Category Archives: Arduino

Arduino, Electronics, Home Automation, Raspberry Pi

Update 1-7-2015

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Bit of an update, I’ve done more work on the back end and data collection and have ordered parts to begin a outdoor sensor array to compliment the weather station.

First upgrade was to my NAS which runs unRAID which previously had VirtualBox running on top of it to run the Webserver and Windows 7 VM for the home automation. The new version of unRAID includes the KVM visualization solution.

After updating unRAID and converting the VirtualBox images over everything was back up and running all with a nice web interface:

unraidvm

 

This allows for much easier control of the VM’s as well as start/shutdown with the NAS.

Two new data sources have been added to the system the first being the data from my front door RFID system which unfortunately doesn’t have a direct interface with mysql (it uses access) so I found a program that pulls data from msaccess into mysql here which I configured to poll every hour and insert into mysql.

This has been added to the web interface which now shows the Doorbell as well as the RFID data:

doors

Clicking into RFID gives the last 20 entries/exits allowing a quick view of who has been home over the last few days.

The second data source is CPU temperature from the Doorbell Raspberry Pi which was mostly out of curiosity but also to see how the Raspberry Pi was holding up to living outside.

I used a Python script to poll the data every 5 minutes and insert it into mysql, you can download the script here.

Below is a graph of the Pi temperature over a 24 hour period:

doorbellpigraph

And the added page for the sensor:

doorbellpi

Few changes to the internal web interface to show number of records for each sensor as well as min/max/avg of both temperature and humidity from each sensor:

tempreadings

minmaxavg

Mostly minor changes but gives a bit more info on everything.

 

I’ve ordered parts to build a outdoor sensor array which will be based off an Arduino with Ethernet shield and the following sensors:

DHT22 – Temperature and humidity

MQ-9 – Carbon Monoxide and Combustible gas sensor

BMP180 – Barometric pressure

ML8511 – UV level sensor

I may add a few other air quality sensors as well over time, this will be added to the data from the weather station and uRAD monitor data to give a good overview of outside conditions.

Arduino, Home Automation, Networking, Raspberry Pi

Webserver, Mysql and Temp Sensors

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A bit of work finally got done on the back end systems for home automation including setup of a new Debian VM for a web server and Mysql server to allow data collection from various sensors around the house as well as hosting the library data for Kodi (XBMC).

I now have two virtual machines running on the NAS. The Windows 7 machine runs Home control assistant which gives access to Insteon control as well as the USB relay boards from both PC and Phone.

The Debian machine is configured with Apache2 for web, Mysql database as well as running python scripts to poll the various sensors and insert the data into Mysql.

virtualbox

I currently am using two different sensors. The water proof DS18S20 temperature sensor and the DHT22 temperature/humidity sensor.

Further DHT22 sensors will be added to both the bathroom and en-suite to allow humidity based extraction fan toggling.

Sensor overview:

table

Temperature graph:

Temp

Humidity Graph:

Humidity

Currently all sensors are polled every 5 minutes and saved into Mysql. Graphing is done with jpgraph in PHP which I need to spend sometime on to get looking right/nice.

Another database keeps track of each time the door bell is pressed and I plan on making a PHP front end for it that will link to the pictures, etc.

I’ve also ordered a cheap weather station with wind speed, direction, rain collection, temp and humidity that allows USB data collection which I will add in as well which will hopefully give a good location weather overview and will allow me to control sprinklers, etc based on rain, etc.

Door bell system has been put into it’s new case and is ready to be mounted just need to run the CAT5 to it’s new home which should hopefully get done over the weekend.