Home automation using arduino and Pic microcontroller

Question

hi i am new to micro controller / arduino
I am planning to use Arduino and Pic microcontroller for home automation. for light , temperature , gas leak detection,fire detection, i am thinking to do a project ,at the transmitter end sensor senses the data and arduino sends the data to Pic micro controller (recevier), based on data user switched on / off the fan/light and display the temperature, is it possible to do like this ?

Answer 1

Buidling a system like this is certainly possible. The better way to get to a good solution is to define requirements first and then to think about a solution (e.g. which processor to use).

You are not very specific which number of sensors you want to use and where they will be located. If I wanted to implement a system like this, I would ask myself these questions:

• do I want to have a central unit with enough power to run a small web server? If yes, I would choose something like a raspberry pi (and install some kind of linux). If not, I would go for a PIC with the interfaces that fit the rest of the project (anlog, I2C, SPI, ...)

• what sensors will be used, how many and how far away are they? In the easiest case you have a few sensors right near your "central unit" which have an I2C interface or something similar (easy because you don't need to design an analog circuit). If you have a lot of sensors you will have to find a way to transmit the data over that distance. This maybe means that you have to have some kind of secondary controller that "talks" to the sensor nearby and transmits the data to the central unit.

• how fmiliar are you with building hardware: if you don't have a lot of experience and want to work more on the code side of things pre built units like arduino shields are the better option over building stuff yourself.