IoT

Fix&deploy devices in the kitchen

I was able to disable the nrf autoack feature; it is strange why I have to enable autoack prior to disabling it….but it looks like these modules like it this way ;) I’ve noticed a weak soldering in the sensor device - i’ve tried to fix it (without soldering) ; it went well enough to finish the current measurement for sizing the fuse; but its another minor showstopper ;) Next day or so I’ve added a diode and a 200mA polyfuse to the led driver board; to create some protecton for these circuits.

Working OTA fw upgrades!

Lately i’ve finished the ota related software components…its still ugly; but at least it now uploads & swaps the new firmware with a success rate of around ~90%…sometimes the mega messes something up; and avrdude timeouts…but its fine for me for now at least. There were a very strange problem…sometimes the otad behaved strangely or just seemingly lost contact with the mega….it took for me a while to realize that i might be facing some memory issues; fixing all valgrind errors and warnings uncovered that i’ve forgot to initialize a buffer offset variable…I should definetly turn on -Werror and its friends…

Kitchen sensor boxed

Creating the box After fixing the power related issue I encountered…I designed a box for the device; which could be 3d printed. I’ve started working with some nightly FreeCad version (v0.16) - I ended up using a the nightly version because I encountered some issue with its spreadsheet usage - I worked a lot to be able to enter all my data thru the spreadsheet page. So later I can come back, and this way I don’t have to be absolutely right at the first time - just change the parameter and I’m done - at least that’s the idea…FreeCad is designed for heavy use of constraint based modelling - it takes a lot of effort do design things in it.

Kitchen sensor: it works! (finally)

I’ve ordered a bunch of capacitators and other gadets…to fix the problem. After my order arrived…i’ve moved the stepdown module to a prototyping board; and wired it up from there. I wanted the check that the problem still exists: so i didn’t added any capacitator…and for my biggest surprise: it worked. I thinked that: because of the different conditions…longer cabels…the noise is not that close to the other parts. I added the capacitators to the proto board…that went well to…

first piece - kitchen sensor

Last week all needed parts arrived to start with the assembly of the first member of my home automation infrastructure. This will be the kitchen sensor - i picked this because it involves many sensors and no control. Imagined operation If i walk into the kitchen…it should be aware of my presence; if the light condition are too dim - the two lamps should turn on…to supplement lighting to the specified level.

How I started wondering to automate some parts of our home..

Our living room and kitchen is in the same space; they are separated by a half-wall. We have a table in the kitchen; with a smaller tablepiece over it…I wanted to install a led strip under the upper one. I’ve bought the led strip…the power supply for it..and then I was unable to install them; because I would need to replace the existing switch with another one…which is already at a bad position…and because I forgot to buy a box for the 220v parts i needed to install - the whole idea got stuck because of implementation problems.