I'm building some home automation, mostly because I've always fancied taking a crack at it, and I had a bunch of hardware lying around that could make it reasonably cheap to do. Seriously though, don't use this for anything that matters, you'd be mad.
- Controller: The API that drives everything.
api.rb: A Sinatra based HTTP API to coordinate devices.serial_controller.rb: Translation between the HTTP API and Arduino devices on a serial port.
- Device: Arduino firmware for interfacing with a device. Currently turns my TV on and off if you uncomment the code.
- IRDump: Arudino firmeware to read command codes from infrared remotes.
- IRSend: Proof of concept sketch to send my TV a power signal.
My initial implementation is designed to control Auraglow colour changing LED light bulbs. Out of the box they just have a crappy IR remote, which is pretty nasty. I'm replacing that bit with an Arduino based IR transmitter initially, and then hopefully removing the receiver in the bulb and replacing that entirely.
Communication between the controller and bulbs is via Ciesco SRF radios, largely because thats what I have to hand.
The target hardware, at least initially, is somewhat esoteric. The IR transmitter takes the form of an EMF 2014 badge, the Tilda MKe, which is an Arduino Due and bunch of extra bits. Most relevantly for this an IR transmitter, and a Ciesco SRF radio.
This has required some hacking around of the IRremote library, both to get Due support (thanks to https://github.com/enternoescape/Arduino-IRremote-Due) and to send IR commands to the correct pin.
At some point I'll shrink things down a bit, and hopefully be able to biuild the whole lot into the bulb itself.
All the thanks go to EMF, for giving me a small stack of Arduino devices packed with handy peripherals over the years, a few great weekends, and lots of convesations with people convincing me this hardware stuff isn't quite so hard as it looks. Keep 'em coming.