For this first post, I’ll intoduce the general themes of this blog and a little about myself.

So what sort of things will appear here? In no particular order:

• Hardware, usually microcrontrollers, e.g. AVR, Arm.
• Software, for the above hardware, but also PC based (Windows and Linux).
• Home Automation, hardware and software.
• Other random topics that take my fancy.

The initial items of hardware under discussion will be some small wireless sensor boards from Jeelabs, namely the JeeNode USB and the JeeNode Micro, and their associated radio module, the Hope RF RFM12B.

For radiator control I’ll be using the Honeywell HR20-Style programmable thermostatic radiator valve (TRV) with OpenHR20 firmware, fitting RFM12B boards to the TRV’s to allow wireless communications. I’ll also be creating some room sensors (temperature, humidity and PIR for presence) with some hacked AirWick air fresheners.

Software items covered will initally be the firmware for the JeeNodes, OpenHR20 for the radiator valves and PC based Home Automation monitoring and Control of some flavour

Who am I? I’m a software engineer working on SCADA (Industrial Control Systems) in Aberdeen, UK. I’ve been programming since my earliest experiments with a programmable calculator in the late 1970’s, and now number a variety of languages under my belt.