At this point pretty much everyone has explained what they intend to do. I was waiting for parts to be delivered so that I can be sure that I have the resources to actually build my project. I started by building small parts of each module which I had proposed and made sure it was doable. Next I ordered parts and my design went through some changes. Lastly I made a final call on the design and I am going to stick to it. So here is the final design.
At this point I understand that its a bit much but I think it's doable since I have a lot of the code ready. OpenHAB is so simple and easy to use, it makes my work just that much simpler. The hard part is the physical fabrications...
So Forget What?
1. Did I put the milk back in the fridge? - IOT Waiting Platform
Large pots of stew and boiled milk cannot be put in refrigerator immediately. They need to be cooled down and I have forgotten to put the milk back in the fridge on more than one occasion. This applies to any leftovers and things you took out of the fridge and need to put back in later. Now people set alarms and timers etc but when you get to bed or leave the house in a hurry, there is a nagging question at the back of your mind... Did I or didn't I? To answer this question, I propose a "WAITING PLATFORM".
2. Do we need to refill the cooking LPG cylinder? -IOT Weighing Machine
In India, we get cooking gas in the kitchen by the purchase of Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) Cylinders. These come by weight and once you exaust one, you place an order of the next. There is usually a waiting period of 5 to 10 days which means we almost always keep one spare. Unfortunately, in times of shortage this waiting time goes up as well and it is standard household practice to place orders for these in advance. The fuel is by weight and we can check if a cylinder is going low. This is also a problem with hotels etc as well. The question to be answered is "Does my Cylinder need refilling and how long is it still going to last?" To answer this question, I propose the "IOT Weighing Machine"
3. Did I turn off everything in the room? -IOT Appliance Monitor
This problem is the most common when leaving home, but sometimes we just don't need to control a light or AC- That is accomplished some other way. We just need to know if we turned off EVERYTHING! So to answer this question, I propose the IOT Current Sensor. The concept is simple, using a non-invasive AC Current Sensor, we can determine whether current is being drawn on a particular wire or not. If there is a current draw, there must be an appliance left on. The sensor can be simply clipped onto a wire and you are done.
4. Did I bring the clothes back in from the clothes line? - IOT Clothes Line(A) and IOT Meteorological Station(B)
This is part of an ongoing project which solves a regular problem that we have. The summer weather brings high speed winds and sudden showered as a part of pre-monsoons here. We let our clothes out in the sun to dry and if there are high speed winds, there is a possibility of them being blown away. Hence as a part of a classical home automation system, I have under fabrication a clothes line which is motorized and can be retracted electronically. Combine that with an Anemometer(Wind Speed Meter), a Rain detector and temperature sensor we get a MET system in our house. In addition to that if we combine it with weather forecasts, we can separate sudden gusts of winds to oncoming storms and retract clothes lines more intelligently.
5. Did I forget the windows?
Just simply sensing the window state!
6. Control Appliances with an IR Remote Control
An arduino Uno with an ethernet shield is employed and I can have predefined IR protocol Commands that can be transmitted via an IR Led. This will allow the system to switch ON and OFF anything that is controlled via IR Remote like TV or Air Conditioner.
7. Raspberry Pi Rover- What else did I forget
Sometime you just need to look around the house. Now I do not want to fit cameras in my room so I have an RPi with battery and wheels and an RPi CAM to be controlled remotely over OPENHAB and look around a bit.. just a bit
8. IOT Alarms?
This bit puts the rockers to good use. Since I have notifications and alarms for different events, it felt like I needed a way to snooze each one. I don't want to navigate around menus so the solution is to employ one Rocker Switch to snooze notifications, alarms, set timers and set alarms. OpenHAB does the rest.
9. How warm is the room?
Since I can now control the Air Conditioning using IR, I also want to sense if I need to turn it on. I know there is a thermostat but if the room is just mildly warm, then I want to set it to turn on the AC as I approach the house and turn it off otherwise. If its really warm, then I want it to be switched on a bit earlier. Lets not waste power shall we....
My objectives for the project are:
1. To show how easy it is to use and customize OpenHAB. The flexibility of OpenHAB MUST be highlighted. Interfacing with Existing bindings, python, network based Arduino and a serial device show this.
2. To demonstrate the ability of the EnOcean Modules to be customized as per application. The provided EOP 350 kit is awesome and shows how easily you can use the modules in your own appliance. It is a real IOT enabler.
It took me a lot of time to reach here and I will assume I am behind schedule and will try to recover.
Lets see how things unfold.
Cheers,
IP
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