Remote Home Monitoring

[J-Man]

Topic for the technically aware! And me!

Looking at installing a system that allows me to monitor river levels, inside and outside temp, and boiler control at 3 separate locations.
There's a lot on the internet, but little feedback or experience.

Is there anyone out there with up to date know how?

Checked out Raspberry and other solutions, but need reassurance that I'm on the right track.

Main applications;
1) See charge on car battery
2) Upload /download music to car
3) View remote home 1 temp and control boiler
4) View remote home 2 outside water level
5) Keep home 3 secure

Any suggestions? Water level in particular is vexing

[BiggestNizzy]

All could be done with a raspberry pi

I would do the water level with a couple of float switches on a post.
Wire the inputs and outputs in, a few lines of code in python and wrap it all up with a html front end.

Easy (in theory)

[Corranga]

Sounds very interesting, build thread?

[scott_e]

Was reading a re-tweet from the Guardian tech correspondent Charles Arthur this morning:
"Vendors need to give a reason to why everything in our home should be connected that is more compelling than "just cause we can""

This is an interesting area for me as its what we do at work although I cannot go into detail due to NDAs. I can however post our cheesy non specific marketing spiel in a shameless plug :
http://vimeo.com/74198960

Got a PI at home too running XBMC. Great little bit of hardware. One of the .net developer lads got the .net arduino module for the house but dont know what his plans are. Not a dev myself.

Interested to know how you progress.

[s29ttc]

I will watch with interest. I had looked into a similar idea but only to control lights, sockets and boiler remotely from my phone. The solution was a box that plugged into you router and special sockets and switches which must contain a wireless control which receives a signal from the box connected to the router.

[young_bairn]

I like the idea of home remote/automation but the price and the novelty factor don't sit well atm.

I have the Philips hue lights starter kit, 3 lamps which are controlled by app/internet. Handy for switching on lights when you are out and about and setting up timers. In reality though I could buy a £5 timer that plugs in the socket with a normal bulb. Would lose the brothel colours though I suppose.

I can see the appeal of boiler control i.e put the heating on 30 mins before coming home, but I can set that up with a bit of time on the thermostat.

So agree that it will just be for the sake of it in a lot of places.

The river level thing will no doubt be handy for you though. I take it you are susceptible to flooding?

[j2 lot]

We have a proprietary (Passiv Living) remote heating control and it has been brilliant. Probably paid for itself in the first year and made a huge difference to how comfortable the house is.
We bought it as a package with PV panels and have solar generation monitoring and reports available through the internet too.
I can offer zero insight into the what/ how but from an end user perspective it is well worth it

[sendmyusername]

There is an app for your boiler, only costs about £100 all in, including fitting.
Been on the telly a lot recently.
My mate in ireland used a rasberry thing on his house, but was a new build, can control everything remotely from the house control room, but this cost quite a bit initially due to extra runs of cable, but has the advantage of not filling house with remote wireless sockets, etc.
He was at one point toying with having hot baths ready for him coming home, but decided against it.
(float switches and control valves on the pipes)
I fouldn't believe the small motherboard that was controlling everything, I could do it with an slc500 controller and rack, but he's got it mainly controlled through this one board.