Home Automation for absolute Beginner

[cristi]

Hello all,

I have just become a member on this community and I can say already that I have learned a lot about house automation.

I am currently trying to create a home automation. But the problem is that I am beginner in this, most probably the absolute beginner.

I have a project and an idea of what I want to do and obtain. What do you think will I be able to do this? Shall I make a DIY solution or buy made one?

Based on your answers I will start bombing you with question. What the heck regardless the answer I will start presenting you what I would like to do. Even if I will not succeed creating my own house automation I am sure it will be a fun process.

In the next days I will post more about my project and with your help I hope to put head to head all the good information on this forum. And from now I appologize for all the stupid questions that might follow or for the obvious things that for me are not so obvious.

 Once again thank you for creating this forum.

[greginkansas]

Post away Papa has made lots of help posts to help beginners

[papa]

You're welcome, cristi. I'm glad you've learned a lot about the possibilities of DIY home automation thru this forum. My volunteer efforts here have been a labor of love.

computourist developed an Arduino sketch program that has several input & output possibilities. My multi-choice end node sketch version of that sketch aims to provide a modular approach to take advantage of those possibilities. Also in this forum, I've tried to simplify & document the schematics & assembly as much as possible. I believe the recent categorizing & indexing also helps one to find the rich information available on the forum.

IMO & from what you can readily see, this forum has been very patient with beginners.  We all start somewhere.  I just expect that you would keep questions & comments polite & that (especially when asked) you provide enough information so we can give good answers.  For some questions, we may refer to posts already on the forum.

That said, to be honest, this DIY approach can be challenging & takes patience & perseverance.  OTOH, that adds to the satisfactions & thrills when things work.

I'll be interested to see what you hope to accomplish.

[cristi]

Hello again,

I know papa has made a lot of useful post because I am reading them, but I wanted to create a separate post where I can present what I want to do and put my question. It seemed more organized like this. I hope I didn't upset or create problems to nobody. If my post was not appropriate I kindly ask papa to delete it.

Coming back to my automation project.
I started to built up an interface that can be access through an internal network. Here I want all sensor readings to be shown and also to be able to interact with different things.

I have the following plan:
- temperature and humidity sensors in all rooms
- each house level CO and smoke sensors
- technical space, kitchen and fireplace fire sensors
- bathrooms and kitchen water leek sensors
- automatic control of the blinds, lights, ventilation, air conditioning and heat
- movement sensors for light on the stairs
- windows and doors open/close detection

And this is only thing I would like to have for now .

For me it seems very ambitious project but I am more then willing to give it a try.

As I said at the beginning I have started to read a lot o useful posts here. Now I am trying to wrap my head around gateway and gateway and nodes. As soon as I stuck or have some questions will revert.

Once again great forum with lots of good stuff. Thanks

[papa]

cristi, your using this separate thread to work thru your project & questions will work well. No problems created.

"I started to built up an interface that can be access through an internal network. Here I want all sensor readings to be shown and also to be able to interact with different things."
    papa: As you may have seen, in this forum we use (open source) OpenHAB software for this.

papa:  Below for different parts of your plan, I categorize what is available so far on this forum.  I pointed out one place to begin & if needed, can help you with the other locations.

        For the following in your plan, detailed forum posts exist:
- temperature and humidity sensors in all rooms
      You might work thru this thread to get your feet wet & create a temp / humidity sensor node that has the start of controlling lights
- automatic control of lights
- windows and doors open/close detection

        This forum probably has the pieces to adapt for:
- movement sensors for light on the stairs
- bathrooms and kitchen water leak sensors

        Sensor approaches from the Uber Home Automation instructable might be adapted into this forum's current approach:
- each house level CO and smoke sensors
- technical space, kitchen and fireplace fire sensors
- bathrooms and kitchen water leak sensors

        I believe forum members have reported efforts & can perhaps help with:
- automatic control of the blinds
- each house level CO and smoke sensors
- technical space, kitchen and fireplace fire sensors

        This may take a ready made commercial product that is compatible with the OpenHAB controlling software:
- automatic control of the ventilation, air conditioning and heat

    "Now I am trying to wrap my head around gateway and gateway and nodes."
papa: You might enlarge & study the diagram I did for this post to get an overview of how our forum approach ties things together.