IoT kits - Share experiences

[Maneesh Godbole]

Recently I came across http://developer.samsung.com/artik and it sounds like a fun thing to play around with it. Coupled with Arduino/RaspberryPi one can literally do anything.
Anyone else into IoT? Please do share your experiences here.

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

Maneesh,
I don't have any experience, but do you think we should make an IoT forum?

[Maneesh Godbole]

A dedicated forum sounds nice Jeanne. I think lot of people would have some cool ideas to share.

[Ron McLeod]

Maneesh Godbole wrote:... Anyone else into IoT? Please do share your experiences here.

I'm just starting a new project with my son - an RFID/NFC keyed access controller for our electric garage door.  The key components are a MFRC522 based RFID receiver, a ESP8266 based microcontroller, and a GPIO driven relay board.

The microcontroller is used in a lot of IoT products, and can be bought for between $2 and $5 USD depending on if you just want the bare module, or you want it mounted on a PCB with the required external components.  It has a programmable Tensilica 32bit ucontroller, a WiFi radio which supports WiFi Direct, an embedded TCP/IP stack, and a number of GPIO lines.  More information on the ESP8266 Community Forum.

For the RFID tags, we will initially use a credit card size which fits in a wallet, and a fob-style to go on a key ring.  Later, I am going to look at how to use the NFC capabilities from Android handsets.

We plan having a client/server architecture, where the decision making to allow/deny opening/closing the door is done on a backend server, based on the tag id and time of day, and have the option of sending out an email or SMS alert each time an attempt is made to open/close the door, or when the door has been left open for too long.

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

Maneesh Godbole wrote:A dedicated forum sounds nice Jeanne. I think lot of people would have some cool ideas to share.

Done.

[Maneesh Godbole]

Jeanne Boyarsky wrote:

Maneesh Godbole wrote:A dedicated forum sounds nice Jeanne. I think lot of people would have some cool ideas to share.

Done.

[Maneesh Godbole]

Ron McLeod wrote:
I'm just starting a new project with my son - an RFID/NFC keyed access controller for our electric garage door.  

For the RFID tags, we will initially use a credit card size which fits in a wallet, and a fob-style to go on a key ring.  Later, I am going to look at how to use the NFC capabilities from Android handsets.

This sounds like a cool project Ron!
Doesn't NFC have distance limitations? As in you need to physically touch the device? Or are you perhaps planning to have a sensor post which will be outside the drivers window where you will touch the device?

[Ron McLeod]

I'm not sure what to expect for the maximum distance between the reader and the tag -- probably somewhere between 1~10cm.  My plan is to have the hardware inside the garage, tight against an outdoor wall which has 1.5cm of drywall and a thin stucco finish, and having to place the tag against the wall to have it register.

If that doesn't work well, I might look at placing only an antenna outdoors, and still leaving the electronics indoors.

[Jan Cumps]

I have a few BleuTooth,  WiFi and wired network related kits.
But the ones I've had the most fun with lately are a pair of Sub-1 GHz radios: cc1310 LaunchPads that TI sent me.

These go 100 meter and more. With an ARM microcontroller on board and a real-time operating system.