I’ve been busy playing with Arduinos these past few months. I think I must have been locked in a cave the past 8 years or so. I’ve been shocked by how advanced and inexpensive these things have become. These things are awesome, and very inexpensive. I plan on installing a dozen or so throughout my RV to control just about everything. Couple that with my iPhone programming skills, HomeKit, Siri, and the new Amazon Echo, and this is going to be a high tech playground for me. Woohoo!
I had been struggling with getting nRF24+ radios working, to provide cheap communication between Arduinos. It turns out that a bunch of folks at MySensors have already implemented a very cool, open source solution along the same lines. This is an incredible site. The information there really helped me get my radios working. They’ve done a lot of good work to provide clear instructions on how to connect multiple Arduinos together using open source software. These Arduinos can then read various types of sensors in order to control all sorts of things. I feel like a kid in a candy store (“ooh, which one do I want next?”). The crazy part is the price of these parts. They have a really well done page listing out links to buy all the various parts at unbelievable prices. Thank you MySensors!
Unfortunately, I think I’ve let myself become spread too thin across exploring and playing with all these cool technologies. I’ve written an iPhone app and Apple Watch extension that uses the Lightblue Bean to display the level of the RV remotely. I got it working well enough to use for myself, but I haven’t taken the final steps to post it to the App Store so that others can use it also. It’s very close to being in a state that can be released to the app store, but I’d rather play with new Arduino projects instead of spending the time to finish and submit it. I’ve also setup several Arduinos to control fans and lights in the RV, but they’re still sitting on the workbench. I’m trying to get them connected to the internet so the Echo and iPhone can control them.
So now I’m going to try to be disciplined with myself, and focus on getting a few basic pieces done and installed before worrying about adding more advanced features. With the 3 day weekend coming up, I’m hoping to get the Lightblue Bean installed in my closet to control a string of led lights based on sliding door microswitches, and an Arduino Uno hooked up to control dimming some LED recessed spotlights that I installe over my booth workbench. I’ll post back later about how that goes.