Which board to use for outdoor lighting controller?

Question

Hello All,

With the plethora of available boards, I'm having trouble deciding what board(s) to use for a one-off outdoor lighting controller for personal use. The lighting is just a few addressable RGB LED strips. What I imagine is a board that has an Arduino-like side for real-time control of the LEDs and a Linux-like side that has WiFi and runs a small web server to allow a user to select which lighting program to run. I'd like to avoid having extra functionality that won't be used such as Ethernet and video, which adds to the cost and is an additional point of failure. Cost is a factor, and I could use two boards and/or add-on boards, but because it will be outdoors, I think the connections should be soldered because of humidity and other weather issues.

Do you have any board or design suggestions?

Thanks,

Kevin

clem57 · Accepted Answer

Yun fits the bill very nice with arduino interfacing and wireless access from the net. Included is remote API controllable from the web to turn on or off pins. C

Robert Peter Oakes · Answer

If you want to stick with the Arduino side of things then the board that pretty much exactly matches your requirements is the Arduino Yun

All the details are here: https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardYun?from=Products.ArduinoYUN

and if you google "internet of holiday lights" you will see many lighting based projects using it as this as last years winter challange with Element 14

shabaz · Answer

Hi Kevin,

Check out the CC3200 dev boardCC3200 dev board, it has web server capability, in-built 802.11 (and SSL capability) and an ARM Cortex-M core, industrial temperature range (at least for the CC3200 ic and the rest can be inspected since full schematic and BoM is available) and at least three hardware PWM from memory (probably more), and can be battery powered if desired, with quick start-up. I can't think of a better board for this scenario.

Which board to use for outdoor lighting controller?

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