Hi,
This is my first post here at element 14. I hope this is one of the best places i can seek help regarding all things electronics. I basically have an idea but not quite sure how to start about it. I have researched the internet and alot of people are loving the Arduinos. I myself enjoyed the tutorials made by Jeremy Blum so am leaning towards using them for this project.
So i want to make a simple home automation project. With the following features:
Each room will have a controller board powered by a microcontroller. This room controller will have a keypad, an LCD, an IR and a Temperature sensor interfaced. When i click buttons from the keypad, it basically turns on/off the lights. I want to try first with 8 lights (hence 8 buttons). Furthermore i would like two dimmable outputs meaning light or fan that i can dim (increase/decrease power). For this i wanted two sets of two buttons (4 in total). One set to increase and one to decrease the power for one output and the second set for the second one.
Same keypad will be mapped on an IR remote so that these switches can also be controlled from there.
I want 3 ~ 4 controllers like the one described above (can be exact clones) so i can put in other rooms.
All these controllers will be networked together and a master controller will receive their switch status and change it via a computer as well.
In the past i have made something similar but on PIC microcontrollers and was like 5 years ago. I want to move to the latest technology 
Can anyone shine some light on this project or if have worked on something similar let me know some of the issues they faced.
