Hello everybody!
I'm very happy to be one of the 20 lucky competitors in the IoT holiday challenge and I'm here to describe my project.
I want to build different light controlling devices (which would be Arduinos) which can be controlled via both a web interface and another "controller box" (which guess what, will be another Arduino).
I heard you like sketches, so here's one of my project. Please excuse my terrible drawing skills and image quality.
Each "light spot" (uh, I don't know how to call these) can be connected to analog RGB led strips, using the Infineon shield, or to 3/10W RGB LEDs, using a custom-built, constant-current driver. One will be placed in my room, and I may add some sensors for interactivity. About the others I have yet to decide, but if those WS2812B strips reach me on time, I could build a nice LED christmas tree to put on my balcony.
I already have an Arduino Uno and two ESP8266 Wi-Fi modules, along with a LinkIt ONE (an Arduino-compatible board by Seeed, with integrated Wi-Fi) that, with the Yùn and the new Uno, make 4 Wi-Fi Arduinos. So I could have 1 controller + 3 light spots.
The controller can choose among the different light spots and connect to them. It will have an analog joystick for user input, three potentiometers for accurate color-choosing and an I2C display for displaying menus and additional information. I only have a small, 0.96" OLED for now but it will be enough.
Available lighting modes are manual (you choose the colors with the pots), fade from color A to B, strobe mode with user-definable delay, and standard colors mode (you can choose among pre-set colors). I may add some funnier modes such as police-strobe if I have time.
This project isn't going to be easy and the time schedule is tight. Also, it's my first road test and I don't know how long it will take for the boards to get here. However, I have already written some of the code and will try to include all the features I mentioned in this post.
The only doubt I have is choosing which board will do what. I don't know if it's better to use the Yùn as the controller or as one of the light spots (maybe the better one) and, consequently, if the webUI (hosted on the Yùn, can't wait to mix Arduino & Python!) will be able to control all the lights or only the one that is connected to the Yùn itself. Also, I don't know if the Yùn has enough memory to handle the LCD strings and images: in that case, the LinkIt would be the controller. Some advice here would be appreciated!
Thank you for making it this far. Please let me know what you think of my project: criticism is encouraged!
Happy holidays,
Francesco