Home automation via Zigbee

Can anyone suggest a strategy for setting up a Zigbee home automation network on Raspberry?

Presumably you need

- Zigbee USB dongle to plug into the Raspberry

- Software running on the Raspberry to control the network and offer access via internet

- A remote control

- The Zigbee light switches etc

My google research has turned up nothing that seems to fit this form.

[Gert van Loo]

Or connect a zigbee device to the GPIO. e.g. use the SPI port to talk to a zigbee chip.

If you're going to buy off the shelf ZigBee HA products, you're going to need to understand how the HA automation profile works. In terms of physical setup, I would think that a module communicating by SPI would give a nicer finished package personally.

Hello

I am planning to put together a couple of Microchip PIC based boards in order to control outdoor lights, read PIR sensors, door state (open|closed|locked), temperature and mains supply in a shed/greenhouse.I want a PC-based interface for setting up, direct control and possibly (later) logging of readings from other sensors.

The sensors, relay outputs, etc will be on or directly connected to a board based around one of the 16F or 18F PICs. This will communicate with another board at "Indoor" end via ZigBee modules from Microchip. These are relatively easy to use  - assuming you are familiar with micro-controller programming!

I was looking at basing the "Indoor" end around  a PIC32 running a basic web server (connected via ethernet) which could then be accessed from wherever required.  Then I found out about the Raspberry Pi!

It seems that a lightweight LAMP server will be WELL within it's capabilities and there's an SPI port ! It seems that a driver for the SPI is not yet done, but given the usefulness of SPI on a board like Raspberry Pi, I don't think that will be long being done - I would be willing have a go myself, although I'm far more familiar with micro-controllers  than Linux.

There are Zigbee modules from several manufactures appearing and most seem to use SPI to talk to the processor (largely because it's pretty much standard on micro-controllers).

If anyone else who is thinking along these lines is interested in perhaps kicking about ideas for a set of common protocols (I know there are some already out there) that would allow for all the various functions that are controllable - irrespective of underlying comms i.e. effectively between the application 'layer' and the actual communication 'layer', maybe Raspberry Pi forums could be the place to open up this discussion?

Theres a really good book from O'Reilly called 'building wireless sensor networks', it covers everything you need to know about zigbee/xbee protocols and interfacing micro controllers! plus there are plenty of USB zigbee/xbee USB interfaces out there as well for a quck fix to the Rasberry Pi interface side of things!

http://books.google.co.uk/book.....38;f=false

If you need any help with the Microcontroller / zigbee side of things feel free to PM me, I have created quite a few projects using these (can be expensive though)

Sorry, wrong thread.  Content withdrawn.

Edit by Abishur: You posted this exact same information linking to a commercial product 4 times in rapid succession.  I'd like to think that since they were on topic in the threads you posted them to that you were just trying to be helpful, but 4 times in such rapid succession as your first 4 posts ever comes off as a little spammy.  If that was just an unfortunate accident, I hope you stick around and keep contributing, but I do ask that you refrain from posting links to commercial products until we get to know you a little better

Sorry Abishur. I got carried away spreading the news. Anyway, the topic has also been picked up in another thread (Home Automation with Simplehomenet.com). Indeed, a great way to set up the RPi as a sophisticated and very inexpensive home automation gateway is described here: http://simplehomenet.com/solutions.asp?page_id=HomAidPi

Happy automating..