This is a simple project series that has applications in home and work automation. I want to remotely control power. Yes, I realize there are lots of off-the-shelf products readily available. I’m going to make my own as a way to learn more about electronics and the Arduino prototyping platform.
My first step in this project is to decide on the interface. Specifically, how do I want to communicate with this device? Some choices are:
- serial
- USB
- wired network
- wireless network
Serial and USB methods require a PC or some other controller host nearby. The wired and wireless choices are a little more interesting. The wired choice implies I’ll need power and Ethernet near my device. That’s a reasonable assumption in my case. I want to control power to some embedded eval boards that will also have Ethernet connections. So there will be network and power nearby. The wireless route would be interesting for home automation. The end device in the wireless scenario could be a small self contained box such as a power whip. I’m going with a wired network using an Ethernet shield.
My next decision is how to identify the device on the network. The device will need an IP address to be accessible from the network. I could statically assign one at compile time and just note it. I could also rely on my network’s DHCP server to assign address and then come up with a way to discover the assigned address. I prefer the dynamic route, but I’m going to push on defining the ‘how’ of discovery until later. Development and testing will use a serial connection. This allows me to easily get the IP address in the meantime.
The next post in this series will get the control interface prototyped.
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