With Christmas fast approaching now is a great time to build a Christmas light controller and add some spectacular effects to your lighting display. Controlling LEDs is something that Arduino is particularly good at which makes it perfect for controlling Christmas lights. There are many potential projects and combination of colours and patterns that are possible. The following link gives some great tips on making your own lighting display.
This blog post is about learning how to use arrays with Arduino. Using arrays in your code can make your code faster and much more readable. For example, rather than defining a new variable for each pin used in your Arduino code, having an array allows you to assign these all to one array. To access each pin in the array you simply define which address of the array you would like to access. If you would like a more thorough explanation of how Arduino arrays work to implement them in your code make sure you checkout the following link.
If you are thinking about getting started with Arduino, but don’t know where to get started, the Freetronics Experimenter’s Kit is a great way to learn the basics. The kit includes a wide range of parts including a servo, sensors, lights, buttons, a sound module and more. Importantly, a Freetronics Eleven Arduino-compatible board is included to ensure that the kit contains everything you need to get started with Arduino. All these great parts would be useless without some form of instructions which is why we have developed a comprehensive project and instruction booklet to get you started. Check out the product page to find out more.
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Are you a huge fan of The Simpsons or any other TV show? Thomas Amberg has created a humorous “Homer” puppet which automatically turns on the TV anytime The Simpsons is scheduled to be on.
The project works using an Ethernet connected Arduino which automatically checks an online TV program and then uses IR LEDs to turn the TV on. You could very easily adapt this project to turn it into a less Simpsons centric smart TV remote. To find out how you can build your own smart Homer checkout the following link.
Looking for an Ethernet connected Arduino compatible board? Then check out the Freetronics EtherDue:
It’s the Arduino Due-compatible board with Freetronics additions including Ethernet network connectivity, MAC address chip, microSD storage, optional PoE, upgraded power supply and more. For more information on this powerful board, check out the EtherDue product page.
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Wouldn’t it be cool to build your own full sized outdoor scoreboard? This is exactly what joevpt has done. The scoreboard uses 24 DMD displays which are controlled by 6 Arduino boards. Impressively the scoreboard updates automatically from an iPhone app which is used to keep track of the scores at joevpt’s rugby club. If you want to read more about this project checkout this thread on the Freetronics forum.
If you are impressed by this project and want to build your own scoreboard, why not checkout the range of displays offered by Freetronics. They are simple to use, yet very bright for indoor and outdoor situations. Available in various colours, the 32 x 16 LED matrix can display text and graphics easily, and can be daisy-chained together for extended displays. For more information, find out more about the Freetronics Dot Matrix Displays here.
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Sometimes it can be really handy to quickly access information such as the current temperature, humidity and light level. It can be very interesting to collect this kind of data from your home or office and to observe trends over time and in different spaces. One effective way of collecting this kind of data is to build a simple home environment monitor as Brian has done.
Brian’s home environment monitor uses a Particle Photon to collect data from a number of sensors. The Particle Photon and the sensors are all housed in a very tidy looking 3D printed case! If this project interests you, check out the following link to get started.
Looking for a temperature sensor to use in this project? Why not check out the Freetronics Humidity and Temperature Sensor Module?
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Wouldn’t it be awesome to be able to sense and track lighting strikes using Arduino? Typically lightning detectors are very expensive, however, runtimeprojects has developed a cheap system for detecting lighting using only an Arduino Uno and a few resistors. Impressively the circuit can detect lightning as far away as 20km! At a basic level this lightning detector works by detecting changes in electromagnetic radiation using a small antenna which picks up small fluctuations in the electromagnetic spectrum, particularly at around 7kHz. If you want to find out more about this impressive project checkout the following link.
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With warmer summer months approaching (at least for us Australians) it is becoming more important to be sunsmart. What better way to start being sunsmart than to build your own Arduino UV Meter! This UV meter uses an OLED display a ESP-1 WiFi module along with a number of sensor to provide the inputs and outputs.
If you want to find out more about this impressive project check out the instructable from funelab. The instructions are well explained and include instructions on how to 3D print a case which is perfectly designed for the keychain.
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A water leak can often be a warning of imminent catastrophic failure with many appliances such as a washing machine or dishwasher. With this simple water detection system not only could you quickly detect appliance faults, but you could also set the system up to notify you if it is raining and you have left washing on the line. The possibilities are endless. This project uses a Particle Photon, although it could work with any microcontroller, and exploits the conducting properties of water to easily detect when water is present somewhere it shouldn’t be! To get started with this project check out the following link.
Thinking about making your own water detection system but don’t know where to get started with electronics? The Freetronics Experimenter’s Kit is a great way to learn.
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Inspired to start work on this project? Are you working on a project you would like us to feature in this blog? The team at SuperHouse Automation would love to know! Tell us about it in the comments section below or on Facebook and Twitter.
If you have been following our Facebook or Twitter pages or reading our blog you have probably heard a lot about this wonderful thing called “Arduino”. Although most of you are probably well versed in what Arduino is, some of our readers may have no idea. For this weeks Skill Sunday we have put together a brief introduction about exactly what Arduino is and why you should be interested, you can find it here.
Just discovered what Arduino is and you would like to learn how to use it yourself? The team at SuperHouse Automation recommends the Freetronics Experimenter’s Kit for Arduino. The package includes a wide variety of parts, sensors and modules including: a servo motor, lights, buttons, switches, sound, sensors, breadboard, wires and more. Furthermore a Freetronics Eleven Arduino-compatible board is included to make this an extensive hobby experimenter, inventor and starter kit. The kit also includes a great project and instruction booklet, plus access to a supporting web page and software examples. To get started or for more information and to pre-order (just in time for Christmas), check out the product page.
Want to keep in the loop about the latest in home automation? Subscribing to SuperHouse Automation on YouTube is the best place to start!
Inspired to start work on this project? Are you working on a project you would like us to feature in this blog? The team at SuperHouse Automation would love to know! Tell us about it in the comments section below or on Facebook and Twitter.
Have you ever stuck an Arduino in a hard to get place such as under the house and then realised that you want to upload a firmware revision? This can be a very frustrating situation, however, with the simple addition of a Bluetooth module it is possible to avoid this problem. Amazingly it is possible to program an Arduino over Bluetooth. For added flexibility there is even an Android app, “Bluino Loader” which allows you to upload a sketch to an Arduino from your smartphone. For step by step details of how this is possible, checkout the following link.
If you are looking for an easy way to add Bluetooth connectivity to your Arduino why not check out the Freetronics Bluetooth Shield?
Want to keep in the loop about the latest in home automation? Subscribing to SuperHouse Automation on YouTube is the best place to start!
Inspired to start work on this project? Are you working on a project you would like us to feature in this blog? The team at SuperHouse Automation would love to know! Tell us about it in the comments section below or on Facebook and Twitter.
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