Bluetooth House

[ferni69]

I'm a college student over at Northeastern University. We are doing a project based on bluetooth and how to integrated in the house. Would this be a good idea or no? A smart hpouse integrated with bluetooth...

[ksjenkins]

It depends on how large a house you want to set-up. Lets review the technology!

Bluetooth Range: 10m
WiFi Range: 100m
Data Rates are basically the same.
Power consumption: WiFi about 3x more than Bluetooth.

Nodes required to cover an average home (1600sq/ft):
Bluetooth: 4 depending on floorplan.
WiFi: 1 or 2.

WiFi would probably be more cost effective for equipment required. Bluetooth needs more equipment but also is more efficient on battery life of mobile devices.

my 2 cents

[GANZ]

I have kind of a big house (3 floors, 6 bedrooms) and I get total coverage including my screen porch and backyard with one centrally located WiFi access point. You definitely are not going to get that kind of coverage with Bluetooth.

IMHO bluetooth is great at what it does best: low power consumption, mobile applications like connecting a cell and your pda, but for stationary structures ie. houses, WiFi gets the best range and is the most cost effective.

JM$.02

[MrClieNR]

If you have a Mac you can use a T68i as a mouse and software controller via Bluetooth. There are two apps I am aware of that enable this. The one I use is called Romeo (it's freeware) and the other one is called Sony Ericsson Clicker. Among the functions are the ability to control software (like Powerpoint and Apple's Keynote), raise or lower volume, control the DVD player or iTunes, and execute Applescript. There is a library of plugins for Romeo that permit it to add functions, like controlling Safari (Apple's internet browser) or EyeTV (a PVR). The functions appear on your cellphone as dialogs or menus.

What is really cool about Romeo is that it can perform actions when you come into or leave the Bluetooth range. For example, when I enter the room, my computers screensaver automatically goes off. When I leave, the screensaver is automatically activated. Sony Ericsson Clicker is supposed to have an enhanced proximity sensor.

I had read in a forum somewhere that someone was using one of these programs with their Mac to control X11 devices (lamps, home appliances,...) through the cellphone.

Here are links for the homepages to both programs- It may give you ideas for your project:

For Romeo: http://irowan.com/arboreal/
For Sony Ericsson Clicker: http://homepage.mac.com/jonassalling/Shareware/Clicker/index.html

[scobb]

Well, a few corrections. WiFi is significantly faster than BT, but for an un-wired house control system, BT is certainly fast enough.

As far as distance goes, BT also has a 30m mode and if you want to stretch it, can go quite far. With special uni-directional antennae, I've gone as far as 1 mile between two BT devices using the LAN access profile.

Further, BT devices are in general much more suited for small control systems. WiFi is simply a Lan replacement, and expects to be connected to a computer with full TCP/IP stack and many resources. There are numerous 1 or two chip BT solutions that are complete with ARM processors, RAM, FLASH and GPIO's. This lends itself to real world solutions for controlling defices that can fit on a board not much bigger than your thumb. Just look at all the BT headsets out there and note the size.

Regarding battery life, your number of 3X more consumption for WiFi, are probably reasonable if you are "on" all of the time and transmitting. In a control application, this is where BT shines again. There are all sorts of schemes built in to BT to significantly reduce radio output when devices are "connected" but not sending data. Also, paired devices can re-connect extremely quickly (sub-second). While waiting for that connection, the two devices consume _very_ little power. WiFi (again) acts like an ethernet cable, and once connected expects data at any time and thus does not shut down the radio quickly. Also connection/reconnection times are usually on the order of 15 seconds or so.

Thus, if you want a simple contol or monitoring system that consumes little energy and is small, BT is the way to go. If you want a real network, and are going to connect "real" computers together - no question - WiFi is the way to go.

Re-reading the original request, I suspect that you should probably use WiFi. If it is just a student project, you are presumably going to be programming PC's and doing things like refigerators with displays. Correct? I don't think you want to invest the time to get into embedded programming - necessary for small BT devices. Further, you probably aren't making a real product, so battery life is not an issue.

ferni69, what exactly are you tring to connect? What do you want to do with the connection?

Cheers,
Steve

[ferni69]

What were trying to do is someone will call from a cell phone their comp. at theri home and control everything through bluetooth, would this be of interest. In other words a smart house but with bluetooth?

[scobb]

Ok, that is what I originally thought, but wasn't sure. So you want an X10 type of system without wires - control some lights, check or set the thermometer ....

So yes, BT is your best bet and perfectly reasonable platform. The next problem is finding a BT hardware platform for which you can develop on that has some GPIOs to use for actually controlling (or reading) a physical device.

What sort of level is this project? Philips, Widcomm and others have hardware development platforms that could be useful for this, but they are pretty expensive. Also, it is really an embedded development project. If that is what you are looking for, this could be a good project. If you are expecting to do Visuall C++ PC level programming, it is not going fit very well.

Further, I would expect that you are going to need both EE and CE people envolved to make this happen. Again this is a great idea as a means to teach embedded programming. On the other hand, the wireless part of it can make it a real pain in the ***. When things are working well, you can make good progress. If you have connection or radio problems, it can get frustrating. Also, if there are lower level BT problems, you may want to have a BT protocol analyser - which isn't cheap. If you are looking for an undergrad (even senior level) project for yourself, I think this is going to be a much bigger project than you want to get into. If however, a faculty member is looking to set up a long term project, and/or as a platform for an advanced embedded programming class, this could be a reasonable project.

Tell me more...

[MrClieNR]

This has mostly been done already. In addition to the information of my previous post regarding the use of a T68i to control a Mac, take a look at this:

http://www.findleystudios.com/images/homerun_soybo.jpg




  

  


  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  


 


http://www.findleystudios.com/homerun/index.html

As with many X10 apps, you can control it via the internet as in the above pic.

It also has a plugin for Sony Ericsson Clicker so that you can control the software via your Bluetooth cellphone.

What it comes down to is that there is software available, for Macs at least, that lets you control virtually anything you can hook up to your computer via a Bluetooth phone or through the internet. All you need to control home appliances, lights, or heating in addition to the phone and the computer is an X11 controller and at least one X-10 module. With the proximity sensor enabled you can have lights turn on, have the heating adjust automatically, and have your computer read your new e-mail messages when you get home just because your cell phone has come into the range of the computer.

Here is an article from Wired that describes how this works in greater detail, including the use of the X10 module.

 

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,57941,00.html

[scobb]

Yes, that X-10 stuff is very nice. And Apple has done a great job with their BT implementation.

It is kind of funny - in the BT world, Apple was conspicuously absent from any of the unplugged fests, and was thought to be not interested in BT. Heck, they had already embraced WiFi in a big way. Then out of nowhere, they demonstrate a _very_ well done BT package and support in all of the new systems. Go figure.

However, back to the original question. Note that ferni69 does not want a complete working solution :) He wants a project to do that demonstrates BT. It sounds like he wants the X-10 part to be done with BT as opposed to X-10. My recollection was that X-10 uses the house AC lines as the "network" for broadcasting commands to devices. Is this correct. This indeed works just fine for things that you want to control that are AC powered (most things). I suspect that there are some devices for which that would not work - can't think of any off hand.

So the question goes back to ferni69, what is the scope of the project that you want to put together?

[rob_squared]

Originally posted by ferni69
I'm a college student over at Northeastern University. We are doing a project based on bluetooth and how to integrated in the house. Would this be a good idea or no? A smart hpouse integrated with bluetooth...

I go to NU too, where are you located on campus?

[GenoG]

Originally posted by MrClieNR
This has mostly been done already. In addition to the information of my previous post regarding the use of a T68i to control a Mac, take a look at this:

http://www.findleystudios.com/images/homerun_soybo.jpg




  

  


  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  


 


http://www.findleystudios.com/homerun/index.html

As with many X10 apps, you can control it via the internet as in the above pic.

It also has a plugin for Sony Ericsson Clicker so that you can control the software via your Bluetooth cellphone.

What it comes down to is that there is software available, for Macs at least, that lets you control virtually anything you can hook up to your computer via a Bluetooth phone or through the internet. All you need to control home appliances, lights, or heating in addition to the phone and the computer is an X11 controller and at least one X-10 module. With the proximity sensor enabled you can have lights turn on, have the heating adjust automatically, and have your computer read your new e-mail messages when you get home just because your cell phone has come into the range of the computer.

Here is an article from Wired that describes how this works in greater detail, including the use of the X10 module.

 

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,57941,00.html

Wow, that is awesome!

[ferni69]

I'm in West Campus, senior

[rob_squared]

Ahh. I commute, sophmore.

[GenoG]

i now love macs, and want to get a powerbook for my next laptop. But in the meantime, is there anything like HomeRun for the PC?!?

[MrClieNR]

Hey Geno, saw you post in Spymac. LOL

[MrClieNR]

There's a program listed on the Wired article called PC Control. It's not clear how easy it is to setup X10 control if it is even possible. Anyway, here's a direct link to its homepage:

http://www.christersson.org/software_pccontrol.asp

[GenoG]

thanks again mrclie ;) i was not stealing your post :(

[MrClieNR]

Hey Geno, no worries. I'm not territorial about my posts. I'm glad it was of interest.

[GenoG]

yeah it really was, But I don't like the pc software you mentioned, I would much rather buy a powerbook! By the way, do you check your Private messages?

[ferni69]

Would this be of something of interest for you people in the cliesource world or not. Do you think this is a feasible project. Would you do it different? How about emerging technology that could hurt us. Opinions would be gretaly apreciated

[rogerh]

a windows application for using the t68i as a mobile mouse and remotecontrol
by bluetooth is available at http://home.no.net/cypearl