To that end, The Master of communications "Mrs Yun" is throwing a party to celebrate, along with long time friend and mentor "Mr Uno and his wife Infineon"

This will be a BYOB (Bring Your Own Bulbs) party as the budget is tight and there is no desire to indulge excessive displays of brilliance at the expense of Mrs. Yun.

A few friends have been invited to the party, some of which don't speak the same language and may have difficulty talking to other party goers.

Fortunately "Mrs Yun" is a linguistics master and is able to converse with everyone fluently, and for the occasion will be donning her special accessories that make this possible:-

A sub dermal Linux Kernel and WIFI sub system, allowing Home network and Internet based interaction without much of a conscious thought, you cant see much of this accessory but its the life and sole of the air waves
The "Sub Gigahertz" These gems where specially designed and provided by legendary craftsmen E14 and TI. code named the CC110L
To complete the ensemble the 2.5Ghz headpiece from NRF. The NRF24L01, Mrs Yun just radiates when wearing this topper.

There is to be no discrimination at this party and so the pure blood will be mingling with the custom workers and Foreigners alike, there may be some back scatter chatter and a few incompatibilities among the guests but Mrs Yun feels she can smooth the airwaves and everyone will get on

So, to the Party List:

Mrs Yun. our host, She will not be showing of her lights but instead will be facilitating the communications between all the guests and manning the gateway to field crashers from the internet. If things go well she will also host a web site to view all the action at the party.
Steve (The LED Man) Stringer, a custom board with ties to the Arduino Cartel (Custom Arduino UNO Board with power LEDs and RGB LED strips)
Light Strip Larry, A Mega Star bringing with him a dazzling display of programmable LEDs strips (Off the shelf Arduino MEGA + arrays of WS2811 type LEDs)
Mr. UNO and his wife Infineon bring with them a stupendous display of RGB LED Strips, precision and power at its best
Manic Mandy, an overseas visitor that cant drink the local juice so brought her own and prefers to stay protected at all times (A TI MSP430FR, CC110L radios, Battery Booster, Sharp LCD Display, Solid State Relays and a bunch of mains Holiday Lights)
A Party needs a good location, so its off to Launchpads complete with (MSP4302553, CC110L radios, Battery Booster, Sharp LCD Display, Solid State Relays and another bunch of Holiday Lights)
And What party is complete without the odd crasher, welcome Mr R. PI, PI has a little too much going on in his head and as such, his timing is a little off compared to the other party goers, but he will be listening in with a WIFI dongle and managing his own set of lights, this is a last minute RSVP so were not sure what side dishes the PI will come with

On a side note, I do think there may be issues with communications as both Launchpad and Manic Mandy came with Batteries, I think they thought Mrs Yun said "Bring your own Battery", not "Bring your own Bulbs"?, ah well, its the holiday season and I'm sure we can find a bulb or two to dress them up a bit.

So a little more seriously

The challenge I will set for my self is as follows

Use the Yun as a master communications controller for a multiple node light management system, sporting built in WIFI, Sub Ghz Radio (CC110L) and 2.5Ghz NRF24L01.

All the following will use wireless radios to receive commands and possibly talk back to the Yun regarding status or local environment details (Humidly and Temperature, it is the IOT Internet of holiday Lights after all)

The UNO along with the Infineon Shield will drive one or more RGB LED strips using an NRF24L01 to receive instructions from the Yun

An Arduino MEGA driving several WS2811 based LED strips to illuminate decorations or perhaps placed throughout a tree again using an NRF24L01 to receive commands

A Custom UNO compatible board with built in NRF24L01 radio driving Strips, Power LEDs and a relay board for extending its ability to more powerful light loads

A TI MSP4302553 Launchpad with CC110L radio, Battery booster, Sharp LCD display and Solid State Relays to drive full mains powered commercial holiday lights

A TI MSP430FR5929 Launchpad with Cc110L radio, Battery booster, Sharp LCD display and Solid State Relays to drive full mains powered commercial holiday lights

A Raspberry PI model B+ again wireless connected but using WIFI to relay commands to and from the Yun with its own connected lights (still looking for suitable lights for this one )

The system will be designed to have a WEB presence (Probably hosted on the PI or my own internet site for ease of access) allowing browsers to see the status of the system and even have the ability to change the light show based on various options (Majority vote perhaps)

The communications between the Browser and the controllers will be via MQTT and should be able to leverage the Eclipse Foundation MQTT libraries, sandbox and services, the Eclipse site will be used as the central broker between the web server and the local control system, with a possible local broker also running on the PI but this with luck will not be required.

By leveraging various technologies (TI Launchpads, Arduino's and a Raspberry PI) i will demonstrate that with the right libraries and drivers (Eclipse MQTT in this case) it is possible to achieve complete interoperability with minimal fuss or complexity and extend the system with ease by simply adding more publishers and Subscribers via the MQT Broker

For local control I hope to add the use of a Tablet or smartphone to manage the lights of each node, along with an IR Remote control unit to demonstrate the flexibility of control options If time permits the implementation of a REST interface will also be provided allowing for direct control to the system from a smart device running programs like NETIO which does not require the use of intermediate systems,

the intention here would be to have the YUN receive these commands and control the lights and sensors as directed

Again time permitting I will be interested to collaborate with other participants to consolidate the broker and internet viewer into a fuller integration of a truly distributed system

So this is my concept, a rough outline of the components involved, a pretty ambitious endeavour but I think it is doable and should be a whole bunch of fun getting all these systems talking together for the collective good

I will share all my code as I create it, feel free to use on your own projects if you so wish, after all it is the time of Joy and sharing

the next blog will be detailing all the different libraries needed and perhaps getting the first lights up and running as independent systems (Baby steps), also engaging the kids to design some light layouts that are fitting for each of my holiday characters, I also look forward to the minions arriving as there is a lot to do and not allot of time so I need all the help I can get

Hope you like the concept

Peter