Your home could be smarter, and you don't have to break the bank. Here are six ways to add a little ambient smarts to your daily routine.
Most of the smart home projects I've listed here are based around lighting or home entertainment - the proliferation of cheap LEDs makes them affordable, and home entertainment devices almost always have infrared control with the that you can easily (and safely) interact with. Unfortunately, many other appliances aren't practical to upgrade with "smart" features - they have physical switches and dials. Even the new generation of smart home devices are disparate and use proprietary control protocols that are not conducive to hardware hacking and DIY tasks.
My latest project, this $60 Ambilight DIY Make Your Own Ambilight For $60 Make Your Own Ambilight For $60 Ambient lighting that reacts to your TV picture is easier and cheaper than you think, and it provides great upgrade to your home theater experience. Read More Get rid of boring tungsten bulbs and replace them with this colorful and dynamic style of ambient lighting. Check out the video to see a demo of it in action:
Traditional alarm clocks are tedious and disconcerting - I can't imagine any daily activity that is worse than a harrowing, unpleasant beeping sound that shattered my dreams. Instead, I tend to wake up naturally with the sunrise, but this isn't always practical if the inconsiderate sun isn't aligned with your particular sleep pattern. In which case, you can fake it. With a simple strip of RGB lights. Arduino sunrise and night light alarm project. Arduino sunrise and night light project. Today we will make an alarm clock at dawn, which will gently and slowly wake you up without resorting to an offensive noise-making machine. Read More You can also try these sleep tracking devices. Can an app really help you sleep better? Can an app really help you sleep better? I've always been a bit of a sleep experimenter, for much of my life I've kept a meticulous dream journal and studied everything I could about sleep in the process. There is a... Read More My project also includes a handy night light function with a standard lamp and motion detector, but this part is not essential for the sunrise alarm function.
Note:the MOSFETs I originally used were incorrect. Make sure you buy logic level MOSFETs..
The Harmony Ultimate Logitech Harmony Ultimate Review and Giveaway Logitech Harmony Ultimate Review and Giveaway Your living room is a mess, admit it. You are forgiven for wondering which remote controls which device. With your TV, amp, TiVO, BluRay player, maybe even lighting, switching activities becomes a long... Read More programmable base station and a customizable touch screen monitor. If you can justify spending a few hundred dollars on a remote or if you already have one but found device support to be quite limited, I'd like to show you how to get the most out of it to support anything with an IR remote.
In this project How to control your custom RGB lighting from a Harmony remote How to control your custom RGB lighting from a Harmony remote If you own a Harmony remote, you probably know that they can now control the Phillips Hue "connected bulb". a wifi enabled but exorbitantly priced $200 set of LED bulbs. But did you know… Read More walk you through the process of adding a custom device that isn't in the database? I use a budget strip of $15 RGB LEDs that provide room ambient lighting, but the process could apply to anything that isn't compatible. You can then associate custom ambient lighting colors with your scheduled activities (green lights for games, perhaps), or create new activities based on ambient lighting characteristics, like a party mode with blinking lights.
Home automation is a tough topic to tackle, but the Logitech Harmony Ultimate can quickly equip your living room with smart features.
Most Macs come with remote control receivers, but PCs generally don't. If you're building a media center for XBMC, the last hurdle is getting rid of that keyboard and mouse. You could use a dedicated mobile app, but then you'll have one more thing you need:don't add a standard remote control setup and connect it to your universal remote.
For $23, you can get a FLIRC device that has great drivers and cross-platform compatibility, even for the Raspberry Pi.
If your house is full of iPads, iPhones, and Macs, AirPlay is a nifty feature that lets you stream audio and video from any of those devices to an AirPlay Receiver, usually an Apple TV. But you can also turn any Raspberry Pi ($35) into an AirPlay receiver. You can do this in two ways:the first is to simply install XBMC. As of version 11 (Eden), XBMC supports streaming audio, video, and images as the target of AirPlay (but not mirroring).
If you're looking for an audio-only experience, Volumio would be a better choice. Acting as a stand-alone player for digital audio and web radio, or as an AirPlay receiver AirPlay vs. Bluetooth speakers:What do you really need? AirPlay vs. Bluetooth Speakers:What Do You Really Need? If you're an audiophile with a Mac or an iPhone, you've probably considered getting some wireless speakers and been faced with the question:AirPlay or Bluetooth? Read More Volumio can run on the Raspberry Pi as well as many other popular development boards.
One of the biggest problems with DIY home automation is interacting with normal and stupid devices, but in this tutorial "Control Devices from an Arduino:The Beginning of Home Automation" Control Devices from an Arduino:The home automation startup Last time, I showed you a few ways to make your Arduino projects voice controlled via SiriProxy, OS X's built-in speaking elements, and some Automator scripts, or even a recognition hardware chip dedicated voice. I… Read More Walk you through the various ways you can turn AC electrical appliances on and off from a microcontroller like an Arduino. Of course, this comes with a caveat:AC electricity can and will kill you if you're careless . If you are unsure about wiring and electrical isolation, use the commercially available wireless switch method, though you will need to modify the code to work with the next step.
Once you have to work, use Arduino Manager (for Android or iOS) to create a custom interface Arduino Home Automation Remote Control from iOS or Android Arduino Home Automation Remote Control from iOS or Android For automation, remote control, or monitoring of your Arduino, Arduino Manager does it all. Read More
Do you have any other ideas for simple DIY projects around the home, whether you've done or just imagined? Let us know in the comments, and we might try to make them!
