I motorized my blinds and curtains, but I realized it may be too complicated for some family members to operate. I decided to get a few Z-Wave remotes to assist. I eventually settled on the Aeon Labs MiniMote due to it’s size and features (control up to 8 scenes). (Special thanks to http://www.domotics.sg/) Setting up is relatively simple. I ignored the instructions that came with the remotes as they were confusing (product of poor translations from another language to English?

I have a goal - to get my sensors to run on AA batteries for several months at a go. We’ll see if I can achieve that.

I posted a few weeks ago about a recent purchase I made on eBay for raw parts that would allow me to make my own sensors for my home automation project. I received a few items already. What is pictured is the following: 10x Arduino Pro Mini ATmega328 5V 16M boards for use by some of the remote sensors that need 5V 5x Arduino Pro Mini ATmega328 3.3V 8M boards for use by some of the remote sensors that need 3.

I posted about my recent purchase of the Vera Lite Z-Wave controller the other day in a rather ambiguous blog title. Since then, I’ve been researching ways in which I can build my own sensors that would ultimately be much cheaper than buying ready-made Z-Wave sensors. I came across this website that details a project that allows you to build your own sensors using Arduino, and it plugs directly into a Vera.

It’s been a while since I posted here. Primary reason, I had a daughter last March. (my free time disappeared literally overnight). Now that we’re getting settled, it’s time to get back into the home automation game. In anticipation to our upcoming move to our first home we’ll own, I am ramping up and have decided on the Z-Wave protocol as I don’t want to built my own everything from scratch, but instead I’d like to get a baseline on which I can build on top of.

Finally got around to getting the first release of my current project up! Code: https://bitbucket.org/cdrum/thermostatpi It’s called ThermostatPi and it makes use of a Raspberry Pi, a USB IR Toy 2 (see my library here), your bargain basement DS18B20 One Wire Temperature Sensor, some Blu-Tack, and a few other miscellaneous wires and such. In it’s current form, it monitors temperature, and allows the user through a web browser control the wall mount airconditioner over IR.