I hope Ill get a very simple answer to my long question... Im an engineer but not exactly electrical... I`m trying to build wsn for my home (ZigBee) as cheap and as robust as possible. Through my PC I want to control central heating, ambient air and my small greenhouse. Max in-house distance between nodes is 10m (thick brick walls, no metal mesh)). Here is what I have in mind and I need you experts to tell me if it is possible:
- I need 5 nodes, one of them acting as wireless gateway + sensor board for temp and rel.hum.
- other 4 nodes will be sensor/actuator nodes:
- 2 of them will be plain wireless sensor nodes for temp and rel.hum. readings (one outdoors)
- other 2 will be wireless sensor/actuator nodes:
- 1 will control the greenhouse: input - sensors: temp, rel.hum., light, soil moisture, CO2,
CO, liq.fuel gases and propane/butane; output - "actuators": two relays controlling
speed of 2 fans and one relay/switch controlling gas heater (on/off) - the last node would be a central heating controller: input - 3 analog temperature
sensors; output - 4 relays/switches controlling two pumps (on/off), one burner (on/off)
and one mixing valve (+/- actuator)
OK, I was thinking Arduino one + addons for the 4 nodes and x-tick for gateway.
I would be very grateful if you could advise me how to get started and which hardware/software is suitable for my purpuse - I`m a very do it myself person so keep that fact in mind when you answer... Thank you very much for your help!
Matej