Hi,
So I made this simple home automation project that allows on/off on bulbs via SMS. Let's say if I was to implement this in real time like controlling each and every appliance of a house, how would I go about it? I thought of having the arduino+relay+GSM combo at each switch board outlet and its corresponding wiring for the electrical appliance it controls, but that seems a little too inefficient. Any other ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Mohdizzy:
e arduino+relay+GSM combo at each switch board outlet and its corresponding wiring for the electrical appliance it controls, but that seems a little too inefficient.
Probably the best thing you can do is appreciate the difference between automation and remote control. It's a fair bet that the more appliances you have responding to SMSs, the sooner you will realise what a stupid idea it is. A clock and some sensors will change the game here. And you probably haven't wasted the GSM gear. Instead of having it receive all those boring commands, you can use to send you messages about something interesting.
Well I didn't really ask for suggestions on what I should be doing but just fyi I have come up with an idea that involves usage of sensors and automation control on a different level. I just wanted to know about the electrical appliances if I wanted to hook them up too. If you have anything useful to say on that regard, fine, otherwise let it be.
I agree with @Nick_Pyner that the project needs to be carefully planned so that you don't find yourself overwhelmed by trivia.
I doubt if there is any cheap solution to what you are thinking of - especially when the necessary safety aspects are taken into account. For example, one option would be to rewire the building to facilitate control by a single central computer.
If you want to control several things with SMS messages I suggest you have a central master "receiver" that deals with the messages and sends out instructions to various slave devices. A special app on the phone would probably be much easier to use.
You will need to give a lot of thought to how the master communicates with the slaves - is it via wired or wireless comms. There are some systems that use the electricity network to carry data, would that be a possibility. 2.4GHz wireless transceivers might be an option, but I don't know their practical range.
Then you will need to devise a protocol through which the master identifies the slaves and the slaves know which messages to respond to.
And after all that, you will have to design and build each device so it complies with safety requirements and can be installed unobtrusively so it doesn't destroy the appearance (and value) of the building.
Oh, and it will have to be sufficiently reliable, well designed and implemented and documented so that it can be used by the next owner of the building and maintained by his contractor.
...R
Just so you know I understand the fact in real time it seems an unwanted need for automating electrical appliances, all I wanted is the info on how would one have to go about doing if something like this was to be implemented. Thanks for the response!
Look up the Power Tail. Its a premade 10A relay that plugs into standard US plugs. That would be your safest bet. Large power things will be far far more dangerous and you'd have to build something using some sufficiently large relays and probably NEMA cases to control and make sure are up to electrical code. Admittedly I don't know how you would control say a dishwasher or oven with this, since those usually have controls independent of just whether or not its on.
@mirith
No I intended to know only about connection of simple items such as bulb,fan,heater. It doesn't make sense to control anything else.
If you want DIY there is a compatible chip that includes a zigbee radio or just use the zigbee modules directly they have 8 GPIO's and 6 ADC inputs.
Frankly it's hard to beat Insteon/zwave on pricing (X10 as well but it's always a bit funky) and you can control an whole house of them from an arduino or just about anything else.
For just on, off, and dim the commercial product just works. Adding in PIR room occupancy, temp, humidity, and water sensors (or whatever you can come up with), or interfacing with something in a more complex way (room AC and the like).
For distance zigbee, insteon and zwave all mesh things together so more devices more robust network in theory.
There are quite a few home automation systems that use mains transceivers, WiFi or other radio networks to control appliances from a central hub. Unless you particularly want to implement your own controlling hardware, I suggest it would be better (easier, quicker, cheaper, safer) to use the standard switching hardware at the appliances, and focus on getting control via the hub. That's probably more of a communication protocol issue than a hardware issue. Fortunately, many of these solutions seem to already address the issue of remote control so if you look far enough you will probably find you can get more or less what you want off the shelf.
@PerterH
I have done quite a bit of browsing and know for a fact that there things which can easily be done with what I have in mind but I would like to implement with the arduino itself. So am just gonna try and find out with what can be done with the arduino involved.
Nothing wrong with implementing your own version, just as long as you're aware of the alternatives.
I would suggest using a master/slave architecture, with a central controller hub that you can use to provide a single point of access and so that your control algorithms can span devices. So your first design decision would be to pick a communication mechanism. There are lots of alternatives. nRF24L01+ transceivers are extraordinarily cheap but only provide very limited range and may not be adequate if you need to communicate through walls. Alternatives that provide more range cost a lot more per unit.
If you're planning to use your system to switch mains AC voltages then please make sure you're aware of the safety issues and ensure that you provide adequate isolation between the high and low voltage sections of your solution. It's easy to cobble something together that works, but much harder to make something that is fail-safe. Unless you've been trained to design high voltage systems I'd suggest that this part of your project is not a suitable area for DIY.
PeterH:
Nothing wrong with implementing your own version, just as long as you're aware of the alternatives.I would suggest using a master/slave architecture, with a central controller hub that you can use to provide a single point of access and so that your control algorithms can span devices. So your first design decision would be to pick a communication mechanism. There are lots of alternatives. nRF24L01+ transceivers are extraordinarily cheap but only provide very limited range and may not be adequate if you need to communicate through walls. Alternatives that provide more range cost a lot more per unit.
If you're planning to use your system to switch mains AC voltages then please make sure you're aware of the safety issues and ensure that you provide adequate isolation between the high and low voltage sections of your solution. It's easy to cobble something together that works, but much harder to make something that is fail-safe. Unless you've been trained to design high voltage systems I'd suggest that this part of your project is not a suitable area for DIY.
I appreciate all your help, thanks. And yea I don't seem to have much exposure when it comes to dealing with electrical elements, so am just gonna try and make things simple.How about this, I wire the appliances directly(not at the switch board) with arduino+relay in one just one small area. Lets say that area has two bulbs and fan. So even when the switch of the corresponding bulb/fan is on, I can still control the flow of current it with the relay via SMS or something. This obviously would require lot of wiring if the appliances are a little too far apart but still would it work? Anything I am missing?
I think the SMS may be an issue. I've heard you can't use GSM shields on a service network but rather you have to rent or lease an IP address.. Don't know if that's true. Maybe it's just heresay.
raschemmel:
I think the SMS may be an issue. I've heard you can't use GSM shields on a service network but rather you have to rent or lease an IP address.. Don't know if that's true. Maybe it's just heresay.
What are you talking about? I have a GSM shield with SIM card, which is working perfectly fine.
which network ? Whose the service provider ?
raschemmel:
which network ? Whose the service provider ?
I guess I didn't mention before. I am from India, so there is only SIM card system out here.
So I made this simple home automation project that allows on/off on bulbs via SMS. Let's say if I was to implement this in real time like controlling each and every appliance of a house, how would I go about it? I thought of having the arduino+relay+GSM combo at each switch board outlet and its corresponding wiring for the electrical appliance it controls, but that seems a little too inefficient. Any other ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
You will need to somehow switch each component if you want on/off control. An x10 "firecracker" attached to an arduino is an easy control setup. For automatic control, you might make an application or use a task scheduler on a pc that is a schedule application and have it send the SMS messages.
zoomkat:
So I made this simple home automation project that allows on/off on bulbs via SMS. Let's say if I was to implement this in real time like controlling each and every appliance of a house, how would I go about it? I thought of having the arduino+relay+GSM combo at each switch board outlet and its corresponding wiring for the electrical appliance it controls, but that seems a little too inefficient. Any other ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
You will need to somehow switch each component if you want on/off control. An x10 "firecracker" attached to an arduino is an easy control setup. For automatic control, you might make an application or use a task scheduler on a pc that is a schedule application and have it send the SMS messages.
No mate, am not really looking at automating it completely. I want the control to be in my hands. Which is why I thought of using a GSM shield. The SMS seems a simple way to proceed.
No mate, am not really looking at automating it completely. I want the control to be in my hands. Which is why I thought of using a GSM shield. The SMS seems a simple way to proceed.
Then a button clickable GUI that sends SMS messages might work, but that doesn't seem to be an arduino project.
I guess I didn't mention before. I am from India, so there is only SIM card system out here.
That would seem to be a relevant detail.