What’s in This Book

After a basic introduction to home automation and the tools of the trade, this book will teach you how to construct and program eight unique projects that improve home utility and leisure-time efficiencies. Each project incorporates a variety of inexpensive sensors, actuators, and microcontrollers that have their own unique functions. You will assemble the hardware and codify the software that will perform a number of functions, such as turning on and off power switches from your phone, detecting package deliveries and transmitting emails announcing their arrival, posting tweets on Twitter when your bird feeder needs to be refilled, and opening and closing curtains depending on light and temperature, and more.

Because the recommended skill set for building these solutions includes some familiarity with programming, this book builds upon several previously published Pragmatic Bookshelf titles. If you would like to learn more about programming Arduinos or writing Ruby or Python scripts, I strongly recommend checking out the books listed in Appendix 2, ​Bibliography​.

Each project begins with a general introduction and is followed by a What You Need section that lists the hardware parts used. This is followed by a section called Building the Solution that provides step-by-step instructions on assembling the hardware. Programming Your Home will call upon the Arduino extensively for most (but not all) of the projects. Once the hardware is constructed, it can be programmed to perform the automation task we built it to do. Programs can range from code for Arduino microcontrollers to scripts that execute on a computer designed to control, capture, and process the data from the assembled hardware elements.

The book concludes with a chapter on future projections in home automation and a chapter filled with idea starters that reuse the hardware and software approaches demonstrated in the eight projects.