I don’t have a lot of time these days to play around with little sensor/micro-controller projects these day, but thought I would start putting together a reference for when I do have the time. One of the projects I did was a curtain controller which closes and opens a curtain on command through a USB cable connected to a spare laptop. I didn’t use a wireless module because at the time I couldn’t find a solution that was cheap enough, but I just saw a few options at Sparkfun that might work. Other possibilities might be to incorporate a few photo(ambient light) sensors and a temperature sensor to provide additional inputs so the curtain can open and close itself, in addition to being able to operate by SSH’ing in to the laptop from a remote location.
Micro-controllers:
- Arduino’s website calls itself “an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software.”
- Crossbow seems to have gone a bit more proprietary since the last time I looked (in 2006).
Fairly affordable components available at:
Other resources for circuits ready to build:
