Raspberry Pi 3 based home automation with Node.js and React Native
This looks like a lot of fun! Using a RaspPi is really attractive to me because you can make everything interoperate, and nothing depends on some company's servers.<p>I've done two Pi projects now that I keep meaning to blog about. One was a sprinkler control system. My old system was dying, and not very flexible, so I decided to run everything off a Pi. The tricky part was driving 13 sprinkler lines with 24V AC current. I bought a 16-relay board and eventually got it wired up. For someone with little electronics experience, there was a lot to learn. [1] is an attempt before I realized I had to use the relays. Eventually I got it working and used it all summer. With cron, I can schedule things however I want!<p>The second is a security camera for a vacation rental home, and is not quite done yet. The hardware side was not challenging at all, but I still need to work out how to copy the images up to S3 or a Linode. I'm using MotionEyeOS and it doesn't seem to know how to do that itself. One of the big reasons I went with a Pi is I didn't want to pay or rely on someone else's servers. Also I wanted to avoid the security problems that have been in the news lately. I don't want inbound traffic to my LAN; I'd rather push the video somewhere else.<p>It took me a long time to figure out worthwhile uses for a Pi. A friend of mine loves using these things for media servers and CI servers and whatnot, but to me it's only satisfying if it's something where you actually <i>need</i> the miniature scale. Also a Pi really hits the sweet spot for me in terms of hardware-vs-software. I'm sure I could have done the first project with an Arduino, but using ssh, cron, and python was really nice.<p>[1] <a href="http://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/50435/driving-24vac-sprinkler-solenoids-through-uln2003a" rel="nofollow">http://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/50435/driving...</a>