DIY Home Automation? | Hacker News Reader

DIY Home Automation?

12 pointsagi3 comments

Do you have a Home Automation system and if yes, did you create it yourself? I want to hack my home in a way that it's completely secure and at the same time I can remotely control it without paying thousands. There are a couple of projects in Kickstarter related to this and I wonder how far can we get in making our homes both secured and at the same time smarter.

Thanks for sharing!

View on HN

I am working on something, as well. I currently use a Linux server centrally and an Arduino for prototyping the various sensors I want.

One thing I'm starting on right now are door sensors. Anyone found/devised a small, battery-based wireless door sensor? Ideally, I'd like a year or more battery life.

I can't run wires to every door in the house, so I'm thinking of some small wireless sensor with a reed switch that sits in power off mode when the door is shut, but flips on when the door is open and wirelessly (Xbee?)sends a UID to the central controller.

I've been working on a DIY Arduino based system for the past year or so. There are a ton of great links out there from people who have done projects with varying degrees of difficulty. What do you want to automate first? Do you have any microcontroller experience?

I have a Raspberry Pi and an Arduino and even a Netduino and I've done a lot of stuff with them but still nothing that useful when it comes to real Home Automation. For example I'd love to open up the garage door from my phone, switch on the heating from work and so on... but I wonder what should I start from in order to get this running at home and should I go for it on my own in a DIY way or just go and see if I can buy something that is already in the market? I really don't wont to spend my nights in compiling low level C/C++ for arm microcontrollers... You've been working on your Arduino system for an year... why do you think it takes so much time? What does it do?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com