I'm just about to pay for this.  Should get me started!

Got any project plans?

Well not yet.  I want to do a bunch of home automation stuff, like lights, enviro controls, security system, some type of keyless entry (either NFC, RFID, or something), etc.  So I am looking for something that can handle that or at least work with other products to do it.

I have a friend who is also interested in this stuff and he's agreed to buy all the hardware if I learn how to get it all working.  Sounds like a good deal to me!  But he's not buying this stuff, I just wanted to get started.

Using PiHAT off the RPi forums I can now control my RF remote sockets from my RPi. Strapped some PHP to it and I can turn off the sockets over the net.

I also bought 18 broken Canon compact cameras to play with. Currently got one hooked up to an RPi running off a 12V 12Ah SLA battery to see how long it lasts taking a photo every minute or so.

Why 18 cameras? Was it a job lot?

Yep, job lot of broken cameras. About 5 worked out of the box and I think at least another 5 can be mixed and matched to work.

Good stuff - gives you a fair few options for fiddling. Have you got a multi camera master plan?

"The graphitone beard monitor project"

Are you blogging any of this? I'd like to see what it is you're doing.

I want to somehow set mine up to /push/ audio and video to my tv from a laptop or phone.

I picked a couple of these up for a customer of mine and they work great, my laptop has WiDi so it talks right to it.  That's what I want my Pi to do!

(nod)

Wait... will I have to walk around with a camera strapped to my chin?

Nope. Not blogging any of it. I now have 4 Pis. 2 x Model B Rev1, 1 x Model B Rev 2 and 1 x Model A.

The two Rev 1s are the ones being used here http://www.antthomas.co.uk/webcam/

Model A is the one plugged into the battery. The other Model B will probably be for general tinkering.

I want to use the Model A and the battery as some sort of outdoor webcam system with either WiFi for open hotspots or with a 3G USB Dongle (problem with this might be data transfer).

Well you should! I just saw someone using 6 AA's to power it. Check the Pi thing on G+ if that interests you.

I used 4 AAs to power it a bit back!

Well there you go!

I have gathered together my current Home Automation stuff into a basic web page to control a few things. Basically an online remote.

Very basic at the moment and not very pretty.


1-4 and All are a replication of the remote for my RF Remote Sockets. Currently only got anything attached to button 1. In theory using PiHAT you could have about 1,000,000 different remote sockets. When I own my own place I'll definitely be making the most of this in some way for lighting systems.

Motion Photo is linked to a motion detector. The detector is always detecting but when I turn Motion Photo On whenever any motion is detected the RPi turns on a camera, takes 5 photos, uploads them to my file server and puts the details in a MySQL database.

Take Photo does similar but just takes a single photo on demand, uploads it and sticks the details in a separate db.

Next step is to add my home stats page stuff to it. Temp sensors and motion detector on the RPi, router sync speed and the two RPi cameras I have setup.



The point of this? Not sure!

Why does there need to be a point?! It's fun, that's all that matters!
My pi is ordered, but there's no way I've got the coding skills to do anything like that, although will be tempted to connect up my old xbox vision camera and do something.

Apart from my basic web design skills and the basic linux knowledge I've had for a bit now I've picked it all up as I've gone along. Reading plenty of guides and forums posts and pinching the relevant useful bits.

Didn't have a clue about all the GPIO stuff until a few months ago.

I was looking for a reasonable way to mount a cased Pi on the back of my TV (as well as an Android TV stick). I didn't want to buy anything. I initially made some boxes from some spare card and some strong tape, rubbish idea, only lasted a few days. Then I had this idea...



Seems to be working far better than I expected and really quite secure. Just be careful that your TV doesn't overheat!

What's the case? Looks nice and cheap and simple.
Also, could the Pi possibly be powered by the USB socket on the TV? Combined with a wireless USB stick, you could then be almost completely wireless.

EDIT: Apparently so!
http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=9322

It is one of these - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/370686190285?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649

If my TV had a USB socket it would be plugged into it!

This WiFi adapter works well with my Model A - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/310574944823?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649