Arduino Sensor Plugin

The Arduino sensor plugin allows you to build your own cheap wireless sensors [for less than $10]. The sensors is using Nordic Semiconductors transceiver nRF24L01. The Arduino Vera plugin automatically creates the sensor devices it finds on the radio network. Creating your own sensors should be pretty simple using the supplied Arduino library and example sensor sketches.

Arduino is an open source hardware prototype board that have lots of both digital and analog IO pins. There are an enormous amount of different cheap sensors that is compatible with the Arduino hardware.

Link Arduino page: ​http://arduino.cc
Relevant forum thread: ​http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,16170.msg123378.html

Architecture

Author

Henrik Ekblad - henrik.ekblad at gmail.com (hek on forum)

All the components developed and compiled here are Open Source. The Vera plugin was inspired by the excellent rfxtrx plugin. I've also written a Arduino library handling all communication between Arduino sensors and ArduinoGateway. This library allows larger messages than the normal 32 byte limit of the nRF24L01 radio chip. This was an important part of the plugin as this allows the sensors to present them self with full device-file and service id specifications.

Note that the plugin, arduino library and sensor code is still in early beta stage!

Installing the Vera plugin

The latest version of the Vera plugin can be found here:

http://code.mios.com/trac/mios_arduino-sensor/browser/trunk/Vera

1. Download all files and upload them in Vera under APPS->Develop Apps->Luup files.
2. To create the new device to to APPS->Develop Apps->Luup and enter "D_Arduino1.xml" in "Upnp Device Filename" and press "Create Device"
3. After the usual reload/refresh ritual the Arduino root device should pop up.
4. If you have your Arduino board plugged into Vera you should now configure which serial device to use. See image to the right.

Arduino Sketches

A sketch is a small program that you download to the Arduino boards. To get started download Arduino SDK here: ​http://arduino.cc/en/Main/Software

Also make sure to install all Arduino libraries I've created and collected here before trying to build the sensor sketches below. http://code.mios.com/trac/mios_arduino-sensor/browser/trunk/Arduino/libraries

Follow the description below on how to assemble hardware and configure each type of sensor. I've also tried to link all the hardware necessary to build each sensor [from aliexpress.com].

Arduino Gateway

Acts as a link between Vera and your wireless sensors. This sketch should be downloaded to an Arduino Nano which then is connected to your Vera using a usb cable. It is important to use a Nano board for the ArduinoGateway as it contains a serial usb chipset recognized directly by Vera.

Dallas Temperature Sensor

This is an example sensor sketch that sends in temperature information and presents it as temperature devices in Vera.

Motion Sensor

This is an example sensor sketch that triggers a sensor device in Vera when a motion sensor is triggered.

Soil Moisture Sensor

This is an example sensor sketch that triggers a sensor device in Vera when a soil moisture goes down.