Designer perspective

Device Specifications

A Raspberry Pi connected to the internet

and running a simple webpage server. The
webpage will show the door camera
Home-Automation Hub
stream, the light on/off in various rooms and
the moisture level of the soil in the plant
pot.

Connect the door bell to the Raspberry Pi

GPIO pin to know when the doorbell has
Door bell camera been pressed. Use a Raspberry Pi camera
module to capture/stream images from the
door.

Use LDR to sense if the lights are on or off

in the rooms. Use servo motors to turn
Room light sensor
lights on or off. All will be controlled by a
Raspberry Pi.

A moisture sensor will be used to sense if

the soil needs watering. A peristaltic pump
Plant irrigation system
will be used to add water to the soil if
needed.

System Design Document

Home-automation Hub

Option 1 Raspberry Pi
Option 2 Arduino with Wifi Shield

Option 3 Particle Argon Chip

Each one of these options all have the option of Wifi connectivity. However, it was decided
to go with the Raspberry Pi in the end. This was due to the following considerations:
Upgradability, Cost, Security, Familiarity. Upgradability wise, the Pi has the most amount
of upgradability due to the fact that it is running on an OS thus many different Python
libraries can be used. This makes upgrading much easier than the other 2 which do not
have Python libraries available for use. Cost wise, the Raspberry Pi costs the most at
about $50. As for security, both the Arduino and the Pi would allow me to write my own
security encryptions but the Argon requires me to use their 3rd party IoT cloud. Lastly,
familiarity. Both Arduino and Argon use a variant of C which I am not very familiar with. I
am most familiar with the Python language. In conclusion, it would be best to use the Pi.

Door Bell Camera

Option 1 Raspberry Pi camera module

Option 2 Webcam USB camera

Both of these options allow for camera capabilities on the Raspberry Pi. They are also
priced similarly. The Raspberry Pi camera module connects directly to the GPU, and is
capable of 1080p30 video encode, 5MP stills in pretty decent quality. Because its attached
to the GPU, there is only a little impact on the CPU, leaving it available for other
processing. Webcams (unless they have built in encoding - expensive) are unlikely to get
the same performance, and they also use a lot more CPU. Thus it would make more
sense to go with the camera module.

Room Light Sensor

Option 1 LDR

Option 2 Voltage sensor to the mains

2 Options to sense if the lights in the room are off. The first is to use a simple LDR to
sense the light level. The other is to use a voltage sensor connected to the mains. Using a
voltage sensor directly connected to the mains is definitely dangerous. Thus it would be
better to go with the LDR option.

Plant irrigation system

Option 1 Peristaltic Pump

Option 2 Submerged Pump

Both options allow you to transfer water from point A to point B. They both also run on 12V
so no difference as they both require a step-up converter to run. Thus, it comes down to
the difference in price. The peristaltic pump costs about $12 while the submerged costs
about $3. The price difference is large. Thus it would be better to go for the submerged
pump.