Hello Karen, Ben and Felix.
I have a build idea that could be featured in the main TBHS, but also in sudo Sergeant and The Learning Circuit shows.
You could build a home sensor hub - a lot of people want to measure everything possible at home and put some solid ground to a later home automation.
The range of this build can be from a single episode device to a longer project. It would be great to start for example with a temperature and humidity sensor, connected via I2C or UART to a single board computer (SBC) like Raspberry PI or Beagle Bone Black that would store the values.
There are countless ways to expand this:
- The first version can just connect something like SHT30 to an SBC via I2C and store the values in a file/spreadsheet with a time stamp.
- Next version could connect more (local and distant) sensors, showing how to transfer information over 1 meter+ long wires or wirelessly.
- Felix could take care of the Linux part, showing us how to store the records in a database and display the values to the user on a smart phone or a tablet (set up a local web server, database server).
- Karen could show how to build some simpler analog sensors like a photo sensor, microphone... and teach us how to design and/or build a case for the device and sensors.
- Later, Bob could incorporate some cloud service and Alexa for processing and controlling the home remotely. Or add a possibility to display / control from a mobile app or a web page.
I think it might be useful to divide this into several independent parts that could be built separately in all your shows, every time from a different perspective, adding one feature at a time.
David
