Web Enabled Time/Temp/Humidity and I/O Controller

Posted by Christopher Glaeser on November 1, 2009, 4:37 pm

> Anyway I can use it to monitor a vacation home 1200 miles away? I'm
> not sure what this unit does.

Yes, if the home is connected to the internet you could monitor it from a
browser virtually anywhere. However, you will need some hardware and
software experience. If you are not quite sure what this unit does based on
the posted description, then this may not be a good project for you.

Best,
Christopher

Posted by Robert Green on November 2, 2009, 4:51 am

> > Anyway I can use it to monitor a vacation home 1200 miles away? I'm
> > not sure what this unit does.

> Yes, if the home is connected to the internet you could monitor it from a
> browser virtually anywhere. However, you will need some hardware and
> software experience. If you are not quite sure what this unit does based

> the posted description, then this may not be a good project for you.
> Best,
> Christopher

Agreed. Thanks for fielding that question for me, Christopher. It's not
for someone who's not comfortable with soldering or circuit diagrams. As
you point out, you'd need some way to get to the internet to use it to
monitor your house remotely. An alternative I'm exploring is using an old
laptop PC and a modem or a electronic phone dialer to have the machine
dial-out using a plain old telephone line, which many second or vacation
homes have. Probably more of those kinds of homes have "always on"
telephone lines than "always" on internet connections.

But I'm not keen on a monitoring system that's got to establish a link v.
one that's got an internet link always available. I think reliability would
be too low. Another consideration is backup power. The device draws very
little standby current, and could easily be solar powered, but to be
effective, all other devices in the access chain have to be battery-backed.

The unit is best-suited for a tinkerer with some internet smarts, some
electronic smarts and a monitoring need. If you're not that kind of person,
I believe devices like the Sensaphone are a better fit:

http://www.sensaphone.com/sensaphone_400.php

Of course, when you find out what they sell for (or similar systems) you'll
realize why at least some of the gadgeteers among us are so thrilled to find
the "platform" for building your own version of the Sensaphone for $34.95.
Well, at least this gadgethead is.

The best way to think about the unit is as a tiny webserver that keeps track
of different conditions in the house and can take actions when those
conditions change or when a certain time has been reached or when a set
period of time has expired. The fact that it's network-enabled means that
you can buy incredibly cheap network hubs and connect the units to the
outside world or your home PCs without have to run busloads of sensor cables
all over the place.

I believe with the right (fairly cheap) gear, it will even run on a wireless
network and could be used to monitor an outbuilding's vitals without running
cable. One simple PC, netbook or smartphone could then use a browser and a
set of bookmarks to monitor each device on the net.

If my plans work out, I'll be able to access my network remotely and see the
current temps, humidity, alarm status, current power readings for the whole
house whenever I chose and have the unit send my phone an email when some
critical condition goes out of bounds.

For example, in the laundry room I want to monitor whether something's
fallen in the sink and had blocked the drain which would cause it to
overflow from running the clothes washer. I'd also want to measure the air
temperature in the dryer vent duct to make sure it wasn't too hot - an
indication of a blocked vent (we've got birds that are *determined* to nest
in there every spring. They've even pecked away wire screening to get in.

I'm even thinking of monitoring the washer so that clothes can presoak in
warm water for as long as the water is hotter than the ambient air. That
way, I wouldn't be tossing hot water down the drain until I'd squeezed some
of the BTUs it took to heat it back into the laundry room. I can also
monitor the floor drain to make sure it's not backing up, keep track of the
level in the sump pump and maybe even monitor the furnace and water heater
temperatures, too, to make sure they stay within bounds.

I think there's potential if a broad enough user community develops to reach
a broader audience as "pioneers" develop applications they are willing to
document well enough for less-capable readers to follow. As it stands,
there aren't many examples (one, I think) on their site to make it anything
but geek accessible. There's also the possibility of solderheads using this
board as the basis for project they could "kit out" and sell with all the
components pre-assembled and the steps carefully documented.

With that in mind, I am going to proceed slowly and write up and photograph
my projects as I create them since it's bound to make it easier for the next
person attempting to do something similar.

--
Bobby G.

Posted by RickH on November 2, 2009, 5:32 pm

> There no doubt that houses are getting "smarter" all the time. =A0More an=

> more new homes are coming with goodies like alarm systems, intelligent
> controls for HVAC, pools and sprinklers and even devices to monitor power
> consumption in real time.
> I've seen a lot of very expensive and complex systems to manage the
> functions of "smart homes" but I've never come across something as small,
> powerful and inexpensive as this unit:
> http://www.cainetworks.com/products/webcontrol/
> I've cross-posted this in comp.home.automation and alt.home.repair becaus=

> I've seen a lot of posts about monitoring house conditions like temperatu=

> remotely in both groups. =A0I was first alerted to the product in a =A0th=

read

> about USB home control in CHA. =A0In that thread:
> _USB module for monitoring multiple on/off switches_
> http://groups.google.com/group/comp.home.automation/browse_thread/thr...
> Marc Hult recommended this device instead as a much more practical way to
> "communicate" with your house remotely than USB devices connected to a PC=

> It took me a while to find the secret URL and I don't give cainetworks an=

A+

> for website design - this product doesn't even show up on their "Product
> List." =A0They seem to be a server load balancing company and I would gue=

> they built this thing for themselves as a service tool and then began to
> realize it had other applications.
> I have no interest in the company, other than as a customer and it's too
> early to tell whether I am a happy customer or not!
> WebControl interests me for a number of reasons: =A0it can automagically =

send

> emails to a PC or a cell phone when a looked-for condition occurs, assumi=

> you've got a constant internet connection. =A0This condition could be a
> furnace failure, an out-of-bounds temperature, water on the floor or any
> number of other events that can sensed electronically.
> It's got plenty of inputs - it can accommodate a Honeywell humidity senso=

> up to eight Maxim DS1822 /DS18B20 12bit 1 wire temperature sensors, eight
> digital inputs, three analog inputs and 20 different timers. =A0It seems =

from

> my Google searches that these are popular with cigar lovers (to keep thei=

> treasures at constant temps and humidity) and in-home horticulturists
> growing various "herbs."
> My first project will be a sensing project, too: =A0I'm hoping to use it =

> continually monitor how much power the whole house uses in real-time. =A0=

I've

> read about a number of test projects using "smart meters" and they all
> pretty much say the same thing: =A0People who know how much power they ar=

> using at any one moment will end up reducing their average monthly
> consumption.
> I've got some tiny current sensors that I will attach to the main power
> feeds to the circuit panel, hopefully so artfully that an inspector might
> never notice they're there. =A0(Yes, I know the evils of mixing high and =

low

> voltage gear and I don't recommend anyone but an insane person with total
> contempt for life and the law even contemplate copying my actions!)
> These tiny (1/4" sq.) Hall-Effect (HE) sensors generate a small electric
> current proportional (well, proportional enough for me) to the current
> flowing into the house from the main feeders. =A0This unit should enable =

me to

> see the current current use from any PC on the home network. =A0I should =

even

> be able to rig up an LED bargraph display that shows the real-time power
> consumption of the house with another $2 worth of parts.
> The unit has three 3 1023 bit analog inputs (0-10v) that should be able t=

> accurately measure the HE sensor voltage level and take an action (light =

> bargraph LED, ring a chime, etc) when the voltage becomes greater than a
> pre-determined level. =A0Perhaps the hardest part is going to be accurate=

> matching the output level of the sensor to the actual home electrical pow=

> consumed. =A0If I can't get a helper with a walkie talkie, =A0I can tempo=

rarily

> mount a wireless CCTV cam outside pointing at the electric meter so I can
> tabulate meter readings and how they correspond to the sensor output as I
> add more and more loads. =A0I will start with all the breakers off, but w=

ith

> lights, etc. left on so that as I flip each breaker on, the load increase=

> That way I should have a scale that gives me a pretty good idea of the ju=

ice

> flowing through the circuit panel.
> I'm going to make notes as I go along, paying particular attention to the
> level of technical skill required to implement it. =A0I'm afraid it's goi=

ng to

> be high enough to make it a techie-only solution. =A0But looking through =

the

> manual
> http://www.cainetworks.com/manuals/webcontrol/WebControlUserGuide2-03...
> gives me at least a little hope that this unit may be simple enough that
> with a little advice, a fairly low-tech user could implement a simple sys=

tem

> that could, for example, send them an email if their freezer or refrigera=

tor

> temperature rises out of the food safety zone. =A0Ironically, that's why =

> ordered the board (my fridge tripped the GFCI) but once I read the manual
> and the specs, I realized it would probably make a good and cheap whole
> house power monitor.
> Previously, devices like this cost close to $200, so to my mind it's a gr=

eat

> bargain.
> The part that I haven't quite figured out about whole house power monitor=

ing

> is this: =A0What's the best way to notify residents that the house is bur=

ning

> kilowatts without being so =A0intrusive that they'll just shut it off? =

=A0There

> has to be some sort of override, too, because there will be some days in =

the

> dead of a very cold winter that the consumption will peak.
> --
> Bobby G.

I ordered one to do remote power-up / boot-up of other computers in
the home. Computers that I occasionally need to get to over the
Internet (to copy files from work etc) but dont want to leave running
all day (for network and power reasons).

Still unsure about how to do this, will probably have to wire a relay
to the actual on/off switch on the computer and have this little guy
trigger a remote boot by paralleling said relay across the existing
power button. Once the remoter computer is powered and booted, I can
use Windows remote desktop services to do a normal shutown when I'm
done.

I dont mind leaving this little guy "online" all the time but dont
want to leave my large home computers online all the time.

Keyboard/Video/Mouse (KVM) switches with built in remote IP boot
capabilities run about $2000, so this might be a great solution if it
works.

Might also use it to remotely power up/down a NAS hard drive array I
have plugged into my net switch at home.

Posted by Jules on November 2, 2009, 6:25 pm

On Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:32:17 -0800, RickH wrote:

> I ordered one to do remote power-up / boot-up of other computers in
> the home. Computers that I occasionally need to get to over the
> Internet (to copy files from work etc) but dont want to leave running
> all day (for network and power reasons).

Hmm, I used to ssh to my router/firewall and from there send a
wake-on-LAN command to whatever it was I was powering up (I possibly could
have got the router/firewall to forward the necessary voodoo for me and
just issue the wake-up from whatever remote machine I was on, but I never
quite got around to seeing if that would work).

For shutdown I'd just ssh into whatever machine I had on and issue a
normal poweroff, same as normal (analogous to your mention of using
Windows' remote desktop to do this).

These days my main server's just left on all the time, so for other "home
monitoring" tasks I'm just looking for some form of digital I/O
board that I can hook sensors to...

cheers

Jules

Posted by Robert Green on November 4, 2009, 7:37 am

> These days my main server's just left on all the time, so for other "home
> monitoring" tasks I'm just looking for some form of digital I/O
> board that I can hook sensors to...

I've had a dual CPU, dual power supply RAID'ed server and decided it had to
go once I put a power meter on it and realized it was drawing nearly 200
watts. I found some used laptops on Ebay, some hi-capacity USB drives and
have dropped the overall consumption to less than 20 watts without
sacrificing too much performance. The laptops paid for themselves in short
order with the way electric rates have been climbing in the DC area.

It's no longer RAID'ed, although I could have gone that way, but that's not
too much of an issue with good backup procedures in place. It's not like
I'm supporting some huge SQL database that needs to serve hundreds of users.
As long as it can support full motion HD video, I'm a happy camper,
especially at one tenth the cost of the previous solution. Best part is
that I no longer need a UPS since the laptop will run for 2 hours on its own
battery if the power dies. The next jump in power savings will be switch to
a NAS device where I might be able to achieve a savings of the same
magnitude as switching from a tower PC to a laptop.

I've just ordered some Honeywell humidity sensors for the "WebCon" project.
The lowest price I found was a Canadian seller on Ebay for $14 each. Now I
am going to look for the One-wire temperature sensors, since that's one of
the unit's most appealing feature (to me, anyway): the support of eight temp
sensors. An Ebay vendor in Hong Kong has them for 10 for $20.59 with free
shipping. Also bought a packet of diodes and some 6 volt relays to
investigate the unit's ability to switch high-voltage devices. I may want
to opto-isolate those connections. I must admit, this feels like the
grown-up version of Tinkertoys! (-:

--
Bobby G.

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