Bootstrapping: Components

General Discussion
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Hey all!

There are a number of great threads, here and in other forums, discussing various ideas for sensors and controls. Some of us are lucky enough to have the Arduino shield available to us, and that is certainly a big help to those of us looking to “make” stuff.

However, thinking a bit bigger for a moment - I think many of us are full of more ideas than the Arduino shield can be used for at one time. I know myself I am controlling my home and my Dojo with Smartthings - and some of my prototypes need to remain in service, not get killed off when I need the sheidl.

So here is the big money question…

At this moment in time, if I wanted to build a Arduino based unit that interfaced with the Smartthings hub as a sensor - what off the shelf components woudl be workable “right now”. Zigbee? Zwave? I figure since the Smartthings hub can talk to existing devices, it makes sense to build to one of those standards with whatever those guys are using NOW, then move on to a more Smartthings specific methodology when the parts are actually available in decent quantities.

Thoughts?

Ken

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I’ve been planning on using the shield as a hub that communicates with other arduinos via serial link until I can get more, but I don’t need my various gizmos far apart from each other.

3

Did you have anything in particular in mind?

4
Did you have anything in particular in mind?
At the moment I would be happy to just be able to have an Arduino that can send signals to the system as either a simple binary (on / off, open / closed) or a range (0-100 works).

I have a number of sensor / control surface ideas that can be condensed into those two basic requirements.

For this discussion, let’s imagine I wanted to reproduce a open / closed sensor (like the multi, but without motion / temp) using an Arduino… what do I need to add to it, that is currently available, to do that?

Ken