Wireless Relay for Arduino

[G+_B H]

Wireless Relay for Arduino

 

Looking for community input on using Arduino to wirelessly control lights etc.

 

Hello. New to the community. Fan of Know How.

 

I am planning a little project. For the holidays, we have miscellaneous lighted decorations around the house. Some are mains powered, some battery. Some tucked away in a corner, some on a table in the middle of the room. I would like to be able to control them all remotely, rather than having to make my rounds through the house manually turning them all on and off. I am thinking about using an Arduino to active relays remotely over some form of wireless connection. I came across the ESP8266 and that seems like a great value. However, I think it might be overkill as well as having too high a power requirement.

 

I wanted to post here and hopefully get some input. I do not want to re-invent the wheel if someone here already has a great solution for this. Otherwise, I would really like to find a super inexpensive radio link of some kind.

 

Thank you

 

Ben

[G+_Jason Perry]

Best bet is to brows through the below comment on Christmas, and home automation to get started. They both talk about different aspects of your question.

[G+_David Wiggins]

There was an instructable on this, but it seemed more like an advert for his blog.

However, the like forum post seemed to be pretty in depth.

 

Your thoughts to use a relay strike me as on the right track, or at least a fun project. The main concern is not the lights powered from the mains (parden the horrendous pun), but the battery operated lights. You don't want to over power those circuits.

As for code, I'd love to see examples from you or others on what to run.

forum.arduino.cc - Christmas Lights Control System -Arduino Mega - 16 Channel Relay Board

[G+_Ben Reese]

One of the simplest/cheapest solutions I've seen is this showed off by SuperHouseTV?:

Other than what he showed, I'm not sure what other features this has. Would be nice if each remote was programmed to a single set of relays, but I doubt that's the case.

[G+_Ben Reese]

Other diy options could include paring a few Arduinos with an NRF24L01 radio. I got a 6-pack of the radios on Amazon for I think $8 or something and they work on Arduino and Raspberry Pi.

[G+_Mark Quinn]

I have a light I designed for the living room that I would love to put a remote switch on and possibly a dimmer. I very curious to what you find and what will be posted here.

[G+_B H]

Thank you all for you quick and useful responses. (Still open to more ideas, so do not stop) I am impressed with the know how community.

 

I am very intrigued by the NRF24L01. That looks to be right on track with where I want to go. I am researching it now. One drawback I see so far is that I need an Arduino on the receiving side also. Not a huge problem, but it does add more power draw on the receiver side and more cost. At quantity one, an extra $12 for a second, receiver-side, Arduino is not a big deal, but multiply that out by the number of different lights around the house and it adds up quickly. None the less, so far I am excited about the potential of making this project happen.

[G+_Scott W]

mysensors.org

[G+_B H]

So what is a good source from which to purchase components? In videos and posts people often make mention of $2 arduinos and cheap jumper wires and breadboards etc but they never mention where they actually got them. Is there a reputable vendor recommended?

[G+_Ben Reese]

The $2 Arduinos are knockoffs sold in multi-packs on Amazon or eBay. I don't know that you could find individual components at that price. There probably are some brands that are more reliable than others, but I suspect there's probably not much difference when you venture away from the name brand Arduino.

[G+_David Wiggins]

It is also worth mentioning that you get what you pay for, sometimes the bargain basement parts don't hold up as well. I tend to have overall good luck with only the occasional dud in the batch.

 

Just something to consider.