Dario Greggio wrote:
> Timothy Weber wrote:
>> I've got a small network of ZigBee nodes at home that talk to each other 
>> - Run as a Windows service, so if the power goes out, when it comes back 
>>
>> - Use a central server app to talk to the virtual COM port, so the PC's 
>>
>> - Add a TCP/IP gateway, so other machines on the LAN (and possibly the 
>>
>> - Add a simple HTTP wrapper, so nodes' status, sensor values, and 
> 
> Hi Timothy, I did something similar (I've been talking about it at 
> forum.microchip some times).
> 
> I have 485-based 16F628-based nodes, and recently some Nordic 2.4GHz 
> nodes as well. There is a "router" made with USB interface (HID) that 
> talks to all of the devices (though nodes on the same medium have the 
> ability to do peer-2-peer). PC acts as a supervisor, with a C++ software 
> (not a service, by now, since it is also a User-Interface).
> I have TCP and HTTP "gateway", on the PC. I also developed a 
> Ethernet-based version of the same "router", still to be engineered.
> 
> This powers my home at
> http://adpm.homeip.net

Yes, I'd seen it before - looks very nice!

This at least illustrates my point - which I think is that anyone 
dabbling with home automation, and perhaps even serious industrial 
automation developers, eventually needs/wants some kind of 
infrastructure like this.

And I'm thinking that having something generic and portable, with some 
of the project-specific idiosyncrasies yours and mine undoubtedly have 
smoothed off, might be useful even for small one- or two-node projects 
that need convenient access to node data from a workstation.

Did you find any other options out there worth considering before 
rolling your own?

(I've generally discounted X10 and similar as too proprietary and 
expensive to invest in, especially for someone capable of working with 
PICs.)

> of course the "internet part" is less interesting than the real 
> experience ! :)

That's what we hope!  ;)
-- 
Timothy J. Weber
http://timothyweber.org
-- 
http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist