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Week 13 (19.01-25.01.15) DIY Home Automation





DIY Home Automation




According to wikipedia, home automation is „the residential extension of building automation”. In practice it basically means the use of technology in automating some household activity. It can be as basic as the automation of door opening and as complex as a centralized system controlling security, collecting information about pressure or temperature and watering the lawn.




The idea of DIY home automation is to create your own systems, using hardware and software programmed by yourself. In the past century DIY home automation was considered by most of us as some abstract, often sci-fi sounding concept. Nowadays, thanks to open hardware and open source, it's very easy to create such systems.

Years ago, one must have possessed good low abstraction level programming skills to develop on microcontrollers. Current generation of programmers is more familiar with high abstraction level programming as it's considered more desirable on the job market. Therefore for most of them, programming microcontrollers is often challenging. Recently, microcontrollers (and microcomputers) have become easier to develop on, because their creators provide high level programming libraries. Basically it means, that you can easily write a code, which, for example, collects information from sensors, in your favourite programming language.

Arduino Uno microcontroller
Hardware components used in home automation projects are usually quite cheap. Arduino microcontrollers family boards’ (which some of us had a chance to play with thanks to our HEI) prices start from 8 dollars. Popular Raspberry Pi boards cost about 47 dollars (for this price you get a small microcomputer capable of running any ARM compatible operating system).



Here are some interesting example projects:


Raspberry Pi Garage door opener:



Arduino knock detector



Arduino voice controlled TV remote




Personally, I find DIY home automation very interesting, but I treat it more as an educational-and-fun experience than an opportunity to make something really useful for a daily usage. Serious projects are usually very time consuming. I think that it’s also worth mentioning that serious security issues may arise if you plan to create your own security system.


Sources:
http://tech.cyborg5.com/2012/04/29/my-new-computer/arduino-uno-r3-atmega328/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_automation

Comments

Unknown said…
This is an interesting topic.

I am very curious about the future and what it will bring to our houses. There are many ideas on how to improve living with technology, but it is yet very expensive.
PrzemekM said…
Home Automation is great topic. I personally build own one for light control in my home.
Its often very helpful but we have to be honest, home automation in no a cheap investment. To build own fully automated home we need thousand of dollars. This is why this is not so popular.What more If we think about ready to use solution, they are much more expensive
Unknown said…
This is a very interesting topic. I agree with your last statement, I treat it mostly as fun facts instead of a chance to implement something like that in my house :) Apart from that I don't have the skills to make such devices/mechanisms I don't really think it's worth the time. If somebody enjoys projects like that and wants to save some money then that's great. I like seeing the results of peoples projects on the Internet and I'm always amazed with stuff that people are able to make by themselves. But I always try to evaluate (if I'm not doing something for fun) if it's worth my time and if maybe it isn't better to get a ready thing from the store. I also like to have nice things in the house and it's important for me how everything looks (it's more important that the thing is practical but I like to combine those two ;) ) and again I don't feel like I would be able to make something that looks decently :)
Unknown said…
I absolutely fell in love with Secret Knock Detecting Lock! :D
All of this stuff is rather "magic" to me, I mean I'm not really into programming, but I understand the idea - it is really cool that nowadays you can simply do a quite advanced piece of electronic alone, without any very precise knowledge (ok I know that knowledge is a key but I mean you don't need to expertise yourself in "home stuff" haha )
I wonder how safe it is to connect to any of those -> for example with garage doors, how easy it is to get control?
Unknown said…
It's really a very interesting topic and I'd like to have such a smart house. I'm looking forward future realisations of projects like this.
But I also think about hacking house with such system, it's quite dangerous then.
MartaSB said…
I like the idea of house automation, but only to some extent. I believe that sometimes it can be faster and more safe to do things manually and if something goes wrong (problems with power supply, flood) the whole system or part of it can just break down.

Basically it works like that: more complicated stuff, more chances for it to fail.
rf. said…
That's a good point :)
rf. said…
There were three important issues raised in the comments:

How easy is to make such an automaton?
- depending on what you want to do - failry easy. If you want the light in your room to switch on/off when you clap your hands you can either make/buy a board, program and connect it, or buy yourself a working add-on that you only need to install. It's a rather fair ratio of time and money for doing such an innovation.

Will it be secure?
- again it depends on what type of system do you install, and how secure do you want it to be. In case of garage door opener you need to have a radio communication and you can make it fairly secure (movie uses wifi, so it's as secure as wifi is) and when someone wants to break in into your garage there are easier ways than trying to crack your wifi. On the other hand if you whole house is automatized to the point of controlling lights, freezer, kitchen, computers, air conditioning etc. via internet if someone wants and breaks into that system... imagine consequences.

Isn't such a system less reliable?
- depending on the quality of the system. Of course the less complicated something is, the harder it is to break, but we don't add useless stuff just to make things easier to break. Additional systems provide more control and safety, usually at the cost of maintenance.

To me, a diy home automaton needs:
-time
-skill
-some $$
If you have this three, you can start having fun with such things right away.
Unknown said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said…
For me, home automation is really fascinating topic. The project you have presented can make some routine tasks a little easier and more interesting.
I will definitely look more into this topic, when all this systems become cheaper and more accessible.
Unknown said…
It is good thing for a hobby. Many projects are really easy to make as you can find many good tutorials online. But don't think you can easily make your house intelligent with no experience, because during bigger projects obstacles come out of nowhere all the time ;)
Except for what you have mentioned I think that DIY devices and projects are probably a bit more difficult for ordinary person to use. I mean, usually you need technical background to use these equipments properly.
przemekM said…
It depends on how are the build. If you build sophisticated system and to use it you have only two buttons. What can go wrong?
Unknown said…
It's not that easy if you implement "rolling codes":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_code

I never tried it, but I bet it's not very hard to implement.
Anonymous said…
To me the idea of home automation is so old that it became boring long time ago, I think that even thesis promoters at PJWSTK are fed up with it. I don't want to overload my house with electronics, in my opinion when it malfunctions(and it will) it gets dangerous. Another thing is that home suppose(to me) to be place where one can relax and get away from surrounding technology.
Unknown said…
In case of big centrilized home automation systems it's true, but some of the smaller projects are very simple and in case of possible failure it would be rather easy to repair broken stuff. Anyway, you're right that in most cases, its probably faster and safer (and sometimes even easier ;) ) to do things manually.
Unknown said…
Can you spare some technical details of your light control project? Did you used any of mentioned hardware?
Unknown said…
I tried to do such automation system at my own home but I had no time to finish it. Nowaday automation systems and automation in general is becoming more and more popular and cheaper too so it is avaiable for greater numver of people.
My friend is an enormous fan of home automation and alwyas told me about his dream of making a full smart-house. I find this concept very interesting and if had the time and means to do so, I would surely work on such solutions for my house.
Unknown said…
Home automation is definitely a very helpful thing for many people thanks to which they can have less responsibilities. But from another side, it is a limitation of our privacy because a lot of devices monitor significant part of our life.
Unknown said…
It might still cost you a lot - it really depends on project you want to build. If you plan to create your own garage opener, costs are in fact low, but if you want to create centralized home automation system, costs would be probably high.
przemekM said…
here's some early demo:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/igks2xuaryi8ice/2014-12-18%2023.22.00.mov

PI + Relay board + web server to control switch

Marcin Lyzwa said…
Home automation is very interesting thing. But if I wanted to have fully automated, smart, intelligent home ? I'm not so sure. I think I would be next expensive gadget in my live, after two weeks I would stop using tablet to control my home. Maybe my point of view would change if I have opportunity to live with such system.
Mateusz Frycie said…
I have to admit that I treat such technical novelties as funny and interesting gadgets that one can boast about. I don't find them very useful in everyday life, but they can be an intriguing home accessory that will make your house interior more up-to-date.
Unknown said…
Topic which you showed is really interesting. It’s a good for handymans. I think that’s may be a good play. I woudn’t to live in the house which will be totally „inteligent”. It’s funny and interesting but in my opinion not for all life.
Unknown said…
I am not very tech savvy when it comes to building electronic devices, so I've never tried any of these before. My house is not very automated. I would love to have some inventions like automatically controlled lights (turning on when I come in, dimmed in the evening etc.), better working automated temperature control, radio/tv volume control when the telephone is ringing. Some of my ideas are just funny or a bit helpful, but some others may save some money. However I don't think I need any of these right now, but maybe one day in the future I might be interested. I am sure that in a couple of years more inventions will be created and our lives will be easier.
On the other hand automated houses may be dangerous, so we have to have even just a little manual control over our inventions.
Julia Osiak said…
When I think about this topic I tend to see more negative aspects than the positive ones. Maybe it's because I don't get that excited about new technologies or introducing them to every single part of my life. I see how these ideas could probably ease the daily routine, but I simply don't feel the need to change things. Also, if I was to automate my house I would rather search for an already existing solution than go through the trouble of doing everything on my own. I'm sure that there are people who could do it better.
Unknown said…
I thing it's really interesting subject. I always wanted things like that.
Especially light control and windows control. It would be really nice to program
windows to open early when I still sleep. I heard Bill Gates has electronic house like this. It change even painting on the wall when Bill gets in the room.
Some of the ideas are very interesting like energy monitor or mail notifier but others seem quite risky because of the security reasons, these days anything can be hacked and messed with so some of the ideas seem quite bad.
Can you imagine trying to fix something someone hacked in your home? .... Horror :)
Also I think simplicity is best solution

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