First, I’d like to apologize if it’s not in the appropriate section or if I missed out an already existing documentation about this, couldn’t find anything to solve my ignorance.
I’ve purchased the Blues Starter Kit for LoRaWAN because I want to prototype some dyi project.
To make it simple, I want to be able to turn on/off lights that are being far from the house (no wifi) and track if the lights are still on/off.
It seemed that lora was the way to go (and I still think so).
I’ve played around a bit with the starter kit and the tutorial, but I can’t figure out how is that suppose to interface with my lights. I’ve noticed in tutorials mentions of MCU but it seems that an interface (arduino?), is somehow necessary.
My questions are the following:
Is it necessary to have an arduino in there to be able to collect data, and to turn on/off?
If yes, on what part is it supposed to be connected, and how?
If you have any documentation/tutorial that explains it, it’d be amazing so I can learn and not just apply your solution
(In general, I am new to this whole amazing world, so if you feel like I should rtfm first, you can tell me which manual )
What type of lights are you using? Once we know that we can probably suggest some next steps for you. But yes, there will likely be some kind of integration between your Notecard LoRa devices and the lights themselves (whether that’s through some kind of host microcontroller or not).
Thanks for your fast reaction
Not sure what details you need, but it’s for outside lights (relatively big), using a 220V and pulling 300W.
Lights are not smart in anyways if that’s what you were really asking. The idea is to prevent installation of physical switch, and to make them smart by myself.
Got it - just wanted to make sure you weren’t wanting to use it with an already “smart” light. In this case you should be able to wire your lights through a relay switch that can be toggled to turn a light on/off. It so happens that some time ago I documenting a scenario somewhat similar in this Hackster project: Remotely Terrorize the Neighborhood Kids on Halloween - Hackster.io
Thanks for the link, very interesting, might keep it in my pocket to set terror in my building next autumn
May I ask you a bit of details to be sure I understood it well, and if my interpretation into my setup is correct?
Your setup
Cellular Notecard <> Relay <> skeleton
API <> Lambda <> NoteHub <> Notecard
When hitting the API, it transmits data to the notecard, that changes the AUX value of the relay, which turns “on” the footpad, aka raises up the skeleton.
Am i right so far?
The relay is connected on the AUX4/AUX3 of the carrier, so when you change value from LOW/HIGH, it basically opens and closes the relay, which mean turns on/off, is that it?
So if I was to translate all this into my LoRa approach, it’d be something like this
)
