home automation

I have some fully functional 1734-AENTR racks that were taken out of commission because of a flood. I've toyed with the idea of using them for some basic home automation tasks.
 
If you wanna go with a "Ladder Logic" style home automation.

Get yourself some Automation Direct CLICK plc's. A brand new Raspberry PI and install mySCADA on it.

I also have HomeSeer installed on the PI and use the mySCADA built in HTML "Active" area to embed the HomeSeer HTML in the SCADA pages.

I went as far as putting the PI in a DIN case and bought a cheap fiberglass box. Have everything wired in the basement at my workbench.

If you want to go with something less..."Ladder Logic", then I would recommend getting yourself some Arudino's, PI's, and SparkCore's.
 
Building a new house at the moment and am installing an M340 for the home automation side of things.
Including all the lights controllable from HMIs.
Control of the under floor system/wetback temperature monitoring.
Control of ceiling fans.
Alarms for various site conditions.
Currently playing with the the ramp block and analog output card for dimming the led strips.
 
If you want to learn and challenge yourself, use arduino, its programmed in c++ but you can use SOAPBOX SNAP to do ladder, and there are many IDE's that use blocks and all sort of methods to programm it.

Plus the hardware is dirt cheap. you can get a pro mini for not even 5$ and it has 6 analog inputs, 14 discrete pins than can be either inputs or outputs and 6 of those than you can output PWM, so kinda like analog.

You can add wifi, bluetooth, ethernet, GSM, GPS... lots of fun. But you will need a soldering iron, and if thats not your thing then I would say a Click PLC.
 
Wife will say it never works right and you'll be a full time troubleshooter in your home. I had a full setup with CQC backend at my last house....new house sonos, 2gig security and surveillance and programmable thermostats and remotes....everyone is much happier.
 
A couple of colleagues of mine automated their homes with a PLC some 20 years ago. Over here the regulations were the biggest problem. PLCs don't meet the regulations for home systems, so you'll need interfacing relays which do. Att that time it was almost the biggest investment of the entire system. They also provided their systems with override switches in case the system failed. Suppose the processor halts and you're unable to switch on/off the lights. I however don't know if they ever had to use those overrides.
 
I put a automaton direct on my wife's shoe closet. Sequences the led lights on when you open the door. And again every 2 min as a reminder. Then just shuts itself off after 15 min.
 
I have a Raspberry Pi 3 running Motioneye for security cameras and I use Weaved For remote access.

I have considered automation things around the house and the best idea I came up with is the Heating System: Inside thermostat, outside thermostat, wind speed sensor. You could then model the system to regulate the heating system based on predicted heat loss to produce a more stable system with a lower hysteresis than a standard thermostat controlled system. I suppose I could turn lights on and off remotely but is there really value in that? I have some lights on timers anyway as well as PIRs.

If I were to really do this then I think I would have Codesys 3 on the PI with remote I/O.

Nick
 
I have experimented a little with Codesys on RPi, works great. You can add a touch screen, or run the web visualization on a smart phone.
I have used Arduino as remote IO over WIFI. I think it works pretty good.

For me it is more for fun, or to see what I can actually do with this equipment.
 
I think the biggest obstacle is resale of the house if you go overboard on the automation, especially custom devices. Of course small systems for a small task are fine such as heating / blinds etc

I saw a tv program where some big office with glass windows had a system where the blinds were automated to follow the sun.

i see Rpi and Arduino as a hobbyist tool, although I agree they are capable devices
 

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