Room Multi-Sensor: Part 1
I’ve mentioned in a previous post on this blog that about half the job of creating a home automation system is essentially an issue of data gathering. That is, harvesting information from around the house, which can be used later to govern rules/automation, or simply help the user/certain devices to make decisions.
With this in mind, I want to create some sort of multi-sensor, which I can place in rooms around my house, to provide useful data about that room. Specifically:
- Temperature: That’s Home Automation law isn’t it? If it has a circuit, it’ll have a temperature sensor in it somewhere.
- Humidity: See above. Temperature and humidity data will be useful when dealing with thermostats, as well as helping to issue reminders when doors and windows might need shutting.
- Light: Will give a readout of the current light level, which will be useful when programming lighting rules analyzing sleep patterns and such like
- Motion: Not something I’m planning on utilizing immediately, but could be valuable i integrating security into the system later.
- Door: Similar to motion sensor, will provide more use in the future, but it’s worth including it at this stage, to avoid a major hassle down the line.
Existing Solutions
There are products out there which could provide similar features, such as:
Philio Tech Z-Wave 3-in-1 Multi-Sensor
Sensors: Temperature, Light, Door
Price: £35
Aeon Labs Multisensor 6
Sensors: Temperature, Humidity, Light, Motion
Price: £45
So while I could just buy a solution off the shelf, I reckon a cost of around £40 per unit is a little high, especially when you want to put several of them around the house. And besides, where is the fun in that?
NEXT: Attaching sensors to an Arduino.