To make a city smart we need to think personalized, we need to build something that can be a user friendly and useful device in our homes. If everyone's home is automatized or have a "special ability", that can make a community more futuristic, and the cities will ,,look smarter. When I was a kid my dream was to have a house that can be controlled by speech, and now this dream came true, using the Mediatek LinkIt One developer board I made a voice controlled system that has some extra security functions. Can detect motion, fire, and flowing water on the faucet. This is a small step for me, but you can see that these ideas can be made with a such a good developer board like the LinkIt One.
Why did I make?
The first reason why I made this project is that here in Transylvania people still haven't possibility to build smart houses so I want to make a small gadget that can be incorporeted very easy in any house. I think that this device can be useful even for those who want to make their house a little bit modern or smarter.
The second reason is that is much more comfortable to live in an automated house that in a simple house. You don't need to get out of bed if you want to turn off the lights just say "light off" and the lamp turns off immediately.
While making the project I thought that this thing can be very useful for elders. My grandparents would be vary happy if they doesn't need to move to turn on lights or anything else.
The LinkIt One Developer Board
You can find many tutorials with LinkIt One on the internet, but I want to tell you that it that it was very glad to work with it. Has very good libraries, and very easy to use them, the codes can be memorized easy too.
How to use the Arduino IDE with LinkIt One?
- First go to the Mediatek's official site: click here.
- Download the SDK and install to your Arduino IDE.
- Plug in your LinkIt One.
- Go to Control Panel/Device Manager/Ports/ an search the two LinkIt One ports.
- One is the Modem and the other is the Debug port. You should use the Modem port. Check that which COM is your Modem port.
- Select the LinkIt ONE board at the Tools/Boards option, in the Arduino .
- Then select the Modem port.
- Now you're ready to build awesome projects!
How it works?
The concept is easy: use an android voice recognition application that can trasmit data to an Arduino board or to the LinkIt One. Then the main controller board drives relays that can switch lights, TV, fan and etc. Has a security function that is based on a IR reciever LED and a PIR motion sensor. A digital pin reads theirs signals, and if they detect something the LinkIt One sends an SMS for me. The app works with serial communication, so when you say a word transmits to the board that analyzes and makes something: example turns on lights.
The role of the motion detector:
Everyone wants to know that his house is safe even when he isn't at home. That's why I build in a PIR (passive infrared) motion sensor. This sensor detects motion using infrared light, that means that detects every single motion up to 7 meters. You can see sensors like this one in motion activated street lights, but now we use as an antitheft
The flame sensor:
I recommend that make this module yourself, because it's very easy and cheap, you only need to connect an IR reciever led to the 5v pin and to the digital pin 2. If detects fire gives HIGH signal. This is simple,but it's very important part of the project. In the USA the fire causes 7.2 billion dollar property damage per year. And imagine that this money could be spent for better things, if we can prevent the problem. This device can't stop fire, but gives an alert and you can call the local firefighters before your house burns down.
And now is coming the harder part: build the circuit and write a code that can communicate with your phone. But if you have some experience in Arduino won't be so hard to understand.
My circuits/modules was designed and made by me but if you can buy any modules premade.
These are the selfmade modules that should be connected together following the circuit shematics: (my modules work the same as premade modules, so agian: you can buy these modules online or in a hobbyshop,so there is no big difference between my parts and the premade parts)
Optional Upgrades:
You can add different sensors, like gas sensor, or sound sensor to your project by modifying the code. Plug the signal pin of the sensor in a digital pin on the board and modify the code, that sends the SMS. The sound sensor can be used as a thief alarm, and the gas sensor can detect toxic substances in the air.
And if everything works right you should get a message like this.
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