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Arduino, Raspberry Pi, or ??? I'm Hacking Philips Hue Lights and I need your help!

TechnoChic
Arduino, Raspberry Pi, or ??? I'm Hacking Philips Hue Lights and I need your help!

Hi! It's Natasha.

I'm working on my next project for Element14 Presents which involves hacking the Philips Hue Lighting System. I need your help to determine which path I should take - please watch the video for the details of the project:

I will need to spend a lot of time learning to work with the Philips Hue API (and there's even a new one that just came out!) So, I want to make a well-informed decision:

  1. Should I use Arduino, Raspberry Pi, or another system?
  2. I will need 5 sensors (one under each cabinet) to detect my presence within a few feet of the sensor. What sensor system is best? Will it connect easily to the microcontroller system?
  3. What other ideas do you have for controlling the Hue Lights?

Please let me know your thoughts in the comments below. Thanks in advance for your help!

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  • Hi Natasha,

    It seems a very good idea to go with the Hue!

    For under-cabinet lighting, I made the mistake of using LED strips from some company that appeared to sell lighting for architecture projects, but they faded and some failed over the years. (Admittedly it has now been more than a decade since they were installed, but some signs were noticeable after just a few years).

    For under-cabinet lighting I'm sure you want something reliable for a decade or so, and something that is likely to continue to be supported in an ecosystem for many years.

    It could also be interesting to experiment with microwave-based radar type sensors. I have tried just a single one of these on its own and I don't know if multiple ones would interfere much. These particular ones remain triggered for several seconds, so they may not be entirely ideal, if you wish to have any specific light dimming setup. They are extremely sensitive which is very good. If anything, they may be over-sensitive though, but perhaps that could still be a positive thing, since you may wish the lighting to increase even as you approach the particular workpace area (if that's what you wish to achieve). Maybe there are different models that might be less sensitive.

    image

Comment Children
  • in reply to cstanton

    Hi Christopher,

    There's not a lot! Mainly a rectangular pad as some sort of antenna, and one chip. The chip is AT5810 by a company called 'Airtouching' but there isn't a lot of info on their website. It is possible to configure the chip using UART as I understand, but I never got any information from Airtouching (I did ask them, but they came back and wanted a business case). Their website doesn't have a lot of info, apart from mentioning it operates at 5.8 GHz. In its default configuration as supplied, literally all that needs to be done is:

    (1) Connect up 5V DC across the VCC and GND pins

    (2) The OUT pin will go high (from memory) when there is any movement, and will stay high for several seconds after movement stops.

    It's pretty impressive, it is as sensitive as any doppler sensor should be.

    image

    There are various other types available too. This one is slightly larger and taller, an apparently the product is called CDM324 and supposedly functions at 24 GHz. It has fancy gold on the PCB, so it probably has had some care in the design. I've not tried this one yet, I bought a couple but have not got around to trying this one since the one in the photo above was so effective.

    image

  • in reply to shabaz

    (can't edit): The second unit, CDM324, is built on some special RF PCB material, it is not normal fibreglass, so I can imagine it really may operate at 24 GHz.

    The AT5810 board on the other hand looks like it is on normal FR4 PCB material.

  • in reply to shabaz

    Interesting! I hadn't heard of that type of sensor before. I'd want it to be able to be triggered by motion within a 0 in to 2-foot range.