Background Research

PHYSICAL HOME AUTOMATION INTERFACE

Overview

The physical home automation interface is a miniature model of a smart home. The main goal of the Physical Home Automation Interface is to provide a model that allows the homeowner to quickly see what doors of the house are open and the energy consumption of the house at an instant. The idea behind this device is to provide a physical model rather than a virtual one seen on most smart home control systems. The virtual system feels unintuitive and requires parsing of data.

Construction

The model house is constructed using a box, hinges and adhesive material. The model contains an Arduino Yun board (to prevent the need for an ethernet cable) and a few servo motors for actuating the doors. Buttons are placed near the doors such that when they are pressed, those doors in the real house open or close. The wiring is simple – an Arduino outputs to a breadboard which is then wired to three servo motors. The Arduino is also hooked up to various sensors like reed switch sensors and a light intensity sensor for the garage. The system is connected to various parts of the house through Wi-Fi, including a wink hub for the tripper contact switch and lights. The energy consumption meter uses burden resistors and capacitors in a circuit with a transformer and displays the output on a graph in OPENHAB. OPENHAB is not needed to run the model but provides an interface that allows the system to be controlled via a smart phone.

Thoughts

The creator states that this project by nature has lots of flexibility. The builder can choose the controllers and sensors that could be used based on availability and personal preferences. The physical interface can be as creative or as utilitarian as preferred.

Sources:

https://www.instructables.com/id/Physical-Home-Automation-Interface/

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