Final project idea evolution

Some ideas or a little brain-self-storm

Main idea for my final project is to make a smart-house systems to improve my current surrounding. These are some ideas I had while thinking about my final project:

  • Controlling some devices I usially use in unusial way (like turning an electric kettle on with sms or with typing comand on computer). Or maybe controlling some devices with IR-remote controle without using IR remote itself (sending command from my smartphone for example).
  • make a controller that would allow me to control my computer via IR-remote. This module has to me easily connected to computer via usb.
  • Controlling the environmental parameters and associate it with my emotional condition. For example dimming the light, or adding some coloured lightning or turning some music on. How does it know how exactly do I feel at the moment? maybe for the first I could make some mood-presets and choose one of them using rc-controlling device or smartphone. That is an interesting thing to think about.
  • etc. (there were many different interesting ideas but for now I guess that the best thing is to follow my imagination in short steps).

    • A lot of things to do, right? What if we try to turn them into a system:

    The main sketch for my final project

    First iteration

    If to think of any idea of the smart house, it is easy to find many dofferent things to implement. But in this project I would like to implement oinly some of them:

  • IR-remote interface for computer connected via USB.
  • Radio trenciever for computer connected via USB.
  • Radio-connected light sensor.
    • Radio-controlled dimmer for the main light.

    With this elements I am about to have an extendable interface (IR-controlled system hosted on computer that can interact with as many radio-connected input or output devices, as difficult the net topology is) and illumination-control, as the first satellite for this smart-house core.

    First iteration in details: electronics and programming

    Let's see each of this things more closely!

    The host

    I want to use Raspberry PI as a host computer. Thus I need to find a way to connect my devices to the USB. In first iteration it might be virtual com-port with FTDI-cable. But I would also like to try RS-485 connection because I have usb-RS485 converter and haven't played with it yet. Each of this options has it's pros and cons. Still have something to think about.

    IR-remote interface

    To implement this I would like to use arduino-like programming for avr-microcontrollers (at the moment I have a lot of tiny44, mega-8 and a couple of mega-8515 (which is really close to mega 8 on it's specifications). So, I need to make a board with tsop2236 on it that could communicate with computer.

    Radio connection

    I have already played with nrf24l01 modules on arduino, so it would be really funny to port this to a fabed microcontroller board. This module communicates the controller via SPI. Thus I have some tasks:

  • Make and program the board with this module that could communicate the PC (Seems to be mostly similar to IR-remote interface implementation).
  • Make a board with this module that would controll the dimmer (as far as I understand I will need one extra analog output besides the radio-used pind).
  • make a board with this module with the light sensor attached (the most simple way to do that is to use the pgototransostor, so it doesn't really seem to be too difficult).

    • First iteration in details: design

    That is the weakest point so far, because I haven't worked on representation yet. That would be really cool to make it look stylish, but for the first step I am about either to use the ready-to-use cases for electronic devices or to make something simple yet stylish from acryl plastic or thin plywood.

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