Home Automation with Arduino: Automate your Home using Open-Source Hardware

by Marco Schwartz

Design your own home automation systems using the Arduino platform! Written by Arduino & home automation expert Marco Schwartz, Home Automation with Arduino is a complete guide to start building your own home automation systems based on the Arduino platform. By using this book, you will learn how to automate your home using DIY home automation systems. The book was also written so it can inspire you to get your own ideas and start designing & building your own home automation systems. Build alarm systems based on ArduinoMake a Bluetooth weather station and monitor it remotelyBuild a WiFi smart power switch and control home appliancesControl your all your home automation devices from a central interfaceHome Automation with Arduino will teach you everything you need to know so you can start building home automation systems with the Arduino platform. No matter your current skill level, you will enjoy building all the home automation projects that you will find in this book!

178 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 1, 2013

Reviews

[David Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book I read to research this post was Home Automation With Arduino by Marco Schwartz which is a very good book which I bought from kindle. This book looks at current technologies and existing trends in home automation including the use of the arduino a kind of tiny barebones linux proprietary computer. Both the arduino and the raspberry pi have revolutionized computing especially when applied to things like home automation. They are very cheap and take proprietary versions of linux and you can scripts to make them do things in computing languages like python. In addition you can always run a traditional computer as a server with either Windows or Linux installed. Often you can download a script that someone else has written that does the job or might need adapting slightly. The trend now is towards open source hardware which means any compatible hardware with this standard will work together even with different manufacturers. This book contains lots of different projects and if you buy this book you should at least intend trying to build some of these. They usually use a pcb board to which the components are added. The arduino can be operated via the computer and has an IDE interface. This book uses mostly the basic Arduino Uno as that is all you require. There are later more advanced versions but that is all you need. Most of these projects are fairly cheap. The book also briefly looks at 3d printers which can fabricate enclosures for your circuits and are a very exciting development with them currently tending to be quite expensive but they are getting cheaper. I have seen a small handheld one going for around a $100. This is a very interesting book that I enjoyed reading and is well written if a little short. It does mention there is a free course in Arduino Home Automation at MIT which is online at http://www.edx.org/course/mitx/mitx-6...

There is various resources online mentioned in the book for various software tools as well most of which are free.