Introduction
Scott Penrose
Andy has encouraged me to use Aiko Gateway as part of my house upgrade and for my new property on French Island.
But I am having a little trouble with boot strapping. The web site has a heap of information on parts to buy, how to install, pictures from installation days, instructions on building, how to program etc... but seems to me (currently an outsider, but not for long) nothing on what it is... From an insiders perspective I am sure you see it as obvious, but I am afraid I am lost.
My gut feeling, and review of some of the code etc, suggests that it is (over simplified here) a place to put some code to do some tricky stuff. I.e. you build a device such as a motion sensor, and it appears on the mesh. Then you want somewhere that says, if motion, turn on lights (a different device on the mesh) for 15 minutes - then that code could fit nicely into the gateway. Plus of course a place to have a nice touch screen, output LCD etc.
Am I close?
The other big question I have is on sourcing a WAP. I can't find any of that model available in Australia, and the US shipping is a bit steep - is there alternative models? Or a good source in Australia ? Most of the other components I already have, except for the touch screen and ZigBee modules.
Thanks, and please forgive my ignorance.
Scott
--
http://scott.dd.com.au/
sco...@dd.com.au
Luke Weston
the Broadcom system-on-a-chip wireless router processors, are quite
compact, low cost, moving-parts-free, noise-free, very low power
embedded computers, capable of running the OpenWRT Linux distribution
developed for these devices.
The aiko-gateway is basically a software technology that runs on top
of OpenWRT on these devices.
Since these embedded router boards have an accessible serial port, we
can easily plug in a ZigBee radio, or an Arduino and/or Zigbee, and
stick it inside the case.
Therefore, we can simply have any other devices that we like connected
to each other and connected back to the gateway via the Zigbee
wireless personal area network, and connected through the gateway
router to the LAN and through the LAN to the internet.
Therefore, we can take ZigBee-connected arduinos (aiko-nodes),
including the one that is inside the gateway and any external ones on
the Zigbee mesh, and basically connect them to the LAN, connect them
to the Internet, and connect them to basically whatever we like
(computers on the LAN, other nodes on the wireless PAN, other aiko
gateways on the LAN, or web services, say). That way, we can get input
(temperature, light level, button presses, touchscreen gestures, node
uptime, mains power consumption measurement) from the nodes and send
them to whatever and wherever we like, and we can send outputs (to be
displayed on the lcd, displayed on the big led sign, or to turn a
relay on or off, say) from any device anywhere else out to the aiko
node(s). I believe Sam has one controlling the temperature of his hot
water service via the web service.
The aiko gateway doesn't *have* to have a touchscreen and a LCD; you
can just hook up an xBee if you only want to use wireless nodes.
Well, that's a start at explaining what it does.