Quickly in steps
A smart home involves many different tasks that must work in concert with each other. What does this mean in practice? It means that it is extremely difficult to think through and implement all the processes of your smart home at once. The possibility of any unaccounted for factor is too high. That's why we offer a simple option: step by step, specific automation tasks are realized and then combined into one smart network. You don't have to think about everything in advance! On the contrary, the simpler you realize your first task, the better!
Step #1. Project selection
It is necessary to choose a project that will be taken as a basis for a particular task.
Each project has its own personal page with documentation and additional materials. For example, the Climate project. The main thing you need to pay attention to is the list of indicators and devices that are needed for your task. You do not need to pay attention to their number. Each project can have many controllers, each of which can either control its own device or receive sensor readings in a particular place. We advise you to realize at first the simplest variant of turning on the heater by temperature. Do not be afraid, further expansion of functionality and scaling will not require redesign of already assembled controllers!
Step #2. Order and assemble the controller
The circuit diagrams and assembly diagrams are available to you and you can assemble the controller yourself!
We all want to get the first positive result, and as soon as possible. Therefore, we suggest you to refuse from ordering printed circuit boards in the beginning and assemble your first device as easy and fast as possible on the basis of ready-made components for Arduino.
Step #3. Loading and customizing the firmware
After assembling the controller, you need to load the firmware into it.
If you bought it as a ready-made one, then most likely the necessary firmware or firmware is already installed in its chip. If you have assembled the controller yourself, you need to load the firmware yourself. The easiest way to do this is to use a Programmer, or experienced electronic engineers can do it themselves. All settings can be set via a simple web panel, which will be present on every controller. With its help you will activate and configure exactly those devices that you will use in fact.
Step #4. Connecting the controller to the server
Before registering and installing the smart home server, you need to configure the router.
Please read the general information on selecting a smart home router. Understand, for standalone systems, careful router configuration is mandatory in any case! You need to anticipate out-of-the-box situations so you don't lose control of your smart home. In addition, if you choose a cloud-based server option in the next step, you will need to create a VPN connection between the router and that server. We recommend using a Mikrotik router, which has advanced functionality and will definitely come in handy in the future.
Step #5. Adding and configuring the project
You can start adding projects and customizing them. Each project is, first of all, a separate simple task. For example, maintaining a comfortable condition in one of the rooms of the house.
In the settings of each project, you specify in more detail, what devices and sensors (indicators) you will work, how they are called, labeled, what is their power, electricity tariffs, etc. In addition, for each project you can set your own set of controllers - nodes, each of which can control its own set of sensors and devices. Thus, you can, for example, control several unrelated heaters, but within one room. It is quite easy to realize complex projects step by step, even when the whole list of devices is not clear at once.
Step 6. Automatic modes of the project
Yay, we're there! Automation is the main cornerstone of any smart home.
You don't need to program or write complex scripts using special markup languages. Everything is configured through the smart home's web interface, which is hosted on a server on the Internet. You simply take each device, such as a heater or a hood, and create a list of tasks for it depending on the sensor readings and time of day. Thus, automation is a set of simple tasks for different devices. This set of tasks is grouped into the following concept - modes. These modes can be many. Each has its own purpose, but what they have in common is that their tasks will be performed not by you, but by a robot from the server in the 24/7 mode.
Step #7. Combining projects into a smart network
Controllers are united into projects, and projects in turn can be united into a smart grid. Then, each controller can monitor the indicators and devices of another controller and change the mode of operation of any project according to your algorithm. It is the smart network that will allow the whole smart home to work in a coordinated and monolithic way, as if all devices and sensors were connected to one single controller.