Measure temperatur and humidity in different rooms, Wireless

[Florian Strempel]

Hi all,

Following situation:

• 1 weekend house which uses up a lot of energy during winter for heating.
• I am 150 km away and cant go there often
• Someone helps to regulate the heating, but more over the thump.
• No Internet connection at house
  -GSM ang 3G available
• 8 points in the house and one outside need to be measured for temperatur and humidity. (Humidity because we want to use carpets and other stuff to isolate the windows and doors and see if the temperature rises and to check that the humidity doesnt go up to much)
• Data needs to be logged, ideally transferred per E-Mail once a day or two.

To realise this project I thought using Arduino would be best. I would like to post my progress on the project here. However, I will also need help to better understand the concept and to get ideas for the best possible solution.

Please correct me if I missunderstood anything:

For each sensor I need a Arduino Board, wireless connector and the sensor itself + powersupply.
I need one Gateway = Arduino Board, wireless connector and powersupply.

So far so good, but How do I collect all the information from the sensors or Gateway? I was thinking about using a raspberry PI to collect and log the information. The Raspberry could run a Webserver where I could download the information from. The raspberry will be connected to a router with SIM-Card, and so save electricity and Surftime I will turn the router on once a day for 30 minutes (Done via a normal plugin timer).

I am currently still struggeling to have the big picture, so appreciate any help and ideas.

[TimO]

You don't need an Arduino for every sensor, you're able to connect more than one sensor to one Arduino (if they're not far away). It is up to you if you want to realize it that way.

The gateway is normally connected to an controller (via TCP/IP, serial). Look at the controller section for more information. A lot of controllers run on an RPi. The controller collect the data sent from the sensors via the gateway. The controller may send an email, show an graph ... depending on the controller software.

In the current configuration the MySensors sensors update their status (Temperature, Humdity, Motion etc.) every XX seconds and if there is no controller collecting the data it is lost. So the RPi needs to be always on. A solution where the RPi (Controller) polls the information from the sensors is possible but you have to implement it yourself.

The controller itself doesn't need an internet connection, but you need it to collect the data.

[tbowmo]

@Florian-Strempel

An easy route for your sensors, is to use the SenseBender Micro. Comes ready with firmware for reporting temperature and humidity, add a battery, and a nrf24l01 module, and you are good to go.

I'm doing almost the exact same thing here, only difference is that it's not a weekend house, and it has normal internet connection. But I'm still collecting sensor data (at the moment from 5 sensors around the house). Also, I'm planing on doing further automation, so I am using a domotica software on my r-pi, which you probably don't need, if all you want to do is to log data.

[Florian Strempel]

Thanks for the replies.

@TimO Can I wireless connect more than one sensor to a Arduino? or just per cable. I found ways to conect more sensore to one Arduino per cable but failed to find a wireless solution.

I will let the Rpi running all the time, but Internet will only be available for 30 minutes a day that I can collect the data.

I do have a better understanding of the setup now. Thanks.

@tbowmo The SenseBender Micro looks great, but for me a little to pricy at the moment. If I built them myself I will save at least some Euros.

I will order some stuff this week and will post about the progress here.

[sebas]

For the internet you could add a GSM shield to the gateway or a 3G usb stick to the Rpi. If you only pay for the data that's send than you could leave the internet on 24/7.

I would put the Rpi running the controller in the same house as the gateway so no data is lost because of a loss of the internet connection.
If you would want to connect to the controller to check the statistics or status of the switches and sensors you would connect to the controller via the internet. Using a dynamic dns service it wouldn't be a problem if the ip-address of the controller changes.

Sensors are connected to the arduino via cable. The sensor arduino connects to the gateway wirelessly.

Thinking of it you could connect the Rpi to a VPN server running in your home so it will get a local ip-address of your home network. That way there's no need for the dynamic dns service.