Home automation using a PC as controller

[Tomi Engdahl]

hi Tomi,
plz tell me about detail my project.i want to do home automation through pc using hub which is wirless,pc sends signals to hub then hub sends that signals to other devices,plz tell how can work that system?what ports and devices will involved?tell me about device which is used as hub device?

Your post raises few questions that needs to be answered to be able to give you more help information.

I understand "pc sends signals to hub then hub sends that signals to other devices" but you did not tell what kind of signals are being sent to devices. The type of signals for device contolling has pretty much effect on selecting what kind of device would be a suitable hub here. When you refer to "signals are being sent to device" what of the following you are referring to:
- turn the power going to device on/off
- serial port RS-232 signals to device
- send some other serial signals to device (RS-485, RS-422, fiber, etc..)
- send IR remote control signals to device
- send some wireless signals to device (specify standard to use)
- send X10 signals through mains power

My question would be what ports and devices will involved on things planned on being controlled with the hub ?

So give more details on your planned application and I can hopefully give you more more details how to do it.

[RUBI]

HI TOMI
thanx for showng kind concern,actualy i m doing my research thesis project.what is ur openion abt my project becoz u know very well abt this feilde.i dontknw too much but i want to designe my project as i have user interface on pc,
user can on and off any device through givng commands on pc,now pc sends IR or X10 signals to main central hub.central hub sends that signals to related device which abt user has given command from pc.
plz tell me which will be best IR or X10?
what device will be used?
how many devices can connect to that central hub or device?
plz send me research artical about my project on my id.id is [email protected].
also give me guidline about my project how can i do different work on this topic.plz plz
i think now u can better understand my project.if it is possible then give me reply on my ID,i shall be thankful to uuuuuuuu

thanxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

[Tomi Engdahl]

Some information on X10:

X10 is an international and open industry standard for communication among electronic devices used for home automation, also known as domotics. It primarily uses power line wiring for signaling and control, where the signals involve brief radio frequency bursts representing digital information. A wireless radio based protocol transport is also defined.

The digital data consists of an address and a command sent from a controller to a controlled device. More advanced controllers can also query equally advanced devices to respond with their status. This status may be as simple as "off" or "on", or the current dimming level, or even the temperature or other sensor reading.

When the system is installed, each controlled device is configured to respond to one of the 256 possible addresses (16 house codes × 16 unit codes); each device reacts to commands specifically addressed to it, or possibly to several broadcast commands.

The protocol may transmit a message that says "select code A3", followed by "turn on", which commands unit "A3" to turn on its device. Several units can be addressed before giving the command, allowing a command to affect several units simultaneously. For example, "select A3", "select A15", "select A4", and finally, "turn on", causes units A3, A4, and A15 to all turn on.

After allowing for retransmission, line control, etc, data rates are around 20 bit/s, making X10 data transmission so slow that the technology is confined to turning devices on and off or other very simple operations.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X10_(industry_standard)

If this is the way of controlling you want and you can use ready made X10 devices on field, X10 might be a good option.


IR remote control allows with suitable hardware much hither data bandwidth. The downsize of IR remote is that you need visible path between the transmitter and receiver for the IR communications to work.

Then for wireless controlling there are also radio based systems.... short range radio communications carrying serial data, Bluetooth, WLAN etc..

[vhert_08]

Good day sir....can you give the importance of the study and the scope and limitation of sms based home appliances automation system. tnx.

[Tomi Engdahl]

Here are some links on using SMS for home automation

http://www.articlesbase.com/home-improv ... 79570.html
http://www.control.com/thread/1026226029
http://www.cleverhome.com.au/home-autom ... -SMS.shtml
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=948728
http://cellphoneforums.net/cell-phones- ... ances.html
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20040330/1327247.shtml
http://ubuntu.online02.com/node/24
http://www.bwired.nl/Camoffice.asp