The goal is to build a networked thermostat that allowed for 2-way communications between the base station and any other networked device, such as laptop or iPhone. The motive is to not only be able to monitor the furnace and air conditioning systems remotely, but to control the units from afar as well.
The brains of the thermostat have changed throughout the project, becoming simpler as time went on. It is now controlled with just an ATMega328 mounted to the back of an LCD display with a Wiznet network module where an Adafruit Ethernet shield used to reside. The thermostat shows the current temperature, set temperature, and time on the front mounted LCD, the latter of which is provided by a Chronodot module. It also has an on board LED that can be seen from afar, indicating whether the heat or air conditioning is running,
Right now the thermostat can be controlled at the unit itself, or remotely using a Telnet session.
COMMENTS