Building Environment Monitoring & Energy Control System

Step 1

The system consists of Raspberry Pi 3 Model B as the center gateway that collects all the environment data sent by distributed SparkFun ESP8266 Thing Dev Boards via WiFi signal.

There are many distributed SparkFun ESP8266 Thing Dev Boards surrounding the buildings various locations. Different type of sensors (for example: temperature sensors, humidity sensors, photo/light sensors, dust sensors, pressure sensors, human motion sensors, etc.) are connected through wire to the local distributed SparkFun ESP8266 Thing Dev Boards.

Step 2

Once the local SparkFun ESP8266 Thing Dev Boards receive the sensor data, they will respond accordingly. For example, if the room temperature received drops below a certain preset threshold setting point, SparkFun ESP8266 Thing Dev Board will send OFF signal via relay to the A/C. This will conserve the energy usage.

• If the temperature rises to above certain setpoint, SparkFun ESP8266 Thing Dev Board will send ON signal via relay to the A/C, hence maintaining the room at ambient temperature.

• If the dust sensor detects an increase in dust, after SparkFun ESP8266 Thing Dev Board receivesw the data, it can send the ON signal via relay to the exhaust fan.

• If the light sensor detects high lux while there is no human motion, SparkFun ESP8266 Thing Dev Board can turn OFF the lighting via relay in those affected zones. These will conserve the energy usage.

Conclusions

Hence, all the activities and data received by SparkFun ESP8266 Thing Dev Board can be sent to Raspberry Pi (as the main gateway) for processing and managing all the data, before sending it to the cloud for future analysis. At cloud level, the data received can be used for forecasting and energy management.