raspberry pi | Sony Arouje

Posts Tagged ‘raspberry pi’

Farm Automation system based on Arduino and Raspberrypi

Last two weeks, in my free time, I was working on a system to automate Green house or an open field. The system designed using Arduino Nano and Raspberry Pi. The Arduino is used to read sensors and control devices and the Raspberry pi is the brain that decides what to do when an event detected by Arduino. All the systems communicates wirelessly via XBee.

In normal scenario in a farm we have to

Switch on the drip irrigation pump when the soil humidity is low.
Switch off when the soil is wet.
Switch on the Main motor that connects to a water source when the reservoir level goes down.
Switch off the main motor when the reservoir is full.
If it’s a Green house then monitor the humidity and control devices to increase or decrease the humidity. Also need to control temperature.

Below is a very ugly drawing I could come up : ), to explain the system.

Arduino based nodes

The nodes are connected to different Sensors like Soil Humidity, Temperature, Air Humidity, etc. Also the nodes can also switch on/Off drip irrigation motor, switch on/off Reservoir’s Solenoid valves, or control any hardware needed in the field.

Raspberry pi Brain

I developed this central/brain system in Nodejs. The system is very much generic and run based on configurations. So nothing is hardcoded. The XBee connected to the pi act as the coordinator and receive periodic sensor inputs from Ardunio connected in the field. This system can issue command to control devices based on the sensor inputs.

Let’s go through some of the scenarios to see how the system works.

Watering the plants: From the above picture you can see, there are 5 Arduino’s in the field sensing different parameters. For now lets think that they all reads the soil humidity. Say soil humidity value range from 0 to 100, where 0 is dry and 100 is fully wet. We need to switch on the drip irrigation motor when any of the sensor value is less than 20. Once all the sensor give a humidity value greater than 90 we need to switch off the motor.

As you can see the system need to take action based on the values coming from the sensor. Depending upon the crops these values can be changed. That’s where the Central Node js system comes into play.

In the central system, we can group the Sensor nodes and configure the triggering points. Also we can configure what to do when the triggering points reach. For e.g. in the above case we can say when the soil humidity of any sensor goes below 20, then send the Motor switch on command to the node sitting next to the Reservoir motor. To switch off the motor, the system needs approval from all the sensors, that means the motor will get switched off if all the nodes reported value is greater than 90.

Failover: What happens when a sensor node dies without sending soil humidity greater than 90 value, will the motor run whole day? No, the central system can be configured for that too, while configuring we can set up a timeout period. If the central system is not receiving high water level after a configured time, it automatically sends a Switch off command to the desired Arduino node to switch off the motor.

Filling Reservoir: From the above diagram, we can see there are two reservoirs and one Main motor. The main motor need to switch on to fill the Reservoir. Each reservoir is equipped with sensors to detect the High and Low water level. Also each water input is equipped with a solenoid valve. If the reservoir is high then the solenoid valve will close the input thus protect the reservoir from overflowing. Once all the reservoir get filled the system will switch off the Main motor before closing the last solenoid, other wise the pressure increase and can damage the Main motor.

The Arduino node will send a Water low when the water go down below a desired level. Then the central system will open the Solenoid before switching on the Main motor. The valve will open only for the reservoir where the water is low, rest all the valves will be closed.

If more than one Reservoir’s water is low then those valves will be open and the main pump will work until all the reservoir’s are filled. For e.g. say Reservoir A and B’s water level is low then both the valves will be open and switch on the main pump. A get filled and B is still not full then A’s valve will get closed. Once B is full the system will send Main pump switch off command then sends the command to close B’s valve.

System design

All the above scenarios are based on certain rules and all these rules are configurable. The central system is not aware of any rules. Based on the fields condition we need to configure it.

User can also see the activities in the farm via a dashboard. I haven’t designed any Dashboard UI yet.

Happy farming…

Written by Sony Arouje

February 17, 2016 at 6:16 pm

Posted in Arduino, Raspberry Pi

Tagged with Arduino, Farm Automation, raspberry pi, XBee

Communication between Raspberry Pi and Arduino using XBee

with 18 comments

Recently I was doing some experiments to establish a wireless communication between a Raspberry pi and Arduino. To establish wireless communication I used XBee Pro Series 2 from Digi International. The idea behind this test setup is to test, whether I can control devices like motor or read different sensors remotely.

One of the biggest advantage of using XBee is, you can find a lot of tutorials and libraries for any kind of system and programming languages. For this test app, I used Node js in RPi and C in Arduino.

Test Setup

XBee: I configured two xbee, one as Coordinator and another as Router. Both in API mode 2 (AP =2). I used XCTU to configure both the device. Only reason to choose API 2 is because the Arduino library I used only support API mode 2.

Raspberry pi: connected Coordinator XBee to one of my RPi. You can see more about the connection in one of my earlier post.

Arduino Uno: connected the Router xbee to one of my Arduino. The connection is pretty simple as below.

XBee Rx –> Arduino Tx
XBee Tx -> Arduino Rx
XBee 3.3v-> Arduino 3.3v
XBee Gnd –>Arduino Gnd

Raspberry Pi Node js code

Modules used

xbee-api: npm install xbee-api
serialport: npm install serialport

var util = require('util');
var SerialPort = require('serialport').SerialPort;
var xbee_api = require('xbee-api');

var C = xbee_api.constants;

var xbeeAPI = new xbee_api.XBeeAPI({
    api_mode: 2
});

var serialport = new SerialPort("/dev/ttyAMA0", {
    baudrate: 9600,
    parser: xbeeAPI.rawParser()
});

var frame_obj = {
    type: 0x10,
    id: 0x01,
    destination64: "0013A200407A25AB",
    broadcastRadius: 0x00,
    options: 0x00,
    data: "MTON"
 };

serialport.on("open", function () {
    serialport.write(xbeeAPI.buildFrame(frame_obj));
    console.log('Sent to serial port.');
});

// All frames parsed by the XBee will be emitted here
xbeeAPI.on("frame_object", function (frame) {
    console.log(">>", frame);

    if(frame.data!== undefined)
       console.log(frame.data.toString('utf8'));
});

Arduino Sketch

This sketch uses a XBee library, to add the library, goto Sketch->Include Library->Manage Libraries. From the window search for XBee and install the library. I am using Arduino IDE 1.6.7.

I use SoftwareSerial to establish serial communication with XBee, Pin 2 is Arduino Rx and Pin 3 is Arduino Tx.

#include <Printers.h>
#include <XBee.h>
#include <SoftwareSerial.h>


unsigned long previousMillis = 0;
const long interval = 4000;
// the interval in mS 
XBee xbee = XBee();
// XBee's DOUT (TX) is connected to pin 2 (Arduino's Software RX)
// XBee's DIN (RX) is connected to pin 3 (Arduino's Software TX)
SoftwareSerial soft(2,3);// RX, TX
Rx16Response rx16 = Rx16Response();
ZBRxResponse rx = ZBRxResponse();

XBeeAddress64 addr64 = XBeeAddress64(0x0013a200,0x407a25b5);

char Buffer[128];
char RecBuffer[200];
void setup() {
  // put your setup code here, to run once:
  soft.begin(9600);
  Serial.begin(9600);
  xbee.setSerial(soft);
}
void print8Bits(byte c){
  uint8_t nibble = (c >> 4);
  if (nibble <= 9)
    Serial.write(nibble + 0x30);
  else
    Serial.write(nibble + 0x37);

  nibble = (uint8_t) (c & 0x0F);
  if (nibble <= 9)
    Serial.write(nibble + 0x30);
  else
    Serial.write(nibble + 0x37);
}

void print32Bits(uint32_t dw){
  print16Bits(dw >> 16);
  print16Bits(dw & 0xFFFF);
}

void print16Bits(uint16_t w){
  print8Bits(w >> 8);
  print8Bits(w & 0x00FF);
}

void loop() {
  // put your main code here, to run repeatedly:
  
  xbee.readPacket();
  if (xbee.getResponse().isAvailable()) {
    if (xbee.getResponse().getApiId() == ZB_RX_RESPONSE) {
       xbee.getResponse().getZBRxResponse(rx);
       if (rx.getOption() == ZB_PACKET_ACKNOWLEDGED) {
            // the sender got an ACK
            Serial.println("got ACK");
        } else {
            // we got it (obviously) but sender didn't get an ACK
            Serial.println("not got ACK");
        }

        Serial.print("Got an rx packet from: ");
        XBeeAddress64 senderLongAddress = rx.getRemoteAddress64();
        print32Bits(senderLongAddress.getMsb());
        Serial.print(" ");
        print32Bits(senderLongAddress.getLsb());        
        Serial.println(' ');
        
        // this is the actual data you sent
        Serial.println("Received Data: ");
        for (int i = 0; i < rx.getDataLength(); i++) {
          print8Bits(rx.getData()[i]);
          Serial.print(' ');
        }
        
        //Received data as string to serial
        Serial.println(' ');
        Serial.println("In string format");
       for (int i = 0; i < rx.getDataLength(); i++) {
          if (iscntrl(rx.getData()[i]))
            RecBuffer[i] =' ';
          else
            RecBuffer[i]=rx.getData()[i];
        }
        Serial.println(RecBuffer);
        String myString = String((char *)RecBuffer);
        if(myString=="MTON"){
          Serial.println("Switching on Motor");
        }
        else if(myString=="MTOFF"){
          Serial.println("Switching off Motor");
        }
    }
    //clear the char array, other wise data remains in the 
    //buffer and creates unwanted results.
    memset(&RecBuffer[0], 0, sizeof(RecBuffer));
    memset(&Buffer[0], 0, sizeof(Buffer));
  }

  //Send a packet every 4 sec.
  unsigned long currentMillis = millis();
  if (currentMillis - previousMillis >= interval) {
    // save the last time you blinked the LED
    previousMillis = currentMillis;
    strcpy(Buffer,"RSLOW");
    uint8_t payload[20]= "RSLOW";

//  ZBTxRequest zbtx = ZBTxRequest(addr64,(uint8_t *)Buffer,sizeof(Buffer));
    ZBTxRequest zbtx = ZBTxRequest(addr64,payload,sizeof(payload));
    xbee.send(zbtx);
  }


}

Burn the sketch to Arduino.

Testing

Run node js code in RPi and you start receiving the frames from Arduino.

Happy coding….

Written by Sony Arouje

January 21, 2016 at 12:06 am

Posted in Arduino, JavaScript, Raspberry Pi

Tagged with Arduino, raspberry pi, Softserial, Wireless communication, XBee

Water Level Sensor for my Aeroponic– First Experiment in PCB design

Raspberry Pi controlled Aeroponic System V2

with 8 comments

Last one and half months I was working on my Aeroponic System V2. In this post I will dissect the system and will see each component and what it does. I would like to thank my wife for her tremendous support for helping me in every phase of the development, also she takes care of the germination process and replanting to the system.

Working of the Aeroponic system (video)

Aeroponic system in action

Vertical Growing Medium

Here the plants root are growing in Air and the nutrient mixed water will flow through the pipe in periodic intervals. As of now we are growing Spinach and Amaranth.

Irrigation pipes

I fixed a valve to control the water flow. Without this valve the first outlet receives more water because of gravitation and subsequent outlet receives less and the last one receives none. With this valve I can adjust the water flow and helps to get water to each outlet equally.

Reservoir

Normal hydroponic systems use water tanks to hold the nutrient mixed water. I decided to buy one tank as well but the tank is 1 feet tall, that means the vertical growing medium must be place above the tank level and I will loose 1.5 feet from each growing medium. I have total 6 towers and in total I will loose 9 feet of growing medium and will reduce around 30 cups.

After a lot of thoughts I come up an idea to use 6 inch pipe as the reservoir. With simple math I realize that I could store more than 50 lts of water in a 10 feet 6” pipe.

The reservoir has a Submersible pump that can pump 12000 liters per hour. It also have a wave maker to mix Nutrients or pH modifier agents.

Nutrient Feeder

I made two containers from a 4 inch PVC pipe and connect two dosage pumps to pump nutrient from Nutrient tank to Reservoir.

I can add Nutrients by pressing a push button in the control board or via the mobile app. For each press of Push button will add 10 ml of nutrients. Through mobile I can add any amount of Nutrients and can do it from any where from the world.

Controller system will automatically activate the wave maker after adding nutrients, so the nutrients will get mixed well.

Controller System

The controller system has different components, I numbered each component for ease of explanation.

1. Water Pump switch: Water pump will run in a periodic interval controlled by application running in Rasbperry pi. In some situation I wanted to run the pump immediately without waiting for the interval. With this switch I could run the motor immediately. I can also activate pump from my mobile application as well.

2. Wave Maker switch: As I said earlier the reservoir is equipped with Wave maker to mix Nutrients or pH modifiers. I could activate Wave maker any time by pressing the push button. I used this mostly after adding pH modifiers. Nutrient feeding system will automatically switch on Wave maker after adding nutrients.

3. Nutrients Feeder switch: This push button switch will add 10 ml of nutrients to the reservoir. If I wanted to add more nutrients I could do that via the mobile application.

4. Raspberry pi: The brain of my Aeroponic system. Each and every component is connected to this device. The controller program is written in Node js.

5. Relays: component to switch on/off each hardware like Water pump, Wave maker, etc.

The system is powered with a 12v DC and 240v AC. Each power source can be switched off separately by the two buttons below the Raspberry pi.

After the success of my aeroponic system and it’s controller, I did several modifications to the controlling system. See this post for the updated controller based on Arduino

Written by Sony Arouje

March 15, 2015 at 7:59 pm

Posted in Raspberry Pi

Tagged with Aeroponic, automated farming, hydroponic, Node js, raspberry pi

Connecting XBee to Raspberry pi

with 19 comments

Last one week I was doing some research in RF communication and controlling devices using RF. So what am I going to control here, I wanted to control the water pump running in my hydroponic reservoir without running wires from my raspberry pi. This way I can extend my hydroponic system to more balconies without buying extra RPi, a single RPi will send a switch on/off command and the RF client will switch on/off the motor via a relay. Also I don’t need to setup a wifi network in my controller RPi’s.

My research for RF communication platform leads to Zigbee protocol and XBee component. XBee is a very popular Zigbee complaint product from Digi. For my testing I got two XBee Pro S2 and two XBee explorer. The explorer I bought uses USB to A/B cable, if you are buying it make sure buy A/B cable as well. You will get micro usb explorer as well.

To configure the XBee’s I use the X-CTU software from Digi, you can download it free from Digi’s website. I use the Legacy X-CTU for configuring my modules and Next Generation X-CTU for issuing commands. Configuration is pretty simple and so many sites will walk you through it. I configure my XBee’s as shown below. One XBee act as Coordinator and enabled API mode and another XBee act as router and enabled Router AT.

XBee Coordinator

Modem: XBP24-ZB
Function Set: ZIGBEE CORDINATOR API
PAN: <set a pan id, say 123>
Destination Address Low: FFFF

XBee Router

Modem: XBP24-ZB
Function Set: ZIGBEE ROUTER AT
PAN: <set a pan id, say 123>
Destination Address Low: 0000

I left all other settings as default.

Connecting to Raspberry pi

For testing I connected the XBee coordinator to my computer and XBee Router to my RPi. In RPi I created a simple node app to send some text message to coordinator. Below diagram will show you, how I connected Router XBee to my RPi. Here we use serial communication between RPi and XBee. RPi has only one set of serial communication pin and by default it’s configured for console I/O, there are so many tutorial out there to free it up and I use one from them.

image developed using Fritzing

I connected the XBee directly using jumper wires, the above diagram is just for illustration for that I use the breadboard.

Connect RPi 3.3 volt to XBee 3.3 volt pin, Ground to XBee ground, Rx to Xbee Tx (Data Out), Tx to XBee Rx (Data In).

Sending some data from Router Xbee to Coordinator

Now I wanted to send some data from Router XBee connected to my RPi to the coordinator connected to my Computer.

I created a small app using node js, below is the code. To run the code we have to install two node modules.

xbee-api: npm install xbee-api
serialport: npm install serialport

var util = require('util');
var SerialPort = require('serialport').SerialPort;
var xbee_api = require('xbee-api');

var C = xbee_api.constants;

var xbeeAPI = new xbee_api.XBeeAPI({
    api_mode: 1
});

var serialport = new SerialPort("/dev/ttyAMA0", {
    baudrate: 9600,
    parser: xbeeAPI.rawParser()
});

serialport.on("open", function () {
    var frame_obj = {
        type: 0x10,

        id: 0x01,

        destination64: "0013A200407A25A7",
        broadcastRadius: 0x00,
        options: 0x00, 
        data: "Hello world" 
    };
    
    serialport.write(xbeeAPI.buildFrame(frame_obj));
    console.log('Sent to serial port.');
});

serialport.on('data', function (data) {
    console.log('data received: ' + data);
});


// All frames parsed by the XBee will be emitted here
xbeeAPI.on("frame_object", function (frame) {
    console.log(">>", frame);
});

When I run the above node app, I can see the data receiving in my Coordinator’s X-CTU app. I could also send a Remote AT (0x17) command to the router to one of the Digital pin and could turn On/Off a LED.

Seems like the communication is working fine. Let’s see what I can come up next.

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Written by Sony Arouje

December 20, 2014 at 6:07 pm

Posted in Raspberry Pi

Tagged with raspberry pi, XBee, Zigbee

Access Raspberry Pi via internet

with one comment

In this post I will explain how to access Raspberry pi via Internet. I am trying out a home automation system using Pi and I wanted to access a node.js service running in my Raspberry pi. Also I may wanted to SSH to the pi to restart or configure it while I am away from home.

Configuring the Router

In my home Raspberry Pi is connected to a Netgear R6300 router. The router is then connected to a DSL modem. In these kind of setup we might be dealing with four different IP’s

External IP assigned to you by your ISP.
IP Address of the modem
IP Address of the Router assigned by the modem
IP Address of the Raspberry Pi assigned by Router.

Prerequisite

Credentials to login to the Modem configuration.
Credentials to login to the router configuration.

External IP: you can get your external ip by visiting whatismyip.com

IP Address of the Modem and Router: As I am using Netgear modem, I login into Netgear genie app. And from the Internet section I could see the IP Address assigned to my router as shown below.

As you could see the IP address assigned to my router is 192.168.1.2. Also you can see the Gateway IP address 192.168.1.1, that IP will be the IP address of your modem.

IP address of the Raspberry pi: SSH to Raspberry PI and issue ‘ifconfig’ command and you can see some details and check wlan0 as shown below. Line in bold shows the ip address of the Pi.

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 04:a1:51:6a:fb:8d
              inet addr:10.0.0.10 Bcast:10.0.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
              UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
              RX packets:5543 errors:0 dropped:11 overruns:0 frame:0
              TX packets:1799 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
              collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
              RX bytes:1200798 (1.1 MiB) TX bytes:192891 (188.3 KiB)

In my scenario I assigned a static IP to this Pi, other wise router’s DHCP server will assign ip and might change from time to time. So most router have configuration, to set static IP to the devices and will never change. At my house most of the devices like TV, Tabs and Raspberry PIs have static IP’s and the guest devices uses DHCP assigned IP’s.

Let’s configure SSH to the Pi from internet.

Router Port Forwarding

Excerpt from Genie help

Port forwarding is designed for FTP, Web server, or other server-based services. Once port forwarding is set up, requests from the Internet are forwarded to the proper server.

In the Genie app you can find Port forwarding in Advanced setup->Port forwarding/Port triggering, you might be able to find some thing similar in other modem’s configuration.

I clicked ‘Add Custom Service’ button and it will show the below screen to setup Port forwarding configuration. Here I am configuring SSH.

Here 22 is the port where SSH server in my PI is listening. Internal IP address is the IP address of the Raspberry Pi. Click apply and the changes will get saved.

We setup the port forwarding in the router. We need to do the similar configuration in Modem.

Modem Port Forwarding

Enter the IP address of the modem in the Chrome/IE, enter the user name and password if prompted.

Note: My DSL modem is pretty old one and may not be match with the interface of your modem configuration screen.

The port forwarding configuration in my Modem is located at Advanced Setup/NAT/Virtual servers. See the configuration below.

Here I setup the external port number as well as internal port number. You can have different external port number if you want, say for e.g. external port number 8090 can be mapped to internal port number 22. The server IP address should be the IP address of the router.

Check whether the port is opened by going to yougetsignal.com, if the port is still closed then you might need to do Port triggering in Modem as shown below.

We successfully configured SSH to Raspberry Pi from internet, you can check using a machine connected to a different network and connect to Pi using any SSH client like Putty. While connecting the IP address should be the external IP address and the port should be the one configured in Modem, here it’s 22.

Conclusion

The above approach will work, in case you want to open any port, I have a node.js service listening to 8090 in the same Raspberry pi. I did the above approach to access it via internet.

Leave your comments if you like this post or in case of any questions.

Written by Sony Arouje

June 25, 2014 at 3:33 pm

Posted in Raspberry Pi

Tagged with internet, port forwarding, raspberry pi

PI Tracker in action–video

with one comment

In my last post I gave an overview of a toy I created using Raspberry Pi and the components used for it. After that some of my friends wanted to see the toy in action and here is the video.

PI Tracker

Video Streaming

A new feature added to the tracker after the last post is the video streaming to the controlling device. In the modified tracker a USB camera is attached to the front of the tracker and connected to the Raspberry Pi. The RaspPi host a mjpg streamer and the video can be streamed to any device connected to the same network, including the Android device that controls the tracker. This helps my son to sit anywhere in the house and control the tracker.

Stay tuned for the next post with source code and more…

Edit: A new post added explaining the Source code running in Raspberry pi

Written by Sony Arouje

June 12, 2014 at 6:22 pm

Posted in Raspberry Pi

Tagged with raspberry pi, Tracker, wifi controlled

PI TRACKER – Raspberry Pi based WiFi controlled toy

with 3 comments

I was always fascinated about software and hardware interaction. But with my limited knowledge in electronics, I kept the hardware part aside and was working only in software. After having some hands on experience with my first Raspberry Pi, I decided to build a toy for my son. I purchased my second pi and some other components and this is what I built. Yes it looks ugly but worth playing with it :).

Last couple of days I was refreshing my basic electronic skills and virtually designing the software and hardware for the device. You can find so many similar RaspPi based toys and I am adding one more to it.

Yesterday evening I got the last piece of the puzzle, the rechargeable battery. After that I spent the next 5 hrs to code the application running in the vehicle and the Remote control app for my Android tab, remote control app is based on the Acclerometer of the device. To control the toy I decided to use WiFi and use my Android tab as a steering wheel. I will go more details into the software part in a different post.

Future addition

Obstacle detection and avoidance system
Video feed to the remote control device

Components

Rest of the post will go through the components used in the tracker and how to acquire it. If you are in Bangalore then you can get all these items from OM Electronics in SP road or you can buy online. I bought it from OM Electronics.

Motor

Qty: 2

Features

300RPM 12V DC motors with Gearbox
6mm shaft diameter with internal hole
125gm weight
Same size motor available in various rpm
2kgcm torque
No-load current = 60 mA(Max), Load current = 300 mA(Max)

Chasis

Qty: 1

Features

Powder coated Metal chasis for robots. Easy to mount the motors on place by using normal motor mount nut. It can either be used in skid steel configuration (4 motors) or differential configuration (2 rear wheels + 1 front castor wheel). The body contains perforated holes for easy mounting of various size circuit boards and other mechanical components.

Length : 190mm

Width : 105mm

Height : 40mm

Track wheels

Qty: 4

Features

6.1 mm hole.
Diameter 90 mm
Made from high quality virgin Nylon.
Hole on shank for screw
Comes with screw to lock on standard motor shaft of 6 mm.

	Track and Ribbit Qty: 60 Features High quality Plastic Track Belt and Ribbit Specification : 30mm X 20mm 10mm Width
	L293D Motor Driver controller Qty: 1 Features H Bridge to control the motors individually
	Jumber Wires male to male jumber wires – 10 or more pcs male to female jumber wires – 10 or more pcs female to female jumber wires – 10 or more pcs
	12V Lithium-Ion Rechargeable Battery 12v rechargable battery + charger Url: http://www.robosoftsystems.co.in/roboshop/index.php/12v-lithium-ion-rechargeable-battery.html Charger: http://www.robosoftsystems.co.in/roboshop/index.php/electronics-batteries/batteries-chargers/11-1v-1000mah-15-25c-lipo-battery.html

Next part I will go through the software part of the system. Stay tuned.

Written by Sony Arouje

June 10, 2014 at 12:28 pm

Posted in Raspberry Pi

Tagged with raspberry pi, toy, wifi controlled

My home entertainment network with NAS and Raspberry Pi

with 5 comments

This post explains how different devices at my home connected via Wi-Fi and provide an easy way of streaming media contents. In this setup I created the playlists in one location (NAS) and all other devices can consume it.

Home network Topology

Router

All my devices are connected to Netgear’s gigabit router. Earlier I had a 10/100 Netgear router and I replaced it with 10/100/1000 router. If you are planning for a streaming network at home its worth investing in a very good gigabit router.

Network Attached Storage (NAS)

The integral component of my streaming network is the 4TB WD My Cloud. It host twonky DLNA server and iTunes server, any DLNA complaint devices can connect to it and stream audio or video. Some devices at my home is not DLNA complaint, like docking station and Home theatre. That’s where Raspberry PI will be helpful.

Raspberry Pi

I knew about Raspberry Pi since it launched but never used it until recently. I decided to use Raspberry Pi to make my non DLNA devices to play media from my NAS. There are so many tutorials available in the internet to setup a Raspberry Pi, using noobs installer and using Raspbian image, I use Raspbian image to setup.

Next is setting up my Pi to play media from a DLNA server, Stephen Phillips has a very good post explaining how to do it. Follow the steps and you will have a device that can connect to any non DLNA device to play media from a server. I then connect the Pi’s audio out to my Home theatre and could play audio from the NAS. Without raspberry pi I have to switch on my TV when ever I want to play audio, with this setup my TV can be switched off when I am listening to music, also it saves energy.

I can use my Android Tab as a remote to paly media using BubbleUPnP (paid and free) or from my Lumia 920 using AV Remote (paid and trial available) or a free app called myMediaHub. You can use any similar apps you want.

Written by Sony Arouje

June 2, 2014 at 1:15 pm

Posted in Misc

Tagged with DLNA, home entertainment, NAS, raspberry pi

Sony Arouje

Posts Tagged ‘raspberry pi’

Farm Automation system based on Arduino and Raspberrypi

Communication between Raspberry Pi and Arduino using XBee

Water Level Sensor for my Aeroponic– First Experiment in PCB design

Raspberry Pi controlled Aeroponic System V2

Connecting XBee to Raspberry pi

Access Raspberry Pi via internet

PI Tracker in action–video

PI TRACKER – Raspberry Pi based WiFi controlled toy

My home entertainment network with NAS and Raspberry Pi

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