is antenna! Imagine 30-40 of them around your house, that expose you to radiation for decades! Yes, they are small, but they are many and are very close to you for a very long time... I know what I'm talking about.
If it were so cool to make home automation with wireless modules, why all the rapper's houses on the MTV's Cribs show are equipped with wired solutions? And here in Europe rich guys use KNX? It's not so cool, it's just cheap and easy
that expose you to radiation for decades! Yes, they are small, but they are many and are very close to you for a very long time... I know what I'm talking about.
Any wireless device you have that is licensed to use without a license will not put out enough radiation to cause any harm. Your TV, Laptop, Cell Phone, Wireless Router, Microwave, Power Lines... all put out way more radiation. Your wireless router and power lines are always on. So adding 10... 20.. or even 100 sub 100 milliwatt transmitters that transmit intermittently will be almost invisible compared to everything else that is standard in a modern house. Any scientific research you find will tell you this. You will not find any scientific research saying otherwise. Anyone with even a basic understanding of electronics would know this.
So I would suggest you think more about a wireless solution. It will be faster and more reliable. You can find wireless modules for under $8 (USD) each. Far cheaper than any other solution.
All the "rappers" use wired solutions because they cost more. Anything that costs more is "cooler" And rappers need to be cool. But probably a more practical use of wired devices is that you don't need to change batteries and you get a much higher speed. Usually the wired solutions provide a lot more control than you said you are looking for. Sometimes they stream not only just control signals, but TV, Music, VoIP, and security camera feeds. Another reason to use wired solutions is when you have a big house. Wireless solutions can only go so far. When you are a cool rapper you probably have a big house that has lots of walls. Wireless solutions do like that.
[edit]As far as radiation is concerned... you can start here Wireless device radiation and health - Wikipedia Several links to the absence of proof that even more powerful devices could cause radiation health issues.
The World Health Organization has acknowledged that electromagnetic fields (EMFs) are influencing the environment (but not people), and that some people are worried about possible effects.[1] In response to public concern, the World Health Organization established the International EMF Project in 1996 to assess the scientific evidence of possible health effects of EMF in the frequency range from 0 to 300 GHz. They have stated that although extensive research has been conducted into possible health effects of exposure to many parts of the frequency spectrum, all reviews conducted so far have indicated that exposures are below the limits recommended in the ICNIRP (1998) EMF guidelines, covering the full frequency range from 0–300 GHz, and do not produce any known adverse health effect.
[/edit]
What about this: http://www.watteco.com/index.php/products/wpc-transceivers/wpc-ip.html
Seems very interesting. And it's IPv6 driven.
You will find lots of interesting things out there if you are a big company with a big budget designing a product for the mass market. But you seem like an individual hobby experimenter. You might be able to talk the manufacturer into sending you some samples to play with. But most of those things are not available in small quantities.
Yes, I know that. And that was the case with Watteco too...
But you previously rejected TCP/IP as too complex for your requirements.
I didn't rejected TCP/IP, in fact I think this is the most beautiful way of interfacing devices. However it's an overkill for the most AVR MCUs, but I wouldn't decline a good powerline TCP/IP solution like watteco's, which uses the Contiki OS stack implementations.