Continuing from "The House of Cloud Pi."
General idea is a Wifi Mesh network of pi's that can also perform as a cluster for home automation
I have started ordering parts to start experimenting with various components required to build out the House of Cloud PI. The base model is going to use Raspberry Pi Zero W's as these will work for outlet controls, light dimmers, ceiling fan controls, and even RGB light controls, irrigation controls and monitoring. I'm not convienced about using them for cameras, but there appears to be much success in the community for using the pi zeros as security cameras. I'd feel better if it was a PI 4 for ones near the house as that would provide more house power.
The Base Unit
Base unit does not have headers, everything will be soldered, this will make it much more reliable. The USB power supply is the smallest cheapest power supply that we can get off the shelf, this will be taken apart to get to the AD/DC ciruit, making it smaller to fit into electrical outlet boxes. Car chargers are used where 12V is available, like low voltage lanscaping power supplies, car batteries, solar chargers, etc. The 32 GB card is bigger than what we need to get everything running, which would be 8GB. However larger would be better if we want to run something like HDFS or Gluster across all of the units. The unit will need comformal coating to help protect it and possibly a heat sink.
$20 a unit is about the cost of a plug in module, the advantage of a plug in module is that it's done, the disadvange is that we loose the cluster control and sometime ALL control of the device as most REQUIRE a cloud based system, which a big deal breaker.
Outlet
- * 2 Relays - $3 ref
Outlet is the base module plus 2 relays, that's it! This is fairly simple wire the top and bottom outlet hot line of the AC power and the carger to the incoming power. Monitoring current would be great, but I have not priced that out, yet. Total cost $23, not bad.
Light Switch As a Dimmer
- PWM Relay - $7
- 2 Push Momentary Buttons or momentary rocker (need to find a solution here)
- PIR Motion - $2
This is as a dimmer/fan controller. The dimmer relay is pricier, and I have no idea what to do about the rocker switch/buttons, this is a hard one. Two buttons would work, there is also the option for a PIR motion sensor to automatically turn on a light, or just indicate that someone is in the room. The PIR worked well in a bath room while working on smart home before.
Camera
- Camera Module $14 ref
- Cable $5
- IR Lights +$10
- 256 GB SD Card +$10
- PI3/4 +$25
- PIR Motion + $2
- Pan/Tilt + $10 (need to double check this number)
This ends up a $40 for indoor camera, $50 for outdoor, $and $85 for 256 GB pi 3/4 version. This is more than a Wyze Camera at $25, but less than a ring $99-$200. it's again the control factor and mesh network here. With a PI3/4 we now have more horse-power on the cluster and can do things like face recognition, image recognition, and all sorts of other things. Can also add in pan-tilt to the camera. And we need to add housing. We also need to test streaming over the BATMAN Mesh.
Gardenator
- AD Converter + $7
- Moisture sensor + $4
- Temp/Humidity +$3
- Relay +$3
- Flow Valve +$12
- outdoor case +$10
This would be a controller for watering a zone. Can check moisture and automatically water the zone (or schedule it to be watered at a more optimal time?) At $60 for a single zone this makes it about twice as much as a battery powered hose timer at $20, and a 12 zone system would be about $200 before adding the flow. The advantage is the sensing and flow control. This could also be combined with the camera upgrades to make a $130 out super plant monitor. Could add in a sprinkler target to shoo away unwanted animals an people with a suprize water spray. This also could be used to control a water fountain(s) and outdoor lights by adding more relays, so some options here for sure.
Accent Lighting
- WS2812 Outdoor RGB Strip +$20
- WS2812 RGB Strip +$10
Can create accent light lighting strips for $40 or $30 which would be great for under cabinets, garden lighting, TV/Movie lighting, Halloween, Christmas Decorations, moode lighting, etc. For comparison similar RGB strips are $45 for wifi control, but again control + cluster. Bulbs on the other hand are at $30 for a 4 pack, so getting harder to justify the price/size here.
Garage Door Opener
- Relay $3
Can run a garage door opener with just a relay, would need sensors to determine if the garage was open or closed, could use a camera.
Sound System:
- Blue Tooth Speaker +$20
Can add bluetooth to just about any of the locations and add a blue tooth speaker, some have microphones. I've had luck with 'just' speakers on the zero's and better luck with the microphones for PI3. I have not tested out how to sync playback in this mode, or how to stream music across all of them, with mic it should also be possible to turn ANY zero into an Alexa/Google Assitant, which would mean voice control + music ANYWHERE, indoors out doors, etc. Cost is about the same as a mini, but now these can be added to anywhere on the BATMAN which is super cool! And again control over the whole setup.
Solar Charge Controller
- Solar Charger with Modbus $20
- Batter(ies)
- Solar Panel(s)
There is a solar charge controller that has an RS232 modbus interface, so this can be monitored!
Sensors
Motion, Contact, Water/Leak Detection.
These are create for doors being open/shut people entering a room to set lights, catch flooding issues, etc. However, these are a super big problem in a WIFI network, as most of the ones I have experience with are zigbee or Z-Wave. If these could be Bluetooth 5.0 we'd be in good shape, but the zero does not suppor 5.0, the PI 4 does, so maybe need to have a few 4's to act as relays for sensor or add one as a zigbee hub and some plug-in moduel to fill it out? That kinda defeats the purpose of the network. Possibly need to design these for placement near use.
Door Locks
Use a commerial system for now, not going to win on price. These can also be WiFi, but need to check that phone/HA controls work without cloud control
And More
Whole Home Power, Water Flow.
Bringing it all together. There will be some ammount of work of putting all of these together. Some of this will be custom software, or based of other people projects, but we should be able to tie it all together with something like Home Assistant. Again might need a Pi4 at the center to run HA server act as the gateway for the MESH and run anything else needed, like maybe a NAS for data storage, etc.
That's a BIG forming thought. It'll grow and get more detailed as we start making prototypes for each of the above, this will help shape the whole thing and form it from an other useless though into a very USEFUL thought!
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