Friday, August 31, 2012

Smart Home Prototype

Since last time that I posted, I went ahead and made a plan for the Smart Home System that I wanted to build. I found that I just didnt have the budget to make the full scale prototype, so I decided on making a 1/3 scale prototype to demonstrate functionality and features, and then try to get some grants or Kickstarter money to fund the rest of the prototype.

So I ordered a ton of parts from Sparkfun, Pololu, SeeedStudio and Pro-Advantage, as well as bought a bunch of stuff from my local electronics store. Everything came in today (minus the stuff from Adafruit which is on Backorder). I've already gotten started on the RFID Door Lock Module, which is simple enough, but surprisingly, with all the tutorials and examples out there, I still struggled a little bit in writing the code. I'll post the tag checker function on here once I get it working. Simply put, the main structure of my code follows this: ID-12 RFID Tag Reader Sample Code.

I plan to have an Arduino Fio (with its battery pack), the RFID reader and an electronic door strike to complete this module. The benefit here is that there is also an XBee attached to the Fio. So when the door opens, the Smart System is notified, and things start happening. I'll post code when I can: I plan to turn this into a sellable product, so I dont want to give away too much source code. 

Thats all for now. Peace Out.

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