About the project
The SmartESP project is based on the experience of an IT-entrepreneur who wanted to organize remote control of heating in his country house. After heating, other issues began to arise: watering the vegetable garden, controlling lighting, greenhouses, greenhouses, chicken coops, dog boxes, etc. All these devices had to be managed not only by himself, but also by other members of his family, ordinary people without technical education. As a result, he faced certain complexities of existing smart home systems that required a beautiful solution.
Today, thanks to Arduino controllers and their components, homemade automation has become very accessible. However, on the other hand, despite the simplicity and cheapness of the components, this homemade automation can still be quite complex and incomprehensible for the average user.
All that is not difficult to assemble and solder turns out to require much more time to implement, namely to program the algorithms of the devices. The problem is that there is no functional and visual user interface at the same time. This interface should not just display current values and contain options to turn on/off devices, but also allow for flexible change of automation algorithms.
Of course, there are solutions such as MajorDoMo, OpenHAB, ESPHome and Home Assistant, but they are all flawed for two simple reasons. First, you still need to know how to program controllers and administer a smart home server. Second, in most cases it is assumed that the developer will create a clear programmed functionality of the system, and the user can only change key parameters or switch scenarios of global behavior. This brings to mind an anecdote:
A monkey and a user were sent on a space flight. When the ship entered orbit, the order came: the monkey - to perform an experiment on the equipment to search for neutrinos; the user - to feed the monkey, no buttons to press!
Obviously, there is a lack of such a solution, which will not require a novice amateur to delve into the programming of controllers and administration of servers, and will contain a convenient user interface for the formation of automation tasks. It is then that such a smart home can not only be easily assembled, but most importantly: implemented among users. When any of them will be able to create tasks and scenarios by themselves, without any help from the system developer.
This is how the SmartESP project was formed. Each time, step by step, a new and specific home automation task had to be solved. And each time a separate project with a clear user interface was created for this separate task. Then it was necessary to somehow unite all these separate projects so that they could interact with each other. Then the Smart Grid appeared, a fundamentally new concept and solution for linking all the individual projects together. Now the user could feel like the "conductor" of the smart home and synchronize all the projects, creating an impressive "orchestra" of home automation!
Collaboration
If you find the SmartESP project interesting and want to take part in it, we will be glad! Today we are interested in cooperation in the following areas:
- Bloggers or testers specializing in reviews of various projects.
- Engineers-developers and just master electricians, ready to build projects for users in their region.
- Just polite enthusiasts, ready to point out errors or write their opinion and feedback, and thus influence the fate of the project.
Contacts
You can contact us at:
- Telegram messenger: @DoterSolder
- by e-mail: smartesp.net@gmail.com