Sensors & IoT Stuff: Home Automation with NodeRed, RF24Ethernet/RF24Gateway & MQTT
Control a homemade, Arduino-based RGB light, other devices or display data using NodeRed
I made a video demonstrating how to configure NodeRed with RF24Ethernet/RF24Gateway to control a homemade, Arduino-based RGB light. The process is fairly straightforward, with the Arduino node subscribing to the MQTT server, and the NodeRed device publishing some RGB values. The same system can be used to send or receive data from a wide range of devices, thus enabling an nrf24l01 based home automation/IoT and/or monitoring system.
The video assumes users are already somewhat familiar with the RF24 communication stack, having the radios installed and ready to go. The sketch used in the video is very closely based on the existing RF24Ethernet MQTT examples, with some extra code to control some NeoPixel based lighting.
With this setup, users can add simple input/output toggles, sliders and charts to manage devices and display incoming sensor data. It is just a matter of configuring the Arduino devices to handle the input/output messages to and from MQTT. NodeRed can also log incoming MQTT data to a database, to store and display historical data.
This system has the benefit of requiring no apps, so everything can be controlled from a mobile device or PC etc. with some simple button clicks. Everything used is also completely open-source and free, so setup costs are minimal, and there is a host of information available for Arduino and Raspberry Pi.
